It Could Happen Here Weekly 208

Summary

It Could Happen Here Weekly 208 – Episode Summary

Date: November 15, 2025
Podcast: It Could Happen Here (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Hosts/Contributors: Mia Wong, Garrison Davis, James Stout, Robert Evans, Dana Al Kurd, Ahmed Moore

---

Episode Overview

This week’s “It Could Happen Here Weekly” offers a sweeping look at collapse, resistance, and realignment in the U.S., with a focus on the aftermath of Zoran Mamdani’s historic win as New York City Mayor, the implosion of the American right over anti-Semitism and the Nick Fuentes/Tucker Carlson/Heritage Foundation scandal, as well as shifts in the pro-Palestinian movement, threats to public lands, and the ongoing political fallout from the Epstein files. The show’s trademark mix of irony and urgency is present as hosts and guests break down both big structural shifts and surreal political theater.

---

1. The Aftermath of Mamdani’s Victory: Winners and Losers (02:47–18:00)

Main Theme

The episode opens with a spirited, satirical ‘sports-like’ postmortem on Zoran Mamdani’s shocking mayoral win in New York—a win seen as a watershed for socialists, progressives, renters, childcare advocates, and anyone opposing the old establishment, particularly Andrew Cuomo.

Key Points

• Winners:

  • Lindsey Boland – First woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. Boland's joy is symbolically lauded, with Mia declaring, “This moment belongs to her” [06:06].
  • People with Children: Free childcare on Mamdani’s platform (09:00).
  • Renters & Working-Class New Yorkers: Expansion of rent controls, stabilization, and more rent-controlled housing [09:20].
  • Food-buyers: Stressed distinction between elites who never buy their own groceries and ordinary people who do—underscore on class divide [09:57].
  • Anti-Modi Speak-Out: Triumph as Mamdani publicly calls out Indian PM Modi as a war criminal—a first in US politics [10:13].

• Losers:

  • Laurа Ingraham & Fox News Right: Embrace “Democrats are winning but actually losing” copium [11:29].
  • Ross Douthat (NYT), Mike Cernovich, Heritage Foundation, others: Tried to downplay or rationalize the left’s win; Cernovich’s posts are ridiculed for their incoherence [12:55–14:21].
  • Right-wing fracturing—Heritage Foundation struggles with overt Nazis in their ranks (14:21).
  • Conservative Meltdowns: Abbott, Rick Scott, and others court New York “refugees”; empty threats about people leaving NY; no one actually leaves per Defector [16:40, 28:36].
  • Israeli Far Right & Mainstream Pro-Israel Groups: Outraged by Mamdani’s opposition to Israel’s policies, vow to monitor anti-Semitism in NYC (25:13–27:05).
  • Islamophobic and racist campaigners: Cuomo’s racist, Islamophobic campaign against Mamdani went down in flames.
  • Elon Musk et al.: “Suicidal empathy” rants mocked; inability to handle losing to an attractive, charismatic opponent [18:04].

Key Quotes

• “We will beat these monsters. New Yorker said no more to Andrew Cuomo. And that is just remarkable. And this shit rocks. This rocks. Fuck him.” – Mia Wong [07:33]
• “The right has so much just sort of weird projection shit...you called Barack Obama, the most neoliberal Democrat, a communist. Now you have a democratic socialist. And you’re just saying, this time, it’s really communism.” – Mia Wong [22:12]
• "There's been a whole genre of this – 'Democrats are win, actually losing.’” – Mia Wong [11:37]

---

2. Right-Wing Fracturing: Heritage, Fuentes, and Tucker Carlson (38:46, 114:38–177:48)

Main Theme

An extended segment tracks the explosive fallout on the American right after Tucker Carlson’s friendly, widely viewed two-hour interview with Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, and the subsequent institutional chaos at the Heritage Foundation—a staple of conservative respectability. This has spurred staff resignations, donor flight, and a public schism between fraying “no enemies to the right” and old-guard “cancel the Nazis” conservatives.

Key Points

• Tucker Carlson Interviews Nick Fuentes: Hugely viewed; mass publicization of white identitarian ideas previously kept at the margins.
• Heritage Foundation’s Response: Initial refusal to “cancel” Tucker or Fuentes; attempted “debate not deplatform” line, criticized as safe-space wokeism by outraged staff; anti-antisemitism task force implodes; donors and Jewish Republican groups disaffiliate; president Kevin Roberts forced to apologize, blames chief of staff [129:24].
• Ben Shapiro’s 40-min. Video: Diatribe against Tucker/Heritage for “laundering” Nazis; calls for drawing moral lines; notes that this genie is out of the bottle through actual mainstream conservative failures [128:28–138:53].
• Groiper Infiltration: Extensive reporting and behind-the-scenes chatter about a generation of far-right Zoomers filling junior GOP staff posts, especially in DC—estimates of 30–40% [174:21].
• Media & GOP Reactions: Splits within Republican ranks; “leopards eating people’s faces party” meme as various factions realize their creation is escaping their control (e.g., “I never thought the leopards would eat my face…”).
• Nick Fuentes’ Ascendancy: Surging audience, social platform bans now ineffective, mainstream conservative fecklessness seen as enabling.

Notable Quotes

• “We will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be, a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.” – Kevin Roberts [123:37]
• “If Republicans decide to cower before the likes of Neo Nazis and their propagandizers, they deserve to lose and they will lose.” – Ben Shapiro [138:53]
• “Google Pat Buchanan Nazi, Pat Buchanan anti Semitism… it’s been like this for a long time. They’ve just been so focused on campus activists protesting the Palestinian genocide that they've missed the festering anti-semitism spreading across the right.” – Garrison Davis [145:18]

---

3. Pro-Palestinian Movement in America: Interview with Ahmed Moore (84:07–110:06)

Main Theme

Dana Al Kurd interviews author and activist Ahmed Moore about the transformation of U.S. pro-Palestinian organizing since October 7, 2023, and the Gaza genocide, how it’s moved from rights-based to anti-empire/settler colonial critique, and what the future may hold.

Key Points

• Post-2023 Realignment: The genocide radicalized and mobilized countless Americans across ideological lines; Palestine now seen as a test of democracy and American complicity.
• Collapse of Taboo: Once-marginal discussions (settler colonialism, anti-Zionism) thrust into the center of U.S. political discourse [87:19–91:30].
• Electoral Politics: Hope and limits shown by Mamdani's success; skepticism about whether the American system can be reformed from within.
• Shift from Human Rights to Anti-Colonial Framework: Core demand is no longer the two-state solution, but real equality and accountability.
• Diaspora Politics: Need for a more aggressive, locally anchored Palestinian diaspora; more focus on principle than seeking establishment permission.
• Grim Outlook for Palestine: Ethnic cleansing underway; skepticism that statehood hopes will yield meaningful justice [107:07].

Memorable Quotes

• “Palestine is indispensable to understanding how our elites…have been captured by special interests, by corporatist interests. We’re beginning to see that rebound in meaningful ways.” – Ahmed Moore [88:23]
• “We need to be aggressive, we need to be forceful in calling for a total reconstitution of [the] Democratic Party, no half measures. And I think Zoran Mandani did a good job of illustrating what that could look like.” – Ahmed Moore [95:16]
• “The continuity of Palestinian life in Palestine is not guaranteed…” – Ahmed Moore [108:59]

---

4. Public Lands and Environmental Threats: Mike Lee’s Renewed Attacks (42:36–81:58)

Main Theme

James Stout and Garrison Davis detail Utah Senator Mike Lee’s latest attempts to gut environmental protections and undermine U.S. public lands—now justified in the name of border security.

Key Points

• Mike Lee’s New Bill: Proposes “inventorying” and paving illegal roads within 100 miles of any border; would destroy wilderness protections nationwide under the guise of fighting immigration [48:53].
• False Pretexts: Border state? No. Lee claims Biden’s “open border chaos is destroying America’s crown jewels.” His logic is bogus and designed to let extractive industries and real estate leapfrog longstanding protections.
• Larger Pattern: Trump’s appointments (e.g., Doug Burgum at Interior, Steve Pierce at BLM) have tilted entire federal land management toward maximal exploitation.
• Broad Coalition Possible: Call to all listeners—hunters, leftists, democrats, conservatives—to resist land sell-off.
• Other Developments: New York's wilderness protection deal through a land swap; GOP trying to “wokify” anti-environmentalism [75:19].

Quotes

• “We've suddenly gone from affordable housing as the excuse to border security. Utah is not a border state, Garrison.” – James Stout [49:16]
• “He hasn’t even made an effort to join the dots...” – Garrison Davis [52:13]
• “Public lands is one of those things where I have conversations with dudes who do not agree with me politically at all…if you can help people see this as part of a bigger problem, that’s a good thing.” – Garrison Davis [68:25]

---

5. Executive Disorder: Shutdown Fallout, Epstein Files, and D.C. Reality (182:10–247:54)

Main Theme

The “Executive Disorder” news round-up covers the end of the government shutdown (engineered by Democrats with minimal gains), the ongoing drip of Epstein files implicating Trump and other elites, the lasting damage to public trust, and the shifting landscape on LGBTQ+ rights and economic policy.

Key Points

• Shutdown Ends: Democratic senators collude with GOP to avoid Obamacare subsidies in shutdown deal; slide in “no bread, no circuses” conditions [182:34].
• Epstein Files: Scandalous new emails show Trump, Bannon, others in contact with Epstein; direct lines about “Trump asking Ghislaine to stop” [187:43]. Media ignored it in 2018, while over-blowing “migrant caravan” threats.
• Elite Impunity: Panel emphasizes the continuity of sexual predation from Columbus to Epstein, unbroken through the ruling class.
• Fake Data & Economic Unreality: BLS statistics now possibly rigged; government stops publishing full job reports [243:12].
• Catholic Church on Immigration: USCCB issues strongest rebuke of anti-immigrant policies; progressive in comparison to U.S. political parties, but still anti-trans in hospital care [226:04].
• Tariff Follies: Trump’s non-credible $2k ‘tariff dividend’ checks and pasta tariffs lampooned.
• GOP Culture War Fatigue: SCOTUS declines to overturn same-sex marriage; anti-trans scare tactics may finally be losing traction [245:42].

Notable Quotes

• “We are ruled by a group of pedophiles, and I refuse to call them a cabal because 'cabal' implies they work in the shadows. They were not. The entire ruling class knew this was going on openly and they're joking about it.” – Mia Wong [192:35]
• “You can pick and choose whatever you do. I think to your point, Mia, however you react to this is not going to change anything, right?” – Robert Evans [199:57]
• “A choice was made not to cover the Epstein stuff… while the Times ran 12 stories on the 'migrant caravan.' They’re literally saying, look over there.” – Garrison Davis [203:47]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Winners & Losers Post-Mamdani Win: 02:47–18:00
• The Right’s Civil War: Heritage, Fuentes, Tucker: 114:38–177:48
• Pro-Palestinian Movement Interview: 84:07–110:06
• Mike Lee/Public Lands: 42:36–81:58
• Epstein Files, Executive News, Culture Wars: 182:10–247:54

---

Memorable Moments — Soundbites & Tone

• Satire and sarcasm drive much of the hosts’ commentary (“Eat your pheasants, drink your wine, your days are numbered, bourgeois swine…” [02:47]).
• Blistering candor on the failures and dangers within the establishment right, especially regarding their laziness or willingness to “debate” Nazis instead of taking meaningful action.
• Deep historical perspective and anger over the continuity of sexual violence and elite impunity.
• Movement between earnest policy analysis, biting humor, and tragic reflection (“We are on year 500 of this from Columbus to Jefferson to Epstein to Trump”).

---

Takeaway for New Listeners

This episode is dense, combative, and sometimes darkly comic, moving seamlessly between meta-political analysis and on-the-ground realities. The show’s core: collapse is both chronicled and contested; the power to build (or demolish) a better future remains with the many—if they refuse both elite lies and the seductions of nihilism.

Transcript

[Mia Wong]

This is an iHeart podcast. This is the story of the One. As head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the H Vac is humming, and his facility shines with Grainger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces. Plus 24. 7 customer support. His venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Garrison Davis]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Mia Wong]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

I knew it was a bomb the.

[Mia Wong]

Second that it exploded. I felt it rip through me. In season two of Rip Current, we ask who tried to kill Judy Barret and why they were climbing trees and.

[Garrison Davis]

They were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods.

[Mia Wong]

She received death threats before the bombing. She received more stress after the bombing.

[Ahmed Moore]

I think that this is a deliberate.

[Mia Wong]

Attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[James Stout]

Jenna World, Jenna Jamison, Vivid Video and the Valley is a new podcast about.

[Mia Wong]

The history of the adult film industry.

[James Stout]

Molly I'm Molly Lambert and I'll be your tour guide on a wild trip through adult films. We get paid more than the men.

[Dana Al Kurd]

We call the shots.

[Mia Wong]

In what way is that degrading?

[Dana Al Kurd]

That's us taking hold of our life.

[James Stout]

Listen to Gentle world on the iHeartRadio.

[Mia Wong]

App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Cool Zone Media hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.

[Mia Wong]

Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where in the wake of mom dummy's victory, we are reviving the old 2016 slogan, eat your pheasants, drink your wine, your days are numbered. Bourgeois Swine. I am your host, Mia Wong, and with me is Garrison Davis, looking unhappy.

[James Stout]

Well, this is actually the new mandatory greeting in New York as a creed. Yesterday. Yesterday.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Instead of saying hi on the subway or just trying to avoid each other, we have to. We have to all recite this. Now. It's pretty crazy.

[Mia Wong]

FDR used to call the US the 48 states, the Soviet Seattle. And I have. I haven't quite figured out what the version of that or New York is yet, but.

[James Stout]

No, no, the New York City nationalism really is a thing.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Even if the country falls, I think. I think New York will remain as. A. Remain as a city. State beacon.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. See, unfortunately, I'm having to temper my sort of Chicago in like, this is a tier 2 Chinese city, like stuff for this. And I'm also having to temper my like, reflexive, not even reflexive, my incredibly well thought out and detailed thoughts on electoralism. And so today, today, if I have to cover electoralism positively, we're doing this in sports format. We are looking at what's been going on with the reaction to Mamdani's win. We are fully. We are fully doing winners and losers. It's gonna be great. We're gonna have a good time.

[James Stout]

I mean, I'm still traumatized from the World Series, so I. I don't really appreciate the sports framing. I actually. The world's World Series, game seven. I was. Was watching it at a bar and then I had to go across town to a different bar because I knew Zordon was doing the little gay bar hop on the same night as the World Series finale. So I missed the last 30 minutes. I had to leave during the ninth inning when the Blue Jays were still ahead. Oh no.

[Robert Evans]

And then.

[James Stout]

And then in transport, the Dodgers tie. They did two extra innings and then one. And it was devastating. And then I saw Bob Donnie dancing at a gay club like 10 minutes later. It was outrageous.

[Mia Wong]

You're welcome. Welcome to being a Seattle Mariners fan. This is. This is what it is like.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

All the time for us. Every single.

[James Stout]

Well aware. No, of course I. When I'm not cheering for the J is usually. Usually I'm cheering for the Mariners. So. I know. Well.

[Mia Wong]

And again, the only to survive this is to become a truly transcendent true Mariners fan. Where you. You are not in this for winning and losing. You are in this for the fact that we had a guy whose name was Big Dumper because his ass was big as fuck and he hit 60 home runs.

[James Stout]

And that's.

[Mia Wong]

That's what you're in this game for. Okay. Okay. We're going to turn this around. We're going to turn this around. We're going to actually start with winners, with, I think, the most serious thing that we're going to do today.

[James Stout]

Not a high bar.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, not a high bar, but I think, in the words of the great John Boyce, this moment belongs to her. And that's Lindsey Boland, who was the first woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment, who is one of the bravest women I've ever seen. And she's having a great time.

[James Stout]

That's good.

[Mia Wong]

There's a bunch of pictures of her going around that she's posting. She's so happy. It rocks. She's. Yeah, she's just. She's just having a great time.

[Dana Al Kurd]

This is.

[James Stout]

This is like a dual pronged moment. Right. One prong is just seeing Andrew Cuomo get completely humiliated for the second time in a row. Yes. And then the whole. The whole, you know, like, perspective, hope of what a mom. Donnie. Mayoral occupation could. Could mean. It's like a whole separate thing than just watching Cuomo get absolutely decimated.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

If there was. If there was someone who was only half as good as Mamdani, who destroyed Cuomo, it would still. It would still be fun to laugh at Cuomo. The fact that it's Mamdani is just a little bit of, like, an extra. Extra icing on top, I guess.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I want to read a quote from her that she gave. This was from before, as best I could tell. Since the actual win, she's just been, like, partying and hasn't really been giving. Like, I think she went on Democracy now, but, like, she had this great line from this piece in the Independent that was titled we will Beat these Monsters. And this is from the original primary when I hope every woman who has ever faced an abuser like Cuomo knows she doesn't have to be ashamed. She doesn't have to hide. Because we will beat these monsters. New Yorker said no more to Andrew Cuomo. And that is just remarkable. And this shit rocks. This rocks. Fuck him.

[James Stout]

Especially Cuomo, who ran his campaign on being like, it's dangerous to be a woman on the subway. And we're like, why? Because you're going to be on it. Yeah. Like. Like his whole. His whole, like, law and order New York is a dangerous, scary place to live because there's predators out there. It was like, a main part of his campaign.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Meanwhile, four years ago, he resigned because he was a predator. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

1111 women came forward. That's remarkable. Astounding. And you know, this is hopefully this is, this is the beginning of many, many, many defeats that these fucking people will have over the coming years.

[James Stout]

Hopefully the last defeat for Cuomo but for others of his ill. Yeah, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

These abusers, there are, there are many, many people who hold a whole variety of offices and sometimes they're just like your boss or someone you work with or someone. Yeah. And fuck them. We're going to beat them all. This rocks. So that, that's, that's winner number one. Winner number two. People with childs. People with childs.

[James Stout]

Wow. People with child.

[Mia Wong]

Look, I agree. I got so little sleep last night. I was, I have no excuse. I was up being extremely gay at like 4 in the morning. I'm really tired.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

People, people with children getting, getting free child care. A thing that is in fact really good.

[James Stout]

Free childcare would be, would be pretty cool. And it's one of the few things on the Mamdani platform that like the, the governor herself is pretty, pretty set on helping to achieve.

[Mia Wong]

And you know, there, there's Spike Lee who's having a great time, partying is just, just, just, just loving it. It's great. It's great.

[James Stout]

That's good.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Renters also good. Yeah. People, people who live in rent stabilized apartments getting not the rent increased and also there being more rent controlled housing built. Good, good things. Good things. People who buy food. But when I say people who buy food. Right. You would think that's all people. Most of the people who we are going to be talking about on this list, those motherfuckers have not set foot in a grocery store in a decade. There, there really truly is a class divide between people who buy food and people who do not ever buy their own food.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It's like around, if you make around $200,000 a year based on the, the time that you spend procuring your own groceries, people argue that it's more efficient for you to order or have people bring food to you and not. And not to do any of that work yourself.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And you know, so we have, that we have. You know, I think that there's a sort of macro point you can make here about, you know, the ties between affordability and the sort of, the sort of politics of affordability and the ways in which there are a bunch of people who would affect. And then there is the top 5% of the US who do 50% of the country's consumer spending who this is not going to affect because they do 50% of their consumer spending on bullshit. And also I want to, I want to. I'm going to. I'm going to declare myself a winner because I fucking hate Modi. And Zoron called Modi a war criminal and specifically talked about his mass killings of Muslims in Gujarat, which is the first time I've ever seen a major American politician talk about that. And fuck him. He's the butcher of Gujarat. Eat shit. Yeah, this is, this is, this is. This is a kind of short winners section because, you know, I could list like people in New York City, like, who aren't really rich.

[James Stout]

Garrison Davis. Right.

[Mia Wong]

Like, you know, but this is mostly a losers episode. This is mostly a. Oh my God, the right is doing a crash out and oh boy, there is some great stuff. So I want to start the losers with Laura Ingram.

[James Stout]

Who?

[Mia Wong]

The Chevron on her show.

[James Stout]

Who? Who, who?

[Mia Wong]

Laura Ingram.

[James Stout]

Wow.

[Mia Wong]

Fox News host. Evil.

[James Stout]

She's still on Fox News, huh?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah, her, her, her Fox News thing that the Chevron on it was by winning, the Democrats are actually losing, which is true.

[James Stout]

God. God, I hope so. From your mouth to God's ears, Laura.

[Mia Wong]

It's so good. It's the most. There's. There's a whole genre of this. If I wanted to, I literally could have just pulled things that were like, the Democrats are win actually losing. Like there's like Ross Douth it who's like the sort of make work higher. Like he's one of the old school make work higher New York Times columnist. He's like a very, very weird Catholic who used to advocate Catholics, like taking the Benedict option and going into the woods and not interacting with society. Which. Please, Ross Douth it and your ilk.

[James Stout]

I mean, that's not very Catholic.

[Mia Wong]

Please do that. You, if you want to go argue theology with Ross Douth it, go fucking like, go do this. Yeah. But, you know, doubt the New York Times immediately is like, mom D's victory is less significant than you think. And it's like, ah, yes, we are. We are getting owed. We are not owned. We are not owned. Etc, etc, slowly turning into a corn.

[James Stout]

Cob, pumping the copium straight into my veins.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's truly amazing stuff. I think in, in the just pure cope vein is. Did you, did you see the Mike Cernovich post about this?

[James Stout]

No. No.

[Mia Wong]

Oh my God. Okay, so I'm not going to. How do I say this? I'm not going to. So she's quote, tweeting a video that's just like, it's like A five minute video of like the zetio whatever livestream of the after party. And it's just. Cernovich is just going, this is a rowdy, masculine environment. You can feel the energy as the Heritage foundation is putting members through a struggle session and demanding a DEI dean. The left is winning. True, true.

[James Stout]

And then like that is. That is happening right now. We'll be doing a piece on the Heritage struggle sessions probably later this week.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah, that's the, that's the. Do we accept the overt neo Nazi or not?

[Garrison Davis]

Yes.

[James Stout]

Conflict, which they are very divided on, which is not.

[Mia Wong]

Not a great sign. Gotta say, gotta say, don't, don't love that. But in another just incredible, like, I'm not mad thing, Cernovich post that and then quote, tweets his own tweet and says, if you didn't know anything about politics, you would say, this is the side I want to be on. Conservative Inc. Is joyless. It's the house of scolding nags. It offers young men nothing beyond moralizing and hypocritical lecture.

[James Stout]

This is probably also following the fallout of the Fuentes Tucker interview and the like sectarian right.

[Mia Wong]

Yep, yep, yep.

[James Stout]

It's not really infighting necessarily, but like the, These, these debates on, on Fuentes's place within the Conservative Party and this argument against what, I guess like right wing cancel culture. That you have people like vans like Matt Walsh talk about how like we should not be, you know, canceling people like Tucker or, or you know, these young GOP staffers who are white supremacists for, for saying things that are offensive because we need to have a united front against the left versus this whole other reaction from like Shapiro. And you have Heritage is caught in the middle of this and there's like senators and Mike Johnson who are, who are trying to like keep this like legitimate, like anti Semitic, but like also like anti Israel, but through anti Semitism, like this anti Semitic section of the right, like led by Fuentes, like, keep it quarantined, which is increasingly breaking quarantine. So they're looking at how the right has devolved into this fighting and then seeing the, the election of Zordon and being like, oh, the grass is greener on that side, I guess, which is really odd.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's so funny because it's just like literally just all of the shit they've been saying about the left forever, they're just suddenly like, oh my God. They some part. Some of the right is like maybe, maybe not literally the neo Nazi. And now they're like, oh, it's actually, it's actually the right. That is the house of scolding nags who offer young men nothing beyond moralizing a hypocritical lecture. Which is, it's just amazing. It's. I don't know, it's so funny. They're, they're just, they're just losing it insofar as there is a kind of important thing here. It's that like in, in a moment where, you know, the sort of ruling party is becoming increasingly unpopular, they're also fracturing from the inside to the extent where like, they're like, worst nightmare just got elected as the mayor of New York. And instead of like rallying, they're doing this shit. Very funny. There's been a few governor reactions I'm going to pull from the Guardian here. Greg Abbott tweeted. Join me in a moment of silence for New York City thoughts and prayers.

[James Stout]

Abbott's been, been losing it over this election.

[Mia Wong]

It's so funny. It's very good. Rick Scott is the senator from Florida. The Guardian. Florida has welcomed those fleeing communists and socialist regimes for decades, wrote Senator Rick Scott of Florida. Tonight, it's no different. Flor Florida will welcome all freedom loving New Yorkers.

[James Stout]

It's funny because that's very different from Abbott's promise of trying to tariff people who flee from New York to Texas.

[Mia Wong]

Abbott's like, oh shit, hold on. Maybe I can cash in on all of this money. We're gonna, we're gonna get to whether people are actually fleeing New York in a later segment. Spoiler alert.

[James Stout]

Not yet.

[Mia Wong]

But come on, there is still time. If we want people to flee New York, we're just gonna have to do it ourselves. Speaking of doing it ourselves, this podcast, we do it, but also the products and services support the show. Do it.

[James Stout]

We cannot in fact do it ourselves.

[Mia Wong]

No, not yet.

[James Stout]

We have to at this point have the assistance of the capitalists advertising industry. So enjoy. Enjoy that.

[Mia Wong]

We are back. So let's turn to Elon Musk who is, I mean I, I guess for Elon Musk, he is kind of having a normal one. He is doing a bunch of his normal posts about how like western civilization is doomed unless the core weakness of suicidal empathy is recognized.

[James Stout]

Suicidal empathy.

[Mia Wong]

It's so bad. There's, there's a very, very funny segment that I'm not gonna play just because, like I don't, I don't, I do not believe in exposing our dear listeners to having to listen to Elon Musk, try to talk. Because it's just a Joe Rogan clip. Yeah, yeah, there's him on Joe Rogan. Where. Where Joe Rogan's like, okay, why did you call Mom Donnie a swindler? And it's just a minute straight of Elon Musk going, he has nothing.

[James Stout]

He can't even complete a full sentence. He at one point says that, you know, swindlers will always say what the audience wants to hear. And that's the only thing he's. He. That's the only complete thought that he gives. The rest of his sentence or attempts at making a sentence is just saying the word like five times and then saying that. Well, you know, Zordon is actually quite charismatic.

[Mia Wong]

His braid is so cooked. It's so good. It's. And I say this as someone who stammers a significant amount. This is. This is just. There's nothing going on in his brain.

[James Stout]

This is closer to head empty, no thoughts.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, head empty, no thoughts. Derogatory. Which? Derogatory.

[James Stout]

Always, always, always, always derogatory.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, God. So there's been this sort of mix of like, the world is falling with this also kind of, oh, my God, he won. And also this is a very attractive, charismatic dude. It is kind of breaking these people's brains that there's just like a hot guy who beat the shit out of them. There's like, there's like, definitely sort of like psychosexual politics going on here. You can see it's. These people are posting.

[James Stout]

No, absolutely. Freud would have a heyday. Adorno would have a heyday writing about the psychosexual aspect of the anti Zoron. And you know, obviously some of the pros are unbeateful as well.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This is a great. Things are happening in politics.

[James Stout]

Even Trump has had to defend his looks as being better than Mr. Mamdani.

[Mia Wong]

Which objectively not true, but very funny.

[James Stout]

Saying he's quote, unquote, much better looking.

[Mia Wong]

It's so funny.

[James Stout]

But then you also have this weird thing that some people on the left are doing. This is largely a Twitter thing, but this does seep out into real world conversations, which I've. I've heard is thirsting after Zoron's wife.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, yeah, I see.

[James Stout]

And comparing. And comparing Zoron's wife to like, like Melania or something. And like in a whole bunch of really weird ways.

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ. That's really weir weird. Oh, don't do that.

[James Stout]

Look how like beautiful and aristocratic Zorad's wife is versus God versus former porn star Melania Trump.

[Mia Wong]

And you're like, come on, country built a misogyny.

[James Stout]

Guys, what are you doing?

[Mia Wong]

Guys, this is the doing misogyny. You're doing misogyny. It's bad. Simply don't do that.

[James Stout]

But we do love the 27 year old Zoomer New York First Lady.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, she rocks. Good. Good for her, good for her.

[James Stout]

Check out her art.

[Mia Wong]

I want to, I want to turn a little bit to speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who said the Democrats in New York have chosen a true extremist and Marxist and the consequences will be felt across our entire nation. He also said that Badami's policies are defunding the police, seizing private property and massive tax increases, which I fucking wish.

[James Stout]

I mean, that does, that does all sound kind of cool, but that is, that is absolutely not what Zoran's current stated politics are. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And it's also funny because this is the same reaction they've had to every single Democrat who's been elected in the past 20 years.

[James Stout]

Totally.

[Mia Wong]

The right has so much just sort of weird projection shit. And I feel like they've been doing this whole like, oh my God, you all called us fascists and now we're all fascists. And it's like, no, you, you called Barack Obama, who was like the most neoliberal Democrat they've, they've ever put in office, maybe second only to Bill Clinton, maybe like you called him a communist. And now it's like, okay, this guy's a democratic socialist. And you're just saying like, oh, this time, now, this time it's communism. This is like, okay, really?

[James Stout]

No, the boy who cried wolf thing that the right does all the time, it depowers their own rhetorical tactics.

[Mia Wong]

Yep, yep, yep.

[James Stout]

And you see this in, in a few ways. I think you've seen this in part with like the trans mass shooter thing. And, and certainly they've been doing this thing around communism or socialism for a while to the point where you can have the mayor of New York proudly call him a socialist, a democratic socialist, and gets elected with record numbers.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. So one of the things that he's going to be dealing with, obviously is, is the financial clash. We're going to get to some more weird reactions, but there's a very funny NPR quote that I'm going to read. I was going to read this quote. I think it's the stages of grief, said Karen Wild, who runs the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group that represents more than 300 large employ. Very funny. They're, they're, they're fully in their, like, acceptance negotiation phase of this.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I mean, I think they might not be letting on the degree to which they have been in this process for a while. There is like, a final push among, like, Bloomberg who privately met with Mamdani like, months ago, and they like, developed like a kind of like, truce, which Bloomberg broke in the week before the election when he suddenly funneled millions of dollars into Islamophobic ads, like 911 ads. But there was a lot of meetings happening between Mamdani and people who would make up his future administration and the business class, which have happened since he won the primary in June. And this sort of negotiating and bargaining has been going on for, for quite a while. And I, I think the, the acceptance now is really the, the final. I mean, these steps aren't necessarily always, always like, sequential.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

But I think we are rapidly approaching the acceptance phase across the city and people are actually looking at, like, realistically at what, what the, what the negotiating side of enacting these things is, is going to look like. Including the financial people.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, that, that said Ken Griffin, not happy at all.

[James Stout]

No, they're not happy.

[Mia Wong]

No. Yeah, this is, this is for Business Insider. For the people of New York. I pray that the policies Mondame uses to govern and lead New York are different than the talking points he used to win the mayoral race. People in New York deserve better. I do want to. I did cut out the part in the middle of there from the Business Insider where he said this Wednesday at the American Business Forum in Miami, some fucking. Not even in New York, like, for this to say this. Very funny.

[James Stout]

Hell yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Very funny. In this sort of like crash out spectrum, there's a lot of people who are like, having the absolute worst time are a bunch of Israeli politicians who are very mad about this shock. Yeah. I'm just going to quote the Washington Post here. Israel's far right Minister of Security Ben GVIR said Wednesday that Mamdani's win would be quote, remembered eternally as the moment when anti Semitism overcame common sense. Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Cheekley, in an excoriating statement, accused New York City of, quote, handing its keys over to a Hamas supporter. And this is also a giant loss for one Benjamin Netanyahu, who Mamdame has said he will arrest if he sets foot in New York, which rocks. Very funny. Will this actually happen? I don't know. Hilarious.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I mean, this, these things just don't work anymore. Like, they, they. Yeah, you like, I watched an interview with Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the adl, like, Good Morning America. Like, like talking about this and how they're establishing an anti Semitism monitor to track the Zoron administration. And even like, the hosts of Good Morning America were like, like, come on, man. Like, that's not. He's not, he's. He's not.

[Mia Wong]

What are we doing?

[James Stout]

He's not an anti semi. Like, he's, he's, he's against, he's against the genocide of Gaza. Like, he's, he's not. He's not like a Jew hating anti Semite.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And like, they were even getting tired of Greenblatt's little, like, shtick and how is. He was constantly, like performing to the camera to try to get people to like, I don't report incidents that then they'll add into this, into this monitor program. So they'll try to blame the Mamdani administration for not protecting Jews or whatever. Yeah, this was on Morning Joe on msnbc, not Good Morning America. My apologies.

[Mia Wong]

This is also, you know, if you want to talk about another sort of category of losers. It's like all of the unhinged Islamophobia. Oh, yeah, like all the people spreading that got annihilated. Yeah, Just absolutely smash. And like, and yeah, you know, it is worth saying, like, yeah, like this was one of the most racist campaigns I have ever seen that Andrew Cuomo sort of waged. It was.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah, just hideous. More racist than Trump versus Kamala by far. Yeah, like, like, like exceptionally so and done by Democrat establishment figures largely.

[Mia Wong]

Yep, man. Just rancid. And they got their ass handed to them. And I think that's good. There's a very, very public level of exceptions for Islamophobia. You can just say the most Islamophobic shit anyone's ever heard on TV and it's fine. And no one does anything. But also, like, people don't fucking like that shit. It sucks. It's awful. And fuck these people. And you know, I think this is sort of the tide turning. And speaking of the tide turning, Bill Ackman, as we talked about on Ed, bending the knee, saying, congrats around me. Congrats on win. Now you have a big responsibility. If I could help New York City, just let me know what I can do. Very good. So to sort of close out this, like, the losers section, I want to turn. There's a great piece in Defector about the people who, who, who threatened to leave New York City if Mamdani won and unfortunately reached out for comment. None of them were actually leaving. It's really sad.

[James Stout]

No, because people don't want to leave the city. It's a good city. Which is the whole, whole point of Zordon's campaign was about how much the city is cool and rocks and Cuomo's campaigns, but how much it's bad and scary.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And unfortunately, tragically, this does mean that you are going to have to have Dave Portney and this whole, his whole crew of Barcelonal dipshits still in the city. So I good luck. I hope you appropriate them. I hope they hope they have a bad time. Now I want, I want to move into my last category, which is the sort of baffling category. We got a kind of wild Obama quote, quote, the future looks a little bit brighter. It's a reminder that when we come together around strong, forward looking leaders who care about the issues that matter, we can win.

[James Stout]

That's a very, it's a very silly quote.

[Mia Wong]

I the odds that Obama personally had at least one person on that campaign staff beaten Dream Occupy are very high. Like it's, oh, it's really truly this moment of like, brother, you spent so much time trying to make sure this wouldn't happen and you have failed. And now you're in the like, I'm going to do the Obama thing where like I'm the friend of all the young leaders and I'm going to give them the worst advice you've ever heard in your entire life. I don't know. Still have never gone over Obama personally intervening to make sure the NBA players didn't go on strike during the uprising. Oh God, what are the worst like post presidential moments I've ever seen? I want to close on Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who When asked about Mondami said, quote, he's a young man. Will he get good at it? Dimon said about Mondami making and implementing good policies. I see a lot of people in big jobs, including big political jobs. They grow into it. I've seen a lot of people, they kind of swell into the job. They get worse. They, you know, all of it becomes about them. I'm hoping he's the good one and that will be important for the future in New York, he said.

[James Stout]

True, true and real. No, I mean like there is a lot of this slow capitulation which we're even seeing with private comments from Trump that are being leaked into reporting through the New York Times, where in private Trump has called Mr. Mamdani a slick and good talker and a talented politician. And last Wednesday I said that he might, quote, help him a little bit, maybe, unquote. And he wants New York to succeed, which is, you know, contrary to like, previous threats of like, pulling back all funding if Hamdani gets elected.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And I think part of, part of this reaction is both, like, how strong Zoron's victory is. We all, like, know that Trump likes winners, but also so the fact that Zoron has like, very quickly tried to establish dominance over the president in some ways, but in a way that like, someone like Trump, like, kind of respects. With Mamdani positioning himself as like a legitimate, like, adversarial figure to Trump.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Like, right off the bat. And there's a little bit of the Trumpian mind that actually kind of appreciates that and thinks it's like, cool and impressive.

[Mia Wong]

During the first Trump administration, there was a whole running theory that if you could get, get Trump in a room with Hugo Chavez, you could make him a socialist in like an hour, because he really does just repeat the last thing anyone in a room said to him. So we're, we're like, we're finally going to test the theory of can we get a charismatic person in the room with him and make him do stuff he wouldn't normally do and probably not.

[James Stout]

But, you know, I mean, like, the biggest thing right now is like the difference in immigration policy. But, like, Trump's from New York. Trump knows how much New York is a city be built by and run by immigrants. Like, he knows that when Stephen Miller is like, orchestrating all of his messaging, it's like the worst of the worst of the anti immigrant stuff. But I, I think in, in terms of Zoron's opposition to Trump primarily being with immigration, I think Trump understands how immigration, like, rests very importantly into the identity of New York in, In which if that's like the main, like oppositional force, I think Trump similarly will. Is it's gonna understand where Mamdani is coming from in a way.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And I think, I think we are going to see like a particularly like Stephen Miller.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Conflict as, as this goes on.

[James Stout]

Absolutely. Because this is, this is the perfect example of stuff that Miller and people like Matt Walsh and like the great replacement people have been talking about. And the other huge batch of reactions that you're seeing from people like Walsh is that this election only went this way because of how many foreigners were allowed to vote in New York. Yeah, yeah. If this election was done by true New Yorkers, quote, unquote. Y Cuomo would have won. And looking at the results of this election, looking at how many immigrants voted, people who have moved to New York in the past 10 years, past five years. Mamdani did very well with, with those groups. You have a lot of these, like, far right anti immigration people pointing towards that as being like, this is what we're trying to defend the country against or else all of our elections are going to go like this unless we make sure that only white Americans can vote.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And then so there's, there's that reaction. Water sign. The other, at the, the, the other reaction from roughly that crowd is women cannot be allowed to vote.

[James Stout]

Yes. Which they also, they also believe that like. Yeah, yeah, this analysis obviously has faults, but it's, it's even falling apart in terms of like the young male vote. Yeah, yeah, they got hammered, which the Republicans have, you know, have been. Been very, very excited about, about how much, you know, young men are voting for the Republican Party.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Young, young men are all Republican even, even if young women are, are all Democrats. And you see in, in, in specifically this election where Mahdani is up 40% with young men and the divide among men is mostly through age, with older men going, going for Cuomo and Millennials and Gen Z men swinging very strongly towards Muhammadani. You have all these, like, Democrat think tanks trying to figure out how do we attract the young male vote, how do we do this? And you have a guy show you what kind of policies, what kind of messaging works exceedingly well.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Which establish. People tried so hard to kill that strategy and it was proven twice in a row, first with the primary and even more so with the general. And yeah, that will frighten the gop. It'll frighten them seeing that young men will vote for a Democratic socialist if they actually have these policies. And you have this type of, like, solid messaging. They're not condescending. And the candidate embodies like, a new generation of change. It's very, it's very threatening to the GOP and to establishment Democrats.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Like Steve Bannon's out here being like, if he leaves in the midterms and leaves in 2028, I'm going to prison. Which I.

[James Stout]

From your. So, like, no, the biggest mistake the Democrats made last time. Well, there's many, many big mistakes. Right. Palestine being a huge one. But I think a huge mistake they made is not completely destroying Trump and his whole, like, cabinet's ability to like, like, exist in public life. Like they, he. Trump should have been immediately imprisoned for trying to overthrow the government and basically set into a hole. And after that Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, it should have like been taken out as like a national security threat. Like, like Democrats cannot, cannot play this. Like they go low, we go high.

[Mia Wong]

Game anymore if we're going to get out of this. And it's probably not gonna be the Democrats who do this, but like our Nuremberg is going to have to make the original Nuremberg look like paperclip.

[James Stout]

Like, well, that's what the original Nuremberg was. The original Nuremberg also sucked.

[Mia Wong]

But you see, this is we, we are Nuremberg 2.

[James Stout]

Nuremberg harder. I see.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, we're actually doing it.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I, I, I really like Jacob Geller's video on Nuremberg and it is, it is a nice emotional place to fall back on in times of, of, of torment. But I don't think we're going to Nuremberg ourselves out of this one. And unfortunately I don't have a very strong solid alternative at the moment. But at the very least, Trump should have been treated much, much harsher after, after January 6th.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, we could leave it as for now.

[James Stout]

Nuremberg towards an ascendant Nuremberg.

[Mia Wong]

Well, this has been, it could happen here. A rare, a rare upbeat episode where all of our enemies are having a very bad time.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they're also mad about Lina Khan on the transition team.

[Mia Wong]

Oh yeah, very funny. They're so funny.

[James Stout]

Very mad. Very mad. Go to Transition 2025 to learn more about Zordon's smeral transition team. A fantastic URL. Really, really going for it with Transition 2025.

[Mia Wong]

Stealing treads, Valor.

[James Stout]

True. Real. You go girl. I give Zordon the pass. He can say it.

[Mia Wong]

Zoran Bomb. Dabi Estrogen.

[James Stout]

No, no, no. He's fine as he is.

[Mia Wong]

We're transiting the government.

[James Stout]

He's actually a good looking man. He doesn't need it. He's actually, he's actually figured it out, I think. Anyway.

[Mia Wong]

We'Re ending.

[James Stout]

This is the story of the 1. As a custodial supervisor at a high.

[Mia Wong]

School, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectant to floor scrubbers. All so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger.

[James Stout]

For the ones who get it done.

[Robert Evans]

All I know is what I've been.

[James Stout]

Told and that to have truth is a whole lie.

[Mia Wong]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Robert Evans]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Mia Wong]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Garrison Davis]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky.

[Mia Wong]

Housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[James Stout]

I did not know her and I.

[Ahmed Moore]

Did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.

[James Stout]

That y' all said.

[Mia Wong]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[James Stout]

They made me say that I poured.

[Garrison Davis]

Gas on her.

[Mia Wong]

From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about.

[James Stout]

Just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Mia Wong]

America, y' all better wake the hell up.

[Garrison Davis]

Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Mia Wong]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[James Stout]

You know the shade is always shadiest right here.

[Mia Wong]

Season six of the podcast Reasonably Shady.

[James Stout]

With Gisele Bryant and Robyn Dixon is here dropping every Monday as two of the founding members of the Real Housewives Potomac were given, giving you all the laughs, drama and reality news you can handle. And you know we don't hold back, so come be reasonable or shady with us each and every Monday, I was.

[Mia Wong]

Going through a walk in my neighborhood.

[James Stout]

Out of the blue, I see this.

[Mia Wong]

Huge sign next to somebody's house. Okay, the sign says, my neighbor is a Karen. No way.

[James Stout]

I died laughing.

[Mia Wong]

I'm like, I have to know you are lying. Humongous, y'.

[Robert Evans]

All.

[Mia Wong]

They had some time on their hands. Listen to Reasonably Shady from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app.

[James Stout]

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting?

[Mia Wong]

Think again.

[James Stout]

More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

[Mia Wong]

And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.

[James Stout]

So whatever your customers are into, true crime, sports, comedy, culture, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message.

[Mia Wong]

To audiences across broadcast radio.

[James Stout]

And all this reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing form formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for you.

[Mia Wong]

Think podcasting can help your business?

[James Stout]

Think iHeart streaming radio and podcasting. Let us show you at iheartadvertising.com that's.

[Mia Wong]

Iheartadvertising.Com or call 844-844-IHEART. One more time, call 844-844, iheart and get podcast working for you.

[Garrison Davis]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast where I have just been attacked for my identity as a British person by my colleague Garrison Davis. Hi, Gare.

[James Stout]

It's gonna happen again.

[Garrison Davis]

I really, I never.

[James Stout]

This podcast is not a safe space.

[Garrison Davis]

Not for British people. Sadly, many, many such places for us, including Britain, which is a country which is not doing so well right now. Britain is still very safe. I don't want to talk about Britain today. I do, incidentally, I guess, because I grew up in a country that has virtually no fucking public land.

[James Stout]

I mean, enclosure of the closing of the commons. It's actually kind of topical.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, it is. That is a question that actually. So earlier this year in September, I was staying with Gwichin people who are indigenous to the northern Alask and interior Arctic and subarctic, and one of them was like, hey, how did you guys get so dislocated from your lands? One of my friends who I was talking to, and it was a really interesting question for me, right, because they have lived on that same land for as long as human beings have existed in The Americas, like 25,000 years, something like that. Like, the answer is the enclosure of the commons, right? The answer is like, proto capitalism is what. What removed folks like me from the. The land and identifying in a way that those people identify with the land. But in the United States, we do have a little bit, or quite a lot actually, of public land, right? Various different types of public land, various different land protections that anyone can go to, right? You. You don't have to be an American or a citizen. Anyone can go to public lands and enjoy them. Unfortunately, Utah senator, quote, unquote, based, Mike Lee, is once again attempting to weaken protections on wilderness, which will render some of the small parts of the USA that have not been fundamentally damaged by capitalism permanently and irrevocably changed. Are you familiar with Mike Lee?

[James Stout]

Yeah, he's the senator from Utah.

[Garrison Davis]

The senator from Utah, yep.

[James Stout]

And he's based, as you have said.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, he's based. Right, that's this.

[James Stout]

He's a hashtag poster.

[Garrison Davis]

He's a poster yes.

[James Stout]

He operates a Twitter account which some might deem as offensive and tweets about current. Current events in a very provocative way.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Usually in line with some kind of partisan sentiment.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, that's pretty fair.

[James Stout]

Specifically, following the assassination of Melissa Hortman and her husband made a series of. Of tweets that were, I guess, kind of insensitive, if not actually, if. If not laying blame at the governor of. Of Minnesota in a kind of ironic, joking way where you have plausible deniability, but in general handled that situation very grossly. And I think that that's what most people might know his tweets for. But he's very active. He's tweets about many, many a thing.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, he's. If he thinks that he posts it. But yeah, yeah, his. Most people will know him as a guy who made the extremely poor taste posts following those murders.

[James Stout]

Nightmare on Walls Street.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Just nothing to be posting when some people have been murdered.

[James Stout]

I think in general, when people are murdered, I think we as humans should. Should post less.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, right. If somebody has died, like, just don't post. You know, it may be nice to say, this is terrible, send your condolences or whatever, but realistically, their family aren't looking on. On twitter.com to see who. Who's sending their condolences, but they sure as fuck will find out if you try and make a funny about it. So just don't just resist the urge to post. Another urge that Mike Lee sadly have.

[James Stout]

Is, I don't like this at all.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Like we're talking about Mike Lee's urges.

[Garrison Davis]

Okay. It's in the broadcastable space. Mike Lee has the urge to sell off public land. He has tried twice this year. We spoke about this a little bit on Ed. Right. We talked about it in the context of the Big Beautiful Bill or the One Big Beautiful Bill act.

[James Stout]

Yeah, he did try that like half a year ago, didn't he?

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, he did. Well, Garrison, I regret to inform you that Mike Lee is back.

[James Stout]

Somehow. Mike Lee has returned.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. And this time he has got a new thing. So last time, if you remember, he talked about selling off the public land to make affordable housing. Sure, sure, yeah.

[James Stout]

Not gonna look into this any further. And I'm gonna.

[Garrison Davis]

That was exactly what he was relying on, that no one gave a shit about the millions of acres that we all get access to and they would just trust him on that one based.

[James Stout]

Mike Lee and his abundance agenda.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, exactly. It's him and Zohrand shaking hands when it comes to affordable Housing, but something they much, I'm sure something that Mike Lee has campaigned on for years. He did not stick the landing on that because people read the proposal and they noticed that it was going to do nothing for housing affordability whatsoever. If it did create any housing at all, it was going to be like super rich people's McMansions. You know, this was not going to do anything to move the needle on affordable housing in the US this time he has found a cause which receives even less scrutiny. Can you guess what it is, Garrison, for.

[James Stout]

For why we need to sell the public lands. Yes. I'm trying to not just look ahead on your script.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. There is a document in front of you which has the answer, so close your eyes. I feel like there's like two or three things in the US where everyone just seems to turn a blind eye to like.

[James Stout]

Oh, I mean, this is it for like. Is it for like developing land for like oil data centers?

[Garrison Davis]

Well, that probably is what's happening, but he's, he's smart enough not to say that. Right.

[James Stout]

Super gold Magikarp. As in the, as in the film Eddington. I, I mean I would guess data centers, but that, that's. I, I could be wrong.

[Garrison Davis]

It's border security.

[James Stout]

Oh, great. This.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, of course. Right. You could have said anti terrorism and probably got there too. But no, it is, it is securing our southern. Well, all our borders, actually. Southern border, northern border, eastern and western maritime borders. Obviously they're there looking to prevent any more people coming in from Canada.

[James Stout]

Utah's not a border state.

[Garrison Davis]

That is correct. That is. So you go to search something.

[James Stout]

I literally pulled up a map of the United States. I like was like, I don't think Utah's a border. Maybe I'm misremembering, but Utah is not a border state.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, Utah is absolutely not a border state, Gary.

[James Stout]

It's in fact not a border state. It is above Arizona, which is a border state.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. So that is perhaps what's going on here. Mike Lee has found a way to sell off public lands without selling off Utah public lands. Or in this case not really sell off, but destroy and degrade in a way which is very clearly going to lead to commercial exploitation. Right, right. What Lee proposes. What Lee's bill has a bunch of co sponsors. I believe the only border state senator co sponsoring it is Ted Cruz.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Garrison Davis]

Big public land respector. But Lee's bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security to, quote, inventory illegal roads and trails on public land within 100 miles of the Border and then convert them into navigable roads. That is the part that makes no sense. Right. Like when you look at Lee's statements. And I will read one of Lee's statements here. So this is a statement on the Senate Energy Committee webpage where they talk about Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Here's a quote from Mike Lee explaining his bill. Quote, biden's open border chaos is destroying America's crown jewels. I'm going to pause here to note that according to my Watch, we're at November 7, 2025.

[James Stout]

While your watch is Rog.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. We're once again asking the most important question of our time.

[James Stout]

Who is president?

[Mia Wong]

Who is.

[James Stout]

He used the present tense.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not even like talking about 2020 and pretending that Trump wasn't president. He's doing it right now.

[James Stout]

FDR's border policies are destroying our natural lands.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, we were a year after the election. You've had time to come to terms with this. You can't just keep pointing at Joe Biden. But apparently I guess you can.

[James Stout]

They're gonna keep doing that for three more years until there's a new guy.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. So let's go on with Chairman Lee. He's chairman of this Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Families who want to enjoy a safe hike or camp out are instead finding trash piles, burned landscapes and trails closed because rangers are stuck cleaning up the fallout. Cartels are exploiting the disorder, using these lands as cover for their operations. This bill gives land managers and border agents tools to restore order and protect these places for the people they were meant to serve. He's doing the thing where he says one thing and then his bill does something completely different.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

What he is saying is, on the face of it, somewhat ridiculous, but what he's claiming he's going to do is protect these lands.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

What the bill allows them to do is to find roads that are not permitted and turn them into navigable roads.

[James Stout]

So just actually paved roads?

[Garrison Davis]

Yes.

[James Stout]

In the protected wildlife.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Well, crucially, in wilderness areas. Right. So the 1964 Wilderness act does not allow for there to be any mechanized access. Lee's bill proposes not just to amend the Wilderness act for within a hundred miles of the border, but to amend it entirely to allow for the construction.

[James Stout]

Of roads so that they can police the. The public lands better. That's. That's what he's saying.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Right. Well, he's. One of his claims is for search and rescue, that there are already exemptions that allow for mechanized search and rescue access. Right. Like things like helicopters. Right.

[James Stout]

Helicopters?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. If you get. And even, like, you get, like, motorized gurneys, you can use Vassar, things like that. Right. Like, even ATVs, right. There's a threat to human life.

[James Stout]

A Toyota Tacoma.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I mean, you'd struggle in most wilderness lands with a Tacoma, but yeah, you could. You could give it a college try, but it's ludicrous. He hasn't even made an effort to join the dots, you know, it also calls for fire mitigation by clearing fuels and building firebreaks and includes a provision that would, quote, address invasive or non.

[James Stout]

Native species in the wilderness area.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, like what? You got to go in there and.

[James Stout]

Round up because everyone's planting and spreading invasive species.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

I mean, of course there are invasive species. Right. Like, if you go to parts of where I live, like, you'll see mustard, which is not an indigenous species because the climate's changing and people move around the world and, like, lots and lots of animals that weren't, like, here 20,000 years ago are here now.

[James Stout]

I mean, you can make an argument for managing these areas. I don't think he's coming at this from an environmental conservation standpoint.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I don't know what the non native species thing is about other than just, like, nativism for plants. Like, I genuinely can't work it out. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. It also attempts to inventory damage done to public lands by migrants. Like what? Wildfires are caused by migrants. How many national parks are trashed by migrants?

[James Stout]

Oh, my God.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

As opposed to the American citizens who treat these areas like dog shit.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And the park rangers who simply just don't do their jobs because they're too lazy.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. And like the literally thousands of people a year who fucking drag their refrigerator or television onto public land and execute it by firing squad. Yeah. Like, maybe make a bill about that. You want to do something nice for public land? I want to give a definition of wilderness from Howard. I think it's Zanicer. I've only ever read his name. But the Wilderness Society, who more or less wrote the act, it defines wilderness as, quote, a wilderness in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. I don't actually really like that definition. I like wilderness, but I'm not a big fan of the idea of, like, quote, unquote, untouched wilderness. Right. Like, every bit of what is now The United States is a place where indigenous people have been living and surviving for tens of thousands of years, long before it was United States. It's not untouched, it's just not fucked by extractive capitalism in a way that a lot of our land has been in the last 200 years.

[James Stout]

There could be touching without fucking, is what you're saying.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, dear.

[Garrison Davis]

I saw this mischievous look come on their face and I didn't know which direction they were going to take. I didn't expect that one.

[James Stout]

Now this is podcasting.

[Ahmed Moore]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Wow.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

We've just left the newsreel. Let's do an advertising break so we can't come back from that. All right, we've returned. I've descandalized myself. Lee is currently making his claims, right. That this will somehow make the border safer and make people on public land safer.

[James Stout]

This is such the thinnest justification that you're throwing in like this is. So I severely doubt he sincerely even believes this. Yeah, I mean, the Border Patrol have.

[Garrison Davis]

Access to all these lands, right. Like, I see, I think the Hukumba Wilderness Estate.

[Robert Evans]

Wilderness.

[Garrison Davis]

I see Border Patrol in there all the time.

[James Stout]

I can see there's many reasons for why a republic might be interested in, like, building road infrastructure in these places. And border security, frankly, is insulting that he's even trying to use that as a Zeitgeist justification.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, it's fucking ludicrous. Like, the Trump administration is speed running extractive capitalism on. On our public lands.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Just yesterday when we're recording. Recording on Friday, Joe Biden is president, as you will remember. Friday 7th November 2025, the Trump administration nominated. Okay, I've outed myself. I'm not a Biden. I'm not a Biden truther. The Trump administration nominated Steve Pierce to lead the Bureau of Land Management. Pierce is a former New Mexico congressman who has supported drilling and fracking on federal land. He's also a serial loser in congressional and state races. In New Mexico, I think he lost a Senate and a gubernatorial race and he has voted to shrink existing public lands. The Trump Admin did this before, right? People will probably, if they're engaged in public land advocacy, they will remember the attempts to save the Bears Ears National Monument from oil exploitation, which again, is in Utah. Utah is. For whatever reason, Utah is a hotbed of anti public lands settlement. Amusingly, the previous nominee for the leadership of the BLM had to be removed when emails condemning Trump's response to January 6th came to light. She, I guess, failed the loyalty test. Trump has Also put Doug Burgum at the head of the Department of the Interior.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Are you familiar with Burgum's shtick?

[James Stout]

His name sounds incredibly familiar.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. He was governor, I believe, in North Dakota.

[James Stout]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Like, he did this pivot on, like, culture war issues where he had previously been not opposed to abortion, for example, and he just, like, took a massive swing to the right in order to kind of align with the MAGA position over time. So he's now leading the Department of the Interior. I wrote about this on my little newsletter that I write, because when he was nominated, he received a letter of support from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, a bunch of outdoor brands, notably rei was. Was one of the brands that supported his nomination. Burgamy is another big oil and gas guy, Right. He's a guy who has talked about the need for energy exploitation on public land. I have a whole scripted series that I'm working on about specifically drilling in the Arctic Refuge.

[James Stout]

Huge.

[Garrison Davis]

But this goes far, far beyond that.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

This could potentially affect every piece of public land, every national park, every national monument in the United States.

[James Stout]

Drill, baby, drill.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes, drill, baby, drill is pretty much our approach to public land these days. Amusingly, REI was shamed into rescinding their support of Bergam.

[Mia Wong]

Good for them.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Yeah. One of the few instances where people probably posted their way to a change in some kind of. Of some kind of policy, I guess. Even though it's only REI policy. I want to talk a little bit about, like, how we got to this idea of public land and the sort of way that it's sometimes referred to. And in a way I would prefer we talked about it. I guess the idea we have right now is that there are various tiers of public land, right? There's Bureau of Land Management land, which is often the least protected. We have national parks, we have national monuments, we have national forests, and we have wilderness. Wilderness being among the most protected. The problem with this approach is that ecosystems don't necessarily respect property lines, right? So let's take, for example, the Gwich Inn in Alaska, right? They have hundreds of thousands of acres of their own, but. But their traditional way of life, and indeed, like, their existence depends on the existence of the porcupine caribou herd. The porcupine caribou herd makes the longest migration of any land mammal on Earth, and it calves on the coastal plain. The coastal plain. The Gwichin way of saying it would be. I have heard this said a lot of times. My sincere apologies if I'm. If I Don't get it right. Like, I'm trying my best. Quatz an kwan dai goodlife. It means a sacred place where life begins. It's a very sacred place. Gwichin. Don't go there themselves because it's a sacred place. But it is not in their land. It is part of the Arctic Refuge, a place where the Trump administration is selling oil and gas leases. Right? So if the caribou can't carve, then it doesn't matter. It still matters that the Gwich would have all this land, but they won't have their caribou. Right. Because the herd will be so disrupted by oil and gas drilling where it's carving, that it will then disrupt that whole landscape. Right. Without caribou, that landscape would be fundamentally different. So right now, the way we talk about public lands, I think we talk about them, like, in terms of. Of leisure.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[Garrison Davis]

Like, often they're seen as having a value. Like, I guess the classic example would be. You maybe don't remember this gag. Patagonia ran an advertising campaign called the Places We Play in the Last Trump Administration. That's not it. Right. That is not cool. I think if we only see wilderness as a place where, like, folks go outside to do send the gnar on climbing routes and fucking shred some mountain bike trails, bro, then we fundamentally miss the value of it. Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

This goes back a long, long time. For instance, if we look in, like, back in 1929 with. Specifically with the protection of the Arctic Refuge, we can see this piece that Bob Marshall wrote. Bob Marshall was a forester at the time, but he's kind of important in creating this idea of, like, wilderness or wilderness protections. He talked about the quote, unquote, emotional values of the frontier being preserved in the wilderness, which, again, I think kind of tells us a lot of what's going on here.

[James Stout]

It's a very, very Theodore Roosevelt's brained approach to conservation.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, Right. Like, we can go out there and we can all pretend to be the, like, the guys who participated in the genocide of indigenous peoples of North America. I guess. Like, he also. He considered using the definition attractive solitude and savageness, which, again, like, it says a lot about, like, it's removing the people from the land.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, both literally and in our conception of it. And I don't think we should do that.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

When we talk about wilderness, we need to talk about it hand in hand with the indigenous people of this country and their traditional management practices, which allowed this place to be unspoiled until folks started to Exploit it in the last couple of hundred years. Let's take an ad break. Hopefully we get something for like fracking or some other petrochemical industry. And it will be right back. We are are back and we are talking about Senator Mike Lee again. Garrison, would you like to guess which industries have emerged on the top of Senator Mike Lee's donor list? When I cruise onto open secrets, is.

[James Stout]

It fracking and drilling?

[Garrison Davis]

It's actually real estate. He's got a ton of money from real estate. About 665,000. 665,000 is not that much money when you consider the millions of acres of public lands which would be completely and permanently altered by this.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Yeah.

[James Stout]

He really should be asking for a lot more money to sell off the public lands.

[Garrison Davis]

Secure the bag if you're going to do this.

[James Stout]

It's grossly undervalued.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I always look at campaign donations and I kind of expect them to be in the billions or trillions when like you're looking at just this massive and permanent change in government policy.

[James Stout]

It's that easy, folks.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Which is why we are launching a crowdfunding campaign to buy back all the public lands. We're not. No one should own them. We should not be buying them back, but they should be protected. It's kind of remarkable how many of our public lands this would impact right within 100 miles of the border. That gives us two thirds of the United States population. The general definition that DHS has operated with also includes all of the Great Lakes as quote, unquote, international waterways. So that takes in like a good chunk of the Midwest. Right. It would then go 100 miles from the shore of any of the Great Lakes. I've seen this reported on very poorly or not at all. A lot of the people who are better at talking about public lands are like the hunting, fishing, like hook and bullet media. They will talk about it more. In my experience and the straight up outdoor media, which is where I've made my career at least somewhat for the last 15 years, they will also go harder for it. It's generally a more conservative world, but they will, they will go after politicians who sell public lands. But I think if you're incapable of understanding that, like the border is a zone of exception, the border as a zone without constitutional rights is a problem and this selling of the public lands is part of that problem, then like, it's very hard to have a complete analysis of this. So like, I've seen a lot of analysis without any seemingly where the writers don't Understand that United States operates this hundred mile border enforcement zone, right. And that you, as a US Citizen or as a non citizen, have fewer rights within that enforcement zone. I have seen a lot of analysis which doesn't take into account this weird assessing of migrant damage to public land. Like, in what world is that a useful allocation of government? Like, there are places, right, where, like, if I think about the places where the Biden administration did outdoor detention, that landscape was damaged because people had fires to stay warm. And that fire causes scarring. Right, in our desert landscapes. Yeah, that landscape is damaged. Like, how are you going to. What are you going to do? There were like a thousand people a day coming through at one point. Are you going to find them all and charge them all for like misdemeanor California fire? It also, there's a tiny provision of this bill that I found that suggests that migrants cannot be housed on federal public land unless they are housed in a detention center.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, great, thanks. That was kind of the case before. Like, you couldn't really just be like, well, I mean, the Biden administration did just say, right, you all camp here and we'll come get you in a week. There wasn't really a legal precedent for that. They just went ahead and did it. I guess what I want to end up with is like, I'm obviously very passionate about this. I guess I'm kind of a public land super user.

[James Stout]

You do be camping?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, I do. I am, yeah. I am a camping guy. If there's one thing that defines me, it's. It's going camping. I try and sleep outside at least once a month. But yeah, most of my happiest memories in life are like moving under my own power through the mountains. That is when I'm happiest. That is how I deal with my shit. That is what I do with myself after every single one of the traumatic work trips that you, that you. That you seem to love listening to, right? Like that. That is. Is how I cope with the fact that my job is to turn trauma into stuff to go in between Chumba casino ads. So, yeah, I, I love public lands, but you should too. Even if you don't recreate on public lands, right. Sometimes the public lands are called America's best idea. I don't like that. Because inherent in having public lands is a removal of them from indigenous people, right? And indigenous people losing their sovereignty over those lands. But as things at the state. State has done with land goes, protecting it for future generations is. Is one of the good ones, right? Like there are some truly special places. The vastness of the western United States is why I live here. I cycled across the United States in 2010, and I was just blown away by, like, the scale of the landscapes without significant human damage. That's still something I'm blown away by. You know, 15 years later, I spend as much time as I can not just like national parks. I think a lot of people, if they've visited public land, were associated with national parks. I'd really encourage you to, like, hit up national forests, wilderness lands, like, places where there is not a line or a ticket kiosk. Like, you can have a really special wilderness experience there. But even if you don't want to, if that doesn't appeal to you, if it's not something that you feel like physically or otherwise comfortable doing, the fact that it will be there for future generations, the fact that, like, there is potential to return this land to the indigenous people of North America without giant fucking mine scars and roads cut through it right now, is something that we should fight for. And, like, public lands is one of those things where, like, I have conversations with dudes who do not agree with me politically at all. Like, people who definitely voted for Donald Trump, Trump who are also furious about this shit. And if you can help people see that this is part of a bigger problem, like, if this could be a place where we can build a coalition, that is a good thing. And it's one of those things that like to take action. You can just live out and go on the Internet and write to your senator, call your representative. Like, you can do these things which are so easy, low risk, and, like, it's a sort of engagement that, like, neoliberal, bipartisan politics wants you to have.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

It's not hard, but in this instance, you can do something really good by doing that. So I would encourage you to do that. Mike Lee's bill is currently in committee, I believe the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, tbd whether it gets out of there. But he has tried twice, like, since the summer to significantly destroy this incredible thing that we all have access to in the United States. He will continue to try. This is clearly something that he. He has an agenda for. So, like, I would really encourage people to keep an eye out, and we will keep reporting on it. Anything else you want to talk about? Public landscare?

[James Stout]

Yeah, I mean, it's a different approach to dealing with, like, protected wilderness land. Prop 1 to amend the state constitution just passed in New York. Yeah, but basically what happened, like, a hundred years ago, they were Building this Olympic sports complex in violation of the wilderness, like, protection, like state, like act or part of the Constitution.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And to deal with that, I'm not sure why it's taken. Taken this long, but to deal with this, they have just days ago voted to amend the constitution to set aside 2,500 acres of mountain land nearby, but not on this complex, and to turn that into protected land to then continue the operation and, like, maintenance of the sports complex. The proposition was awarded a bit weird, but I think in effect, this just results in there being in, in the end, more public land or more protected land, specifically.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

And the complex that already exists can then continue to function because the land's already. It was already used.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, they sort of built it and then asked permission, like, I guess 100 years later or almost 100 years later. Yeah. Like, land swaps happen. And sometimes you'll see people being like, oh, this is public land being sold off. Like, sometimes land swaps are very menial. Right. Like, if there's a little parcel of national forest land, or like, it could be, it's a piece that, like, it's next to a school and the school needs a playing field and they'll. Yeah, things like that. Land swaps do happen. And as long as we're not, like, losing acreage to oil and gas or to, like, McMansion building, you know, I think we can be flexible.

[James Stout]

No, I mean, if anything, this will set aside thousands of acres of land to not have that happen to it in the mountains of, like, that rundex.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes.

[James Stout]

And then this complex can now continue to get maintained. I think if this. If this didn't pass, they would, like, restrictions would fall upon the capacity of this complex to continue operating.

[Garrison Davis]

That's dumb, because you have a place which is like, it's not going back. Right. Like, once you've built stuff, you should use it.

[James Stout]

The damage has been done. Now you should use it here and then protect more land.

[Garrison Davis]

Exactly. Yeah.

[James Stout]

And luckily this thing barely passed. It was pretty closing around 52%. Yeah. Yes. Most of the votes for no did come from people, I think, living in New York City. I think mostly because of the way the proposition was worded. It was worded in a. In an odd way because it made it sound like you're, like, sacrificing currently protected land that this complex is on. So I think people who are approaching this from, like, kind of an ecological standpoint, a conservation standpoint.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Like, misunderstood or had or had some, like, differing view on, like, the value of, of, of protecting the current land that the complex is on.

[Garrison Davis]

Right.

[James Stout]

Versus establishing thousands of acres of more land to be protected nearby.

[Garrison Davis]

Right, Yeah. I mean initiatives and propositions are often written in a particularly bizarre way. And it's a, it's not like like The California Prop 50 was like two lines. This is several paragraphs of. So I can, I can see how it would have been confusing to people. But yeah, like this also happens at a state level all the time.

[Robert Evans]

Time. Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Like states have public lands too. You'll see like a patchwork of state and federal and private land, especially like in some national forests in the West. Right. But that's something that especially in Republican run states now, people should be very aware of in their own states is like the GOP didn't used to be massively anti public lands. This is a new thing for them.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

They always felt like they needed their, I guess maybe that they needed that like a hunting, fishing, shooting crowd.

[James Stout]

No, but environmentalism is now wokified, right?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, exactly.

[James Stout]

This is like a post Al Gore thing of, of now the conservatives associate a lot of this language with like climate change algorithms and it has this woke element.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, it's very strange. Like it's funny. I'll often when I'm out and about, you know, like exploring in the backcountry, I run into guys who are out there, like they're either hunting or looking for places to hunt. I think will be like, oh yeah, well there aren't as many of the turkeys or the deer or the whatever as there used to be. But then it's very hard for people who now can't say climate change is real to find a way of having permission to say what they want to say because they've seen it with their own eyes, but also they don't want to say it.

[James Stout]

But no, I mean, I did an episode about this after the RNC because I talked about, with. Yeah, yeah, this like Republican conservation group about how they're trying to bring back like put the conservative back in conservation or whatever. Jesus.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah. I think generally, generally the idea of them conserving anything is pretty much off the table at this point. But yeah, people getting out in public land will, you will understand climate change. You spend long enough going to the same spot and you're going to see what that means. So. But it has a lot of benefits. Go outside this weekend, go camping. It's great desert season right now. If you're within range of a desert, go camping in the desert. Look at the stars. You'll find a dark sky area if that's your thing. Was it REI who had the like, don't go shopping on Black Friday. Go outside. I don't know. You don't. You don't remember this? It's okay. This is just shit. That's.

[James Stout]

I. You know, I. I am. I am pro. Gazing at the flickering lights of civilization. A garrison.

[Garrison Davis]

And no one wants to see the fucking flickering lights of civilization.

[James Stout]

I do.

[Garrison Davis]

I do. I don't. I want to see the stars. I camped in Chaco Canyon earlier this year. Bangor for National Park. That's my. It's my final tip for you. The. The great house at Chaco Canyon was the largest building constructed in the United States until 1880.

[James Stout]

Really?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Yeah. It is vast. It is one of the least visited parks in the system because you have to go like 17 miles down a dirt road.

[James Stout]

Road, sure, sure.

[Garrison Davis]

But incredible. These are the Ancestral Puebloans, right? Like the people who are the ancestors of the Pueblo tribes today. But it's an amazing place to go check out. You should all go. Not at once. There's not enough space for all of you.

[James Stout]

I mean, I'm just scrolling through Mike Lee's Twitter account now.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh yeah? You got any bangers?

[James Stout]

Not really.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, really?

[James Stout]

Not really. I mean, he's whining about Zordon and posting a lot about Charlie Kirk and that's mostly it.

[Garrison Davis]

I see. He doesn't even talk about this stuff because no one likes it. He got hammered by a bunch of like very right wing rancher types on Twitter last time he tried to do this.

[James Stout]

Yeah, makes sense.

[Garrison Davis]

I think he knows better because a lot of people. You can also graze cattle on public land.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Garrison Davis]

There's been a whole standoff about this long time. Listeners will remember the Bundy situation. But yeah, links it. I guess he's also pissed those people off now. I just went to search for the news coverage of this. The only thing we can find is a Washington Examiner. So it's. It's just us and them. God. The. The video. The auto players on the Washington examiner.

[James Stout]

Page is petrifying the true bastions of journalism.

[Garrison Davis]

Us in the Washington horseshoe theory come to life. All right, go outside this week slash weekend. It don't go to work. Go outside.

[Mia Wong]

Inside.

[Garrison Davis]

Go inside tomorrow. Bye.

[Mia Wong]

This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing.

[Garrison Davis]

Facility, he knows keeping the line up.

[Mia Wong]

And running is a top priority. That's why he. He chooses Grainger. Because when a drive belt gets damaged.

[Garrison Davis]

Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he.

[Mia Wong]

Needs and next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger.

[Garrison Davis]

For the ones who get it done.

[Robert Evans]

All I know is what I've been.

[James Stout]

Told and that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[Mia Wong]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Robert Evans]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Mia Wong]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Garrison Davis]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Mia Wong]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[James Stout]

I did not know her and I.

[Ahmed Moore]

Did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.

[James Stout]

That y' all said.

[Mia Wong]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[James Stout]

They made me say that I poured gas on her.

[Mia Wong]

From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about.

[James Stout]

Just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y' all better wake the hell up.

[Garrison Davis]

Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Mia Wong]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[James Stout]

Atlanta is a spirit. It's not just a city. I didn't really have an interest in being on air. I kind of was up there to.

[Robert Evans]

Just try and infiltrate the building.

[James Stout]

Building is where crunk was born.

[Garrison Davis]

In a club in the West End.

[Ahmed Moore]

4 World star it was 559 where.

[James Stout]

A tiny bar birthed a generation of rap stars.

[Mia Wong]

Where preachers go viral and students at the HBCU turned heartbreak in the resurrection.

[James Stout]

How do you get people to believe.

[Robert Evans]

In something that's dead?

[Ahmed Moore]

Well, dreamers brought Hollywood to the south.

[Mia Wong]

And hustlers bring their visions to create black wealth.

[James Stout]

Nobody's rushing into relationships with you.

[Mia Wong]

Where are you from? They want to look in the where.

[James Stout]

The future is nostalgia stocking the chat.

[Mia Wong]

GPT she like you really the first lady to have a gangster girls tape in Atlanta, Georgia. Like that's what separates you from a lot of people And I was like, you know what?

[Garrison Davis]

You're right.

[Mia Wong]

Atlanta doesn't wait for permission. It builds its own spotlight. I'm big rude. Let us guide you through the stories.

[James Stout]

Behind Atlanta's most iconic moments. Listen to Atlanta is on the iHeartRadio.

[Mia Wong]

App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[James Stout]

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

[Mia Wong]

And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.

[James Stout]

So whatever your customers are into true crime, sports, comedy, culture, they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. And all this reach means everything. Just think about the universal marketing formula. The number of consumers who hear your message times the response rate equals the results. Now let's get those results growing for you.

[Mia Wong]

Think podcasting can help your business?

[James Stout]

Think iHeart, streaming radio and podcasting. Let us show [e-mail] that's iheartadvertising.com or.

[Mia Wong]

Call 844-844-IHeart one more, more time. Call 844-844-IHEART and get podcasting working for you.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Hello, everyone. This is Dana Al Kurd for It Could Happen Here. I'm a professor and analyst of Palestinian and Arab politics. And today we're joined by Ahmad Moore, who is the 2025 foundation for Middle East Peace Fellow. He's also an author, an activist, just very, very involved in the Palestinian space and on the question of Palestinian liberation. So I've invited Ahmed today to discuss with us what we can understand about pro Palestine organizing in the past two years in comparison to prior to October 7, 2023, and think kind of analytically about where we can go from here. We're recording this on November 5, 2025. We had a very interesting night last night where Zahran Mamdani was named the May York City and a lot of think pieces since about how this means nothing and actually it means everything. And the pro Palestine movement is winning. It's really not winning enough, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, we're in an interesting moment in American politics. I think the Palestine question is obviously very, very relevant. So, yeah, Ahmed, welcome to the podcast.

[Ahmed Moore]

Thank you, Donna. Huge pleasure to be here.

[Dana Al Kurd]

All right, so maybe we can start with kind of a. An introduction to yourself. You can tell us about your experience as an activist, as an organizer.

[Garrison Davis]

Sure.

[Ahmed Moore]

Yes.

[Dana Al Kurd]

As a researcher. Yeah.

[Ahmed Moore]

So I was born in Gaza, in Palestine and Gaza in Rafah. And my family moved here when I was a kid and became naturalized, so American citizen when I was 10 years old. So that was in mid-90s. And went to college right after 9 11. And like lots of people, was galvanized around that experience and think there was a period I was so a journalist both in Beirut and in Cairo. And often you'd meet American journalists roughly of my generation, and all of them would indicate that, you know, I became engaged around the Middle east because of 9 11. I think 911 was for our generation, a big learning opportunity for people. The, the global war on terror, the war in Iraq galvanized a lot of the left. And I'm thinking now of moveon.org and so this is really the environment that I grew up in. Today. I, I mostly work with the Guardian, with the Nation, mostly write about Palestine, Israel and American foreign policy. And as you mentioned, I'm a fellow at the foundation for Middle East Peace, where I, I host a podcast, Occupied Thoughts, where we spend a lot of time thinking through policy matters related to Palestine. I have ideas about how things have changed, but. But that's just a quick introduction to, to meme.

[Dana Al Kurd]

No, thank you. We're approximately the same age. I won't tell you exactly how off. But yeah, I just, I'm reflecting so much these days on how much the war on terror was a formative moment politically for our generation and its interaction with the Palestinian issue. I think that's starting to really be understood more widely. I think maybe it was more fringe or like a very select kind of understanding of the left would have that kind of analysis, for sure.

[Ahmed Moore]

I mean, just to put a fine point on it, I mean, that was the, I would say, generational awareness that we've been lied to. We've lied to by Dick Cheney, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, all of that cohort, those people. You can see how that's rebounded today in Maine with Graham Platner, somebody who fought two or three tours and then subsequently worked as a mercenary with Blackwater, was radicalized, I would say, through that experience when he was watching these happy go lucky diplomats swimming in. In pools, in a diplomatic compound when just outside a savage war was. Was being waged or an insurgency. So I, I would say that, you know, Palestine is so deeply interwoven. Palestine has a long history of having been lied to for people here in the United States domestically, that came to a head around the Iraq war. We were lied into that war. And I think you saw the way that the Biden administration particularly stuck with the playbook and alienated huge numbers of voters in 2024.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Ahmed Moore]

So Palestine is kind of indispensable to understanding how our elites in the United States have been captured by special interests, by corporatist interests. And we're beginning to see that, I think, rebound in meaningful ways. And of course, course, congratulations to Zoran Mamdani. Done a wonderful job. He ran an extraordinary campaign. I question, though, whether the campaign could have been successful without the awakening that occurred through two years of genocide. And what I mean by that specifically is so many of the, the taboos that have, that had been enforced around identity, around good politics in America were dispensed with because those taboos were. Were employed to suppress opposition to genocide.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah, no, I think you're right on the money on that. I mean, in some ways, the MAGA movement and Donald Trump also capitalized on the lies of the war on terror too. I mean, despite the incoherence of the MAGA movement, like that was part of, you know, a rebuke of the neocons. But of course, the left is, especially after two years of unspeakable genocide, I think it has led to just an articulation of how much the American foreign policy in the Middle east is. You mentioned boomerang. That's an imperial boomerang that is impacting American politics. It's also highlighted how much the elite and public opinion is bifurcated on this. Palestine has become an issue of democracy. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's. That's what I would say.

[Ahmed Moore]

No, I, I think that's correct. I agree with that. I mean, so Palestine went from being specifically Palestine and from being a niche issue. When I was in college, post colonial studies majors knew about Palestine and could integrate Palestine into an understanding of life in America to being really part of the American story today. And I think it's apt to describe it that way. The experience of watching a genocide unfold for two years has been radicalizing for many, but it's also been enlightening in that the first question was, why is this happening? The second question is, why can't we stop it? Okay, Israel is an independent country. We can't control them, Fine. Why are we still supporting this? And then ultimately you end up going down that rabbit hole and arriving at, what is this Israel lobby? What is this special interest? And so I think the, the degree of complicity, the way in which the Biden administration blew so much smoke, the way in which both sides of the aisle engaged in genocide, and cheered the genocide really, really has caused the Palestine issue to become deeply interwoven with the experience of being American today. And I don't think that's an overstatement. And I think concretely it means that you need an answer to the question, well, if you can't stand up to genocide, if you can't stand up for defenseless children in Palestine, and if you're going to lie to me about it, why would I expect you to stand up for anything meaningful as it relates to my standard of living? Say I'm a working class person. Person. And so it's become this litmus test, at least on the left. And I think you're seeing a similar dynamic play out on the, on the right, but for totally different reasons.

[James Stout]

Right, right.

[Ahmed Moore]

And it's been extraordinary to behold because I think so many of us who've been in this issue for, for so long, we've been, we've been marking our progress in incrementalist terms, and then suddenly things have broken wide open and the world is changing very, very quickly.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah. From my vantage point in, in American academia, I mean, they might have had personal feelings about Israel, Palestine, they may have had sympathies, but so few people would ever talk about the erasure of Palestine in the academy or the impact of censorship and attacks on academic freedom. But now, because the Palestinian issue is being used as this cudgel to attack higher education, you're just a normal Joe Schmo, like math professor. You're going to have to care. And you do. And we're seeing this very much with the mobilization of the American association of University Professors. That is not a Middle east specific organization whatsoever, but they are. They, they recognize the linkages between these issues. So in the ways that Palestine is interwoven with, but also has impacted so many of our current realities and the policies that we're facing by the Trump administration and the Biden administration before that.

[Mia Wong]

Them.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah, I think it's very clear to a lot of people. So that actually brings me to one of the main questions that I wanted to ask you is aside from kind of this increased awareness and the taboos that have been broken around the discussion of Palestine and its integration in American foreign policy and American domestic policy policy, what are some other ways that you think since the genocide began that pro Palestine organizing has changed?

[Ahmed Moore]

So the biggest thing I've seen is that the analytical frame has changed. We used to talk about foreign policy, adventurism, wars for oil, those kinds of things. Now, I think the analysis is very correctly Focused on empire. The way in which resources domestically, the real working class efforts, effort to build a life in the United States is subsumed by wars of really imperial overreach. The whole idea of empire for me was an antiquated one. I didn't think it had a whole lot of relevance today. But I think I and many others who may have thought in that way missed the point. The reality is that empire is intact. I think that awareness that our efforts domestically are deeply, deeply intertwined with what's happening, what we're doing elsewhere is important and it's emergent, it's new. When I was in graduate school, you would hear people talk about how they were engaged with domestic policy or people talk about their interest in foreign policy. And I was mostly interested in foreign policy. But today to try to draw that differentiation is really meaningless. And again, you see that in the race in New York, Mamdani did run on affordability. He ran on a domestic policy program. But equally 38%, I think, of voters were heavily motivated by his foreign policy interests, foreign policy perspectives, which again, from a policy point of view, he can't really impact, but nonetheless are supported by this idea that our taxes, what we do domestically is having a huge impact everywhere else in the world and that American empire is sprawling and a challenge for people domestically as well. From a pure activist point of view. I used to have a real belief in, in electoral politics that was shaken deeply through the dnc, through the grassroots effort to be heard.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Uncommitted.

[Ahmed Moore]

Yeah, the uncommitted movement. Precisely. We'll see where things go. I mean, the truth is that the person who was just elected in Jersey is a typical, I believe, AIPAC Democrat Mike Sherrill. My perspective domestically is that we need to be aggressive, we need to be forceful in calling for a total reconstitution of democr Democratic Party, no half measures. And I think Zoran Mandani did a good job of illustrating what that could look like.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah, I mean, there's always a tension in this very money captured system that we have that at certain level it doesn't really matter, liberal or Republican, they are captured. But I think what the New York City race has demonstrated is like that can only go so far. You still need some public support, which is why of course, they're going after gerrymandering and all of that. But yeah, it's an uphill battle model. But I think if this democracy is to exist, we are in a better footing than we were, you know, on, on this discussion. I also am Wondering what you think of this characterization, which is that I think before this genocide, and I don't mean to create this binary, but it has been a very transformative event. Before this genocide, I think a lot of Palestinian American organizing in spaces discussed the issue of Palestine in a rights based approach way. So about human rights, about ending apartheid, about extending rights. And I think the framing for that has also changed. It is really a critique of settler colonialism and the legitimacy of these nation states. First of all, what do you think of that characterization on my end, but also what do you think of the tension then that poses for the Palestinian national liberation movement that still wants a state?

[Ahmed Moore]

Yeah, you're right. The analytic frame has shifted. We've gone from a contested conversation around 1967, the June War, when Israel captured the west bank from Jordan, Gaza from Egypt, Jerusalem as well from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, and small sliver of land from Lebanon to 1948. That's what we talk about now. And that's correct. And I think for many Palestinians or Palestinian Americans, that has always been the starting point of the conversation. But now we have the political legitimacy to say, wait a second, this whole state was founded upon separate and unequal on Jewish supremacy on a point of view that we reject as Americans and we should reject everywhere in the world. And so I think that that's the first meaningful change that I've seen when we talk about Palestine. And then, of course, settler colonialism is built into that Analysis.

[Garrison Davis]

Analysis.

[Ahmed Moore]

Things get a little bit different when you zoom out. Let me just talk about domestic. I think that when you talk to people on the left, the universalist argument, everybody's created equal, is very, very powerful and resonant. And it's the one that I believe in. But what's happening on the right as well is an America first argument. And the word protectorate comes up repeatedly. Why are we investing so much in a protectorate? Tucker Carlston, powerfully, I think, think for his audience, and this is probably the most influential commentator in the United States today, but powerfully, you know, said that this country has half the size, half the economy of the state of Connecticut. Why have we invested so much political capital, so much money, and something which is so immaterial, especially when it pays a big negative dividend in lots of different ways. So the nativist argument is meeting the universalist argument argument. But the core analysis around settler colonialism, around the lack of legitimacy for a supremacist state, gives rise to both of those arguments. It acts as the substrate, I would say Palestinians who want to see a Palestinian state. Now you're going back to Palestine. I don't know what that means. Today I've heard perspectives that, you know, availing ourselves of statehood as a legal construct will mean that you can now access legal frameworks to pursue justice, this in the courts, wherever they may exist. I hope that's true. Let's see if it works out. I think there are people who are trying to take Israeli men, dual nationals who participated in the genocide to court in France. I think by using some of the, some of the laws that exist between recognized states and, and non states or maybe the uk let's see if, if rubber meets road there. I support those tactics, but practically when you're talking about, about Palestinian liberation, I don't believe that a state which has been colonized out of existence, and you kind of have to look at a map to see what I mean here, but the west bank is thoroughly colonized. Gaza is still occupied by the Israelis and will likely be slowly ethnically cleansed over time and not rebuilt. I fail to see how a state, a legal construct, is going to yield real benefits for the people on the ground now in Palestine.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Then I agree 100%. And I think that the continuation of this framework, the statehood framework that a lot of our kind of political elites in the Palestinian landscape continue to use, and a lot of these, you know, countries in the global north use also to bypass the work that actually needs to be done after a genocide. It's certainly a distraction in my view, but it also speaks to the renewal that needs to happen within Palestinian politics and within the plo. But that's a bigger matter. My next question was going to be on the Palestinian American diaspora. In what ways do you think the Palestinian American diaspora is, is alike with people in historic Palestine, with other diasporas? And in what ways do you think that they're unique?

[Ahmed Moore]

That's a hard question for me to answer. I think the diaspora and the way that I've interacted with people is diverse. What people have in common is a common reference point. The necba, they have a common understanding around the legitimacy of Israel as an ethnostate, which takes Jewish supremacy as its point of departure. But it's a very diverse diaspora. I mean, our first Palestinian American in Congress is Justin Amash, who is on the right.

[Mia Wong]

That's right.

[Dana Al Kurd]

I always forget about him.

[Ahmed Moore]

Yeah, I mean, he had relatives who were murdered in Gaza at a church in northern Gaza which dates back to, I think, the 11th century. So we're a diverse diaspora. I think The Palestinian diaspora in the United States is integrated. It's educated. That's the passport for lots of Palestinians around the world. It's how you get out, it's how you build alive. We have a very high literacy rate in Palestine, exceeds 99.5%. But I think where the diaspora hasn't, at least in the United States, done as effective a job, and this is kind of the natural trajectory, I think, of diaspora communities generally. I don't know that we're as aggressive and organized as we could be be. And I want to emphasize the word aggressive, the idea that we can go out and compete at all levels of government, that we can go out and assert our understanding of history backed by facts. We should be doing more of that, especially when you look kind of across the board when it comes to people who are doing well in medicine or in business, where there's been a real career risk for speaking out out and for being assertive. We can do more now, and we should use the leverage gained through two years of genocide, the most expensive access to leverage I can imagine, to push much harder politically.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah, that's a very good point. I'm also wondering how well you think the Palestinian organizing groups and spaces, how well integrated are they into other activist issue areas?

[Ahmed Moore]

Yeah, I think this is where, when I was in college, I didn't know the word intersectionality. That wasn't a concept. That really was one that people thought about. You know, you would host an event and you would invite your friends, some of whom would be in the black students group, some of whom would be in the queer students group, and just regular left groups. But today I'd say that activists have a much more complete sense of how you almost have a social quill built and, and a compression on one, one part of it will impact everything else that's. That's related to it. And we're all interrelated in that way. I'd say that the most potent discussions around Palestine are coming from left organizing groups, not exactly Palestinian organizing groups. I think if I could offer gentle criticism of Palestine organizers, there's been too much, and you saw this with uncommitted too much effort to ingratiate yourselves to the existing power apparatus, to ask for a seat at the table when it's somebody like Zoran Mamdani again, who demanded a seat at the table through an unrelenting focus on the issues, achieved access to a platform that nobody wanted to cede. And I don't think that following the rules exactly, or being friendly about accessing platforms within the Democratic Party is going to yield a huge benefit to Palestinian Americans or people here. I'd say the most principled organizing is the organizing that's going to win. And today that comes from non Palestinian groups. And I'm okay with that. I don't really think it matters if the best argument is coming from somebody whose family comes from South Asia through Uganda or somebody whose family emerges from the Balato refugee camp. That doesn't really matter to me. I think just to focus on the principles is the most important thing.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah, right, right. I think we're definitely seeing more of an acceptance of that. I agree with the limitations that you referenced. I also sometimes do reflect on how matched the discussion is in the United States with the discussion in historic Palestine and what activists can do to kind of bridge some gaps that might emerge. But of course, understanding that we do exist in a different political reality and we obviously will develop different views as a result of, of that.

[Ahmed Moore]

I agree. And, and look, I mean, nobody needs to be apologetic about inhabiting a different reality. You know, we don't need to defer to a leadership which is divided, divided in Palestine, a PLO that won't talk to itself. And there are structural reasons for that. Right. I mean, the Israelis and the Americans have done a very effective job in splintering Palestinian leadership. I think we need to think extremely locally. There are issues that matter to my community in West Philadelphia bigger, you know, bigger issues across Pennsylvania that impact my life, that impact my life as a father of three little girls. So I think being a member of a community and focusing again, relentlessly on the principles and the facts that we've known all along is critical to pushing the conversation on Palestine forward. And practically today, for me, that means an arms embargo, it means sanctions, it means a cultural boycott, and it means those things unapologetically. Again, those are principled positions that I can take as a, as an American citizen, a citizen of a country which has underwritten genocide, has underwritten apartheid for decades.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Dana Al Kurd]

I think I agree with that analysis. As the author, which we didn't mention at the beginning, as the author, one of the co authors of After Zionism with Anthony Lowenstein, I'm going to pose a difficult question for you. No, I'm just joking. Not that you have to answer it fully, but where do you think we go from here? Where do you think the pro Palestine movement goes from here? And if you can reflect in your answer on where we've stalled as well.

[Ahmed Moore]

Yeah, so I used to believe in, in one state for for everybody with equal rights today I think the writing is on the wall. For the Palestinians in Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is proceeding. The fact that Gaza has been utterly destroyed, utterly destroyed. There are no universities, no schools, no really functioning hospitals. The basic infrastructure required for the maintenance of life doesn't exist there anymore. That's part of why it's a genocide. We've got to take that reality into account. The Palestinians in Gaza, the Palestinians in Palestine generally have the right to pursue life. They have a right to an education, they have a right to self actualization. And many of them, when they can, they're going to leave.

[Garrison Davis]

Leave.

[Ahmed Moore]

That's the ethnic cleansing program. That's the idea behind the mass destruction of Palestine. The Israelis have succeeded in that regard. I would say we need to be mindful of that, we need to be aware of that. So what I think will happen ultimately is that you'll end up with some rump community of Palestinians in Palestine who are eventually, when an arms embargo is enacted, and I hope it's within our lifetimes when the sanctions are enacted, when Israel is forced to first to become a normal country with equal rights for all will continue to exist in that space. I don't know, you know, I can't predict, nobody can really predict what's certainty, what's going to happen. But the kinds of pressure required to cause Israel to become a de radicalized normal society will take time to produce. And in the interim the writing is on the wall for the Palestinians in Palestine. And I think that's the saddest for me part of all of this us. The continuity of Palestinian life in Palestine is not guaranteed. You know, the overwhelming force of the state exists in one place and that's, that's in Israel.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Yeah, that's why I, when a lot of people talk positively about the developments of the past two years, of course you want to feel hope, you want to highlight how the discussion has changed here in America, how politics is moving forward. You want to have some pathway. But we never were able to prevent that genocide. Nothing we did in any avenue. All of us have different positionalities engaged with different actors. None of it actually stopped that. And that is a very hard pill to swallow. I hope, I've always been hoping that at least that will, will allow us to get to the place of self reflection about what radical solutions look like in the aftermath of this kind of disaster. And yeah, I hope that that's where we go from here on my end. Yeah. Thank you so much, Ahmed. This has been a really enriching discussion and I think that the listeners will benefit from this overarching view of pro Palestine activism. And it's interesting sections with everything we're we're seeing unfold. So thank you so much again.

[Ahmed Moore]

Thank you Donna. It's been a huge pleasure.

[Mia Wong]

This is the story of the One as head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works for behind the.

[Garrison Davis]

Scenes, ensuring every light is working, the.

[Mia Wong]

H Vac is humming, and his facility shines with Grainger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces.

[Garrison Davis]

Plus 24.

[Mia Wong]

7 customer support. His venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just stop by Grainger.

[James Stout]

For the ones who get it done.

[Robert Evans]

All I know is what I've been.

[James Stout]

Taught and that's a half truth is.

[Mia Wong]

A whole lie for almost a decade.

[Dana Al Kurd]

The murder of an 18 year old.

[Mia Wong]

Girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Robert Evans]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Mia Wong]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six, six people and.

[James Stout]

That got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Garrison Davis]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky.

[Mia Wong]

Housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[James Stout]

I did not know her and I.

[Ahmed Moore]

Did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.

[James Stout]

That y' all say it.

[Mia Wong]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[James Stout]

They made me say that I poured.

[Garrison Davis]

Gas on her.

[Mia Wong]

From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about.

[James Stout]

Just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Mia Wong]

America, y' all better wake the hell up.

[Garrison Davis]

Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Mia Wong]

Listen to Graves county in the bonus Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

It's okay not to be okay sometimes.

[Mia Wong]

And be able to build strength and.

[James Stout]

Love within each other.

[Mia Wong]

Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another.

[Robert Evans]

I'm Elliot Connie, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real families come together to heal and find hope. What would be a clue that would be like I've gotten lots of text messages from him.

[Mia Wong]

This one's from a little bit better.

[James Stout]

Of a version of him because he's feeding himself well. It's always a concern, like, are you eating well?

[Garrison Davis]

He's actually an amazing cook.

[James Stout]

There was this one time where we.

[Garrison Davis]

Had neighbors and I saved their dog and I ended up inviting them over for food.

[Robert Evans]

And that was like one of my proudest moments.

[Mia Wong]

This is family therapy.

[Robert Evans]

Real families, real stories on a journey to heal together.

[Mia Wong]

Listen to season two of family therapy.

[Robert Evans]

Every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[James Stout]

Run a business and not thinking about radio.

[Mia Wong]

Think again. Because more people are listening to the.

[James Stout]

Radio and iheart today than they were 20 years ago. And only ih Internet broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. And that reach means everything.

[Mia Wong]

Just think about the universal marketing formula.

[James Stout]

The number of consumers who hear your.

[Mia Wong]

Message times the response rate equals the results.

[James Stout]

Now let's get those results growing for your business. Radio's here now more than ever and iheart's leading the way. Think radio can help your business, business. Think iHeart.

[Mia Wong]

Streaming, podcasting and radio.

[James Stout]

Where the reach is real. Let us show [e-mail] that's iheartadvertising.com or.

[Mia Wong]

Call 844-844 IHEART one more time. Just call 844-844, IHEART and get radio working for you.

[James Stout]

Two weeks ago, four days before Halloween, Queen former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson hosted the 27 year old White supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes on Tucker's popular Internet show. Two weeks later, this interview has over 6 million views on YouTube, over half a million on Rumble and 18 million alleged views on X the everything app with over a hundred thousand likes and 20,000 retweets. Tweets + the unknown number of views from podcasting platforms like Apple or Spotify, on which Tucker Carlson's show also airs. This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Throughout the almost entirely friendly two hour interview, Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson discussed Nick's libertarian origin story, his conversion to Trump's bombastic style of populace, getting a show on the right side broadcast network as a teenager after a viral college debate, how the Daily Wire initially befriended, then tried to quash his early political career and how that pushed Nick to adopt a far right adversarial stance against mainstream conservatism and the gatekeepers of the conservative establishment, which Nick identified as the quote unquote, Zionist Jews like Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin and Dennis Prager. Tiger, here's Nick and Tucker. It was these the guys that were really controlling the media apparatus that seemed.

[Ahmed Moore]

To me to be the biggest impediment.

[James Stout]

Fox, Fox is not a Jewish business though. Well, Rupert Murdoch is an ally of.

[Mia Wong]

Netanyahu, so he's aligned.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And he owns the whole News Corp empire, so.

[James Stout]

And yeah, he's certainly a part of it also.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, Dave Rubin though, does he matter?

[Mia Wong]

No, no, not really.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, Dave Rubin is like, like, I don't know.

[James Stout]

Do people watch Dave Rubin? They did back then. I mean, because you got to consider they, they were kind of like the ascendant new media, you know, they represented the next big thing. I mean, and Ben Shapiro seems irrelevant to me now. Now, but back then for.

[Robert Evans]

So maybe you won.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, certainly.

[James Stout]

Tucker tried to advise Fuentes to, to focus more of his ire on Israel's influence on American politics as a foreign policy issue and not quote unquote, blood guilt based on ethnicity. While Fuentes defended the necessity of his rhetoric against what he called the quote unquote unique issue of quote unquote organized Jewry that promotes a form of identity politics linking Israel to quantum, quote, Jewishness as an ethnicity, identity and religion, unquote, which makes most culturally Jewish people incompatible with America. First, patriotism. This is basic dual loyalty, antisemitism, which Nick continued to outline by framing Jewish people as a historically stateless people that resist assimilation and put their own interests above those of which ever non Jewish majority country they currently reside. Attention which the existence of Israel now heightens. No other country has a strong identity like that. This religious blood and soil conviction, this history of being in the diaspora, stateless, wandering, persecuted, and in particular the historic animosity between the Jewish people and the Europeans. They hate the Romans because the Romans destroyed the temple. That's why Eric Weinstein goes to the Arch of Titus and gives it the finger and takes a picture.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Picture.

[James Stout]

We don't think like that as Americans and white people. We don't think about the Roman Empire in 2000 years ago. They do, right? Americans and Christians would never think about checks notes, the Roman Empire or the events of 2000 years ago. Sure, Nick. Obviously to many people listening to this show, Fuentes has been a known anti Semitic streamer troll for nearly 10 years.

[Garrison Davis]

Years.

[James Stout]

And Tucker himself knows this. The main pushback Tucker gave Nick was on why Nick attacked other figures on the far right who were possible allies of the America first movement and America first foreign policy, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, J.D. vance, Joe Kent, and Tucker himself.

[Robert Evans]

Why attack them?

[James Stout]

Well, in short, they attacked me first.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, but like, who cares?

[James Stout]

Well, let's take Joe, Ken.

[Mia Wong]

I mean, you attack me constantly.

[James Stout]

Tucker also advocated framing that does not allow what he believes to be popular America first ideas, like opposition to foreign influence and dual citizenship to get subverted by leaning into accusations of hate and racial prejudice, which during the interview, Fuentes nominally agreed with, with some of them. I'm sorry to be a conspiracy nut. I really try not to be a conspiracy because it's embarrassing, you know, but after January 6th and just finding out.

[Robert Evans]

The number of FBI personnel in the crowd, it's like.

[Ahmed Moore]

And I've just seen this.

[James Stout]

David Duke is a great example. Some of these are the Charlottesville rally.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Had a bunch of feds there being.

[Robert Evans]

Like, we're white supremacists. We hate the blacks.

[Mia Wong]

You know, using the N word, whatever.

[James Stout]

You know, it's like, that's not real. Like, there is some of that going.

[Mia Wong]

On, don't you think?

[James Stout]

I think that. I think that there's a lot of sincere people, for sure. I completely agree, you know, and they're just numbskulls. For some reason, Nick neglected to mention that he, in fact, was at Charlottesville, and the backlash to the Unite the Right rally forced him to drop out of college and propelled his streaming career. Throughout this whole interview, it mostly felt like Tucker was trying to act as a mentor figure to Fuentes, advising him to let go of past beefs and providing a sort of clean slate to allow Nick to present his political views in a more streamlined manner as simply anti Israel, as an extension of America First. During the interview, Tucker himself explained his motives for inviting Fuentes on the show. Show. Do you hope that people who want.

[Mia Wong]

To learn what's happening and who you.

[James Stout]

Are will watch the whole thing?

[Robert Evans]

It's probably naive hope that it won't.

[Mia Wong]

Be reduced to whatever you're saying, something.

[James Stout]

Naughty and me laughing and see, they're both Nazis. I mean, you know that's going to happen, of course, but I'm willing to.

[Mia Wong]

Take that risk because I just think.

[James Stout]

It'S important to know you're clearly ascendant. You're enormously talented.

[Mia Wong]

You're more talented than I am, for.

[James Stout]

Sure, as a talker.

[Robert Evans]

So. And they've, you know, there have been.

[Mia Wong]

A lot of attempts to silence you, and it hasn't worked.

[James Stout]

So my calculation, I'll just be as.

[Robert Evans]

Blunt as I can be.

[Mia Wong]

It's like sort of want to have Fuentes on, everyone's gonna be like, you.

[James Stout]

But you're a Nazi, just like Fuentes. Okay. But then I'm like, I don't think Fuentes is going away. Ben Shapiro tried to, like, strangle him in the crib in college, and now he's bigger than ever. So it probably would just be worth hearing what Nick Fuentes think. I just want to be transparent about my. My motives here. And I think Tucker is right in calling Fuentes ascendant. We'll talk more about that at the end of this episode. For the last 30 minutes of this interview, the two discussed pornography, alcohol, and drugs as ruining America's young men through reality distortion. And I had a whole segment on Nick Fuentes explaining to a confused Tucker Carlson the concept of Internet pornography, which, unfortunately, I had to cut for time. But if there's enough demand for this on Blue sky or Reddit, maybe I can make a bonus episode next week rather than focusing on the substance of this interview and Tucker's motivation. A lot of mainstream reporting has just highlighted a few controversial sound bites, like an offhand semi troll comment about how Fuentes admires Stalin. But this interview did send shockwaves through the American conservative ecosystem, of which Fuentes was always held at a very long arm's length away. In the immediate wake of the interview, references to Tucker were curiously removed from the Heritage Foundation's donor page in partnership with the Tucker Carlson network. On October 30, Heritage President Kevin Roberts released a video defending Tucker. Captioned, There has been speculation that Heritage is distancing itself from Tucker Carlson over the past 24 hours. I want to put that to rest right now.

[Mia Wong]

Conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington. The Heritage foundation didn't become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won't start doing that now. We will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else's agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be, a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.

[Garrison Davis]

Foundation.

[Mia Wong]

The venomous coalition attacking him are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail. Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the left, not attacking our friends on the right. I disagree with and even abhor things.

[Garrison Davis]

That Nick Fuentes says.

[Mia Wong]

But canceling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person's thoughts and opinions. We challenge those ideas into people debate and we have seen success in this approach as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left.

[James Stout]

Roberts primarily framed this as an issue of cancellation and included some pretty sketchy lines in that video. Roberts also said that Heritage doesn't, quote, take direction from members or donors, unquote. This video was polarizing to say the least. Nick Fuentes fans who are called groipers and America first nationalists rejoiced and claimed victory while many GOP establishment figures, Jewish Republicans and many Heritage employees were left bamboozled. The New York Post published internal Heritage group chats with staff members writing that this was, quote, the most embarrassed I've ever been to be a Heritage employee. It's not close and quote, I'm disgusted by this and don't understand how this premeditated and orchestrated response could come out of one of the biggest think tanks in the world. Unquote. More texts read, quote, saying we can't cancel someone is safe space Wokeism and quote, if we are labeled on the same side as Nick Fuentes, then we deserve to lose. Talking with some of the interns, I think that there is a growing number of them who actually agree with Fuentes's views. Now, beyond employee dissent, sources close to Heritage told the New York Post that the think tank has been, quote, unquote, hemorrhaging evangelical, Christian and Jewish donors. David Bernstein, the author of Woke Anti Semitism and a former member of the task force at Heritage called Project Esther A National Strategy to Combat Anti SEM, told the New York Post on November 3 that he had resigned from his position over Kevin Roberts remarks, citing the language of a venomous coalition aligned against Tucker to quote Jewish Insider, quote, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told Jewish Insider that Robert's message, quote, was the most tone deaf in both its content and timing that I've ever heard from major Washington organizations on any political side. Menken resigned from Heritage's Project Esther, the group's anti Semitism initiative, last week in response to Robert's video message defending Carlson along with Menken and Coalition for Jewish Voices. Several other groups have also publicly disaffiliated from Heritage's anti Semitism task force, including the National Jewish Advocacy center, the Zionist Organization of America, and the Young Jewish Conservative of unquote. On Halloween, Heritage President Kevin Roberts made a post summarizing a small sampling of Fuentes's most racist, anti Semitic and pro Hitler views and said quote, our task is to confront and challenge those poisonous ideas at every turn to prevent them from taking America to a very dark place. Join us not to cancel, but to guide, challenge and strengthen the conversation. And be confident, as I am, that our best ideas at the heart of Western civilization will prevail. For those, especially young men who are enticed by Fuentes and his acolytes online, there is a better way. Roberts has repeatedly said that attempting to cancel Fuentes would only grow his audience, as opposed to whatever Roberts is doing by playing footsies with Tucker and Fuentes, resulting in multiple news stories a day, name dropping Fuentes and massively raising his public profile.

[Mia Wong]

It would not invite him to a Heritage event or to my show, but the point is we have to find other avenues to engage the ridiculous ideas that he's saying rather than, as many people have called for online, that you can just shun him, that you can just ignore him, and that the problem goes away. My motivation for posting that video yesterday, especially looking ahead towards 2026 and 2020, is that we have to engage those issues if we want to build a movement. I understand that, particularly for our Jewish friends who ought to be upset about Fuentes's comments about anti Semitism, that he's just anathema. I agree with that as well. But if we're going to actually correct the scourge of anti Semitism, we've got to go convince those, unfortunately millions of young men who find that appealing. I do believe that they're convincible. I believe that people like you, hopefully people like us at Heritage and even people like Tucker, might be able to play a role in that.

[James Stout]

Following backlash to Kevin Roberts initial statement, Robert's chief of staff, Ryan Newhouse, resigned from Heritage after being reassigned as a senior advisor on housing policy. Opposition sources told New York Post, was the quote, unquote Siberia of Heritage. Before resigning, Newhouse reposted messages defending Robert's video, including a post advocating that quote, unquote virtue signaling Employees at the Heritage foundation should resign if they're so outraged by Robert's statement. During Halloween weekend, lawyer Mark Goldfedder resigned from the Heritage affiliated National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, writing on X the Everything app, I cannot serve under someone who thinks Nazis are worth debating. Rating On November 1, Princeton University professor Robert P. George, member of the Heritage Board of Trustees, who allegedly has been attempting to oust Roberts as the head of the foundation. In the wake of this controversy, posted on X the Everything app, quote, american conservatism today faces A challenge. That challenge comes from those who reject our commitment to inherent and equal human dignity. They are seeking acceptance in the conservative movement and its institutions, and they do so with the ultimate objective of transforming them. By undermining that commitment. I cannot accept the idea that we have no enemies to the right. The white supremacists, anti Semites, the eugenicists, bigots must not be welcome into our movement or treated as normal or acceptable. Unquote. You sure about that? Robert P. George Church this conservative commitment to inherent and equal human dignity, you sure about that? You sure about that? Surely the American conservatives aren't restricting people's health care and pushing them off food stamps and kidnapping and uprooting families and sending them to far off countries. Seems like all those things would breach this commitment to inherent and equal human dignity. I never thought the leopards would eat my face. Sobs Heritage Board of Trustees member who voted for the leopards eating people's faces Party. We'll be right back after these ads. The conservative of infighting intensified when on November 3rd Monday morning, Ben Shapiro released a 40 minute video captioned no to the gripers. No to cowards like Tucker Carlson who normalize their trash. No to those who champion them. No to demoralization. No to bigotry and anti meritocratic horseshit. No to anti Americanism. No that fragmentation is being caused purposefully by a splinter faction of people led by a young man named Nick Fuentes. They call themselves the Groipers. They are white supremacists. They hate women, Jews, Hindus, many types of Christians, brown people of a wide variety of backgrounds, blacks, America's foreign policy and America's Constitution. They admire Hitler and Stalin. And that splinter faction is now being facilitated and normalized within the mainstream Republican Party. The main agent in that normalization is Tucker Carlson, who is an intellectual cat coward, a dishonest interlocutor and a terrible friend. And Tucker Carlson last week was aided, abetted, celebrated for normalizing Nazism within the Republican Party by the mainstay organization of the traditional right, the Heritage Foundation. Shapiro then had to preface his comments by saying, quote, this is not about free speech or cancellation and quote, criticisms of bad speech is in fact just a form of free speech, unquote, and went on this lengthy diatribe to explain how what he's doing isn't cancellation, which Ben defined as banning people from social media and publishing platforms. What would be more accurately described as de platforming as opposed to like social cancellation, which is not something that Ben is calling for. Ben's not calling for Deplatforming. It is not cancellation to draw moral lines between viewpoints points. In fact, we used to call that one of the key aspects of conservatism. It is not cancellation to refuse to signal boost Hitler's supporters like Nick Fuentes. It is not cancellation to criticize Tucker Carlson for rhetorically fluffing Nick Fuentes and other anti American crackpots. It's not cancellation if you urge others to stop promoting those who rhetorically fluff Nazi apologists. Those are all elements of free speech. And anyone who says differently is lying to and lying for the most cynical reasons to misdirect from their own defense of those Nazi apologists and their promoters. The issue here isn't that Tucker Carlson had Nick Fuentes on his show last week. He has every right to do that. Of course, the issue here is that Tucker Carlson decided to normalize and fluff Nick Fuentes and that the Heritage foundation then decided to robustly defend that performance. Those who criticize both Tucker and Heritage aren't canceling. They are quite properly drawing a moral line. Now, from Tucker Carlson's interview you might have gathered that Fuentes has some borderline views on race, a peculiar obsession with what he calls organized Jewry, and a rather sad relationship with the female sex. But probably you came away thinking that for the most part Fuentes lives on the radical edge of normality. You think that if you watched the interview because Tucker Carlson decided that it was important not only to host Fuentes, but to smooth over his views, water them down and make them far more palatable to a normal audience. Ben proceeded to do a 10 minute Nick Fuentes clip show playing a select collection of some of the most offensive things Nick has said to camera and then blamed the left for creating the conditions that let this hatred emerge, framing Fuentes as the dialectical inverse of the hyper woke ID pole left. And there's no doubt that Nick Fuentes has a lot of play these days. That's because the left, by moving into a politics of anti white, anti Christian, anti male identitarian, created its bizarro mirror image. A white pseudo Christian incel identitarian movement dedicated to destroying the institutions of this country and replacing Americanism with something else. Nick Fuentes philosophy is not fully formed. It's an incoherent stew of malignity. The left did not create Nick Fuentes. He is the direct product of the right wing content ecosystem that Shapiro himself trailblazed blazed. It's Ben Shapiro. But taken even further with post ironic Gen Z brain rot, even if Fuentes himself has been banned from many of the big tent conservative events. His ideas still festered, spread under the radar and influenced the further radicalization of other right wing commentators so they could better compete with Fuentes. Tucker himself was a part of that. This the 2019 quote unquote Groiper war in which Nick Fuentes deployed his fans to disrupt Turning Point USA Q A events with leading questions pressured Charlie Kirk to adopt viewpoints further and further to the right, specifically on race and immigration. And now the white Great Replacement is basically a mainstream conservative viewpoint and Fuentes played a huge part in that that. This is in fact your problem, Ben. For the rest of this 40 minute video, Shapiro directed his attention to Tucker Carlson criticizing his defense of Russia and multipolar views, Tucker's pro dictator comments, populist criticism of Trump and sort of dodgy anti Israel statements. Shapiro highlighted comments Tucker made during the Fuentes interview where he lampooned high profile Republicans and neocons lens who have been quote unquote seized by the pro Israel, quote unquote brain virus, with Tucker claiming that he dislikes Christian Zionists, quote more than anybody, unquote, because it's Christian heresy. Shapiro described the function of Tucker's current online platform as a safe space to bring on conspiracy theorists, fringe figures, alternative historians, and those just outside the Overton window to then quote unquote gloss them. As Shapiro says it's not about building a radicalization pipeline out of the mainstream, but bringing the actual radical ideas to the mainstream. Tucker Carlson acts as an ideological launderer for other people's evils. Tucker Carlson says many inflammatory things, always buying back just enough of it to appear as though he's not saying what he's clearly saying, saying he's a master of gaslighting. Tucker Carlson, for example, would never say out loud what Nick Fuentes does. He wouldn't say the things many of his guests say. And so instead he acts as an ideological launderer. He takes other people's hideous ideas, he softens them, he treats them with love and care, and then he provides them with a massive signal boost. He isn't merely talking to people in good faith, of course, he's promoting certain people and ideas and attacking others. This is how Tucker Carlson's ideological laundering works. You bring your dirty, ugly ideologies to Tucker Carlson's rhetorical car wash. He mixes it with some of the vestigial respect Americans have for him from his Fox News days and voila, hideous ideas suddenly become mainstream. And then of course, Tucker denies he said anything controversial at all. He was just asking questions.

[Mia Wong]

He was just interviewing people.

[James Stout]

You don't want him to cancel people, do you? Ben continued to complain about Tucker platforming Candace Owens and her increasingly anti semitic conspiracy theories. Except remember it was your company that gave Candace a huge platform after she left Turning Point. And Prageru, is she also a consequence of the woke left like Fuentes is Shapiro? The call is coming from inside your own company to further demonstrate how much of this stuff is downstream from Shapiro. It's actually because of Candace that Fuentes even went on Tucker's show at all. All Candace had Fuentes on her show a few months prior and when she went on Tucker's show she told him how great Fuentes is and argued in his defense. As for Heritage, Ben acknowledged his long standing positive relationship with the Heritage foundation, working with him since he was just 17 years old, and recently had Kevin Roberts on his show to promote Robert's latest book. Which is why what Kevin Roberts did last week is tragic and awful. He put out a statement that Heritage foundation didn't just stand by Tucker Carlson. Kevin instead said openly and repeatedly that Tucker Carlson can do nothing ever that will sever his relationship with the conservative movement. He said that after and in defense of Tucker's glossing of Hitler defender Nick Fuentes. And he added that only members of the the globalist class direct quote, a venomous coalition, direct quote, subject to the dictates of someone else's agenda, direct quote oppose Heritage's ongoing relationship with Tucker Carlson. Which means that according to Kevin Roberts, apparently anyone opposing the ongoing mainstreaming of Tucker Carlson is acting on behalf of a foreign power. Kevin's statement is a betrayal of the Heritage Foundation's history and principles, which is presumably why both Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes loved it. Shapiro still expressed the need for an organization like Heritage that focuses on ideas over personal loyalty to grifters and expressed hope that Heritage could recover from this controversy and speak out against the quote unquote moral rot that threatens our future. But if not, conservatives may need to look for leadership elsewhere. And the cause of this moral rot? Political horseshoe theory that is destroying both parts parties. With the GOP being eaten by radicals like the Democratic Party, the Republican Party is being eaten by its radicals. Many in the political class are too cowardly to stand up. Apparently they're willing to play footsie with gripers and hug Tucker Carlson out of fear of somehow losing support. They've been bamboozled by the lies of the X algorithm and the tick tock metrics. The left followed its radicals to electoral hell. Apparently many on the right wish to do this same. Forget the morality then, for just a moment, let's be pragmatic. Here is the thing. Americans hate Nick Fuentes's philosophy. They think it's trash. Republicans, by the polling, think it's trash. Independents think it's trash. Democrats think it's trash. And here's the other thing Americans hate Tucker Carlson's laundered anti Americanism. Republicans think it's trash. Independents think it's trash. Democrats think it's trash America. Americans are not pro segregation, pro rape, anti woman, pro child marriage, anti black, anti Jew, anti Indian, anti Latino, anti constitution, pro Hitler nutjobs like Nick Fuentes. You might want to tell that to, I don't know, Stephen Miller, Ben and like maybe half your employees, here's Matt Walsh's own description for his most recent Daily Wire podcast episode. Quote Somali tribal conflict has made its way into multiple American states states. A man is arrested for shouting f the Jews at Dave Portnoy. Meanwhile, antifa riots with no consequence. White liberal radio host kisses Jasmine Crockett's feet. Unquote. Ben the call is coming from inside the Daily Wire House. If Republicans decide to cower before the likes of Neo Nazis and their propagandizers, they deserve to live. Lose and they will lose. Neo Nazis and their propagandizers are not Republicans. They are not America First. They are not maga. They sure as hell aren't conservative. These people aren't to my right. They are not attached in any way to the fundamental principles of conservatism. I'm sorry Ben, but they are. They are in the mega White House. They are on tv, on Fox News. They're getting more views than you are on TikTok and fucking Rumble. Humble many have either worked for you or still work for you. And you've been completely fine with all of that as long as they've been sufficiently pro Israel. Here's a Ben shapiro tweet from September 17, 2015. Ann Coulter tweets read Jews Awful. Nonsensical. Ann Coulter is also super pro Israel and has always been in so I won't lose sleep. I never thought the leopards would eat my face. Sobs Conservative podcaster who voted for the leopards eating people's faces party. The same day Shapiro released this 40 minute video, Matt Walsh posted quote pat Buchanan didn't just have good ideas, he was right about almost everything. He's the most vindicated political figure figure of our lifetime. Unquote. If you want a fun little 10 minute side quest. Google Pat Buchanan. Nazi Pat Buchanan. Anti Semitism Every few months, these right wing ghouls get a harsh reminder of the world that they have conjured into being. Remember the H1B visa debacle earlier this year with Elon, Musk and Ramaswamy upset that all of their racist fans don't want to bring in immigrant workers? Workers after Elon funded a campaign about how immigrants are stealing Americans jobs. As writer John Gans put it, quote, the GOP civil war is between the vanilla fascists and the National Socialists. Unquote. At the Republican Jewish Coalition 40th Anniversary Summit, Congressman Randy Fine proudly announced that he canceled an upcoming event with Heritage.

[Mia Wong]

I was supposed to do an event with Heritage next week. Think on Wednesday. They don't know what I'm about to tell you right now. We're canceling it. They will have no future in my office and I will be calling on all of my colleagues on the Republican side to do the same. If those who support Tucker Carlson want to see a venomous coalition, all they need to do is go look in the mirror.

[James Stout]

During that same speech, he boasted about this.

[Mia Wong]

I've called for for Zohrand Mandami to be deported. The only thing I want to see him running for is his gate at JFK on the deportation flight to Uganda.

[James Stout]

First they came for the Communists. Randy. See, I never thought the leopards would eat my face. Sobs. A Florida congressman with Twitter pronouns listed as Hebrew slash hammer. Who's a member of the Leopards Eating People's Faces party. During the opening to the Republican Jewish Coalition event, Ted Cruz addressed this moment of fracture within the establishment right as a, quote, unquote, time of choosing and said that in the past six months, he's currently, quote, seen more anti Semitism on the right than I had in my entire life. This is a poison. And I believe we are facing an existential crisis in our party and our country, unquote. Cruz later shared a Free Press article on his comments. The CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Matt Brooks, told Jewish Insider that he is, quote, appalled, offended and disgusted that Kevin Roberts and Heritage would stand with Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuente and that there would be a, quote, reassessment of our relationship with Heritage in light of this, unquote. On November 3rd, Missouri Senator and J6 supporter Josh Hawley denounced Fuentes's rhetoric as anti Semitic, telling Jewish Insider, quote, that's not who we are as Republicans, as conservatives. The question for us as conservatives is are those views going to define who we are? I think we need to say no, no. As a conservative but also as a Christian, there is no place for anti Semitic hatred tropes, any of that stuff. Do we really want to be a part of what we've seen happen on college campuses? Unquote. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, the co chair of the Senate Anti Semitism Task Force, told Jewish Insider that he was, quote, a little surprised that Heritage jumped out in support of Carlson and Nick Fuentes to see, say, hey, we want them in our camp. After the statements that were made, Heritage could have just sat back and not said anything. But instead they chose to jump out on their side. I don't get that. Unquote. Like Ben Shapiro and Josh Hawley, James Lankford related this to a perceived bipartisan crisis. Quote, the left has seen an implosion of their party based on anti Semitism rising in their party party. I don't want to see the same thing happen on the right. What I've tried to be very clear on is that the new right is now quoting an old wrong, unquote. Senator Rick Scott of Florida basically said the same thing, quote, the Democrat Party, we already have a party that's for anti Semitism and is against Israel. The Republican Party is going to stand for Israel and we're going to stand against anti Semitism. I don't think there's any question unconscious, quote, as if the Democrat Party is against Israel. And it's astonishing to watch all of these senators cope with the results of years of watering down accusations of anti Semitism to simply reflect any criticism of Israel as they're now facing a massive resurgence of genuine anti Semitism from known anti Semitic actors on the right. Turns out it's way easier to police peace campus anti genocide protests then deal with the anti Semitism spread on the massive platforms of Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson. But not all senators are worried. Lindsey Graham, while speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition, was less worried about Tucker Fuentes and the future of the party.

[Robert Evans]

So I just want to say I.

[Mia Wong]

Feel good about the Republican Party. I feel good about where we're going.

[Robert Evans]

As a nation nation.

[Mia Wong]

We're killing all the right people and.

[Robert Evans]

We'Re cutting your taxes.

[James Stout]

Trump is my favorite president.

[Mia Wong]

We've run out of bombs.

[Robert Evans]

We didn't run out of bombs in World War II.

[James Stout]

So to those who worry about these stupid interviews and far off places, don't worry.

[Mia Wong]

The Republican party party has figured it out. When it comes to Israel, we're killing.

[James Stout]

All the right people here at the leopards eating people's faces party. Surely the leopards will never eat my or my friends faces. On the night of November 3, Heritage President Kevin Roberts gave a speech at Hillsdale College on anti Semitism and cancel culture. He first talked for two minutes about why he inherited Heritage will continue to oppose cancellation and the importance of loyalty toward friends, and defended his previous statement by reiterating that if you have a problem with someone's quote, content, issues or ideas, then by all means go debate them, unquote. But then he admitted that his mistake, which was made, quote unquote with the best intentions, was focusing on the legitimate problem of cancellation over other problems like anti Semitism. The Roberts then immediately justified his rhetoric as an attempt to reach out to the quote unquote, several million young men on the quote unquote far fringes of the right who are increasingly anti Semitic.

[Mia Wong]

And our motivation at Heritage for making that statement was to begin appealing even more than we have to those largely disaffected young men who are looking for belonging and identity by following the wrong people.

[James Stout]

This pseudo apology continues to frame this primarily as an issue of cancellation. Who is asking to cancel? Tucker Roberts acts as if there is nothing in between a lifelong endorsement and total cancellation. After Roberts comments at Hillsdale College, another member of the Heritage Antisemitism Task Force force, attorney Ian Speer, announced that he was leaving Heritage and posted a statement calling Robert's Hillsdale College speech a quote, strategic non apology that doubles down on loyalty to Tucker Carlson muses about welcoming groipers in the groiper, curious into the movement and continues to gaslight everyone about cancellation when that clearly isn't the issue, unquote. That Same day, Tuesday, November 4, Chris DeMuth, a Heritage Distinguished Fellow Fellow, also confirmed his resignation and an email leaked from the co chairs of the Heritage affiliated National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism sent to task force members with a list of demands to Heritage President Kevin Roberts. Demands including that he delete his initial video, apologize to Jews and Christians who quote, believe that Israel has a special role to play both biblically and politically, unquote a demand to condemn but not cancel Council Tucker Carlson's anti Semitic content and statements, and host Shabbat dinners for the Heritage interns and junior staff. To quote directly from this leaked email addressing Roberts, quote, you pointed out repeatedly that we face a challenge in reaching disenfranchised young men who are caught in the spells of Nick Fuentes and others. To address this issue specifically, we recommend hiring a visiting fellow fellow, one who shares mainstream conservative views on Israel, Jews and Christian Zionists who would help identify strategies and tools to win Gen Z and beyond. It is clear that there is an internal battle within the conservative movement over who is to be included. The division between no enemy to the right versus a moral conservatism demands our attention. A conference that provides some guidelines to the movement on how to best keep unity without needing to include the worst among us, unquote. Two days later, the National Task Force decided to break ties with the Heritage foundation, writing in an email that it was, quote, important for us to continue the work of the task force outside the Heritage foundation for a season, unquote writing that this whole incident, quote, exposed a serious problem within the conservative movement, unquote. It's been like this for a long time. They've just been so focused on campus activists protesting the Palestinian genocide that they've missed the festering anti Semitism spreading across the right, quote. The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism will also now expand our work to fight the rising scourge of anti Semitism on the right, right beyond our previous work combating the pro Hamas movement on the Left, unquote. On November 18, the task force will be hosting a conference in Washington on, quote, exposing and countering extremism and anti Semitism on the right in partnership with the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel. It could happen here. Will return after these messages. At this point, Heritage went into complete damage control. Roberts apologized during a Heritage All Hands meeting last Wednesday, November 5, quote, I made a mistake and I let you down and I let down this institution, period, Full stop, unquote. Roberts claimed that it was the since resigned chief of Staff Ryan Newhouse who wrote the script for Robert's initial video video entirely himself and lied about the script being approved by a handful of colleagues. Roberts called the use of the phrase a venomous coalition, a quote, unquote, terrible choice of words. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Roberts said he was willing to resign but felt a, quote, unquote, moral obligation to repair the situation and had told the Heritage foundation board of directors, quote, I made the mess, let me clean it up, unquote. During the All Hands meeting, Roberts explained that the video came to be because Heritage was under pressure to make a statement that Carlson was, quote, no longer part of the conservative movement, unquote. Later in this meeting, Roberts acknowledged that there could be a, quote, limiting principle to no cancellation. Longtime Heritage research fellow Robert Rector, actor, went on a tirade against Tucker and Fuentes, likening Tucker's show to stepping into a lunatic asylum and advocated for A return of right wing cancellation.

[Mia Wong]

Because if you don't have boundaries on who you regard inside the movement, the movement will destroy itself and it will create a PR nightmare for everybody in it. And the boundaries that he set forth, William buckley in early 1960s were twofold. You have to expunge all anti Semitism, all of it, but that's just part of it from the conservative movement. The other is you have to expel the lunatics, okay? The lunatics who think that Eisenhower was a communist, okay? And a whole bunch of. And we have them back now, okay? They are both here, back just the way they were in 1950 on. And we have to go back and set the general parameters. You say, oh, we don't cancel. We do cancel. Did we cancel David Duke? Yes. You don't even know who David Duke was. Probably most of you, you know, yes. Do we cancel the John Birch Society? Yes. Okay? Because they were harmful. Because if you're there in your movement, you look like clowns.

[James Stout]

This highlights so much of my frustration around this whole controversy with all of these conservatives at the LEOP Eating People's Faces party trying to say that obviously the leopards who are eating people's faces aren't actually conservatives, despite them being a part of the Leopards Eating People's faces party. Bircher ism has achieved a near total capture of the modern day Republican Party, especially under Trump. You can't remove the John Birch Society element from the modern day Republican Party without the whole party collapsing. They won. That's what the party is now. Now that's what Heritage's Project 2025 is. Kevin Roberts responded to Rector's tirade by continuing to advocate that Heritage should attempt to bring some of Fuentes's audience into the conservative fold.

[Mia Wong]

But if there's a segment of that audience who might be with us, and they really are not Nazis and anti Semites, then maybe we can eventually bring.

[Garrison Davis]

Them into the fold.

[Mia Wong]

I think we have to think that way.

[James Stout]

None of these people can be allowed to distance themselves from the leopards Eating People's faces party. To quote a write up from the right wing rag National Review, quote, the Heritage staff meeting exposed something of a generational divide within Heritage. As one staffer who claimed to represent the perspective of the foundation's younger employees said that she did not have a problem with Robert's initial defense of Carlson and wanted to make sure that the viewpoints of her generation, who she said were generally more critical of Israel, would still be welcome at Heritage, unquote. The Heritage Tucker Fuentes debacle has come at a time where the right was already in the middle of a debate over how to handle infighting, conservative anti cancel culture and the newly adopted principle of no enemies to the right. After years of suffering from liberal led deplatforming campaigns during the quote unquote woke era era, this debate really came to a head last month after the young Republican pro Hitler racist group chat scandal dropped, which was subsequently brushed off by people like Matt Walsh and Vice President J.D. vance, who dismissed the texts telling people who are concerned about it to quote unquote, grow up while referring to the chat as a college group chat, calling the members kids and young boys. Place when the group chat in question was made up of men in their 30s. Don't put things on the Internet.

[Mia Wong]

Like, be careful with what you post.

[James Stout]

If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going.

[Robert Evans]

To leak it in an effort to.

[James Stout]

Try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.

[Mia Wong]

But the reality is that kids do.

[James Stout]

Stupid things, especially young boys.

[Mia Wong]

They tell edgy, offensive jokes like, that's what kids do. And I really don't want to to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive, stupid joke is caused to ruin their lives.

[James Stout]

And at some point we're all going.

[Mia Wong]

To have to say, enough of this bs.

[James Stout]

We're not going to allow the worst moment in a 21 year old's group.

[Mia Wong]

Chat to ruin a kid's life for the rest of time.

[James Stout]

That's just not okay.

[Robert Evans]

Like, we live in a digital world.

[James Stout]

This stuff is now etched in stone online.

[Mia Wong]

We're all going to have to say, you know what?

[James Stout]

No, no, no. We're not doing this.

[Mia Wong]

We're not canceling kids because they do.

[James Stout]

Something stupid in a group chat.

[Mia Wong]

And if I have to be the.

[James Stout]

Person who carries that message forward, I'm fine with it. To quote Matt Walsh quote, I said a few weeks ago that we all need to band together in the wake of Charlie's death. And the answer I got back from a lot of people on the right was basically no. Well, okay then guys, we'll just lose. Instead, the left will keep the united front and defend their guys no matter what.

[Garrison Davis]

What?

[James Stout]

While we keep throwing each other to the wolves at every opportunity. Great plan. The left actually wants me dead. Like specifically and personally. They're the reason why I need security at my house, why I worry for my children's safety. We've had to make major changes to the way we live our daily lives to account for this danger. So when I say that I want to stop the infighting and unite against this threat, that's the contact text. I'm sorry if the squabbles among right wingers just kind of pale in comparison for me. If you have the luxury to care more about that, I envy you. I truly do. Last week, Megyn Kelly interviewed Tucker and Shapiro across a two day event where she asked both about the possibility of uniting the right.

[Mia Wong]

Is there any way that you and Ben Shapiro could. Can actually find your way to detente?

[Robert Evans]

I'm not against Ben Shapiro.

[James Stout]

He did like a 40 minute thing.

[Robert Evans]

Yesterday calling me dangerous and all this stuff.

[James Stout]

It's like I didn't watch it because why.

[Robert Evans]

But I got a lot of texts.

[James Stout]

About it and it's like, I'm not. I don't think Ben Shapiro is driving.

[Mia Wong]

A lot of this stuff.

[Robert Evans]

I don't consider him like the world's.

[James Stout]

Greatest force for evil.

[Robert Evans]

I don't feel that way at all.

[James Stout]

I don't actually think about him ever.

[Mia Wong]

So I don't want to have a.

[James Stout]

War with Ben Shapiro.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know if.

[James Stout]

Does he really think that me doing an interview in which I explained that anti Semitism is wrong to one of the lead purveyors of anti Semitism, that.

[Robert Evans]

That somehow makes me a Nazi?

[James Stout]

Like, what. What is the argument here?

[Mia Wong]

I'm gonna ask him tomorrow night.

[James Stout]

No, but I don't even understand what the argument is. All I know is that the right.

[Robert Evans]

And I've been on the right since.

[James Stout]

Before Ben was born, is acting like the left in such an amazingly precise.

[Robert Evans]

Way that I'm like, what the hell is going on? On.

[James Stout]

I agree with Tucker that the right is in fact acting like the left by again massaging its radicals in the name of some sort of faux unity. That sound detanti because. Because again, I'm not. Again, trying to turn this personal is.

[Mia Wong]

A mistake, I know. But can it happen?

[James Stout]

During the fallout of the Tucker Fuentes interview, far right influencer Mike Cernovich said, quote, there's a lot of bad faith going on. So this is for those few of you perplexed about the reluctance of MAGA people to ever disavow anyone. We are old and we know it never stops. They will always demand more. Hence we draw a hard line. It's not our job to be Internet cops, unquote. After trailblazing this rhetoric for the new right now, Walsh and Vance find themselves in an uncomfortable position. Walsh, due to his employer, Ben Shapiro advance because of his future Political prospects. In the midst of the Fuentes controversy, Walsh posted, quote, we have a very short window of time where we control Congress and the White House and we have the power to push our agenda forward. We're going to waste this window fighting with each other. We're going to squander everything. I'm fearful, serious, honestly, unquote. I have just about had it with Matt Walsh. Matt, you work for this fucking guy. Whose side are you on? Already cut the Matt Walsh. Every day on his show, he goes on Twitter, in his show and says, this is all just gossip and drama.

[Mia Wong]

It ain't gossip and drama.

[James Stout]

This is the war. Might not be the one you wanted, but this is the one that's going on. So Walsh wants to recuse himself from this and say, say, hey, man, I just care about America. Hey, fucker, it's happening in America right now. Tucker's an American. Last I checked, this is going on here. We didn't make antisemitism the wedge issue, they did. We didn't make fighting Israel's wars the wedge issue, they did.

[Mia Wong]

And Walsh wants to get on Twitter and say, I just don't want to talk about it.

[James Stout]

I just want to keep taking a paycheck from the worst of the worst. Shapiro, Shapiro, you gotta pick a side. And nobody can let him get away with this. As long as you're America first, you need to be in his reply saying, no, Matt, you work for Ben Shapiro. Vance's only statement about this debacle reads, quote, the infighting is stupid. I care about my fellow citizens, particularly young Americans, being able to afford a decent loan life. I care about immigration and our sovereignty, and I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home. If you care about these things too, let's work together, Unquote. Compare that to Mike Pence sharing an article critical of Fuentes by the Wall Street Journal editorial board titled the Right's New Anti Semites. Meanwhile, Nick Fuentes is bragging that he has vampire Vance caught in his groiper squeeze, threatening to Send gripers to 2028 primary states to disrupt Vance's campaign. Much like the groiper war of 2019 targeting TP USA. He's getting squeezed because the groipers are on the one hand saying, hey, listen, fat boy, we want America first. You want to run for president, we want to hear you say america first.

[Robert Evans]

First.

[James Stout]

And on the other side, he's got his donors, and they're saying they're horrible anti Semites. You have to disavow them you have to forcefully condemn them.

[Robert Evans]

Condemn Tucker.

[Mia Wong]

Condemn the gripers.

[James Stout]

Now advance condemns the gripers. We are deploying to Iowa. Raise your right hand. I swear I'm gonna move to Iowa. Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada and South Carolina and one primary after the next and we will go to every town hall, we will go to every meet and greet where there's four or five people and we will be there and we'll do it for free. Nick has since laid out a more clear three year strategy for his fans to shape the upcoming presidential primary and infiltrate the next Republican White House. In some ways I think Ted Cruz is right. This has been a time of choosing. The only problem is that the choice has already been made. The Fuentes interview is already Tucker Carlson's fourth most popular video ever. Just two weeks after its release, Fuentes's quote tweet of Shapiro's takedown video video ratioed Shapiro by 120,000 likes. Fuentes last 10 live streams have had an average viewership of over 800,000 people on Rumble, beating Shapiro's average YouTube view count by hundreds of thousands. The New York Times has put out seven pieces on Fuentes, both articles and opinions since the Tucker interview, plus other related news stories about Heritage and Tucker, which obviously mention Fuentes. Other outlets from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post have followed suit. CNN did a 5 minute and 30 second segment on the fallout of the Heritage Tucker Fuentes situation and what it means for the future of the Republican Party. CNN has since done more segments on the issue, including one with Ben Shapiro. Multiple Fuentes segments have also aired on msnbc. Here's a sampling.

[Mia Wong]

For once, Donald Trump has remained silent.

[James Stout]

On an issue as well as J.D.

[Mia Wong]

Vance, who is reportedly personally close to Carlson. It also has opened up an uncomfortable discussion for the GOP about what place people like Nick Fuentes have within the MAGA movement. And now to the brewing war within MAGA over the future of the American conservative movement. It comes as far right influencer Nick Fuentes recently recently recorded a cordial interview at the invitation of Tucker Carlson that more than 5 million people have viewed.

[James Stout]

The latest op ed in the Los.

[Mia Wong]

Angeles Times by our next guest is.

[James Stout]

Highlighting this growing division.

[Mia Wong]

Contributing writer Matt Lewis contends that some.

[James Stout]

Trump loyalists are now objecting to maga's.

[Mia Wong]

Quote, white power element.

[James Stout]

Matt joins us now. He's an author, columnist and conservative writer.

[Mia Wong]

Matt, the fact that we're even talking.

[James Stout]

About a quote unquote white power element.

[Mia Wong]

Is I think concerning on its face. But this is also something that's persisted within MAGA over the course of the last 10 years.

[James Stout]

I mean, I remember covering when Trump.

[Mia Wong]

Himself had dinner with Nick Fuentes at.

[James Stout]

The invitation of Kanye west just a.

[Mia Wong]

Few years ago, November 2022 at Mar a Lago. Why was this not a conversation then.

[James Stout]

And what's changed now?

[Mia Wong]

Look, yeah, I think you're totally right. I mean, part of it is that Donald Trump has actually been a really.

[Robert Evans]

Good friend to Israel.

[James Stout]

I never thought the leopards would eat my face sobs. Conservative columnist who voted for the leopards eating people' faces party Even calling Fuentes a quote unquote white power figure shows how outdated and out of touch the talking heads and many journalists are. It's not the 80s anymore. White power? What are you talking about? That's not what Fuentes is doing. If you can't recognize that, you shouldn't be talking about it. These talking heads are completely ill equipped to understand Gen Z politics or the lack thereof thereof. We saw this in the reporting on Tyler Robinson and the past few mass killing fandom school shooters. Here's MSNBC again.

[Mia Wong]

According to some sources at the Heritage Foundation, a lot of their interns, something like 40 to 50% or something, agree.

[Garrison Davis]

With foes, which is really stunning if.

[Robert Evans]

You were around the conservative movement, let's.

[Mia Wong]

Say in the George W. Bush era.

[James Stout]

The fucking George W. Bush era era. Unbelievable. Nick Fuentes's politically vulgar obscenity is exactly what pushes his clips into people's social media feeds, cutting through the dry neoconservative boomer slop of older Republican content creators. As Trump 2.0 continues and MAGA becomes the establishment again, it's not going to be cool to listen to to Benny Johnson, whoever's hosting the new Charlie Kirk show, or Ben Shapiro, to the extent to which listening to any of those is even still cool or countercultural. Fuentes doesn't have this same problem. He can ride the cultural vibe shift of the 2024 election and still appeal to the reactionary tendencies of some young men, but is outside enough to continue benefiting from the Gen Z thirst for anti establishment populism. At the end of last month there was a short article in the Atlantic titled the Firewall against Nick Fuentes is Crumbling. The white supremacist influencer is entering the MAGA mainstream. And yeah, that's correct, the attack agreement against talking about covering or platforming Nick has slowly fallen apart the past few months. Google Trends graphs of search popularity has Nick Fuentes high above Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro or Candace Owens. And considering Nick's newfound fame. He isn't trying to slow down or moderate his views to appeal to a bigger audience. And he doesn't need to. The audience is coming to him to explain why his audience is growing so much. It's not that he's gotten less ideologically dogmatic as of recently recent. It's that the zoomer world has caught up to the anti ideology behind Nick Fuentes. The void of animosity that animates Fuentes, which is underneath his gesturing to relics of tradition and culture to offer a North Star through the grievance inspired nihilism he actually embodies. Nick Fuentes is a meme. His clips spread like a meme. His Griper movement is named after a meme. And Nick is ready, willing and able to seize the spotlight he has been gifted to Nick. This controversy demonstrates that the prestigious Heritage foundation is territory ripe for Griper infiltration. What this signifies is that Heritage, the accreditation institution, the brain, the.

[Mia Wong]

Priestly class.

[James Stout]

That promulgates to Republican dogma, if that institution says that groiperism is up for debate, it's on the table. It's not canceled. We should talk about the ideas and we should defend the people that defend the gripers or talk to the gripers. It signifies that one, that place is a safe place harbor, as I said before. So a groiper could go to work at Heritage and maybe feel welcome and comfortable and he won't be fired. And you might have a groiper at Heritage who is gonna be writing a policy paper about who knows, foreign policy, education, immigration. They might be considered like an expert and maybe they'll go on to be a legislative director for a set of senator and they might be writing laws for the U.S. government. It's conceivable if the president of Heritage says Tucker is in the big tent, then that means that Tucker and Nick Fuente sympathizers are allowed to be employed at Heritage and thus they might be in the position to determine the dogma. They can write the doctrine. Conservative writer Rob Drear has claimed. Claimed based on DC contacts and talking with Gen Z staffers, quote, between 30 to 40% of the Zoomers who work in official Republican Washington are fans of Nick Fuentes, unquote, writing that this is emblematic of a generation quote, willing to revel in transgressions such as they tear down the pillars of civilization just for the fun of seeing those who have been gatekept away way breaching containment. The groiper thing is real. It is not a fringe movement in that it really has infiltrated young conservative Washington networks to a significant degree. Unquote. After the young Republican racist group Chat story dropped, Nick Fuentes said on his show, quote, gripers are all over the government and everyone knows that. There's gripers at Harvard, there's gripers in all the Ivy League schools. I talked to all of them. There's gripers in government, there's gripers in every department, every agency, unquote. There's no reason to believe Nick is exaggerating. This is something he has advocated his followers do for years. And stories like the young Republican pro Hitler group Chat are evidence of of this. Nick Fuentes is mainstream now. Nick Fuentes is a legitimate part of the mainstream conservative movement even if he doesn't become the quote, unquote successor to his longtime nemesis, Charlie Kirk. Fuentes is already on course to be the main figure to have gained the most from Kirk's death and emerged as an contagious. This has been. It could happen here. See you on the other side.

[Mia Wong]

This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing.

[Garrison Davis]

Facility, he knows keeping the line up.

[Mia Wong]

And and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger. Because when a drive belt gets damaged.

[Garrison Davis]

Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs.

[Mia Wong]

And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger.

[Garrison Davis]

For the ones who get it done.

[Robert Evans]

All I know is what I've been.

[James Stout]

And that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[Mia Wong]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Robert Evans]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Mia Wong]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Garrison Davis]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky.

[Mia Wong]

Housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[James Stout]

I did not know her and I.

[Ahmed Moore]

Did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.

[James Stout]

That y' all say it.

[Mia Wong]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[James Stout]

They made me say that I poured.

[Garrison Davis]

Gas on her.

[Mia Wong]

From lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about.

[James Stout]

Just how far Our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Mia Wong]

America, y' all better wake the hell up.

[Garrison Davis]

Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Mia Wong]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Garrison Davis]

Welcome to Decoding Women's Health.

[James Stout]

I'm Dr. Elizabeth Poynter, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health.

[Garrison Davis]

Institute in New York City. On this show, I'll be talking to.

[James Stout]

Top researchers and top clinicians, asking them your burning questions and bringing that information about women's health and midlife directly to you.

[Mia Wong]

100% of women go through menopause. It can be such a struggle for our quality of life. But even if it's natural, why should.

[Dana Al Kurd]

We suffer through it? The types of symptoms that people talk.

[James Stout]

About is forgetting everything.

[Mia Wong]

I never used to to forget things.

[Dana Al Kurd]

They're concerned that one, they have dementia.

[Mia Wong]

And the other one is do I have adhd? There is unprecedented promise with regard to cannabis and cannabinoids to sleep better, to have less pain, to have better mood.

[Dana Al Kurd]

And also to have better day to day life.

[Garrison Davis]

Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr.

[James Stout]

Elizabeth Poynter on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Run a business and not thinking about radio, Think again.

[Mia Wong]

Cause more people are listening to the.

[James Stout]

Radio and iHeart today than they were 20 years ago. And only iHeart broadcast radio connects with more Americans than TV, digital, social, any other media, even twice as many teens than TikTok. And that reach means everything.

[Mia Wong]

Just think about the universal marketing formula.

[James Stout]

The number of consumers who hear your.

[Mia Wong]

Message times the response rate equals the results.

[James Stout]

Now let's get those results growing for your business.

[Mia Wong]

Radio's here now more than ever.

[James Stout]

And iheart's leading the way. Think radio can help your business. Think iheart Streaming, podcasting and radio where the reach is real. Let us show [e-mail] that's iheartadvertising.com or.

[Mia Wong]

Call 844-844 iheart1 one more time. Just call 844-844, iheart and get radio working for you.

[James Stout]

This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong, James Stout and Robert Evans. This episode we are covering the week of November 5th to November 13th.

[Robert Evans]

That's how I feel about the week.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's how you feel.

[Robert Evans]

Uh huh.

[James Stout]

Well, the shutdown is now over. The longest shutdown in U.S. history. Last weekend, eight Democratic senators caved on the shutdown, approving a deal to reopen the government without extending the existing Obamacare subsidies, Gaining only a promise to have a Senate floor vote on health care tax credits sometime in December. With no indication given that this vote would pass the chamber and no commitment from Speaker Mike Johnson that he would hold a vote in the House. None of the Democratic senators that sided with the Republicans are up for reelection in 2026.

[Ahmed Moore]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And I think that suggests pretty clearly that the was orchestrated and staged by the Democratic Party as a whole. You don't have. Oh, we picked eight specific people who you can't vote against in the next cycle.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it was very clearly just stage managing.

[James Stout]

Specifically with the Schumer being somewhat in charge of the Senate Democrats who likely would have been the person orchestrating this, who himself did not vote for this deal, was able to personally vote against it despite likely being the one orchestrating this entire deal.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Two of the senators who signed on are retiring at the end of their term. But even if we can't get health care through this shutdown bill, you know what these Democrats did did able to squeeze in there? Well, I don't know if the Democrats squeezed it in there, but it is in there. That's a Delta 8 hemp THC ban which is included. Horrible. In the Senate funding bill.

[Mia Wong]

Absolutely awful.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, of course it is.

[Robert Evans]

Boy howdy. And the hemp industry has gotten angry about this. They're planning to fight it in 2026. I guess we'll all see because it takes a while to take effect. But yeah, that is. There's a lot of hemp farms in Kentucky that are pissed off right now.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[James Stout]

So we can't get healthcare, but at least we also can't get hemp thc.

[Mia Wong]

So what if there wasn't bread or circuses? What would happen then?

[Robert Evans]

Wow.

[Garrison Davis]

We would vote for the Democrats, Mia. Because they're the least bad option. That's. I think that's how that goes. Right. Like I've been on Blue Sky a few times this week. I think I've got it pretty drilled in.

[James Stout]

Catherine Cortez Maestro of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Tim Kane of Virginia, Angus King of Maine. No Kings. Protest member just dropped. Katherine Cortez Mosto of Nevada and Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire. Speaking of the Senate and the Oversight Committee, this whole Jeffrey Epstein things doesn't seem to be going away, does it?

[Robert Evans]

Man, like you, I was a skeptic about, like, could there be anything in there that's actually going to hurt Trump if he hasn't been hurt so far by everything that is out there, there? And I don't know, I guess I'm still a little bit of a skeptic, but it's increasingly hard to be because, like, how much. How could it be worse than this?

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. There's something that isn't this.

[Robert Evans]

How could it be worse than Donald Trump was at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion and walked into a glass door because he was so busy ogling children.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. The fact that this is what they released to distract you from the stuff they don't want to release.

[Mia Wong]

Well, this is the Democratic.

[Garrison Davis]

To be fair. Well, both.

[James Stout]

This was the emails they were able to subpoena from Jeffrey Epstein's estate.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

As a part of the oversight investigation into the federal government's investigation of the Epstein files.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yesterday, the Oversight Committee released this batch of files related to the Epstein investigation. Mostly of note, a series of emails from about 2011 to 2019, including one from Epstein written to Maxwell from 2011, quote, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump victim, redacted name victim spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. Police chief, et. I'm 75% there, unquote. In a short email exchange From December of 2018, an unknown individual sent Jeffrey Epstein this message, quote, it will all blow over. They're really just trying to take down Trump and doing whatever they can to do this. That with Epstein replying, yes, thicks. Thanks. It's wild because I am the one able to take him down. Whatever could he mean by that?

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Who knows?

[Robert Evans]

There's no way to tell. There's absolutely no way to tell.

[Garrison Davis]

If you are currently in high school English class and people tell you you will not be able to make millions of dollars if you're unable to use grammar or punctuation or capital letters correct correctly, that that appears not to have been an impediment to Jeffrey Epstein.

[James Stout]

Jeffrey Epstein's typing style is fascinating.

[Mia Wong]

It's awful.

[Garrison Davis]

It's extremely distinctive, which I suppose is a valuable thing in itself.

[James Stout]

No, it's, it's, it's fascinating. But I mean, there's there, there's a lot of different emails of note. A 2019 email from Epstein to Michael Wolf, quote, victim Mar? A Lago redacted. Trump said, he asked me to resign. Sign. Never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop, unquote.

[Mia Wong]

Which, by the way, the way that I've been. I've been seeing that quote passed around is just that he knew about the girls part, which makes it a little bit technically ambiguous as to what he's talking about. But the second part being as he asked just Lane to stop. Oh, that's as blatant as it could possibly be.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

What Epstein is saying there is really clear.

[James Stout]

The main thing that's clear from this exchange is at the very least, the extent to which Trump was very aware of.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Epstein's activities.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, well, in which everyone was not just fucking Donald Trump, but like the Obama White House's chief legal counsel from 2011 and 2014. Right. Who he messaged with regularly and seems to have been flirting with him. Right. She seems to have been into him and they're all just kind of casually. Or he is with them casually joking about, like, being a pedophile.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. There's emails from Steve Bannon here, who he's just chatting with, like he emails Peter Thiel at one point.

[James Stout]

The Steve Bannon Exchange is from 2019 from Jeffrey Epstein talking about a reaction recent, like state visit message Prince Andrew and Trump today, too funny. Another reply from Epstein. Recall Prince Andrew's accuser came out of Mar? A Lago and response from Bannon. Can't believe nobody's making you the connective tissue.

[Mia Wong]

Jesus Christ.

[James Stout]

Wild, wildly blatant stuff. In exchange from 2015 from Michael Wolf to Jeffrey Epstein. I hear CNN is planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you, either on air or in scrum afterwards. Epstein replied, if you were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be? Wolf responded to that quote, I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the House. House, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. Or if it really looks like he could win, you could save him generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say, jeffrey's a great guy and he's gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.

[Garrison Davis]

Imagine putting that in writing to a Gmail address.

[James Stout]

Gmail is fascinating. Is a fascinating choice by Epstein.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. Also, the fact that every goddamn one of these messages ends with sent on my iPad is, is. It's just constantly amusing.

[James Stout]

Sent on my iPhone is for a lot of these.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, they're always like two extra spaces between sentences. Like you can tell they're old people typing on iPads a lot of the time with their fucking clumsy ass fingers. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful.

[Garrison Davis]

Text size huge.

[James Stout]

Some really disturbing exchanges from Epstein and a man named Landon Thomas Jr. With Epstein saying, would you like a photo of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?

[Robert Evans]

Sure, bro.

[James Stout]

Hawaiian tropical girl, Lauren Petrella. Epstein then sent a link displaying an image of a woman, quote, My 20 year old girlfriend in 93, three that after two years I gave to Donald, unquote.

[Mia Wong]

One thing I want to note here is that Landon Thomas Jr. Yeah, baby. Long, long time journalist at the New York Times and he's just handed this financial journalist.

[Robert Evans]

So he couldn't do anything with it. He could do nothing with it. Obviously he's a financial journalist. He can't report on what financier Jeffrey Epstein tells him about Donald Trump walking into a glass. Glass door because he was ogling naked children at Jeffrey Epstein's mansion. That's a thing that Jeffrey joked about to him and the New York Times never printed.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

In 2016 they had this. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

There's a tendency, and I understand why, to get sort of burned out on this.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

To be like, oh my God, it's more Epstein news. But we should be furious about this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

This, this was, you know, what, what we have here. And this isn't even the stuff they're trying to hide.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

This isn't the Epstein files. This is, this is just the emails that the oversight committee has been able to get.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

And it suggests very plainly that we are ruled by a group of pedophiles. And I refuse to call them a cabal because cabal implies that they work in the shadows. They were not. The entire ruling class knew this was going on openly and they're joking about it. Yeah, they don't care. Yeah. They think it's funny.

[James Stout]

There's this exchange from 2017 between Jeffrey and an unknown individual where Jeffrey says, you are welcome at my house always and more private. The person responds, very well, just send me the address again and the code to the door so I can get to the second floor and send me the day and time. Thanks. Jeffrey said, 10:00pm Should I bring special cake from New York? The unknown individual responded. Did. Yes. And then once they arrived, they sent the message, quote, I'm at the door, but I will wait for my time. I don't want to come early to find Trump in your house. Two laughing emojis, 2017.

[Garrison Davis]

Christ.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, and the reason they're doing this, right? The reason they're just. They're so blatant about this, reason they all think it's so funny. The reason they're just doing this over completely unencrypted email in a way that, like someone. Someone planning a completely legal protest, where you stand outside side of a building with signs, right, would not plan it like this. The reason they're doing this is that these people and men like them have been ruling this country for 500 years. In an uninterrupted line from Columbus's fucking crew through on Hispaniola, through Jefferson and Sally Hemings, like, to Epstein, it is an uninterrupted line. They think that they are completely invincible and that no one will ever challenge them. And, you know, maybe. Maybe they're fucking right. Like, for. For all of the sort of moaning and complaining about woke censorship and MeToo and cancel culture, these people never shut the fuck up, ever. At any point, all of these people are running around to their fucking Epstein conferences, taking a bunch of money to talk about eugenics.

[Robert Evans]

Well, and that's. I mean, there was some fun stuff about that in here too, because he was emailing with Lawrence Kraus. Less eugenics and more hatred of women, where. That too, like, there were very funny emails where Krauss was being like, you know, I made a comment in a speech that half of all the IQ in the world comes from women, but they're more than half the population. Ha. Like a lot of just, like, casual. It's a really interesting insight into how people at kind of the highest levels of finance and government and just wealth in general and in media, like, communicated with each other during this period of time. I'm sure it's different now.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Because people are even less good at writing. But, yeah, it's a. It's a useful. It's a. It's a snapshot that we don't get anywhere else of, like, this. This chunk of the. I mean, talking about that fucker at the New York Times who, by the way, was shit canned in 2019 for soliciting donations from Jeffrey Epstein and not informing them of his personal relationship. But again, the Times never published anything based on their conversation. It's the same group of people who have been telling us every issue that, like, might Tangentially be connected to, like, transitioning is newsworthy, and it's incredibly newsworthy if this, like, official at a college might have plagiarized once in their childhood, but. Or in their youth, but, like, it's not newsworthy at all to talk about the possible future president walking. Walking face first into a glass door because he's staring at naked children in a pedophile's mansion.

[Mia Wong]

This is the period, this is the period where they were. They were running stories about the food at Grinnell College.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And you can, you know, and there's another, I think, part of this too, where if you look through these things, you can find these people all complaining about me too. Right? Yeah, you can. You can find these people all doing their sort of like, oh, these are all the same people who do all of the like, oh, like, we're the bold truth tellers, blah, blah, blah. We're being censored by, like, cancer culture. I want to take a stab at the question that these, that you're actually not allowed to ask, you know, and what I say you're not allowed to ask is these people don't want you to ask all the fucking hedge fund managers, the CEOs, all the senators, all the presidents, every one of these fucking files does not want you to ask a simple question. Why do we have a ruling class? Like, we gave them 500 years of running this continent, and do you know what they produced again if 500 years of like, uninterrupted Petaflow pedophiles.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

We are, we are on. We are on year 500 of this from, like, Columbus to Jefferson to Epstein to Trump. Right? So why do we have this?

[Robert Evans]

That's just not how people, people, no one's going to a store or to the politics store or heading out to vote and voting for another year of the pedophile ruling class. People don't really think. People don't tend to think about it that way. And in part they don't, because the ruling strata of the United States States has not portrayed itself in the same unbroken way. Right. Like, it very much makes an effort not to in, in, in public. And there's an extent to which it is. It's certainly different than, like, the old aristocracy of the British and the landed gentry that ruled the British Empire. It's not exactly the same, but it is like the same kind of people, and in a lot of cases, the same families that continue to control large amounts of wealth and inherit political power. I mean, there's another kin, Kennedy, who Seems like a nice kid getting into politics just as we speak, right?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know. I think I feel like we'll have a dedicated episode on more of the Epstein stuff. Like, and, and there's an extent to which I keep thinking about that, like, bitten community where it's like, no one's on the other side of this issue that's listening to this podcast. Everybody's very angry about the pedophilia. Everybody's very angry about all of this stuff. And I have mostly been interpreting it through just like laughing, laughing over the last day or two, which is bad because it's like really bad stuff. You shouldn't just do that at it. But, like, what else. What other reactions? Like, you can pick and choose whatever you do. I think to your point, Mia, however you react to this is not going to change anything, right? Yeah, like, so far it hasn't.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, well, but I mean, okay, I don't think that's completely true. You can watch how just like, pissed off and scared these people were about, about, like, about MeToo.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

And like, you can, you can go listen to Bannon a couple of weeks ago talking about how if they lose the election, like, we're all going to prison. Yeah, right. Like, these people are, like, concerned about even, like, me too, which was a fairly milquetoe. Like, it wasn't like a particularly radical feminist movement.

[James Stout]

Right?

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Mia Wong]

And these people were losing their fucking minds about it. And you know, like, we, we have the potential to organize feminist movements that can actually do things about the.

[James Stout]

This.

[Mia Wong]

Like, we, we are capable of building new feminist movements. We did one not that long ago. That was a big part of this administration collapsing the first time, and we can do it again.

[Robert Evans]

I'm not saying there's no point in fighting them. I'm just saying, like, your reaction, the moment to the Epstein leaks doesn't matter as much as is this going to, Is this going to cause any kind of, like, long term resistance to the administration? Is this going to. And maybe it will, but, like, I guess the thing that I'm curious about is like, what, what is, what are, what are we doing to try and make this matter? Right? Because, like, that's, that's where I am.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, but the, the answer to the question is this going to matter? Is also something that every single one of us decides. Right? Because if we all just do nothing, then, yeah, nothing. Nothing will happen.

[Garrison Davis]

Right?

[Mia Wong]

Right. If we go mobilize, if we go do things to resist these people and we intensify the things we're already doing. If we start doing new things, if we start doing new sort of feminist insurgencies. Right. Then things can change. But if we don't, they're not going to. And we're just going to have another 500 years of these pedophiles ruling everything.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I mean, I think that it's probably more a matter of like, this is likely to shift more people away from the gop, at least in the immediate future. I don't think in the long term. I don't know that you don't build a coalition off of this because the dims certainly aren't trying to. You at least get this, like, wider awareness of where the real problem was. But I just don't know.

[James Stout]

I think it's going to be utilized electorally by some Republicans to eventually decouple the party from Trump.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[James Stout]

After this becomes more and more evident and they're looking for a way to get themselves out of becoming the Trump Party. And turning on him specifically through this issue will probably be one of the methods in which they do that. And you see that with, with some, with some people, like even like Mar. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Rod Dreher is writing about some stuff adjacent to this. Right. These are the guys who think Vance needs to lead the party away from Trump.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. And are already viewing Trump as a. As a sort of lame duck presidency in, in so much is that he's kind of failed to do a whole bunch of stuff, especially on the economy in the past year. Year. The midterms are about to get up and running. That's going to take up a whole bunch of energy. Everyone expects the Dems to do very well in the midterms and then prevent the Trump administration in the final two years from getting much of anything done through blocking things in Congress.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

That's what, that's what a lot of people on the far right are like taking this situation as, as, as basically January to now was the second Trump administration. This is the most that they're going to get done. And, and now it's kind of all downhill from here. Yeah. And they're looking far beyond Trump now.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes. I want to tack back to the times real quickly before we move past this. Like G. Some of the Zmails you read, if I'm not mistaken, were like in December of 2018, right. Yeah.

[James Stout]

The 2018 ones are Epstein saying, I am the one able to take him down. That one's from 2018.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about, I mean, the week before the midterms and a week after midterms, in terms of Times front page stories. Right. The week before the midterms, 2018, the Times ran 12 stories on the quote, unquote, migrant caravan on the front page around 24.

[James Stout]

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

[Garrison Davis]

Right. The week after it ran five, the migrant caravan continued to grow as more people. I was physically present in Tijuana right. As the caravan was arriving and I continued to be present for the rest of that year. The caravan continued to grow, more people continued to come. Right.

[Robert Evans]

This is.

[Garrison Davis]

And a choice was made not to cover the Epstein stuff that Robert spoke about. Right. A choice was also made at that time to really like this caravan was not huge, it was large, but it wasn't a huge remarkable number of migrants. And it occupied 12 front page stories during that one week before the election. Right. I don't know how else I could say this. Like they're literally saying, look over there.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And I guess that's part of my, part of my fear, Gare, is I think that is accurate as to how things are going to play out and that the Dems will have a good midterm and probably pretty much good results in the 2020. That's less clear to me, you know, because in part, if the Dems have a really good 2026 and then things continue to get worse, maybe we'll blame the party, I don't know.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Who, who's going to show up on the, you know, after Trump that, that's all a little unclear. But what worries me is that in the mix of all that we're going to get away from, and I think this is almost inevitable, actual accountability for these people. Like, I, I don't foresee their being strong punish. I, I foresee things moving forward possibly in a way where they get quite a bit better, but not where I don't see the likelihood of these people getting punished. And I don't know that somebody running in 2028 on a platform of we're going to hang these people in the street would win, but I think it's worth a shot.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's pretty far off. I, I really, yeah, I'm, I'm not sure sure how much this will still be relevant by then. I mean, after Mike Johnson for seven weeks delayed the swearing in of Arizona Representative Adelita Grijalva, she was finally sworn in yesterday on Wednesday and became the 218th required signature on the discharge petition to force a floor vote for the full release of The Epstein flag files. Johnson says this vote will happen next week. During this process, Trump held an emergency meeting in the Situation Room with Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche and Cash Patel to convince Lauren Bobbert to take her name off the petition, which would then result in it not being complete, enforcing the vote. They are certainly in a panic over this. The whole White House team is this morning, Thursday, Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt put out an amazing post on X, the Everything app. Quote, if not for the Jeffrey Epstein story, CNN would be forced to talk about how Chuck Schumer and the Democrats got shellacked by President Trump and Republicans in the government shutdown fight. It's clear this is another Democrat and mainstream media hoax fueled by fake outrage distract from the President's wins. Republicans, don't be fooled. President Trump will remain focused on making America affordable again. If not for the Jeffrey Epstein story.

[Robert Evans]

If not, aren't we all saying that.

[James Stout]

If the President wasn't a pedophile, then everyone would love him.

[Robert Evans]

If not for the child molestation, he'd be allowed to live in this neighborhood?

[James Stout]

So much the Megan Kelly thing in terms of.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

In terms of Republican Republicans reacting to this and trying to find a way to sort through and some of them are manufacturing like consent, like Megyn Kelly here and others I think are quite ready to just throw Trump to the wolves, frankly.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, there's a. So Megyn Kelly, I'm not going to play the clip from you all because having to listen to Megyn Kelly is.

[James Stout]

I've listened to four hours of Megyn Kelly this week. Mia.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, let's, let's know more. But, but she, she has this whole line about how she knows someone who's close to the case and has all the details and that person thinks, thinks that her exact quote is, I think there's a difference, a difference between a 15 year old and a 5 year old. I mean she literally is talking about how, oh, he was into the, he wasn't into four or five year olds. He's talking about, she says this and I quote barely legal types. And then she says 14 or 15, which not legal. Just pause, pause right there. 14, 15, not legal. I think there was a conversation to be had about the extent to which the barely legal like just turned 18 shit is to a large extent a product of like American pedophile culture and misogyny. But like those are 14 and 15 year olds and this is the, like, you know, this, this is the defense of these people are dragging out for this, which is that, oh well, he wasn't like literal like, like 5 year olds. So actually it's like they're doing the libertarian thing. It's like isn't a biafile or whatever the fuck.

[James Stout]

I think a lot of this is also the result of like the QAnon brained idea that like they're trafficking for year olds and like. No, this is mostly like really young teenagers. That's mostly what these guys are into. And Megan Kelly specifically was talking about Epstein.

[Robert Evans]

They're even really young. They're six 15 to 17 year old girls. Right. That's the part of the problem is that a huge number of, of not just men, but largely men in this country don't see 15 to 17 year.

[Mia Wong]

Old girls as children, which they are.

[Robert Evans]

And like that's really a problem. Yeah, something of an issue.

[Mia Wong]

You, it's just struck like just incredible structural misogyny. That's just. Yeah. And so, and that's what they're sort of trying to bake all of this stuff as now. And I guess we'll see whether it works or not. Just because.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I don't think this line from Megan Kelly is going to be very successful on a large scale of but a fibophilia. I don't think it's, I don't think it's gonna work. I, I. Her motivations for this are I'm sure not great.

[Garrison Davis]

Great.

[Robert Evans]

Now you don't know that Garrison and.

[James Stout]

I think in some way she is pulling from like this like QAnon brained idea. Right. That these are a whole bunch of like basically infants.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Well, what else do you want to talk about?

[Robert Evans]

Let's talk about January 6th and the terrorisms.

[James Stout]

Sure. I love neither of those things.

[Robert Evans]

I, I, I. Garrison, you love terrorism.

[James Stout]

I had a fun day. No, I honestly, I had, I had a great January.

[Robert Evans]

That's good.

[James Stout]

That was a really fun morning for me.

[Robert Evans]

That was a hoot of a day. Boy howdy. When they breached the Capitol doors. Great time. Well, windows first, but yeah, I think.

[James Stout]

You mean when the FBI breached the Capitol doors.

[Robert Evans]

Sure. Yes. So this all takes me to the substack of a guy named Rod Dreher. Rod is, he wouldn't call himself a fascist, but if you ever bring bring up is this specific fascist from history bad, he'd say, well, not compared to the communists. They stopped. Right. That's the kind of conservative conservative that Rod is.

[James Stout]

He's basically friends with Victor.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, he's basically friends with Victor Orbot.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Didn't he just write a piece called Our Women Ruining the Workplace?

[Robert Evans]

He's written several like that. Yeah, I think he's just like the piece I'm talking about when he came out with on November 10th called what I Saw and Heard in Washington. And he was at a meeting, meeting with President Vice President James Daryl Vance, not what his name is. Yeah, James Dolan Vance. That's a good James Dolan. You're a real New Yorker now, Gare. Are you pissed about the Knicks permanently?

[James Stout]

No, basketball's too masculine for me.

[Robert Evans]

So he came out with this article about this, this meeting that, that Vance had with Viktor Orban and some other Republican luminaries. And for a little bit of context, Dreher is, is again, you wouldn't call him an anti Trumper. You'd call him a guy who thinks that Trump is going to doom the right and doom the right to fascism unless JD Vance can save them. He actually has a recent, his most recent column is basically JD Vance is the only person who can save the right wing from fascism. And he's a weird dude who like reads a lot of Hannah Arendt but absolutely does not understand her. But this article of his based on this meeting is useful for a couple, couple of reasons. One that I'm sure Gary and I will talk about in more detail later is Dreher estimates in here that 30 to 40% of the zoomers who are working for the Republican Party in D.C. are Groipers, aka fans of Holocaust denier and True.

[James Stout]

True.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Is that what, is that what you Gen Z kids are saying for Truth Garrison?

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's okay. That's truth Nuke.

[Robert Evans]

I can't keep, I can't really keep track of that shit anymore.

[Garrison Davis]

Truth Nuke.

[Robert Evans]

Great.

[James Stout]

No, that makes sense. Mr. Souk.

[Robert Evans]

Sure.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they're all gripers. Or at least 40% are.

[Robert Evans]

30, 30, 40%. And I actually, number one, he, Dreher, he's not someone that I, I think just makes up nonsense. I think he's like wrong because his brain is bad. But I, I, he provides some backup, including interviews and conversations he had for this. And this is consistent with other information coming out of the Beltway. I think he's probably pretty close to the accurate number here, right? 34 to 40% seems believable. Believable. Garrett, I think you're more or less in the same area there.

[Garrison Davis]

Garrison is 30 to 40% of Groipe.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, that's, yes, that's, that's what I meant. James, thank you for this, the most charitable reading of my sentence there. Now the thing that I thought was the other Thing that I thought was interesting from this article is because he's, he's trying to talk about why the media, which he sees as an inherently left lean organization, even though we just talked about all of the carrying water for Jeffrey Epstein and while attacking trans people shit that they did.

[James Stout]

It's a, it's a right wing slash liberal organization. I would, I would agree.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you have to, you have to get over some of his aspects of phrasing, but he's talking about why, one of some of the reasons why he thinks that the institutions in our society, like zoomers, do not trust them. And this is where I think he's on the money because I think that the reason why so many Gen Z Republicans, like Republican staffers are groiping troopers is what he gets at, which is that they're having the same problem as the rest of Gen Z. They're just approaching it from a fascist standpoint. But they all are starting from the same point, which is I'm, my generation is, yeah, there's no jobs, I'm not.

[James Stout]

Going to own a house.

[Robert Evans]

The climate is screwed like, and they're blaming the Jews for it, but they're, they're starting at the same place.

[James Stout]

It's school shooter politics. Right?

[Robert Evans]

School shooter politics. Yes.

[James Stout]

Some people understand this and they decide to do a school shooter shooting. These guys decide to get jobs in Washington. Yes, but it's the same psyche behind the mechanism.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly right. And I'm going to read a quote from Dreher's article and then we'll move past him to the primary thing I wanted to talk about here. And this is him talking about, you know, why these zoomers don't trust the system and want to destroy everything. The institutions of our society as they see it have lied and lied and lied and still lie. They still lie in many ways about race, refusing to be honest about black crime. They lie about COVID They lied about males and females and they forced the insanity of gender ideology on us all. The military lied about Iraq. The universities embrace. Is it just the military? Yeah, just the military, Rod. The universities embraced and enforced ideologies of lies. The Catholic Church lied about sexual abuse and the connection to the prevalence of sexually active gay priests. Is that the problem honeycombing the institution? They lied about the benefits of mass migration and diversity. They lied about Trump and Russia. They sure didn't. Political parties and their corporate allies lied about what globalism would mean for ordinary, ordinary people. The media have lied and they do lie about most things. This past weekend everybody was talking about the new report in Blaze media alleging that the mysterious January 6th Pipe Bomber was in fact a former Capitol Police officer. The implications being that the whole event was orchestrated by the deep state to discredit Donald Trump. Maybe mainstream media are busy trying to validate this reporting on their own. If the Blaze has this wrong, they're going to be sued into oblivion and so will all the other media who amplify a false charge. I can tell you that. No, all I can tell you is that nobody in the MSM are talking about it as a. I write it. Even though it is an explosive story. People were in fact talking about it.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And in fact, before we could do this episode, the Bulwark, which is. Has a. Both a, a website with articles and is a podcast network, came up with an article by Will Sommer, who used to write for the.

[James Stout]

He's a good journalist.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, good journalist. We took a belling hat class together. I believe it was the Post that he wrote for at the time.

[James Stout]

Time. He was like the. One of the leading QAnon experts for years.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, he was doing Daily Beast, wasn't he? For a while.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Daily Beast is I think where I knew him from. And he wrote a really good article called the Blazes pipebomb Bombshell appears to bomb. And basically Dreyer says here, well, if the, if the Blaze is wrong, they'll be soon to oblivion. And the short answer is yeah, I think they have to be because they absolutely named this lady in the Capitol Police. To make a long story short, if you don't want to read the whole Blaze article, you can read the piece on the bull work. You can read the sections of it or you can type the link to the Blaze article into like archive.org so you don't give them traffic if you want. It's not good. The, the, it's the entire, their entire claims that this particular woman, and I am not going to name this woman because I don't think she's the bomber and I don't think you name people as being a terrorist if you're not sure they were. Um, I will say that she's a woman and that she's a Capitol Police officer or at least a, for now, a former Capitol Police officer who is kind of insinuated by the Blaze and has been absolutely taken up by the right wing media immediately since to be a. Now she got poached by the CIA, Right. And that's taken as like proof that she definitely did this. She's a security guard at the CIA's office.

[Garrison Davis]

She's.

[Robert Evans]

She's not in the CIA. I'm sorry. Sorry guys. She's a rent a cop for the CIA. Which is, let's be fair, probably the highest rung of rent a cop. Sure, like you know you're taking a step up as a rent a cop but she's not out there overthrowing democracies yet. I don't know, maybe they fast track you once you're let's see, security guard added up but so the whole claim that the Blaze is staking the reputation on because if you're not paying attention to like Infow, well not repeat their financial solvency because InfoWars currently owes like a billion and a half dollars for wrongly accusing people of having faked mass shootings and the deaths of their own children. So their argument that this lady has to be it is based on they have some old footage of her at like the jogging track and there's a couple of clips from the jogging trap they showed. But they're claiming that this gate analysis they did between the Capitol bomber and this woman is based on footage of her that they are not publishing publicly. That's good so that you can verify it but that they say is 94%. And they talked to a gate analysis expert and he did a personal gate analysis and he said it had to be more like 98%. So that means basically it definitely was her. Cuz gate analysis is for sure real and not one of the Every kind of forensic science is a lie lies.

[James Stout]

Like gate analysis is not even very.

[Garrison Davis]

Good for buying shoes, let alone convicting someone. We have peer reviewed data to show that you shouldn't use your running shoes off gait analysis let alone fuck it.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes, there's many articles about how it may not be the future of the shoe industry. You certainly shouldn't be hinging your publication survival. I'm getting right that somebody was a bomber.

[James Stout]

Baby, this is, this is just the latest attempt by the right to run this whole J6 false flag plague conspiracy which is picking up a lot of steam. Like a few months ago the FBI released some information on how many agents they had in the area during January 6th and this led many, many conservative commentators to believe oh look, the FBI just admitted that it was their agents that actually started the riot and was most of the like rowdy, rambunctious crowd members. And no, the specific wording on the announcement or statement regarding the presence of agents as J6 was after after the insurrection had already started and agents were sent there to keep it under Control, that's what it was referring to. And Catch Patel released a statement days later clarifying this. But of course that doesn't pick up nearly as much traction as the original claims were. So this, this whole gate analysis thing is continuing on this, this whole conspiracy theory about how the FBI and the CIA staged all of January 6th to crush Trump and remove him from power and probably warrants of a future episode just on January 6th. Conspiracy theories that have propagated the past few months.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, we, we probably, I mean, honestly, yes, but, but okay, to continue with this. So gate analysis was half of what their case lay on. The other half of the case was interviews with a couple of different people, primarily an FBI whistleblower, a former FBI agent agent who made a claim that like, yeah, we, we, we tied the woman, the, the, this officer's neighbor to a vehicle that like picked up the bomber. This is not based on publicly available information. This is based on the statements made by former FBI agent Kyle Seraphim, who is now a right wing media personality.

[James Stout]

Of course.

[Robert Evans]

And we're just trusting that this guy, who, this former FBI agent trying to rebrand himself as an influencer is telling us the truth about all of this stuff that they're not presenting us with. This is, this is kind of dressed up as osint, but they're not actually providing you with the information.

[James Stout]

No, there's no actual open source intelligence.

[Robert Evans]

You can't work back from there from because they're hiding a lot of stuff. Right. There's a couple other things that Sommer notes in his article here. To make their case against the former Capitol Police officer, Baker, who's the author and co author Joseph H. Hanneman, focused on a comparison between the officer, some of which was apparently captured in years old footage of her playing soccer and footage of the pipe bombs that trek from the night of January 5th. Instead of using suspect footage released by the FBI, however, the blaze claims it used footage from another source the article doesn't name. Critically, the Blaze didn't release an actual video comparison or significant details of the gate analysis. Instead, it draws on the work of a man the Blaze called a video sleuth. A little known X user named Armitas, whose online profile image is a picture from the 1998 role playing video game Xenog Gears.

[James Stout]

Hell yeah, Xenogears. Great twinks in that video game.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, you're not going to get sued into oblivion for this shit. The Blaze. I'm proud of you guys.

[Garrison Davis]

Can't believe the, the people who published Vance Bolters. Probably last interview would do this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Shocking, shocking stuff. Now to be again, totally fair here, Dreyer does not treat this with any sort of critical thought whatsoever. But actually a bunch of the people critiquing this have been on the right, and I partially agree with Dreri is I think it's a mistake that the mainstream media has not dedicated more effort to busting this immediately and to pointing out the weaknesses and stuff like gait analysis immediately out the gate. So it does kind of seem like they're ignoring it. I think they're largely. I think largely this isn't getting covered because it's so shady and bad and because it's dangerous to spread these kinds of claims about a person.

[James Stout]

Sure. I mean, yeah, it's like the Blaze. It's not even, even Fox News.

[Ahmed Moore]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

There's already law enforcement stationed outside this woman's house because of the number of threats that she's seen. Right. Like, like again, there's. She has ample claims for damages here. Yeah, yeah. So a couple of the people who have come after one of them is or after this article, one of them is Julie Kelly, who's a right wing media figure and is a major like force in the January 6th conspiracy theory world. And she is largely attacking the Blaze because she's doing her own investigation into the who did the pipe bombing. Right. So she's pointed out some very obvious problems. Why don't you post that other video you have? Right. Why don't you show the evidence of the gate analysis? Right. So she's been attacking this as has Joe Hoft, who's co founder of the Gateway Pundit.

[James Stout]

Hell yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Oh God, yeah. Great stuff. So there's people on the right talking shit about this stuff. It's worth noting that when this initially came out, Glenn Beck spent days beforehand hyping it up and talking about how like, this is the biggest. I think that he literally called it like the biggest conspiracy in American history, maybe, which like, Jesus Christ, dream smaller.

[James Stout]

Come on, dude.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. But within like a day of the article actually coming out, the Blaze added an editor's note. Most of this is wrong, which is pretty damn. An earlier version of this story said it appeared the bombing suspect interacted with police. After publication, a congressional investigator with access to a camera angle that has not been made public reached out and told Blaze News a person similarly attired to the suspected bomber who comes out of the alley and crosses the street towards the two Capitol Police vehicles is not the same person as the hoodie clad pipe bomb suspect walking down the Alley just minutes earlier.

[James Stout]

Amazing.

[Robert Evans]

Wouldn't their gate analysis have shown that amazing work? Wouldn't you have known that if gait analysis was real?

[James Stout]

It's almost like you can't rely on gait analysis to identify individuals.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Almost like this is all bullshit anyway. I largely did this just because. Fuck you, Rod Dreher. I like. We covered this stupid ass story. Will Sommer covered this stupid ass story and we made fun of it. Thank you, Will. Thank you. The Bulwark. This is what I've got. I'm done.

[James Stout]

That Drear piece is also crazy and just surreal because of how much of it is like talking about how we as in the right needs to like, re. Recalibrate how we discuss the. The. The. The reality of like complete Jewish control over our media and how it's fine, actually, because a whole bunch of various like. Like ethnicities excel in various fields and that's not weird. So it's not weird that Jews control all the media. We shouldn't be worried about this. And how, how much of that piece feels like it could have been written in like the 1920s. Yes, it's. It was. It's a crazy time capsule.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[James Stout]

Anyway, that's my opinions on the Drear substack piece.

[Mia Wong]

Anti Semitism versus anti Semitism. It's a great time.

[James Stout]

I mean, sure. I mean, you could have a. I would have a slightly more complicated analysis of the piece than just anti Semitism because Trier approaches that issue really oddly. I don't think he's anti Semitic, frankly.

[Garrison Davis]

I don't think he thinks he's anti Semitic.

[Mia Wong]

I don't think he thinks he is. Yeah, but it's like, I think. Think that there's a difference between what he believes about himself and what he's trying to do and what he is doing and.

[James Stout]

Yeah, sure. I mean, I mean, even. Even in the way that the article is written and like a lot of it is.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

I mean, attacking a certain type of anti Semitism on the right.

[Robert Evans]

Well, you guys know what Rod Dreher would hate other than an editor?

[James Stout]

I think he would actually love some ads.

[Garrison Davis]

All right, we are back and we're going to do some very brief immigration stuff and then we'll play the song you've all been waiting for and be will talk to you. The United States Conference of Catholic Catholic Bishops.

[James Stout]

Based.

[Garrison Davis]

Based.

[Robert Evans]

Based.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Thank you, G. Issue the statement this week. It's about the strongest condemnation you're going to see from this entity of. Of anything in a political realm. Right.

[James Stout]

Pope Leo has not been Solved on this issue.

[Robert Evans]

No.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, he is. And like we saw it like with Bishop Farm in San Diego. Right. Like who himself arrived as in what they call an unaccompanied minor.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

A child. Right. Refugee. I'm going to read from the statement, quote. We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of migrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. Schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school, when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.

[James Stout]

This isn't the usual based, based, based.

[Ahmed Moore]

Garrison has got a, got a crucifix.

[Garrison Davis]

I guess they haven't done this for like 12 years. Right. Last time they did it about contraception. Not saying a Catholic Church is, is an organization that I agree with all the time. It is not. It's one that I disagree with, disagree with most of the time. But I still think this is important.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Like this is an organization which has millions of followers in the United States. Many, many Catholics around the world.

[James Stout]

A lot of Catholics.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. This is an organization which therefore we should pay attention to. Right. And I think it is telling that. Yeah, the, the woke hope has not stopped with this and that it seems like the vast majority of bishops in the United States are on his side.

[James Stout]

No, it's, it's, it is, it is pretty funny. We have like a never Trumper, nominally conservative woke Pope and the fact that he will not black down on this issue and has actually has a number of statements on this the past. The past few weeks and not softly worded statements either.

[Robert Evans]

Catholic priests have also been reasonably good on this issue. Yeah.

[James Stout]

And it's important especially because of how much these like, weird, like fascist friendly trads are using Gutal's as like a fashion statement.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

And J.D. vance included. Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

I was gonna say our vice president.

[James Stout]

To have the actual church be like pretty freaked out by that, I think is good. It'd be worse if they were leaning into it, which certainly some, some cardinals like want when they were doing their selection.

[Garrison Davis]

Well, if you look at the, the votes in this issue. Right. Like 216 votes in favor five against and three abstentions. So among bishops, which is distinct from cardinals, like this is. This is almost universal. Right, right. And yet, given that our vice president has made being an adult convert to Catholicism a large part of his personality.

[James Stout]

Embarrassing.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. This is like. It is remarkable. It's worth paying attention to. Also, I think when I talk to migrants, specifically, like when I was in the Darien Gap talking to migrants, their faith is massively important to so many of them.

[James Stout]

Totally.

[Garrison Davis]

And a lot of people, especially coming from South Central America, will be Catholic.

[James Stout]

Right, right.

[Garrison Davis]

And that is what propels them through. And so for them to feel that the church has not abandoned them, it is important to them.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

The thing, when I speak to people now who are here, the thing that they want more than anything is a priest to come to their hearing, to their meeting with them. Like that is what makes them feel safe. And so I am happy that the church is continuing to try and make.

[Robert Evans]

Them feel safe because what else are you to going to do? Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. We're trying everything else and it's not working.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I defer to what will make the person being victimized feel better in basically all instances. And if it's having a priest along, then I'm glad the priest is there.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. And I am happy that this is something that can make them feel safer because, you know.

[James Stout]

Critical support to the Catholic Church.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, yeah, very critical.

[Mia Wong]

Well, emphasis on the critical part. I think the other thing is worth noting that this same conference also voted to have an official ban on any gender affirming care at Catholic hospitals, which is like 1 in 7 of all people in the US get their care at Catholic hospitals because there's a million of them.

[James Stout]

Critical support.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Like lots of. They're not.

[James Stout]

Yeah, look, they're, they're no Protestants. Okay. It does feel bad to have so much Catholic praise on the show.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes.

[James Stout]

But you know, I, I will swallow my Protestant pride here.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. I'm neither Catholic nor Protestant, but I'm glad this is happening.

[James Stout]

You're British.

[Garrison Davis]

Yes. So straddle the two. Do we do Catholicism without popes?

[Robert Evans]

I think we should have popes without Catholicism.

[James Stout]

Yeah. See, that's interesting, Robert. That's an interesting idea.

[Robert Evans]

That's discordianism. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Oh yeah. Like. Well, yeah, that's kind of the least interesting version. A real kind of non Catholic, like clerical class. Anyway, I'm going to put this down in my, my sci Fi novel folder. You know, isn't stockbrokers a forum of, you know, aren't.

[Garrison Davis]

Just fade them Out. Fade them out, Adam. Just, just, just gradually reduce the volume. Okay, we're going to go. We're back to immigration. We did learn this week that the Department of Homeland Security secretly and illegally kept domestic data on 900 Chicagoland residents under Biden, just in case anyone was wondering what they were doing before people started paying attention to them. They also, quote, irrevocably destroyed video from Inside Abroad for you, which is ICE Tension facility in Chicagoland.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, of course they did.

[Garrison Davis]

I'm not shocked by that. I will say. Like, I would have been shocked if that had happened under a previous administration, put it that way. Like, it's not massively out of character for them to, to be incompetent at soaring in this kind of thing. And Ken Paxton has attempted to sue Harris County, a place in Texas, for donating not to nonprofits that provide legal aid to migrants. He has some justification to this, which is theodicrious. But I'm just going to name a few of the. The NGOs here. Galveston, Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Kids in Need of Defense, justice for Immigration, and Baker Ripley. Yeah, this does, I think, show part of the strategy which we saw and we have seen since 2018. Right. Like, you'll remember that lots of NGO volunteers in 2018 were placed on a watch list, as were many journalists, for crossing to cover the migrant caravan. But this idea that the NGOs are, quote, aiding and abetting is a phrase you always see. Right. Like that somehow people would come here if it was. Wasn't for NGOs. Often this takes on a specific form of blaming. One NGO, which is HIAS or he US Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Right.

[Robert Evans]

And we saw one guess as to why they blame that one.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, it's like, repeat guest of the show, Anti Semitism coming back again.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

Which resulted directly in. In the. In the Tree of Life shooting.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Garrison Davis]

Like this is of that same intellectual family of thought, I guess, is what I always say. It's ludicrous. People come here because their lives are not livable where they're at there. That's what I got played. Played a song.

[Mia Wong]

All right, so there is actually a surprising amount of tariff dues.

[James Stout]

All right.

[Mia Wong]

The tariff rebate checks. Are we getting tariff rebate checks? I think probably not. So what is this? Trump started talking about this on November 8th on Truth Social per USA Today.

[James Stout]

He truthed.

[Mia Wong]

I refuse to call it truthed. I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the hundreds of billions of dollars, the hundreds of billions are capitalized for reasons that are bad baffling. Currently being sent to money sucking insurance companies in order to save the bad health care provided by Obamacare, be directly sent to the people so that they can purchase their own health care, their own much better health care. And so originally this was going to be like a $2,000 thing to your health savings account from tariff proceeds or something. And then the second time he stopped talking about the health savings account stuff and he was just saying a $2,000 check. The USA Today the piece notes that the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessett said in ABC News on November 9, which was Sunday, that Trump's proposed tariff dividend, quote, could come in a lot of forms, adding it could just be the tax decreases that we are seeing on the President's agenda. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans, he said. So those are substantial deductions that are being financed the tax bill. So he apparently like hadn't heard any of this is what it seems like. And then a few days later, this was, this was yesterday, on Wednesday the 12th, Caroline Levitt, who's the ghoulish press secretary, said that Trump is quote committed to the payments. So who knows?

[James Stout]

You can't call her ghoulish just because she's a 27 year old woman who looks like that. Mia, that's not cool.

[Mia Wong]

Hey, so you know what, we're not gonna, we're not gonna do this. But she, no, she, she, she is ghoulish. Not because she looks like she's 40 and she does one year, kind of.

[Robert Evans]

Looks like a ghoul, but like she is a ghoul.

[Mia Wong]

No, but like she also acts like a ghoul constantly, which is the actual thing that she is ghoulish for. Right.

[James Stout]

Every press secretary I've ever seen has made me so mad. Like the job of a press secretary is infuriating.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. Remember the sake ball bonds?

[Mia Wong]

Well also like they've never been good. They also did used to be more normal than this. Like they didn't used to be this unhinged.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah, the Biden admin didn't bring him back. I feel like, like the first Trump admin moved him in a certain way.

[Mia Wong]

The Biden admin people got hit too. It's just awful, terrible stuff. Didn't used to be like this. One of the few things I'll ever say that about.

[James Stout]

Anyway, as you were saying.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, so, so she said that Trump is committed to the payments. I agree. Again, I don't think we're Going to see this? Probably not. Definitely don't plan on having an extra $2,000.

[James Stout]

Well, I think he's. I think he's committed to the payments as much as he is his, like, first or second wife.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Which is not much. So the, the second. The second incredibly important piece of tariff news. News is the pasta tariffs. The Department of. Of Commerce is proposing 7% pasta tariffs on imported Italian pasta.

[James Stout]

Oh, Garrison, it's fine. It's the first tariff.

[Robert Evans]

Macaroni is still available. You can still get your Mac. You know, it's okay.

[Mia Wong]

As the Guardian points out, most pasta in the US Is made in the US So it's not really affected by those I buy. Well, hold on, hold on. Let me, let me. Allow me to finish the sentence, Garrison. I will address pretension tags. So it's. It's mostly just gluten. It's mostly gluten free pasta. And also like imported fancy pasta, which is like, nice pasta.

[James Stout]

Well, fancy is a bit of a. Okay. It's like $2 more. Okay.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Attack some pretension, you know, and so this. But this sucks for people who like pasta. That's good. And also for people who are allergic to gluten or who just are trying to reduce the amount of gluten they're eating for, like, diabetic reasons, et cetera, et cetera. That all really sucks in that same period piece. Yeah, that same Guardian piece. The unbelievably named Scott Ketchum, who is the founder of, like, an artisanal. Artisanal.

[Robert Evans]

Ketchum's a real last name. That's why the Pokemon game is believable.

[Garrison Davis]

Ketchum's a place in Idaho.

[James Stout]

I don't understand why Ketchum's funny. Why is Ketchum funny?

[Robert Evans]

Did you not play the Pokemon?

[James Stout]

No. Ketchum's a myth.

[Mia Wong]

Also. Also, it's so close to being ketchup in a thing about. Okay, think about Italian pasta. Whatever. Okay.

[James Stout]

You put ketchup on Italian pasta. Interesting.

[Mia Wong]

No, but do you know. Do you know who does do this? Chinese hotels in 2009, a thing I discovered when they for some reason fed us, tried to feed us American food instead of feeding us Chinese food. And dear God, awful. 0 out of 10.

[Robert Evans]

That's my favorite thing in any foreign country is when they're like, I know what you want. American food. You came down Greece to eat at TGI Fridays, didn't you?

[James Stout]

Burger is all over Berlin.

[Robert Evans]

Burger's not American.

[Garrison Davis]

Hamburg. Right?

[James Stout]

It is now.

[Garrison Davis]

The. I feel like you'd be disappointed Garrison, if you knew how many people in continental Europe are eating pasta and ketchup on a daily basis.

[James Stout]

We.

[Garrison Davis]

Brown sugar roll.

[James Stout]

Yeah, well, Europeans are. Europeans are obviously sick.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah. You've been to Belgium. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

That's wrong. I have.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, okay. Locking. Locking back in. Locking back in on the POS.

[James Stout]

Anarchist Cafe was closed. It was 2pm Those lazy.

[Mia Wong]

God. Look, look, look. Look at the conditions that I have to deal with. Every time I mention inflation, out come the inflation jokes. Every time I try to finish. This is about pasta. God. Okay. Finishing this. Scott Ketchum agrees that the manufacturers will, quote, take advantage of the news and slightly raise their prices. That's just business. He said. So this actually probably will increase pasta prices across the board because they'll use this as a justification for raising prices canonically.

[Garrison Davis]

How old is Ash Ketchum? I'm trying to work out if this is a sibling.

[Mia Wong]

He's like 13.

[Robert Evans]

I think he's like 13 in 1990.

[Mia Wong]

He's been like, 13 for. No, but he's been 13 for his entire life.

[Garrison Davis]

Like, so we think siblings more than parents.

[James Stout]

Jeffrey Epstein's dream.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Garrison Davis]

And okay.

[Ahmed Moore]

Ash Kerchin's brother.

[Garrison Davis]

Put it in the law.

[James Stout]

Oh, my God.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, okay. Two more things. Two more things. We got to get there. I swear to God. Okay. One 50 year mortgage. TRUMP has become obsessed with the idea of 50 year mortgages. Just an idea. So unhinged. I haven't seen any Republicans talk about positively. The mortgage industry is like, don't do this. This is a bad idea. I'm not going to read the full paragraph I had here from cnn, but, you know, CNN did a very basic calculation of, instead of a 30 year fixed mortgage, a 50 year fixed mortgage. So the. Basically their calculation on like a $450,000 house was that you would save about $300 a month, technically. But over the course of the loan, instead of spending about $550,000 in interest, you would spend $1 million in interest.

[Garrison Davis]

And yeah, that rules how we save money by giving half a million dollars to the bank.

[Robert Evans]

Well, hey, you're not even talking about the 15 year auto loan.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

You know.

[Robert Evans]

Everyone who buys a Kia can trust that it will keep working for 15 years.

[Garrison Davis]

He's gonna say, who's driving?

[Mia Wong]

Houses aren't lasting 50 years. They're made of, like, cardboard.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[Mia Wong]

Like, they're just kind of terrible.

[Garrison Davis]

More than twice the value of the house in interest. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Make America affordable again.

[Garrison Davis]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Okay.

[Mia Wong]

Unbelievable. And then finally, I. I want to close with what is actually going on with the jobs and inflation numbers for October because I think people are getting a lot of very bad information about this. I mean, and it's not their fault.

[James Stout]

It's again, because the Democrat shutdown made it impossible to get any reliable data. So now we can never have data ever again.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

So, okay, okay, so let's, let's, let's, let's go into like, what is it, what is actually going on here? So on Wednesday, Caroline Levitt said that we might not ever get October, the October jobs and inflation data.

[Ahmed Moore]

Oops.

[Mia Wong]

So however, comma, I'm sure those numbers.

[James Stout]

Would have been fine, comma, the spirit.

[Garrison Davis]

Halloween bump would have been huge, comma.

[Mia Wong]

On Thursday, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, who by the way, is the guy whose whole thing is that he wants to, he wants to impose taxes on holding U.S. bonds. The worst idea, he said, maybe the only idea I've ever seen.

[Robert Evans]

Well, I don't know if it's actually.

[Mia Wong]

Worse than a 50 year mortgage. Astonishingly bad ideas. But he said on Fox News, this is today as day of recruiting recording said on Fox News that we're going to get some of the data but the data we're supposed to get is very weird now. So this is the September data we're supposed to get next week because that was already recorded before the, before the government shutdown.

[James Stout]

Right? Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And there is legitimately, even in a sort of not if a normal Bureau of Labor Statistics was trying to get these statistics out, it would be a little difficult for them. However, comma, we're only getting the jobs added numbers and not the job loss numbers.

[Garrison Davis]

Purse. Oh, goodbyes only. What a, what a great strategy.

[James Stout]

So, yeah, I'm sure that, I'm sure that number is fine. I'm sure it's not negative 70,000 jobs or something.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah, right. And you know, apparently that's because the survey, the collected information never went out. And I, I mean it probably didn't because of the shutdown. But also like you could, you could work this out. They're just not doing it. We talked a few months ago about Trump's attempt to take over the Bureau of Labor's attention statistics, which with his attempt to install the hideously incompetent Heritage foundation. Economists, and I use that term very loosely here, E.J. antoni. And Trump was actually forced to like pull back on installing this guy as the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So it's being run by the interim head and has been for a long time now. But it seems like a There's conflicting information going out. And B, it does seem like Trump has been able to get a decent amount of control over the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is supposed to be a nonpartisan body that just releases the data because everyone in the entire capitalist economy relies on it. And it is possible that this is that, that we have already gotten our last unrigged like Bureau Labor Statistics report. I mean, I can't confirm that they're straight up rigging it. And it's also possible that, oh well, this wasn't the product of that and we are going to get some of the data like we are supposed to get inflation numbers. Um, but it's not good.

[James Stout]

Oops. Well, to end on some good news, I guess on Monday the Supreme Court rejected a call to overturn or hear its previous ruling on legalizing same sex marriage nationwide. So this is where, this is where they're, this is where they're drawing the line right now is this. I think, I think I did predict, predict this a few months ago in which people got a little bit mad at me for saying that I didn't think they were going to pick this one up. Another W in the gear column. But I think it is fairly interesting that this is, this is the point in which they're like, nah, nah, it's not worth it. Like this, this is more settled to them than even the abortion thing was. I think, I think some of the general like economic issues shows that there is not a real desire for pushing on this right now. Now based on, you know, gestures broadly at other economy stuff. And some of the, some of the, some of the anti woke fuel may be maybe running out as the, as the economic situation becomes more and more dire. Dire.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Like how much longer can the Republicans just scream about trans people as they're ruining the economy? Do you think that's going to still work for them in 2026? Maybe not. They might be scared that they've put all of their eggs in this whole anti woke culture basket and now that they're in charge in still getting worse, they're like, well, I wonder if we can replay that card again or not.

[Mia Wong]

As, as a final economy note, I want to note that SoftBank sold all of their shares in Nvidia. $5 billion of Nvidia share.

[James Stout]

Don't worry about it. It's part of regular stock rotation. It's fine.

[Mia Wong]

These are the biggest rubes who have ever existed. Have gotten rid of all of the.

[Robert Evans]

Shits.

[Mia Wong]

These are, these are the. We weren't guys.

[Robert Evans]

Holding the bag for WeWork. Yes. Which, I mean, does that mean that they're. They're getting out too early of AI or does it mean that they're hesitant, they're gun shy enough that they got out just in time?

[Garrison Davis]

We'll see who can say. Yep.

[Mia Wong]

All right, we reported the news. Garrison, I'm stealing your line this week.

[James Stout]

Why?

[Robert Evans]

We all stole that line from a terrible man.

[James Stout]

You haven't seen the Newsroom. It's Stolen Valor. Yep. Great show. I would love a new season of the Newsroom where he works for some, like, bullshit, like, Internet news company. He's like. He's like a substacker and he has, like, a home studio.

[Garrison Davis]

Oh, top 10 lists constantly.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

God, I would love that. Oh, I would love a new season.

[Robert Evans]

He's super bigoted, but they don't ever make a direct point of it. It just becomes, like, subtly obvious that, like, oh, wow, this. This is a guy who's bought into some weird conspiracy theory.

[Ahmed Moore]

Sure.

[Robert Evans]

I was thinking, because I mentioned it came out the same year as True Detective. I would like a new season of the Newsroom that's a crossover with the first season of True Detective where we get Woody Harrelson and we get that British lady all in the same room together. It'll be great.

[James Stout]

They would be a nasty combo. Imagine how much fucked up shit they could get up to.

[Garrison Davis]

That would be awful.

[Robert Evans]

It would be awful.

[James Stout]

Hell, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Well, we're not even on the air anymore.

[James Stout]

Oh, no, we're still on the air.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, well, I stopped recording.

[James Stout]

We reported the news.

[Mia Wong]

We reported the news.

[Robert Evans]

Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.

[Dana Al Kurd]

It Could Happen Here is a production.

[Mia Wong]

Of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media.

[Dana Al Kurd]

Visit our website, coolzone media.com or check.

[James Stout]

Us out on the hand iHeartRadio app.

[Mia Wong]

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for.

[James Stout]

It could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions.

[Mia Wong]

Thanks for listening.

[James Stout]

This is an iHeart podcast.