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- [00:00]
Charles McDonald
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Dana El Kurd
Guaranteed human.
- [00:04]
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- [00:36]
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 the 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.
- [01:03]
Mia Wong
Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about unions falling apart and in this case, how they're not being put back together again. I am your host, Bea Wong, and today we are telling a somewhat unusual story for this show. It's usual in the sense that it's a story about, you know, the replacement of democracy with bureaucracy, like the death spiral of business union, of unionism. It's a story. It's also as much about the defeat of the workers movement as it is like Lamar Jackson's counting stats, a thing that it also bizarrely is about. And this is, this is the story of the crisis of the NFL Players association, which is the NFL's union. And it is so unhinged that the only way that this could actually be talked about reasonably is to bring in someone who knows ball. And that is is Charles McDonald of Yahoo Sports and the the Wonderful Football 301 podcast. Welcome to the show. This is going to be a trip.
- [01:59]
Charles McDonald
Yeah, thanks for having me. I've listened to a few episodes so I was excited when you asked me to come on. Oh, love your work. And yeah, this is, this is going to be a good rant because. And not even really a rant because. Because, because honestly, like when, when you, like when you start to peel this back, it is really like a textbook case study from what we know on like just straight up organizational decay.
- [02:23]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [02:24]
Charles McDonald
Like you get such a clear picture on how just really a few people, in this case 32 NFL owners can just completely dictate the life of you know, thousands of people who are literally sacrificing their bodies to try and, you know, escape whatever poverty they come from in. In their. In their earlier life. So it's. It's fascinating. It's sad. I mean, this is one of those areas that I have, obviously, because it's my. It's my job. But, yeah, just like, extreme cognitive dissonance sometimes. Like, yeah, I love football. You know, I played from the time I was seven through college. Obviously. Like, I do this work. It's kind of giving me, like, everything, and then you have to deal with just so much bad stuff that comes with. Yeah, yeah. Like, I remember, like, covering the Colin Kaepernick season, which was 10 years ago as of this year. God, right. 10 years ago.
- [03:17]
Mia Wong
10 years ago.
- [03:18]
Charles McDonald
Yeah. And just remember, like, seeing how alienating that was, just like, just writing, like, a column saying, hey, you know, Washington, like, they should work Colin Kaepernick out. Cause they don't have a quarterback. And this guy is a startable quarterback. And you would get, like, hate mail over that stuff. But I'm still tuning every Sunday, you know, Lamar Jackson stuff. I was on the front lines for that, but still tuning in to get my racist slop every Sunday.
- [03:42]
Mia Wong
This is like, the fundamental issue here is that people will still do it. Admittedly, I am mildly crowd that I wasn't watching in that era, but I wasn't watching that era specifically because the Seahawks lost Super bowl to the Patriots. And then I was like, I'm out. That's after, like, eight years.
- [03:58]
Charles McDonald
I've been watching this stuff my whole life. Like, I remember watching, like, college football with, like, my dad and his friends when I was, like, five and six years old. It's like, I. I, like, legit. Just don't know anything else to a degree. Like, I had to use this sport as, like, my vehicle to kind of explore the rest of the world. Like, once I. Yeah, once I got out of college, just trying to figure my shit out.
- [04:17]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And I think we have a good combination here to talk about this, because you come at this from the football angle and then exploring out of the, like, oh, my God, this is so unhinged. Everything is broken. And then I come at this kind of from the opposite direction, which is one of the things that's been really frustrating about the coverage of this is that like. Like, there's lots of very good coverage. Pablo Torre, who's done a lot of very good work about this and is, like, the guy who kind of instigated
- [04:39]
Charles McDonald
the whole, like, instigate is kind of putting it, is putting it lightly. I mean, he got the union president fired, basically.
- [04:47]
Mia Wong
Yeah, he got, he got the union president fired after it was revealed that he was using union money to go to strip clubs. It's like,
- [04:59]
Charles McDonald
that's like the tail end of this story.
- [05:02]
Mia Wong
Yeah, that's like the end of it. That's where this is going. Right. But like, the thing that's been frustrating to me about this is like, the people covering this. And people have done a lot of good work. They're not people who cover unions at all.
- [05:15]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [05:16]
Mia Wong
And like, that's like what I do.
- [05:17]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [05:18]
Mia Wong
And like, I don't know. Like, I, I think as much as this episode is going to be us screaming about this union doing unhinged, like, we're obviously like pro union. Like, I, I, I, I had my union that I organized on my show to talk about our contract negotiation.
- [05:34]
Charles McDonald
So, like, yeah, I was a member of the first Vox union that launch. God damn, that was almost ten years ago now.
- [05:40]
James Stout
Jesus Christ.
- [05:41]
Charles McDonald
I feel so old and look like I, I, I believe in this stuff. Like, I, like with, with the stroke of a pen, not, not to put it that simplistically, because obviously a lot of fight went to it, but like, with the stroke of a pen, like, I was able to live in D.C. after being very broke, you know, and yeah, it's crazy. Like, my salary went up to a livable wage and nothing died.
- [06:02]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [06:03]
Molly Crabapple
Right.
- [06:03]
Charles McDonald
You know, no one died. Like it was business as usual. Honestly, like, nothing was weird. So obviously people who listen to the show, like, you know that these people with the money, like, they're, they're out to get us, obviously for their own gain. And it's so just brazenly clear through like, this union story, especially through the past 20 years, which is where I think you kind of have to start it. I mean, just systematically stripped down. And the one thing that even Pablo, on his most recent episode, because he talked about it last week because J.C. treader was elected executive director.
- [06:39]
Mia Wong
One of the villains of this story, who they power.
- [06:43]
Charles McDonald
Right. And you know, one thing about like, Pablo and Mike Florio, who have really been on this more than like any other national journalist, is like, yeah, we still don't know a big component of like, the why and the how this is happening because, you know, we got to get into it because basically it feels like there's two, two or three guys kind of acting as liaisons to the owner while also trying to respect and, you know, run the union, which are obviously Just two completely incompatible ideologies when you're trying to, you know, work that out.
- [07:15]
Mia Wong
Yeah. I guess that's actually a way to start talking about this kind of going back to there. There used to be a time when the NFL union would go on strike. Like, they did pickets. Like, they fought scabs outside of the gates of football stadiums. This was a thing that happened, like, regularly. Like. Like, there's. There's a whole bunch of stories of, like, UMWA guys and, like, guys from, like, the auto unions, like, on these picket lines with the NFL players and, you know, like, one. One of the sort of upshots of this. God, okay, that's a terrible punt. I'm realizing now because this.
- [07:49]
Charles McDonald
Okay, we got to talk about Gene, you know.
- [07:51]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah, yeah,
- [07:53]
Mia Wong
yeah. One of the guys who led this union was Gene Upshaw, who was a player for a long time and then was, like, ran the union for most of its history. And he's, you know, he's running an actual union. Like, they go on strike, they organize, they, like, do shit. And, you know, Gene, like, over the course of this, runs into, like, they start losing strikes, which is just, like, a nightmare. And then he just, like, dies in 2008. Like, it was this really horrible.
- [08:23]
Charles McDonald
He had pancreatic cancer.
- [08:24]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [08:25]
Charles McDonald
So. So, like, not only, like. Like, Gene. Gene was a Hall of Fame offensive lineman.
- [08:30]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [08:31]
Charles McDonald
Like. Like, when you think of the Raiders in the. In the past, like, he was kind of like the start of that era. The only. Basically, the only era where we still think of the Raiders is like, you know, an entity. Yeah.
- [08:43]
Mia Wong
That.
- [08:43]
Charles McDonald
That should be respect. Right, right. Not a joke. Because. Well, because, you know, it was a different time in the league. Like, especially when we see what the Seahawks sale ends up looking like.
- [08:54]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [08:54]
Charles McDonald
And we've seen, like, the Broncos and the Commanders get sold within the past decade. These teams are now being run by people who don't have football backgrounds. Like, when you think of, you know, even. Even. Even someone as despicable as Jerry Jones, like, you can't.
- [09:09]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [09:09]
Charles McDonald
You can't doubt at his heart that, you know, he loves this sport and will be an advocate to the sport, even in ways that can be harmful to the sport at times.
- [09:18]
Mia Wong
Oh, boy.
- [09:19]
Charles McDonald
But now we kind of have this influx of people who don't have football backgrounds, but they have the capital to kind of get in. And that has also been a shift, I think, just from an ownership perspective, over the last few years. But when you look at where Gene was coming out as a player after he retired in the early 80s, he kind of set the standard for, you know, he was elected executive director of the union, I think, I think in the 80s. And he held that position until he died in 2008.
- [09:54]
Mia Wong
So yeah, he died in office, like in the middle of the thing.
- [09:57]
Charles McDonald
That's a long time. And it's a lot of trust. And also I think Gene kind of solidified the idea, which is important now, that players should run this union, which I agree with, you know.
- [10:11]
Mia Wong
Yeah, that's what a union is.
- [10:12]
Charles McDonald
Right. That's what the union is. And I would say even just like someone who played football by self, like it's kind of a cult when you're in there and you don't really, really trust the outsiders to understand like what is going on here on a day to day basis. And also when you look at like the start of this union back in the 50s, training camp used to be free for the owners. They didn't get paid.
- [10:35]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [10:36]
Charles McDonald
For training camp or preseason games. They played. They played six free preseason games.
- [10:40]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [10:41]
Charles McDonald
And didn't get paid for training camp.
- [10:43]
Mia Wong
Unreal.
- [10:44]
Charles McDonald
Right? Unreal.
- [10:45]
Mia Wong
Like you can like, you can get like people every single year get really, really seriously injured, like trading camp and preseason games there.
- [10:53]
Charles McDonald
And there was no free agency. Right. So like the team that drafted you, like, they own you until, you know, you're ready to call it quit. So they treat you somewhere else where they cut you and you kind of got to figure it out. But like the idea that you could just like have this agency and leave and your contract expires, you go with someone else, that, that was not a thing. So obviously when, when you think about where football is now, like, what I tell people is like, why should, when they ask, like, why should I care about this union? Okay, think about how bad it is now. It. It can get worse.
- [11:20]
Mia Wong
It was worse.
- [11:21]
Charles McDonald
Yeah, it was worse. It was significantly worse. But you know, you have like this idea that. And it's a correct idea because the players are the basis of it, that this person in charge of a union needs to be a player. And Gene, like coming from his background with the Raiders, we were talking about proud football organization. Like the very like material basis of being an NFL player was extremely important to Gene. So yeah, you know, up until he passed away in 2008, I mean, he is, you know, he's like you said, he's, he's leading strikes, he's fighting for more revenue, he's fighting for, you know, more benefits on the back end after guys retire. And it kind of culminates in the 2006 CBA. I would say this is kind of like the Empire Strikes Back moment for the owners, because in 2006, the players and the owners, they signed a CBA that on the surface, granted the players a 60%, 60% revenue share against the owners 40%. When you start actually digging through the
- [12:27]
Mia Wong
numbers, and yeah, that's not fake as fuck. Like, it was fake.
- [12:32]
Charles McDonald
It was fake. Right? So I'll say this. It was fake in the sense that there was something called like a revenue credit or a revenue tax or something that the owners took off of the pie before it went down to like the 60, 40 split. Right. So, you know, and it started, you know, in 2006. Like, I think the first time they cut it, it was like, you know, $800 billion. And then, you know, within two years, they were taking well over a billion dollars before it got passed down onto the players. So, you know, the players that got 60% of the total revenue. But by the time, you know, that they, the owners took a second look at that CBA and they use their opt out clause in 2008, it was functionally like a 51, 52% split in favor of the players, which the owners deemed completely unacceptable. Right?
- [13:20]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [13:20]
Charles McDonald
Like, and it's so funny because, like, this is, this is like the first part, like, where you start to see, like, at least in this era of football, you get to see how greedy these people are. Right. Where you're already taking a top off of like this quote, unquote, total revenue, and then you're. You're pulling the clause in two years to get out of this. So in 2008, the owners say, we are going to get out of this. And now the CBA, instead of like, the 10 year clause, is going to expire at the end of the 2010 season. So they had two seasons to kind of figure out what was going to happen next. But unfortunately, in 2008, Gene Upshaw gets pancreatic cancer and honestly, just like, just deteriorates pretty quickly and passes away right before the season. So, hey, listeners of this podcast probably know what do billionaires do when they see a power vacuum at the top of their labor force that they are actively, you know, fighting against? They pounce.
- [14:13]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [14:14]
Charles McDonald
And you have this vacuum of leadership. And then Damor Smith gets voted the executive director of the NFLPA. And the owners, at the end of 2010 season, they locked out the players. And that's where things really start to get hairy. You're dealing with that amount of Greed, where they're already taken off the top. And then they say, that's not enough. So we're going to rip up this CBA. And the funny part was the 2010 season, like the last year of like, the ripped up cba, since they didn't have an agreement on the next year, there was no salary cap for the 2010 season. And Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys, and Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington football team.
- [15:03]
Mia Wong
Oh, God, one of the worst people ever, by the way.
- [15:05]
Charles McDonald
This is.
- [15:06]
Mia Wong
We don't. We don't have time to do this right?
- [15:08]
Charles McDonald
But, like, one of the worst people ever. So if you played Madden before, you know, sometimes you might turn off the salary cap. And what do you do? You spend. Because Jerry has always been like, it's my money. I'm going to spend as much of it as I want to if I please. Like, within the rule of the salary cap, no salary cap, Jerry's going to spend. And the other owners punish those two with fines after the season for spending recklessly. That's how committed they are to this consolidation of power. They will punish each other over it,
- [15:38]
Mia Wong
which, by the way, is unhinged. Because one of the fundamental issues of the NFL is that it is a monopoly. Now, the way they get around this is A, they have the union and B, the teams are supposed to be, quote, unquote, competing with each other. And they are not supposed to, quote, unquote, collude right. Against the players. And it's like, okay, you. You find guys for paying people, like, right. Too much money.
- [16:03]
Charles McDonald
Like, you find each other.
- [16:05]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah.
- [16:06]
Mia Wong
Which is like, just unreal. It's just like the most obvious conclusion
- [16:10]
Charles McDonald
if you look across, like, through the NBA, where, like, the Kawhi Leonard and
- [16:14]
Mia Wong
Steve Ballmer stuff is, oh, my God, another Pavil Torre. Right.
- [16:19]
Charles McDonald
Another Pablo Torre exclusive. But, hey, there. There's a reason why they aren't aggressively going after this, you know, because the other billionaires don't want people rummaging through their shit either. So, you know, and hopefully they like the Microsoft guy being part of the gang. So, yeah, they're not going to do anything. And that's when you see, like, oh, wow, there's so much power here that these guys have. And. But going back to the. I feel like the 2011 CBA is,
- [16:42]
Mia Wong
by the way, CBA's collective bargaining agreement.
- [16:44]
Charles McDonald
This is the collective collective bargaining agreement, Right? Yeah.
- [16:46]
Mia Wong
Between the un in the league.
- [16:47]
Charles McDonald
Right. So if there's no agreement, then, like, they can't play football games.
- [16:51]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [16:52]
Charles McDonald
Because, you know, like you said, like, the NFLPA functionally just exists, so the NFL doesn't get sued for, like, antitrust stuff.
- [16:59]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [17:00]
Charles McDonald
Which takes us right back to the next point. So going back to 2011, the players are trying to figure out, like, what are we going to do about, like, this lockout situation? Because they need to work, honestly.
- [17:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [17:13]
Charles McDonald
You know, this. This is a career that you can only do for most guys, like, two or three years, and the idea of missing a season is not really feasible, which the owners, you know, they take advantage of all the time. Like, they know that these guys are on. On short, like, short clocks.
- [17:29]
Mia Wong
If you.
- [17:30]
Charles McDonald
If you get to, like, year five of an NFL career, you are in a very, very small group of players that, like, honestly, like, just represent the elite of the elite of people who have ever played football, like, in this country.
- [17:44]
Mia Wong
And I think the other thing about this, too, is, like, that's really important. This is an unbelievably, unbelievably skilled labor force.
- [17:51]
Charles McDonald
Yes.
- [17:51]
Mia Wong
And in order to develop these skills, you have to devote your entire life to it.
- [17:54]
Charles McDonald
Yes.
- [17:55]
Mia Wong
And then what you get from devoting your entire life to this thing that is killing you because you're getting injured constantly and you're getting head trauma from all of this every single time. Like, I mean, start from, like, high school, you're starting to get brain damage from concussions and from, like, you're starting to get cte.
- [18:12]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [18:12]
Mia Wong
And then you have a couple of years to, like, make money from having devoted your life to this thing.
- [18:17]
Charles McDonald
Right. So think about, like, It's March of 2011 now. Gene Upshawson passed away. For a couple of years, they were in the. Fully in the demora Smith, in the Smith reign of union leadership. And the first move that the owners make, like, now that the CBA is officially over following the 2010 season, they lock out the players, which, as we just said, if your career is two years, the idea that you missed one of those years is kind of unfathomable.
- [18:44]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [18:45]
Charles McDonald
Your earning power is just, like, demolished. And let's say you're. You're 24 years old. You got to play two years in the NFL. You're walking out with, let's say, a million in your bank account. You still got to get a job, bro. You know, like. Like, you still got to find something else to do. So, like, this isn't money that's going to set you up for the rest of your life for. For most of these guys, even though it does give you, like, a nice cushion to Fall off to. Even if you're someone who struggled a little bit. I mean, shoot, I know when I was 24, I would have loved to have like $700,000 in my bank account.
- [19:15]
Mia Wong
Yeah, things would have.
- [19:16]
Charles McDonald
Things could have turned out, you know, maybe a little bit different. Probably still would have found something some way where I'm right here, but. But honestly, it's a good start. So what the union did was they decertified as a union in 2011, led by Tom Brady and Drew Brees. I'm a Falcons fan, and I will say this part has given me so much justification on my hatred. Brees. It's like it went past the football into like the, like the material realm of like, real life. You guys messed up here. They tried to, you know, challenge the league by decertifying as a union and arguing, you know, that now this is an antitrust situation, blah, blah, blah, blah. To get down to August, it's on the 2011 CBA in August of 2011. So, like, this is a month, a month before the season. And the concessions that were made after, like, after getting locked out for what, six, like five months?
- [20:20]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [20:20]
Charles McDonald
And you decertified that. You go through all this work to try and get a deal done and they gave up so much.
- [20:28]
Mia Wong
So.
- [20:28]
Charles McDonald
So we said before you had the total revenue split at 60, 40, but functionally it was closer to 51, 52% in favor of the players. That dropped to like 47% in the 2011 CBA. So now the owners are back in charge, like a 53% revenue split in favor of the owners. So you just gave them back like billions of dollars over the course of really just a couple of years, but over the lifetime of a 10 year CBA, I mean, that. That's. That's egregious and also unbelievable amount of money. Another thing that changed was Roger Goodell has now like, full autonomy over player punishments. I don't know why you gave that up either.
- [21:12]
Mia Wong
That's unhinged, right? Why? That's like, that's the kind of thing that like, like the only kind of unions that would sign something like that are like, like, I don't even think the organized crime unions would sign it. I think that's just like literally the fascist unions and the unions that are directly controlled, like the yellow unions that are directly controlled by a corporation are like the only ones that would sign that. Even, even those ones probably would want to still have like, some involvement in that. That's like unbelievable for. For a union contract. Just like right Nonsense.
- [21:46]
Charles McDonald
Right. And what's changed here is like these players are not willing to go on strike, like to not play these games to, to not have a situation like in the 80s where you know, Donald Trump is building up the USFL and saying, hey, why don't you strike the players that come play over here? And you, you had some, some guys who were like NFL hall of Famers who briefly played in the USFL during, you know, during the strike, stuff that, that doesn't happen here. And think about the timing.
- [22:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [22:14]
Charles McDonald
August, what was it? August 4, 2011? 132 day lockout. They signed this deal. So, so I can imagine. And, and I'll like, I'll give them this. It's hard out here, man. Like the, you're about to, you're looking at, yeah, like the consequence of, you know, I'm about to not have checks and I maybe have a lifestyle where I am still should be getting, you know, these week to week paychecks. That's kind of a tough, tough draw. So I, I, I will give them like the small grace of saying at that point, man, okay, fuck it, just, let's just go just get something signed. But what they gave up, unbelievable. I'm not sure like they were fully aware of what they gave up here. And the part of the biggest thing that, where they gave up was part of the biggest thing after they, after I say they gave the money back to the owners. They gave Roger Goodell, they made him dictator in terms of like the punishment.
- [23:05]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [23:05]
Charles McDonald
Workforce. But the rookie wage scale was, my God, a massive, holy shit. Massive concession to ownership. Yeah, because they, they as in like Tom Brady and Drew Brees, more so Drew Brees, from what I've gathered, kind of frame this as, hey, why are these rookies getting all this damn money? Like this is something that should be going towards the veterans. And ownership was like, oh, you see, you think like, you think that's a good idea. Like we can agree, we could agree to that. And what they got back was like less practice time. So you know, you know, you don't have to have as many two a days. Yeah, that's worth billions of dollars. Really? Like in terms of like, yeah, what you, what you guys can set yourself up with and what the, what the veteran players who, who were on board with this, what they thought was, oh, okay, well if the rookie wage, if the rookie wages deal, like if that, if that gets capped at a certain amount, then that's more money for us. So like, like a prime example is in 2010 Sam Bradford was the number one overall pick to St. Louis Rams. He signed a six year, $84 million contract. Though the next year, Cam Newton is the first overall pick to the Carolina Panthers. And after this lockout ends, his contract was four years, $22 million fully guaranteed.
- [24:23]
Mia Wong
Jesus Christ.
- [24:25]
Charles McDonald
You lost $60 million in terms of value from the year before. So what the veteran players thought was, oh, okay, well, now there'll be this influx of cap space to sign veteran players. What do billionaires do when they suddenly have access to a cheap workforce? They just load up on rookies. Right. So these veteran players, they sold themselves on the fallacy of trickle down economics and got themselves replaced out of the league. So the only people that just benefited really was people like Drew Brees, people like Tom Brady, people who don't need it. Right. And, but also are so indispensable to their organizations that they can eat up the camp space that was left over.
- [25:08]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [25:08]
Charles McDonald
From, from the rookies getting slides. So that's like, that's when you start to see like the quarterback contracts balloon up.
- [25:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [25:14]
Charles McDonald
Where, you know, you go from like in 2015, 11 years ago, or 2016, I think Cam Newton signed a contract that made him the highest paid quarterback in NFL history at five years, $100 million.
- [25:26]
Mia Wong
Oh my God.
- [25:27]
Charles McDonald
You know, and now that number is what, like, I think, man, who's the highest paid is Joe Bro. The highest paid right now at like,
- [25:35]
Mia Wong
feel like it's burrow. Yeah, that sounds right.
- [25:38]
Charles McDonald
But now like that deal is worth, you know, closer to 80 million, you know, $70 million a year than it is to, to anything, like closer to 20.
- [25:46]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [25:47]
Charles McDonald
So you gave up so much and you got this whole middle class of the league just decimated. And, and yeah, like that, that's still tangible today. You can just go on overthecap.com or spottrack.com and just look at like, like average money, like per year. And there's a top. And then the middle class is literally like a couple players. And for quarterback, it's like two or three guys. Like you'll have like, yeah, now it's like a Malik Willis or a Daniel Jones, like 40, like as crazy to say, like $44 million. Like that's outside the top half of what guys are getting paid. And then it's all rookies, like all rookies and guys on rookie contracts. There's no middle class like that. That's gone from the NFL. And with that, like, you lose some of, like, personally this might be like, you lose some of like the wisdom that comes with that of guys who have played in the league because now they get. Now they're getting churned out so fast because the contract is so cheap. Yeah, I'm not going to extend you because honestly, this game beats your body up so bad that it's better just to get a fresh body in there. And these people, they have no attachment to the sacrifices that have been built over a long time. So you kind of build this player force that doesn't know what's going on. And I say that with a grain of salt now because I used to be one of these guys, like, oh, you know, they don't care what's going on. And there is a good chunk that don't care what's going on. But I think now it's more clear there's like an obvious force stopping them from getting like, information about what's going on with this union stuff, which is the meat of this, like, the recent stuff is just like the ultimate. Just fuck it. I guess we're pawns of the ownership stuff. You know,
- [27:39]
Mia Wong
I think the arc of this is like, it's the arc of sort of unionism in America. You know, you go back to like your early 1900s unions, right? And those unions, you know, they're unbelievably powerful. They're extremely dangerous. You know, you get to a point where, like, the IWW will show up to a town and like, the bosses in the town will show up with guns and shoot them because they're that well organized, they're that dangerous, they're that capable of striking, they're that committed and they're that able to tap into all of their members and have everyone in the union be a part of the union and do things with the union. And that's, you know, how you can actually do collective action. And then. And you can watch this with sort of like, with the ability of the NFL pa Like, obviously, like, that's a much weaker union than your, like, I don't know, you're like 1930s CIO or whatever.
- [28:27]
Charles McDonald
Yeah, yeah, but.
- [28:28]
Mia Wong
But you can watch it, like sort of decay into this sort of, you know, what you call, like a service union where instead of it being run by the players, there is like, okay, we have some people. They're going to go. They're going to do everything for you. They're going to sometimes talk to you about it, but, you know, like, they're going to be the runs, like, managing all of the contracts and all of the negotiations and like.
- [28:49]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [28:49]
Mia Wong
And as that, like, information circle gets tighter and tighter, you know, that makes it way easier for things to just get completely fucked. And then, then, you know, and this is one of the things that you see in the 90s is the. Is the complete dominance of business unionism, where it's just like, nah, fuck it, we're a union. Yeah, Right. The US and the employers actually have the same interest and we're going to work with them to make money. And it's like, how's that going for you guys? Like, and that's what this sort of turns into. And one of the issues here, and you're talking about this with like, the information control, is once you get into this situation where, you know, a really, really small number of people, like, we're talking maybe 30 people, and then the executive committee is even smaller than that. Are the ones who are, you know, one of the things that happens in the later part of this is so JC Treader, who's like the guy behind the scenes for. For like the executive. Just the search for like the executive director, the guy who like, completely, truly was like the most hideous guy I've ever had running this union. He changed the process so that it was completely confidential to the point where the 32 guys on the board who were supposed to be voting for the executive director didn't know the names of the candidates until they walked into the meeting.
- [30:01]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [30:02]
Mia Wong
What the.
- [30:05]
Charles McDonald
And to me, like, that point is like, so crucial because that's where I shift from. Oh, it's not that you guys don't care about this. Like, they don't know what's going on.
- [30:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah. It's being hidden from them. They can't know.
- [30:16]
Charles McDonald
They can't know. And I will say, like, part of what makes this difficult, if you are someone in there who does care and wants to fix things, is there's just the truth that, like, even the bottom rung players are comfortably living, like, off of their salary. So when you start to get to guys who are veterans, like, man, even if you don't take the best deal shit, like what. I still. I'm still making $15 million a year. Like, ultimately I'm still good. And that's what is hard to like, get people galvanized about this sometimes. But I think that that part about, like, players not caring has kind of been overrepresented a little bit. Because I think if you're paying attention now, there's so much murkiness. And I. And I think when. When you get to the, like the recent CBAs, like in 2020, the. The COVID year one. So now that's like the Moore Smith and JC Treader who was playing for the Browns then. He was the president of the NFLPA. As they enter like this, this 2020 CBA at the end, after the end of the 201110 year run, where for 10 years they locked themselves into ownership, being able to extract, like, as much value.
- [31:23]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [31:24]
Charles McDonald
As. As it seemed like they possibly could at the time. And then 2020 comes and the owners are basically just like, hey, there's going to be another lockout unless you guys agree to a 17th game, which you should say bet. Okay, cool. Because there's no circumstance where you, you can watch football and know how horrible this game is for your body and say, we are going to play more football without, like, major concessions.
- [31:50]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [31:51]
Charles McDonald
Because I remember when that was going on, you know, I was talking to some older guys who weren't in the unit anymore, but they were looking at like, man, like if, if they're, if they're gonna say 17th game, like, we need something massive like giving back to us. On the other hand, because that's just straight up a revenue play to get more games on TV and make these TV contracts a little bit more lucrative. And that didn't really happen, you know, like, no, like, they just gave up the 17th game and they got, I think, 1% more in terms of like the rev share. So they got to like 48 or 49%, which is just like, like that's it.
- [32:25]
Mia Wong
You're 1% rev share for adding, like, what's the percentage of games added to the season? Like, Right.
- [32:32]
Charles McDonald
And like, there were some concessions made to like, players made at the bottom rung of the ladder. So like, like the veteran minimum salaries, like, they got boosted. The practice squads got a little bit longer, and now you got to the space where you see, like, veterans can be on a practice squad instead of guys who are within like three years of, you know, accrued years in the NFL. But the 17th game, while still having inequity in terms of the revenue share. I mean, the owners, they'll sign up for that every single time. Oh, you, you. We got to throw you crumbs.
- [33:07]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [33:07]
Charles McDonald
And we still get to, to keep our billions. And they timed it up right. So that 17th game being inserted into the schedule was lining up with new TV contracts with ESPN and NBC and Amazon. Everyone you see, like, throwing cash is so understated. Like, it's not throwing cash. Like, billions of dollars is going to the NFL.
- [33:28]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [33:28]
Charles McDonald
Through these TV deals. Like, it's funny, I had a friend, you know, one of these Shador Sander stands, he was arguing, he's like, oh, you know, he was. He. He was like, oh, you know, like the Browns, like, they took Shador because they need the, the jersey sales. I'm like, dude, Shador could have the number one selling jersey in the NFL. And Jimmy Haslam doesn't care about that. No, that's up. Drop of a. Drop of a drop in the bucket for, like, where the money is actually coming from. And that's the TV deal. So to get that 17th game is huge. And this term is for 10 years again. So in 2030, they can look at, you know, renegotiating, trying to figure it out. But in the meantime, like, to even call this a union is so far away from how it's actually functioning now. Now it's getting to the point, like, where it's kind of murky on what's happening because obviously, like, if you're in a union and you know, like, my co workers, like, they've dealt with J.C. treader, like, I've seen him speak before. If you're in a union, obviously, like, you don't want too many people outside the union to know what's going on. Like, it's just not good from a standpoint of, like, leverage and power. But J.C. treader, like, he plays off of that by keeping everything a secret, you know?
- [34:41]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Which is a terrible idea.
- [34:42]
Charles McDonald
Which is a terrible idea. Like.
- [34:44]
Mia Wong
Yeah, well, it's good for him.
- [34:45]
Charles McDonald
Right, right, right. Maybe you don't want to tell me, a reporter, like, what's going on, but you should tell, like, the other people within your union what's going on. It's like when you see, like, a lack of information about or any information about, like, what's going on with these, these elections, it's because no one's being told what's going on. These elections. And that's how you end up with Lloyd Howell, which is just.
- [35:09]
James Stout
Oh, God.
- [35:10]
Mia Wong
Okay, okay, Let, Let. Let's talk about Lloyd Howell, who is. Oh, my God.
- [35:15]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [35:16]
Mia Wong
One of the worst people to run a union I have ever seen.
- [35:20]
Charles McDonald
Yes. But it's purposefully bad, you know, like.
- [35:23]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah.
- [35:24]
Charles McDonald
The Lloyd Howell, like, secret election. Like, it not. I'm not even about to say, like, I'm, you know, somewhat. Somewhat of a secret. No. A secret of election, basically, to get.
- [35:33]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah.
- [35:33]
Charles McDonald
Lloyd Howell hired. Lloyd's the work for Booz Allen, man.
- [35:38]
Mia Wong
Yeah, he was. He was the CFO of Booz Allen Hamilton.
- [35:42]
Charles McDonald
Right. But like, his Background was in busting unions.
- [35:46]
Mia Wong
Uh huh.
- [35:47]
Charles McDonald
Right. That's his background.
- [35:48]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [35:49]
Charles McDonald
And this, but this is where you get like a look at the ideology of someone like JC Treader, who also studied labor unions in college. That's what he got his degree in, labor relations and labor arrangement from Harvard.
- [36:01]
Dana El Kurd
Yep.
- [36:02]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [36:03]
Mia Wong
You're not, you're not doing the labor relations degree to like be in a union. Like, like the people, the people who like organize for unions are like fudgeing grad students who you know, have like a, I don't know, like they have, they have some random degree and then they were like, I organized my graduate, I'm going to go organize the field. This is not what you go into that for. You go into this do union busting.
- [36:24]
Charles McDonald
Yeah. So, but so JC Treader and you know, the people around him, they viewed that experience from Lloyd Howell, busting unions as a positive.
- [36:35]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [36:35]
Charles McDonald
Because you know, there's this train of thought, like, oh well, you know, well, if we know someone who knows how to destroy us if we hire them, surely they will change their ways and they will start to help us. Like we're going to get inside knowledge on how to bust a unit. So maybe we could weaponize that and turn it back the other way. Man, that's dumb as hell.
- [36:54]
Mia Wong
Why would you.
- [36:54]
Charles McDonald
Like that's.
- [36:55]
Mia Wong
Oh my God.
- [36:57]
Charles McDonald
Right? And not only that, but Lloyd Howell, who is elected the executive director of the union, is also a part of a hedge fund that is investing in NFL teams in minority states. The Carlisle Group, your executive director of the union, works for hedge funds that are extracting value from these teams.
- [37:23]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [37:24]
Charles McDonald
That's disqualifying. It should be disqualifying.
- [37:27]
Mia Wong
He's on camera. The union posted a video of him on camera talking about how he was talking to the owners about letting, about letting the investment group in.
- [37:35]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [37:36]
Mia Wong
It's unbelievable. It's as close as I've ever seen outside of again, a union that is literally run by the bosses. To like my union guy works for management. Like, it's like baffling. I don't know, it's like, it's like state integrated CCP shit. Right? Like, it's like, dude, yes.
- [37:53]
Charles McDonald
You have a corporate consultant.
- [37:55]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [37:56]
Charles McDonald
Is your union liaison to 32 billionaires and Roger Goodell. Like, yeah, it's completely incompatible on like a basic like ideological level. And then you start getting to like, well, okay, well now he has like direct control over people's lives and the funds of the union, which as ESPN and Pablo Torre found out he was using to go to the goddamn strip club in Miami.
- [38:19]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah.
- [38:19]
Charles McDonald
And to spend on other stuff. And also he was sued for sexual harassment while he was at Booz Allen. So he's hidden, like the check marks for everything you see, like corporate sociopathy, right?
- [38:31]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [38:31]
Charles McDonald
And they're like, that's our guy, that's our guy. Once all this stuff comes out about how he spends his money and how he's misappropriating funds, that was what got him out, more so than the material practices that he exemplified while he was running the union, which involved hiding the fact that the owners were colluding against them.
- [38:53]
Mia Wong
It is completely unhinged. And unfortunately, the other thing that's unhinged is. That's going to be all for today. However, comma, there is more to this story tomorrow as we finish part two of this interview. And oh my God, Holy shit. Somehow the worst is yet to come. So join us for part two tomorrow, in which question mark There seems to be good evidence of the NFL paying a guy specifically to be able to keep control of the union. Oh, dear. So if you. If you want to find more of Charles McDonald's work, you can do so at the Football 301 podcast and at Yahoo. Sports, where he writes the column for Verts. It's quite good. You should listen to it. And yeah, dear God, I don't know, it formed unions. If you're in unions that suck, make better ones.
- [39:58]
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- [40:32]
Mia Wong
Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the most unhinged union story I have ever covered. I am your host, Mia Wong, and in a moment, we will return to my interview with Yahoo. Sports journalist Charles McDonald. So if you have not listened to the last episode, you should listen to the last episode so we can get you up to the 2000s in terms of the horrifying and depressing story of the NFL Players Association's leadership gradually selling out more and more of their players. And in this episode, we're going to really sort of get down to the brass tacks of what's been happening in the 2000s. And answering the question, to what extent has the NFL paid in order to have a pro management regime installed at the head of the union? A question that is really distressingly. We have good evidence of this, but before we can get to that, we need to talk about one of the other absolutely horrifying things that this union regime has done, and that is the union covering up. As reported by Pablo Torre, originally, a report by an arbitration judge about whether or not the independent teams in the NFL, which are supposed to be businesses competing against each other. And I kind of emphasize this enough, because this is a major portion of how the NFL's antitrust exemption is supposed to work, is that these teams are nominally competing against each other. So there is supposed to be a labor market with competition. But this document that the union covered up from an arbitration process they were in is about. It has very good evidence of the league actively colluding in order to pay players less. And the union covered it up. So here we go back to our interview. Let's talk about this collusion thing, because I've been losing my fucking mind about this for a really long time, and I. I cannot imagine just literally having evidence in your hand that the owners are colluding against your members. Like. Like, these are literally you. Like, this is supposed to be you, and you're just hiding the report, dude. Even.
- [42:59]
Charles McDonald
Like, okay, so even if you lose the arbitration.
- [43:02]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [43:02]
Charles McDonald
The fact that a judge wrote.
- [43:04]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [43:05]
Charles McDonald
In a legal document that it was, like, beyond the benefit of a doubt that Roger Goodell and the 32 owners were colluding. We've seen text messages between the Cardinals owner and the Chargers owner talking about how much to pay Justin Herbert.
- [43:22]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [43:22]
Charles McDonald
Lamar Jackson.
- [43:23]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Okay, can we.
- [43:25]
Garrison Davis
Can we.
- [43:25]
Mia Wong
Can we explain the Lamar Jackson situation and, like, explain who Lamar Jackson is for people who don't watch football so they can understand how unhinged this is.
- [43:33]
Charles McDonald
Lamar Jackson is a wizard is the best way that I could put it. Lamar Jackson, he is the franchise quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens. And I just think that anyone with a brain could have seen what was going on. Yeah, right. Like, with. With this situation. So. So. And even before Deshawn. Even. Even before Lamar Jackson, you have to take it back to Deshaun Watson. Trade out of Houston.
- [43:55]
Mia Wong
Oh, God. The one trade we've ever covered on this show because. Holy shit. Oh, my God.
- [44:02]
Molly Crabapple
This.
- [44:02]
Charles McDonald
This is what got the dominoes rolling on this stuff where as terrible as Deshaun Watson is As a football player now and obviously as a human being.
- [44:11]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Like, right.
- [44:12]
Charles McDonald
It. When he was in Houston, it feels like a different world, but he was the man. Like, he was incredible. Like, to the point where the Texans, I think his last year starting there, they went 4 and 12, and it was, like, so obviously not his fault. Like, in terms of efficiency, like, he was right behind Patrick Mahomes at the top of the league. Like, he got an apology from J.J. watt that year, saying, like, dude, we wasted an absolutely incredible year from you. And then, you know, the 30 accusations of, best, sexual misconduct, at worst, sexual assault in some of those cases.
- [44:46]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Really hideous shit.
- [44:48]
Charles McDonald
Right? So then it gets to a point where he. The Texans, they don't want him there. He doesn't want to be there anymore. But you have what looks to be a franchise quarterback in his mid-20s available for any team to have, you know, with the trade. So my team, Sally, the Atlanta Falcons, they thought that they had a deal done for Deshaun Watson, and then the Cleveland Browns came in, and this is where the. Where the ownership feedback loop kind of gets broken, where Jimmy Haslam breaks the ranks and says, I want this guy on my team so bad. This is why nobody ever hits free agency in the NFL, because this is what it would look like in terms of when owners actually have to bid against each other for elite talent. Jimmy Haslam comes in and says, here's five years, $230 million. Every single penny will be guaranteed. No stipulations, nothing like that.
- [45:40]
Mia Wong
Which is, like, not how this works normally. Like, no one gets guaranteed contracts.
- [45:43]
Charles McDonald
Right? And, like, because the. Previously, the. The actual first player to get a fully guaranteed, like, contract from another team was actually Kirk Cousins with the Vikings. When he left Washington, they gave him, like, a little three year. I think it was three years, $88 million fully guaranteed. But still, that ain't five years. 230.
- [46:01]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [46:01]
Charles McDonald
You know?
- [46:01]
Dana El Kurd
Yeah.
- [46:02]
Charles McDonald
And what the owners were mad about was not that you would seek out someone with the personal background, Deshaun Watson, to represent your franchise, is that you would pay any NFL player $230 million guaranteed. Because now, that sets precedent. Because if. If you're Lamar Jackson, whose contract was coming to an end at the season after Deshaun Watson signed this deal, you're like, I didn't touch those women. Yeah, I'm an MVP quarterback. I'm in my 20s. Why shouldn't I get a fully guaranteed contract? Right? Which is what he was doing. And the Ravens, they said, okay, fine, go out into the market. And I felt like I was going insane during this because, oh my God, there were so many arguments from talking heads about why teams shouldn't sign Lamar Jackson. So he was hit with what's called a non exclusive franchise tag, which means the Ravens, I don't even know how like this, the idea of the franchise tag existing is another youth like labor.
- [47:04]
Mia Wong
L hideously anti labor practice.
- [47:07]
Charles McDonald
Right. So his contract with the Ravens is over and they can hit him with an exclusive franchise tag, which means you will be playing for us next year. You basically have no say in it unless we remove this or, you know, we work out a trade with somebody else. But you cannot go negotiate with anyone else even though your contract has expired. And yeah, to be quote, unquote fair, like, the payment is a average of the top five, you know, yearly salaries of the position you play. So you will get paid like, you know, a top five player for one year at your position. It really only goes to, to mostly valuable players that they're trying to extend. But they hit him with a non exclusive franchise tag, which means they have right of first refusal on if another team offers Lamar Jackson a contract. And that team would owe the Ravens two first round picks in order to sign Lamar Jackson. So, dude, desean Watson just went for three.
- [48:02]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [48:03]
Charles McDonald
And this, this rule is legally mandated. That is two first round picks. And I'm sure, you know, the Ravens will probably ask for a little stuff beyond that, but I only have to give you two first round picks and I can just sign Lamar Jackson.
- [48:14]
Mia Wong
He's like, he's a generational quarterback. Like.
- [48:17]
Charles McDonald
Right, right, right. At this point, we're talking about a quarterback who was like 25 years old. He's the first unanimous MVP, which he won in his first season as a starter since Tom Brady. He's one of two players in like, or, you know, I don't know if it's two, but it's less than five players in the history of the league that have been unanimous MVPs. Every single person voted for Lamar Jackson being MVP. And the Ravens said, go ahead and negotiate with another team. And no one, no one even brought him in to talk to him. Right. Like, it's unbelievable.
- [48:50]
Mia Wong
I grew up in Chicago, so like, I grew up with the Bears and my, my family are like a, like a family of like Seahawks fans. Right. Neither of those two teams have ever had a quarterback who's in the same stratosphere as this guy. Like, this is right. These guys never, like ever, ever available,
- [49:09]
Charles McDonald
ever hit three agency, never ever. And this, the people, like, they'll bend the rules to things that aren't written, where they'll say, oh, you know, the Ravens will just match. Make them match, then. Make them.
- [49:20]
Mia Wong
That. That's a competitive advantage for you.
- [49:22]
Charles McDonald
Right, right. I hate that my favorite team keeps popping up in this Atlanta. But. But Arthur Blank, he put his name on it. You guys saying, you know, the Falcons, like, they were trying out, you know, backup quarterback, quality guys. Because after Matt Ryan left, Desmond Ritter, like, Jesus Christ, Marcus Mariota, dude. And. And I'm sitting there like, you're telling me that I can sign Lamar Jackson and I gotta give up two first round picks for him. Like, dude, pay him 60 million guaranteed every year. He's worth that much.
- [49:51]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [49:51]
Charles McDonald
And Arthur Blank says, well, you know, Lamar Jackson, he's gonna get hurt too much for us to sign him. So. So, nope. No team signs him. No team even talks to him. So obviously he goes back to the Ravens, doesn't get the fully guaranteed contract that the Sean Watson got. And that kind of put an end to it for a little bit until the power of journalism popped up. Politore does his investigation, hears about an arbitration, hearing about collusion in the NFL, and he gets his hands on the documents that say that while Lamar Jackson was going through his free agency, basically rejection by 31 teams when he would have been an Upgrade for like 28 of them. 29 of them.
- [50:31]
Mia Wong
Yeah. At the time, I would throw a number one, like, overall rookie quarterback that I just drafted with the first overall pick out the fucking window. Throw him away to get Lamar Jackson.
- [50:42]
Charles McDonald
Right. You could be a part of this. Two first round picks. We're giving you two first round picks. Plus.
- [50:45]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [50:46]
Charles McDonald
You know, if, like, at that time, like, it may have been like, Kyler Murray or something like that.
- [50:49]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [50:49]
Charles McDonald
Take him.
- [50:50]
Mia Wong
Like, it's. Take him. Unbelievable. Like, I cannot. He literally, like, the game of football is a fundamentally a different game now than it was when Lamar Jackson, like, started playing because of him. And it's just like, it didn't take him.
- [51:04]
Charles McDonald
His influence on the NFL is so strong that we don't really do the black quarterback talking points anymore.
- [51:09]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [51:10]
Charles McDonald
Because the league was like, oh, we can't let that happen again. Like when Lamar Jackson fell to 32 and everyone's talking about, does he need to play a different position? And in year two, he wins an mvp.
- [51:20]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [51:20]
Charles McDonald
And the year after he signs his deal with the Ravens, he wins his second mvp. Like, that kind of cooled the fans. Like, when you get to see guys like Kim Ward going first overall or even Kyler Murray going first overall. And there's no talk about how smart they are as. Yeah, like, that's his influence directly. His success contributed to that. Like, he is a Hall of Fame. It kind of gives me chills. Like, think about like what he's accomplished considering, like what has been stacked against him. Yeah, like he, he is such an important figure for this era of football and really just the whole league, like on the field and off the field. Like what he means, like culturally in society for, like, for the chances that black men can get to play in a position that deemed, like they were deemed not to play smart enough because he was so good that they said, we can't look that stupid again. This player was available. This player was available in his athletic prime.
- [52:09]
Mia Wong
Every team could have drafted him. Every single team in the league could have drafted him. And they didn't.
- [52:15]
Charles McDonald
The Ravens passed on him like, he was not even the first Ravens draft pick that year. No, they drafted Hayden Hurst, 25 overall before they drafted Lamar Jackson. Every single team passed on him.
- [52:24]
Mia Wong
Everyone.
- [52:25]
Charles McDonald
And he's won the MP. He's one of 11 players in the history of the NFL to win two MVPs. Every. Every other player that has won two or more MVPs is either a Hall of Famer or actively playing Aaron Rodgers and Pat Mahomes. That's it. Like, this guy is a Hall of Famer already.
- [52:40]
Mia Wong
And he should have won a third, by the way. Like.
- [52:42]
Charles McDonald
Right, he should have won the third.
- [52:43]
Mia Wong
He was in like either way, near identical, like, like statistical tie for like a third one.
- [52:48]
Charles McDonald
So yeah, he's first. He's the three time first female pro. He's going to be a Hall of Famer. And the fact that nobody, nobody called him in to say what, what would it take? Like, what kind of contract are you looking for that. That's where I was like, something, something is so obviously not right here.
- [53:04]
Mia Wong
The Colts traded two first round picks for a quarterback. Like.
- [53:09]
Charles McDonald
Yes, right. Precisely. Precisely.
- [53:11]
Mia Wong
And like they're starting a guy who broke his leg and then also sprint his Achilles like two years later. I was like, I just.
- [53:19]
Charles McDonald
Dude, Jalen Ramsey went for two first round picks. He's a great player, but he's a cornerback. You know, it's not even the same thing.
- [53:24]
Mia Wong
So this is the most in sports.
- [53:27]
Charles McDonald
Right. A first ballot hall of Famer was on the market in his prime.
- [53:31]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [53:31]
Charles McDonald
And nobody talked to him about a contract except the team that owned that, you know, owned like the rights of first refusal. And it Was so frustrating to see. Like, my colleagues in the media say, oh, you know, the Ravens were just going to match. That's so disingenuous. Yeah, that's so disingenuous because you're, you're stripping Lamar, like, of his agency as a player one. Like, he's better than every other quarterback that just about any team has. It'll be such a severe upgrade. And you're also just like, holding the line. For what? You're not getting a cut of that money. Why are you lying to these people like that? Yeah, but, but Pablo, you know, Paula took it back. Like in his reporting, he found out that a judge agreed with the union that the players were being colluded against, like, actively. Like, there's, there's text messages and J.C. treader and Lloyd Howell, they hid this from the union, bro. If, if you're a union and you have, even if you lose arbitration, you have physical note from a judge that says you were colluding against. Take your megaphone to the top of the tallest mountain in the world and talk about this. Apply some pressure now. Like, this is where I started to get curious. Like, why, why did this happen? Because that part we still don't have enough information on. Like, I need to know how much, like, if there's a kickback going back. Like J.C. treader.
- [54:43]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [54:43]
Charles McDonald
How much is it? And we do know that Lloyd Howe, part of the reason, also part of the reason why he was fired or had to resign was because he along with, he along with former former MLBPA union leader Tony White, who was recently fired for banging his brother's wife, who he hired to work at the mlb.
- [55:04]
Mia Wong
Oh, my fucking God. Yeah. The NFLPA is so lucky that the MLBPA had a schedule that's almost as embarrassing. The strip club, maybe more.
- [55:13]
Charles McDonald
But Lloyd Howell and Tony White, they were working together as part of an eight man group of like, union parasites, like, at the top of the corporate ladder in America, to siphon money away from the union into their own personal pockets. Like, this is what's running it. We know for a fact Lloyd and Tony White, who's the, you know, baseball union head, what it was because he no longer has his job or family.
- [55:53]
Mia Wong
Yeah, bad day for him. But you, you, you brought this upon yourself.
- [55:57]
Charles McDonald
Like, right, he, he can't go home for Christmas, you know, like that. Like, he's done. They were part of a small group that was siphoning money away from union funds to line their own pockets. That is verified. They've been sued for that. So what Else is going on here.
- [56:12]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah.
- [56:12]
Charles McDonald
What is the incentivization for JC Treader to push someone like that through? And then the backside is JC's reign as the union president expires while Lloyd Howells the executive director. And Lloyd makes a new cushy role for JC as like, you know, I don't remember what the role was called,
- [56:33]
Mia Wong
but like it's like chief of strategy or something.
- [56:36]
Charles McDonald
Yes, Chief Strategy officer. So something that paid him like $3 million a year very handsomely, functionally. Lloyd was off, you know, blowing money at the strip club and JC was kind of running like the actual day to day things because he's the one that has a connection to players. Right. And now we've gone through a point where after Gene Upshaw dies, the two executive directors who followed him as, you know, the head of the union, Demar Smith and Lloyd Howell, neither of those guys were NFL players. So you can understand how players might feel we've gotten a little bit too far from our roots. Like we don't have guys who are from our background interested in, you know, players and what we go through. Which leads back to JC Treader, who played for the packers, played for the Browns, was a, was at his peak, man. He was a good player. Like, I'm not gonna take that away from him. Like, he was a good starting center on a lot of good offensive lines in Cleveland that didn't win any games. But they, they, they blocked the hell out of people, man. Like, like, like when you go back, you look at some of those lines. Like they had Joe Thomas and Alex Mack and Mitchell Schwartz, Joe Petonio, like, like they have some stars that were out there winning four or five games a year. So Lloyd Howell resigns in a mess. JC is still the chief strategy officer of the nflpa.
- [57:52]
Mia Wong
I think he resigns eventually from there.
- [57:54]
Charles McDonald
But, but yes, yes, yes. After Lloyd Howell resigns, JC resigns too. So now, now we're up to last summer. Summer 2025.
- [58:02]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [58:03]
Charles McDonald
Eight months ago. Right. It's March 27th. Eight months ago, JC Treader resigns from the chief tragedy officer role that was cut out for him and says he said in an interview to my friend Jonathan Jones, I have no interest in any leadership roles in the union moving forward. He said, I have given this my all. I've given this everything I had. I'm going to go home and be a family man. I have no interest in this at all. And it seemed like it until this month when JC pops back up as one of the finalists for the New executive director role that was previously left by Lloyd Howe. Now this is where it gets murky. I don't know, like, all the processes that go on with, like, how they decide, like, who's gonna, you know, do what. Like they. Apparently they had 300 candidates. They will it down to three. I asked some players what's going on in the past couple weeks. They don't know, like, how, like all this was selected. But they are presented with three finalists for the executive director role to vote on. JC Treader, who has popped up out of nowhere. Then the commissioner of the American Athletic Conference. So, like Temple and you know, those east coast schools, like, like James Madison or whatever, like, he's overseeing that.
- [59:19]
Mia Wong
It's like a college football commissioner.
- [59:22]
Charles McDonald
Yeah, like, like, yeah, college football. College football commissioner. Like, he's talking to like the president of Rice University about, like scheduling games against Toledo or some shit.
- [59:30]
Mia Wong
Christ.
- [59:31]
Charles McDonald
But so you have J.C. trenner, the American conference commissioner. Not even like the ACC, the AAC, right. It used to be the Big east. Like they're stolen Big East Valor. This. This guy was running against JC Treader. And also the third was a former Hollywood union exec who didn't really seem to be that interested in the role in the first place. So we get down to the election day and we find out the American Conference commissioner drops out.
- [60:00]
Mia Wong
Oh, wow.
- [60:01]
Charles McDonald
On. On election day, he drops out. Right. Okay. So now, so now we're dealing with. We've had two executive directors back to back. Moore, Smith, Lord Howe, not football players. Didn't go well. JC Trenner was a part of that, but he played football. Right. So you see J.C. treader or this Hollywood guy who doesn't give a crap. I forget his name, but his background wasn't like, always the cleanest in terms of, you know, actually getting things done in terms of, you know, being pro labor all the time. Ultimately, as fucked up as it is, that's an easy choice if you're a player. These are my two options. I'm going to take the guy who at least has played football. So you had J.C. treader, who is now back as the executive director eight months after he said he had no interest in being any type of union leadership.
- [60:48]
Mia Wong
And like, somehow this whole process has to be like, stage managed. He's like, back again.
- [60:52]
Charles McDonald
Right. But to me, this linchpin right here is actually the most fascinating part of what's happened. And this is where, like, if you listen to this podcast, it probably won't sound like a conspiracy. If you're not Thinking about labor relations in America, it might sound like conspiracy to you, but J.C. treader, when he was the president, like his right hand man, I think it was like the vice president was Jalen Reeves Mabin or was very important. He was a special teams linebacker for the Lions for a long time. He became the Union president after J.C. treader left and became like the chief strategy officer. So he basically followed in JC Treader's footsteps as the union president. So, you know, while all this shady stuff's going on, Jalen Reeves Maven is an underrated part. As you know, the new union president because Lloyd was executive director, JC had this new role as the chief strategy officer. But Jalen Reeves Maven is sitting there as the president of the union. So obviously he is involved in this somehow. Right. Like he is involved with like the COVID up for the players.
- [61:54]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [61:54]
Charles McDonald
You know, not being as aggressive as you should be towards ownership in terms of gave up a 17th game dog. Like, that's insane. You got nothing back for it. Yeah. So there's a clock though, in terms of how long you can like be removed from being a player and still be the NFL PA president. And last year, Jalen Maven, he had been out of the league, so his clock was almost up. I think it's within. Yes. Two years. Two years. So if you fought league, you're not signing a contract. Like, no one's pursuing you. Like, you kind of just get filed as retired. Even if you're not, Even if you have come out and said like, I'm retired. Like, there's a bunch of players that never said I'm retired, but nobody, nobody signed them. Like Ty Hilden. Ty Hilden just functionally retired like two weeks ago. He hasn't played in like five years. Okay. But he, he has been placed in a retired file in the NFL as far as just like labeling things go. And if you are retired, if you are labeled as retired, you can't beat the NFLPA president. Makes good, perfect sense. So, okay, this, this does not sound crazy to probably the people who listen to this podcast. Right. If you are one of 32 owners, right. And you have this power structure of an organization that you negotiate against the nflpa. This power structure is very friendly towards you. They've given you a lot over the past 15 years since you ripped up the 2006 CBA.
- [63:15]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [63:15]
Charles McDonald
How much would you pay to keep that in place? Right?
- [63:20]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [63:20]
Charles McDonald
How much would you pay to keep it in place? And I haven't seen many people talking about this part of it. But the Chicago Bears signed Jalen Reeves Mabin this fall.
- [63:31]
Mia Wong
Oh, my God.
- [63:31]
Charles McDonald
Right to a veteran deal. When I looked it up, I think he played like 40 special team snaps for them this season. But that resets his clock. Yeah, that resets his clock. To be president of the union. So now we get to the end of the season.
- [63:50]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [63:51]
Charles McDonald
Jailer Bateman runs again to be president. I'm not sure anybody ran against him. No one's told us who the other candidates were.
- [64:00]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [64:00]
Charles McDonald
If there were other candidates. And now he's the president of the union again after he was almost barred from it. Does any bear stand remember, like any play that Jalen Reeves Maven made?
- [64:13]
Mia Wong
No.
- [64:14]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [64:14]
Mia Wong
Like I watched every game of that team. I guess we're like two that I missed for those on planes. But like, no.
- [64:22]
Charles McDonald
Okay, but, but so think about it from this perspective. If you are an owner and you have this power structure that is generating billions capital B, billions of dollars back in your direction away from the people that they represent.
- [64:38]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [64:39]
Charles McDonald
Would it be worth $500,000? Keep that going and a little roster spot at the bottom. Absolutely. Now that's a part that I haven't seen people bring up as much because we get stuck on Treader. But Treader's right hand man was almost ineligible to be the president of the nflpa. And he pops up in this little role when it looks like his career's over. They signed him late in the season to play special teams. You just bump up someone from the practice squad to go do that because you want guys that you've already developed a relationship, guys you started training, working with to get those reps. Some outside guy like coming in to play special teams that you know that's. It's unnecessary. It's unnecessary.
- [65:20]
Mia Wong
It's been out of the league too. Like. Yeah. There's no reason to do it.
- [65:24]
Charles McDonald
Unless you as a power structure are interested in him having eligibility to keep funneling you money.
- [65:31]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [65:32]
Charles McDonald
At expense of the players.
- [65:33]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [65:34]
Charles McDonald
And I've really changed my tune, like on players not carrying over the past month just from, from talking to guys. Like, because I used to cover the jets and the Giants like for newspaper here in New York City. Like, this is what I've done for the past 10 years. I've met a lot of guys. They are like furious. Because you're like, what is this mechanism that is allowing you guys to operate with so much secrecy where you have J.C. treader, I mean, shout out to like the people who ran against him or were there for a minute but functionally, like practically, he ran unopposed for the executive director role. And so you whittle it out from 300 candidates to three.
- [66:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [66:14]
Charles McDonald
And one of them is JC Treader and the other is the commissioner of like the sixth most important college football conference in the country. And then a Hollywood movie like Union Exec Guy. I mean that's, that's, that's functionally unopposed. And then with Jalen Reeves Maiden, we don't even know if anyone ran against him. So yeah, these guys are just walking back into power. And the question that I and players and other journalists have, what is that mechanism that is operating in the shadows that is allowing this to happen and how much is it worth? Because now we're coming up on a new CBA negotiation where they're probably going to get an 18th game. An 18th like you, you have gone from, in 20 years, you've gone from a spot where you had revenue majority, even if it wasn't the 60%, it was 50 to 53. That's better than 47. And like the literal death of Gene Upshaw. Yeah, it like killed this union in a way that I don't know if it's recoverable from because you've set a precedent over two CBAs likely to be three that you will give up anything. For what though?
- [67:26]
Mia Wong
Yeah, for nothing.
- [67:27]
Charles McDonald
But for what. Like, like Roger Goodell should never be coming out insane. I'm glad that J.C. treader was named the executive. Like J.C. treader should be a pain in his ass. No, and it just, it's sad to me, like as someone like who, like I love the sport so much and to see like what's happening to the union, it's horrible because ultimately like we're so short sighted that you know what's happening in front of me like right now or today, it's the only thing that matters. But like there's going to be real consequences for these guys for decades. And man, like I remember my first year covering the jets in the Giants for the Daily News up here in New York was 2019 and the jets had a legends day, like where a bunch of guys that came back and they were on it during halftime. It's what crappy teams do when you have nothing to talk about then like you talk about, talk about the good old days, right?
- [68:18]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [68:19]
Charles McDonald
But you know these guys that come up and they're hanging out with us in the press box before they went down on the field at halftime. These are like 50 year old men, like on canes and stuff like that, like like my dad's 60 and he still shoots hoops sometimes like at the gym. Yeah, these are like 45, 50 year old men that they can't walk without assistance that are like, like they walk around like, and they're forgetting, like, oh, what I just turned this corner to do. Like all the time. Like you're talking to them and you have to keep reminding, like refresh, like refresh them on the, on, on what we were talking about. As if it's like chat GPT, you know, like in. And it's sad, but when you see like, like the material restrictions that these guys have in their own lives post playing and these guys, like, they're not all rich, like, they're just normal people. It's sad that this union has capitulated to the owners for such a violent job. And sure, like, you can say like, no one's telling you to be a football player, but that's the only option a lot of these guys have, like to go be football players and to go put their body on the line just so their family can live in comfort for a few years. Oh, it's sad.
- [69:21]
Mia Wong
Yeah, it's like, it's the actual poverty draft. It hits way, way, way more people than the military does. Like significantly more. And I think it's something that's really, really, really badly understood on the left because like people on the left tend not to care about sports stuff. But it's like football is a structural part of the entire American economy. It's a structural part of our, of the entire American educational system. Like half of the educational system is designed to funnel people into this sport specifically so these people can make fucking money off of it.
- [69:48]
Charles McDonald
Yes.
- [69:49]
Mia Wong
And that stuff shapes everything.
- [69:51]
Charles McDonald
And I understand, like, why lefties, like, they don't care about sports. I get it. But if the NFL were to cease existing tomorrow, that would be like a major collapse within the U.S. economy. Yeah, like, I'm not, I'm not joking. Basically everything you watch, especially now, is subsidized by some NFL game. Right? Like, yeah, that's, that's why these companies exist. If you, if you go back every single year and you look at the top 100 most watched TV shows of the year, 97 of them will be NFL games. And you'll have like two college football games and like the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.
- [70:28]
Mia Wong
Yeah, maybe like maybe the World Series,
- [70:30]
Charles McDonald
like maybe the World Series, like, right. Maybe the Oscars can, like maybe the Oscars versus like jets, bills, like week 12. That's not close.
- [70:39]
Mia Wong
Like they're on shit on a Thursday night. Like. Right.
- [70:43]
Charles McDonald
But that's how big this is. And I, I, I would implore people to not say, hey, who cares about this? It's important. And also like there's, there's, there's also just like clear, like you look at a game, there's clear racial divides. Yeah. And who has to play this game and who doesn't have to play this game? There are studies that show that like upwards of 80% of black boys who play sports want to be professional athletes. I mean, because that's, that's it really. Like it's that.
- [71:11]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [71:11]
Charles McDonald
Or I'm going to go do, I don't fucking know. And those are really your options. And that's why I say like I've used, I've used the NFL to kind of figure out my way, like through, you know, how I feel about things. Because there's such real like desperation.
- [71:27]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [71:27]
Charles McDonald
From these people to get out. And the problem like also with the union is like, let's say like some of these guys come from nothing. Like the fact that they could figure out a way to get to a bus that would take them to a school where they could play football is like a major accomplishment.
- [71:39]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [71:39]
Charles McDonald
In their own. And the fact that you can go from that to, to making $300,000 in a year at 21, that will distort you as well. Because now you've made such an extreme jump so fast, probably going to be a little bit complacent. You might not be thinking about what's next because and I say this for like a 21 year old person, you spent the last 20 years of your life fucking fighting like just to get to the next day. I remember one of the craziest things was back in the day, like when Laramie Tunsil was at Ole Miss, like back when they got busted before the nil stuff going out, there's this text thread between Laramie Tunsall's old line coach and his mom saying like, hey, like, can you send money for the light bill this month?
- [72:19]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [72:20]
Charles McDonald
He's a five star starter.
- [72:22]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [72:23]
Charles McDonald
On your team that is generating millions of dollars and you could get in trouble for sending his mom like 200 bucks to keep the lights on.
- [72:30]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [72:30]
Charles McDonald
You know, there's a, there's a real like systemic like obvious extraction of value from these black men. And yeah, once it's over, they say good luck, get until, you know, we had like the CTE lawsuit where they, they had to pay like billions of dollars. But ultimately you just kind of come in and get discarded. Which is why this union is so important.
- [72:50]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [72:51]
Charles McDonald
And the fact that you can be J.C. trotter. Use the trust that you have earned through your own blood, sweat and tears of being an NFL player and good enough to stand on your own as like almost a decade long NHL star. The fact that you would use that and turn around and like just capitulate to owners, like, that's scum.
- [73:09]
Mia Wong
Hideous.
- [73:09]
Charles McDonald
It's scum. And it's, it's, it's sad and just everyone here deserves better except for the people at top.
- [73:16]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [73:17]
Charles McDonald
And there needs to be some answers on why are you guys doing this. They're not doing it for no reason. There has to be something there. That's the part that we don't know.
- [73:36]
Mia Wong
One thing I want to kind of go back to for a second is like how they're able to do this. I don't know the exact mechanisms of how they specifically have been able to do this because every union is structured like, kind of differently. But this is something that's actually unfortunately, like pretty common in even sort of like progressive unions where, you know, like, we, we've had people on this show a few times who were trying to dislodge this clique that used to run. Actually I'm not sure if they're still running it, but they, they used to run the big nurses union, like a huge portion of the country's nurses. And so. Okay. One of the problems here is that like union elections, even if they're well publicized, even if you are trying to get everyone to vote, have really, really low turnout. Members, unless they're really engaged, do not pay attention to it.
- [74:23]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [74:23]
Mia Wong
And that's not even really engaged in the sense of. Engage in union activities because even most people who like, are really engaged in like, I want to go on strike or like, I want to, I'm going to show up to this like contract session. Aren't voting in the union elections because no one knows it's happening. No one knows who any of the candidates are. It's. No one cares. It's like, it's, it's an even more extreme version of the problem with like no one voting in regular elections. And so with a really small amount of votes, you can just get you and your faction installed for generations.
- [74:50]
Charles McDonald
Right.
- [74:51]
Mia Wong
Like there are admin caucuses in a whole bunch of unions. Like, and we're talking about like, like the Teamsters and like unions on that scale were like, yeah, there was, it was a huge deal when the Teamsters, like, finally ran out their admin caucus. But, like, these, these people are in power for half a century. These people are in power for, like, generations of these guys are able to stay in these unions. And they're able to do it because it's really, really easy to control union elections, especially once you're in power. And this is something like I've talked about on this fucking show. Like, I have seen union staffers whose job it is to do organizing get fired for telling their own members to read a contract they were. They were being asked to vote on because that was considered a threat to the power base, right? And the problem is, is that once you're running the union, you control the jobs of all of the staff beneath you. And one of the things that actually came out in Pabotur's reporting is that they offered anyone who'd been at the union for more than seven years a buyout. And so, you know, you can watch them do like, they're doing a systemic purge of all of this stuff. And then like, the moment Shredder is like, leading the search, right?
- [75:53]
Garrison Davis
He.
- [75:53]
Mia Wong
He's able to use his position, like, his very specific position in this bureaucracy, like as a president of the union, to like, go change the terms of the search so that it's no secret and you can just keep using whatever. Every position you take over gives you a little bit more sort of bureaucratic power that you can use to rat fuck people. And once they're in, it's like, it is possible to dislodge them. Like, I mean, this is something that happened with, with the UAW in the last, like, that was 2020, 2023. They got in and they dislodged an admin caucus that had been in power and like, doing similar shit to this for like decades and decades and decades. And so it is possible for, you know, reform caucuses inside the union to organize and drive the leadership out, but it's really hard. And the moment you start doing that, like, every single person who's anyway affiliated with you will get targeted for retaliation by the union.
- [76:45]
Charles McDonald
And yes, that that's what has happened with J.C. treader. Again, Pablo Torre, he released an interview two weeks ago with, you know, longtime security officer who was basically one of the people who was like, hey, yeah, what's going on here with this? JC tried to avoid Housestuck and they fired him for that. Like, the union fired this security guy who've been working. Like, yeah, he'd been working there since like, Dean Upshaw was working there. So see, he's part of the old guard that is there for like the material, like improvement of players lives like as far as they can take it without, you know, dealing with the real bounds of like, we got to kind of get this done before the season or our worker base is going to be harmed. Like, those guys don't really work there anymore. Yeah, someone like Dominique Fox where this. He, like, he's on TV now, you know, and I know like he cares a lot about this, but he's off doing different things. And I think another thing that, that's tough, like when you look back at like, okay, who is playing football, These are ultimately young men who like, they enter this union without any knowledge of like how unions work. Like, what are the finances behind any of this. You're geared to take like your high school free time and your college free time. Especially now that these colleges are throwing out cash. Like you are honed to care about football and get football done. And you know, once we get to college, like, we'll see what it is. Hopefully you can get your degree and keep it moving. But most of the time, like these guys, they don't know what any of this stuff is. So you have like this very uninformed, you know, labor force that's getting churned out two, three years at a time. It would probably be pretty easy, honestly, to create a blockade of knowledge when the people who could be asking you about this are going to be irrelevant if you just hold the lines for a year. You know, it's sad.
- [78:31]
Mia Wong
The other thing about this, right, is that these guys don't have even the basic incentive that even like the UAW and they're most entrenched had, which is like, if you fuck this up enough, there won't be a union. But like, these guys, there's always going to be something called the NFL Players association, right? Because the NFL needs it for cover, which means they don't even have to do the minimal organizing work or like even the minimal, like pretending to actually fight for the people who are supposed to be the union because it doesn't matter to them. Like, why the fuck would they, why the fuck would they try to onboard new people, like, into the union and like get them involved with it? Like, why do they care? They can just fucking go home and like cash their checks and get whatever the fuck benefits they're getting from the league for doing this shit.
- [79:13]
Charles McDonald
Yeah, yeah, I want to know what those benefits are. I just want to know.
- [79:18]
Mia Wong
Yep, me too.
- [79:19]
Charles McDonald
I would love, like, really. Because when it Gets down to, like, how much is your soul worth, man?
- [79:23]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [79:23]
Charles McDonald
Like, JC Is one of those guys ultimately, who has made enough money playing football where he doesn't have to do this.
- [79:29]
Mia Wong
This.
- [79:29]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [79:29]
Charles McDonald
You know, he doesn't have to go around like this. Like, it's.
- [79:32]
Mia Wong
It's.
- [79:33]
Charles McDonald
It's a little baffling in that sense. Like, and. And I know that, like, I guess something I guess I struggle with sometimes. Like, why are y' all doing this up? Like, why? Like, it. It's really like, that. Like, a couple more bucks really means that much to you. Like, you're really willing to sell out all these people. But the answer is yes. The answer is yes. Personally, I can't really reconcile that. Yeah, it's abhorrent, is terrible, but it's just the truth of the matter. So hopefully they can figure out a way to. To kind of dismantle this. But, like, man, even the fact that, like, man, you got, like, the Bears, they. They signed Jaylen Reeves Maven, all of a sudden, like, his clock's back, and now you have the same power structure as you hit another landmark where you're going to be negotiating for 18 games. That's a tough thing to topple over, man. That's a tough thing to get past. It's really difficult.
- [80:19]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [80:19]
Charles McDonald
Eat at Arby's. Actually. Don't do that. Harvey's not good.
- [80:25]
Mia Wong
No, it's just. Well, I. I think that's a decent point to sort of end on, unless you have any. Yeah. Do you have anything else you want to make sure people know about this whole thing?
- [80:38]
Charles McDonald
I would say, like, if you're not watching football, you should. It's a great game. I. Look, I say this as someone. Football has, like, materially harmed me. Like, my back is messed up. I've had two herniated discs, my back, since I was 17. I turned 32 this year. It's like half my life, you know? Would I do it again?
- [80:57]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [81:00]
Charles McDonald
I don't know. I don't. I don't know. And, like, this. This is where, like, my. My. Like, the people who know me, they, like, man, you're wired a little differently. But I think that's standard for football players. Like, it's a really complicated relationship. But, like, all my best friends are still, like, football related in some way, whether it's college or journalism now or, you know, going back to high school back in the day. Like, I still talk to so many people that I played football with. Like, I'm watching. Like, I'm the guy watching these like, crappy, like Division 2 games, like, on a. On a Friday night. It's. Yeah, it's awesome. So, like, you know. Yeah, you should check out Lamar Jackson. Like, just go on YouTube, just look up a highlight, and then he's great.
- [81:41]
Mia Wong
It's. It's wild.
- [81:42]
Charles McDonald
Like, you know, when you. When you, like, watch football or really any of these sports, like, they are just inescapable. I hate to even say microcosms of, like, American society, because, like, this is obviously, this is. This is American society. Like, when you just look on the influence that football has, like the economy as a whole and the way that people who are less fortunate are able to be extracted and run into the ground.
- [82:09]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [82:10]
Charles McDonald
And forgotten even by the people who are supposed to protect them.
- [82:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [82:13]
Charles McDonald
I think that's something that we see here just about every arena of American life. So I would just implore some of our fellow lefties, don't be the. Who cares about sports? Because whether you know about it, sports is interacting and directly impacting your life in this country every single day. And I think it's important to kind of care about some of the labor practices that are going on. Even if, you know, the labor practices are around Lamar Jackson getting paid, you know, $60 million a year, over $50 million a year. But it's still. It's still important.
- [82:45]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [82:45]
Mia Wong
You know, and I think there's. I think there's two. There's two points I can make there. One is that, like. Yeah, I don't know. Like, it was. It was. It was the fucking, like, trans women in college sports thing was like one of the two avenues through which, like, oh, wait, hold on, a bunch of us don't have fucking rights now.
- [83:02]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [83:02]
Mia Wong
And, you know, and like. And that. That kind of, like, cultural stuff that comes out of places that we're just not usually Right.
- [83:10]
Charles McDonald
Right. And just to tack onto that, as we've seen over the past few months, and as many dangered and misrepresented and punched down communities have said to y' all forever. And I say this as a black person. If they do it to us, we'll do it to you at some point.
- [83:30]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [83:31]
James Stout
Yep.
- [83:31]
Charles McDonald
It's just sad that, like, we've gotten to the point where, you know, you've been fighting and screaming for so long, like, bro, could you just turn your head this way and just look? Yeah, you see, like, bro, like, we're the same, man. We're all just humans out here trying to make it. That thought process is just so violently opposed by the powers that be. And it's just so ingrained in our society, like, certain people have to get stepped on that you will let yourself get stepped on. And now, yeah, we got videos of, you know, people getting executed in the street in Minneapolis, and.
- [84:03]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [84:03]
Charles McDonald
What's happened? Nothing. Just like every other police shooting, you know, of a black person or a trans person getting killed, like, yeah, nothing happened, and nothing keeps happening. And ultimately we get to a point where that's just the norm. So. Shit, there's a lot of stuff to fight, but you can even see, like, how the NFL union has kind of followed that same, like, deterioration.
- [84:24]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [84:24]
Charles McDonald
Shit. You know, go back to the 2011 CBA. You threw the rookies under the bus, and then what did the owners do? They came and took your money, too.
- [84:32]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [84:33]
Charles McDonald
Right. And then when it came down to, you know, 2020 CBA, you guys have set such a precedent of us running your pockets that we will set the hard, non negotiable stance of an extra football game, and you will capitulate. That's everywhere, man. That. That is everywhere in the corporate structure in life of America. So.
- [84:52]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [84:52]
Charles McDonald
Yeah. Sports. Inescapable. Check out Lamar Jackson on Sundays. It's good stuff.
- [84:56]
Mia Wong
Yeah. I think. I think. I think the one last thing I want to say is that, you know, the reform caucus taking over the UAW was something that was seen as impossible. Like, it was like, literally. I mean, like, every union has a reform caucus. They normally lose every single time, and then one day they won, and it, like, completely changed what the labor movement in America is. And, you know, the thing. The thing about organizing reform caucuses is that I know the people who organize these things. Like, they're just random people.
- [85:25]
Charles McDonald
Yeah.
- [85:25]
Mia Wong
Like, anyone can do this. This is. This is not something that requires, like, you know, an incredibly specialized skill set. You can just do it and watch, like, actual teenagers do this shit. Watching people and how tenaciously they could fight and watching them win.
- [85:42]
Garrison Davis
That.
- [85:42]
Mia Wong
That's how I get out of bed in the morning is. Is. I. I have. I have seen the hope in how. How people can fight fights that are just unwinnable, that are so unfathomable that most people don't even think there's a point in fighting it. And then one day they win. Yeah. And maybe one day. Well, two.
- [86:03]
Charles McDonald
I mean, I mean, even if you just think about the basis of the NFL, pa now it's an antitrust blocker. Right. That's what it is now. But the roots of it.
- [86:13]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [86:13]
Charles McDonald
There were guys trying to get rights for trying to get paid for the amount of time that they put into this job. One of the base like complaints is when the league was smaller and you had like kind of other leagues, you know, that are defunct now or were absorbed by the AFC or the NFC before it all emerged to the NFL. One of the basises was the NFL owners would ban you if you played in another league. Like if you spent any time playing another league, they would ban you for five years, man. That's your whole career. Yeah, right.
- [86:42]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [86:42]
Charles McDonald
And I don't know if this made the show or if we were talking about before the show, but one of the things that got the NFLPA like organized in the 50s was guys were doing training camp and preseason games for free. They weren't getting paid for it. Like, but, but these are just regular men who are just like, fuck it, I'm tired of this.
- [86:59]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [87:00]
Charles McDonald
And sadly it's been co opted into something that does not represent what it was before. But you know, this stuff is started by regular people who are saying, fuck it, I'm tired of this. We got to make a change. Yeah.
- [87:11]
Mia Wong
And I think on that note, where can people find your work?
- [87:15]
Charles McDonald
Yeah. You can find me on Blue Sky 4 Verts. You can find me on Yahoo Sports Football 301 podcast. I'm trying to be found a little bit less these days.
- [87:25]
Mia Wong
That's so reasonable.
- [87:27]
Charles McDonald
The blue sky is pretty confined for the most part. Yeah. You know, just a little less.
- [87:32]
Mia Wong
I, I get there's a read. There's a reason I'm not putting my handle in here.
- [87:38]
Charles McDonald
Yeah. But I will say this is not necessarily a friendly blue sky count. I'm not one of those guys who's just going to let you pop off. We do clap back around here.
- [87:50]
Mia Wong
We do in fact love to see.
- [87:52]
Charles McDonald
Yeah. Get ready for the wildest sight your lawn has ever seen.
- [88:07]
Mia Wong
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- [88:38]
Dana El Kurd
Hello everyone and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name is Dana El Kurd. I'm a researcher of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today I'm joined by Molly Crabapple, an award winning writer and artist. She's written three books, is co author of the book Brothers of the an illustrated collaboration with Syrian war journalist Marwan Hisham, which was a New York Times Notable Book and long listed for the 2018 National Book Award. And her memoir, Drawing Blood, also received global praise. Her most recent book is Here Where We Live, Is Our the Story of the Jewish. And it'll be out on April 7th. I've already pre ordered very excited. So I wanted to talk to Molly today, given how relevant the history she outlines in her book is to this current moment, especially for the American Jewish community. So thank you, Molly, for joining us.
- [89:25]
Molly Crabapple
Thank you so much, Dana, for having me. It's my total honor to be here.
- [89:29]
Dana El Kurd
So you describe in the book the bun's philosophy of duike or heerness as a rejection of the idea that Jews need to seek a homeland elsewhere to find safety. How did you come to understand this concept personally? And why do you think it was, at least from my perspective, so thoroughly erased from mainstream Jewish historical memory after the Holocaust?
- [89:53]
Molly Crabapple
I mean, I came across Dokite through studying the Bund, which I came across through the watercolors of my great grandfather, Samuel Brothbard, who was a post impressionist painter who was a member of the Bund as a young man back in Russia. And what the concept of docaid or heirness means is it's a defiant assertion of rootedness in a place that wanted Jews dead. Jews had lived in Eastern Europe for over a thousand years, but in the 18th, 19th, and at the dawn of the 20th century, these countries were some of the roughest places to be a Jew in the world. In the Tsarist empire, Jews were a racialized minority. It said it on their papers. They could only, like, live in a certain area. There was military conscription for 25 years. It sucked, shall we say. And in interwar Poland as well, the government was trying to use racism as a glue to hold this diverse and quite impoverished country together. So what here this meant is it meant that Jews had the right to live and not just live, not just survive, not just cling to life, but to flourish and have beautiful lives in their homes that they had lived in for the last thousand years. And that even if European Christians thought that Jews were, you know, swarthy Oriental aliens who needed to be forcibly deported to Palestine, which is exactly what the Polish interwar government thought. Even if that's what those in power thought, Jews had a right to live and flourish in freedom and dignity in their homes because that's the right that every single human on this earth has. And in many ways, it almost reminds me of this like, precursor echo of the Palestinian concept of Samud, of the steadfastness to stay in your home despite the genocidal predations of the Israeli state. And I think that the concept of hereness was crushed by a variety of things. I mean, first of all, as we all know, you know, there was a genocide in Europe that wiped out two thirds of the European Jews and wiped out 90% of the Jews in Poland. But it wasn't just that. It was also that after the genocide, countries like Poland were so psychopathically violent to Jewish survivors that it convinced the overwhelming majority of Polish Jewish survivors that they had to go somewhere else. There were about a thousand Jews that were murdered by nationalists in the aftermath of the Holocaust, including, you know, dozens who were burned alive in this, like, famous town called Kielce. Now, whether that somewhere else meant Palestine or whether that meant New York City, that was something that was very much up to the visa regimes of the era. The vast majority of Jews who survived the Holocaust did not necessarily want to go to Palestine, let alone to, you know, sign up to join the Haganah and throw themselves as cannon fodder into another war. After surviving Auschwitz, the majority of Jewish survivors probably wanted to go live with their families in America and in other countries that had large Jewish communities. But the Western democracies, and tell me if this sounds familiar in the current moment, while the Western democracies preached a language of human rights and universalism, in practice, they were quite content to let impoverished refugees rot in camps. Does that. I could see no other echoes?
- [93:18]
Dana El Kurd
Of course not. No, no.
- [93:19]
Molly Crabapple
It's only happened once ever.
- [93:20]
Dana El Kurd
Yeah, yeah, definitely. We've learned our less and.
- [93:22]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah, exactly. The world has definitely learned its lesson about the corrosive effects of hypocrisy. And so Zionist groups were able to take over camp administrations and use them as recruiting grounds and to convince and, in fact, sometimes violently coerce survivors to go to Palestine and in many cases, to. To do the Nakba. And I think that these are the concrete reasons, right, that the concept of Dokite was so crushed, so erased. Right. Like, was physically erased, you know, with violence. But there's something more than that even, because, you know, there are many, many movements that are physically crushed with violence, whose memories are vivid and alive and resonant. I think about, like, the Black Panther Party in America, you know, who were subject to the most brutal violence by the state, but who, you know, remain as legends. And I think the reason that the boons wasn't just physically crushed by the 20th century, but the reason that it was so ideologically marginalized was because they always opposed Zionism. From the very first days of their founding, they opposed Zionism as a capitulation to the same European racists that wanted to kick Jews out of their home. And not only did they oppose Zionism because many Jewish groups opposed Zionism. The Satmar Hasidic community where I live also opposed Zionism. It wasn't just the Boone's opposition to Zionism that made Zionists so angry. It's that Zionism is built on this very self hating dichotomy. And that dichotomy is that there are Diaspora Jews who were weak and that's why they were murdered. And then there are, you know, the brave big dicked Israeli Sabras who are strong and bravely oppressing and murdering themselves. And that's why they live. And what the boond did was it shows the lie of that because the Booned were strong. They didn't just fight for their right to stay in Europe with graduate school seminars, they fought for it with brass knuckles and with guns. The statement here, where we live as our country isn't something that has the same meaning as it would mean if I said it in New York City. Like of course, New York is my city, it's fucking awesome. When they said it, I always felt like there is an implied motherfucker at the end here where we live as our country, motherfucker. Whether you like it or not, we were born here and it's ours.
- [95:43]
Andrew Sage
Right?
- [95:44]
Dana El Kurd
It's so powerful. And I'm glad that you mentioned other kind of ideological resonances like the Black Panthers. They don't really exist in the same way anymore, but they're still resonant in Black Lives Matter. It brings me to this next question, which is that especially younger Jewish Americans, they increasingly are questioning Zionist narratives and they describe their solidarity with Palestinians not as a rejection of Jewish identity, but as a expression of their commitment to universal justice and as a rejection maybe of Zionism but not their Judaism. Do you think that this is a Bundist inheritance, even if unconscious, or is it something new?
- [96:26]
Molly Crabapple
I think that decent people of all stripes are seeing what Palestinian journalists and Lebanese journalists have risked their lives exposing. They're seeing a genocide live streamed on their smartphones and you know, live streamed by these amazing journalists, you know, who are living in killing cages. And anyone who's a decent person, whether you're Jewish or not, will turn away from the ideology that is responsible for that genocide. So I, I wouldn't say it's a Bundes resonance that's making young people turn against, you know, Zionist institutions. I think it's just their basic humanity, the same as so many other groups of people are. And I credit it a lot to the amazing work of Palestinians who have done so much work with so much grace at, you know, such huge risks to their lives to be able to tell these stories for the world to, you know, at least see. However, I think that there's something a little bit different going on, which is that, you know, young Jews are seeing the Israeli mass murder machine for what it is. But if they've gone through like the standard issue, you know, like Hebrew school education, they don't really learn a lot about Jewish history. Like the way you would learn about it would be ancient kingdoms, the Bar Kochba revolt, maybe, if you're lucky. And then like a big long, you know, 2000 year gap of horror and murder where nothing interesting or good ever happened and where you were just a victim of all of history and then, you know, glorious creation of the state of Israel, redemption. Like that's the sort of bullshit narrative you'd get. And when young Jews reject that narrative, as they should, you know, when they learn about the reality of what Zionism means, a lot of them are left with a real hole in them because they haven't, like, learned anything positive about their own heritage. They've just been fed fairy tales that are meant to, you know, legitimize the state. And so, you know, there's like a lot of, a lot of shame, right, A lot of pain over that. And I think what a lot of young Jewish people are trying to do is they're trying to look back to like, their own grandparents and their own great grandparents. And for Jews in America, like most Jews in America come from Eastern European backgrounds, you know, it's a different, different sort of demographic breakdown than in Israel. And that sort of like Jewish socialism is something that's very, very, very present in so many people's family history. Not necessarily that, you know, your grandfather was like the greatest socialist revolutionary in the world, but just that he belonged to a socialist garment union and was part of like a socialist mutual aid thing. Because that was just the culture that so many American Jews swam in a hundred years ago. And so I think there's this huge rediscovery of the Bund and of Jewish socialism that's inspired by the rejection of the Zionist genocide.
- [99:18]
Dana El Kurd
On the one hand, I'm, I'm witnessing what you're saying, you know, like, we're all kind of witnessing, like you said, it's not specifically to the Jewish community, but because the Jewish community has been fed, you know, this idea that Israel is so integral to their Jewishness and to their safety and to the, to these kinds of things. There is a very maybe specific way that, that they are metabolizing that or acting out against it. But at the same time, you know, we've seen a number of different polls, including most recently the, the Jewish Federations of North America. They put out polling results where 37% identified as non Zionists and 7% of their polling identified as anti Zionists. But it was an interesting poll because it's like both people who were like critical of Israel and those who were supportive of Israel took it to mean that it, you know, confirmed their, their biases. Because despite the fact that the genocide has, has happened and is happening, that anti Zionism component hasn't really risen very much. And then still a lot of polls show that like people presume Israel is vital to Jewish continuity. So how do you make sense of that contradiction? Well, one, that's one question is how do you make sense of that contradiction? But the second question is like, do you think rediscovering Bundestat like offers a way through it?
- [100:40]
Molly Crabapple
I do actually. I mean, I think that, you know, people have not just like been fed this idea that Israel is, you know, like essential for their safety, for continuity, but also that it's like an essential part of themself. And I do think that it's very life affirming and important to know that you have something better, that you can reject this shitty ideology. I mean, in terms of polls, I, I often feel like, I mean, maybe I'm, maybe I'm just wrong about Americans, but I, I sometimes feel like people don't even know what the hell they're signing on to with polls. Like, I will see something where people be like, we want strong borders and to like, you know, deport all the illegals. But also we fucking hate ice. And I'm like, you just, you just want like wildly contradictory things. And I, I wonder like how, I don't know, like how educated people even are and how much like the framing of questions affects what people think. I mean, I'm trying to think of what to make of it. I mean, I do think, you know, very sadly, like there are a large number of, you know, American Jewish people and in some way I'm talking like outside of my own experience because my own family's not Zionist. So this is more in like my, my speculation type thing. But you know, they're, they're very progressive. They believe in, you know, like Medicaid for all they believe in. You know, they believe that cops shouldn't be constantly murdering black people as they do in America all the time. They believe even ICE should be abolished. But they also have this, like, unthinking emotional attachment to Israel, even if they literally hate everything that Israel's doing. And I feel like a lot of those people, what they'll do is they'll try to blame it on Netanyahu and not on the entire system. Like, like, I would see people who supported the protests, you know, over the judicial reform, but they weren't willing to like, fully confront the absolute fucking horrors, not just of the occupation, but of Israel itself.
- [102:34]
Dana El Kurd
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I've also, you know, obviously experienced that kind of block, you know, where it's easier to blame a particular government than to maybe think about, I mean, the specificities of Israel's founding and Israel's ideology, but also like the violent nature of nation states. And just kind of thinking through that, I think can be a little bit difficult for people. And as someone who works on polling, yes, there are so many contradictions. We take polling to understand the starting points, but that doesn't restrict our political imagination. That's how I think of it. It's obviously also difficult for people to start to kind of maybe disentangle their emotional commitments to the state of Israel, especially in this moment where there are like white supremacists and Nazis and neo Nazis and all sorts of evil people regaining control of all sorts of, you know, state institutions and finding, you know, a great deal of legitimacy and a great deal of traction amongst the American public. It's difficult to tell. I think some parts of the American Jewish community, like, hey, Israel's not a safety valve for you, when in fact there's so much anti Semitism now in the United States.
- [103:56]
Molly Crabapple
I mean, I feel like it's a self reinforcing loop though. I mean, on one hand you have Jewish institutions who are literally sticking up this fucking flag of a state that is convicted by the ICC of doing genocide and, you know, waving that flag around and having soldiers from an army that's doing a genocide, speaking there like honored guests and saying like, this is what it means to be Jewish, it's that we back Israel. And on the other hand, you have these wormy little Neo Nazis like Nick Fuentes, who have always hated Jews and not because of Israel. Nick Fuentes also thinks all women should be put in breeding camps and all black people should Be locked behind bars, hates Jews because he's a, he's a neo Nazi who are seeing the rightful anger that people have with the ongoing genocide. And they're seeing people's disillusionment with both political parties who are continuing to provide weapons and UN cover to Israel, and they're exploiting that. And that's something that fascism has always done, Right. Like, fascism has always exploited issues that are popular. It will try to exploit the desire that people have for peace, for instance. It will try to exploit the desire people have for economic justice. But instead of, you know, actually giving people economic justice, they'll just say, oh, it's the Jews. Oh, it's the leftist billionaires, or it's George Soros. And, yeah, like, you absolutely see some of the worst scumbags on earth who are exploiting the anger that people feel over the genocide in order to worm their way into power and to worm their way into legitimacy. And I always think about this with Tucker Carlson. I mean, yeah, for me, like, okay, like, he's like, you know, standard issue. He has anti Jewish. That's like, standard issue Christian. But, like, for me, the thing that's so. I hate so much about seeing smart people boost Tucker Carlson is that Tucker Carlson advocates the ethnic cleansing of the United States of immigrants. Ten months ago, he was on Megyn Kelly braying about how he wanted 1 million people deported in Trump's hundred days. He was even saying, we don't have to put them in detention centers. We can just force a million people, a million people over the border into Tijuana and, quote, let the Mexicans deal with them. This is hardcore white supremacist ethnic cleansing. And it's not just a speculative thing. There are tens of thousands of immigrants right now in concentration camps in the US and the fact that anyone, because he gives good clip on Palestine, thinks that he's their ally, when he would happily support the same ICE system that is locking up Palestinians right now is insane. It's madness. And I, I just, I mean, I know that people are so traumatized and so heartbroken and, you know, even being, like, driven crazy by the ongoing genocide and by the American enthusiastic collusion with the genocide. But there has to be a certain basic level of solidarity with other groups who are also under threat. Like all the other immigrant communities that are getting rounded up and putting in concentration camps right now.
- [107:06]
Dana El Kurd
No, absolutely. I mean, there has to be a basic minimum level of solidarity and, like, a basic minimum level of, like, analysis. Like.
- [107:13]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [107:15]
Dana El Kurd
The animating force behind Tucker Carlson is not love for Palestinians or like some, you know, desire for justice or anything, you know, so it's like the natural conclusion of a Tucker Carlson is something like the ethnic cleansing that he's asking for. It has been disturbing to see and continue to see how people have really convinced themselves that this is something to try to capitalize on. I mean, Tucker Carlson went to the Middle east and people were taking photos with him. And I'm like, this man hates you. This man doesn't care about any of these things that you care about. But like you said, it's just the situation is so bad that people are willing to forego solidarity and basic political truths to engage with someone like him. I mean, you've kind of mentioned it and alluded to it in your answers already about Jewish institutions like flying the Israeli flag and things like that. Who are the forces today? What are the institutions today that benefit from something like the Bund and, like, its philosophy not being revisited? And what do they stand to lose if these Bundest ideas become widely known again?
- [108:35]
Molly Crabapple
I mean, I feel like the vast majority of mainstream Jewish institutions, I mean, there's obviously like the adl, right? You know, a ridiculous group that I almost feel like primarily exists to try to, like, terrify elderly people so that Jonathan Greenblatt keeps getting his ridiculously inflated salary and keeps getting to, like, prance around like he's important. There's, you know, like the. The Campus Hillels, right, who claim that they're just, you know, a neutral thing for Jewish identity, but make it a prerequisite that you're Zionists. There's just, like, a vast amount of institutional Jewish groups that are not democratic. They're not things that we vote for. I did not fucking vote for Jonathan Greenblatt to be appointed my spokesman. You know, I didn't. I didn't vote for these things. Like, these are institutions led by very wealthy people that are in no way responsive to young Jews. They're not responsive to, like, ordinary people. And they want to keep having their sort of stranglehold on getting to be the, like, spokesman for these very, very, very diverse communities. And I think that, you know, as the Bund and as other anti Zionist forms of Jewishness are discovered and rediscovered, that these spokespeople are terrified because, I mean, the biggest thing that they want that they're so terrified about is their terrified about losing the young people. The whole project. It's about, you know, like, this Jewish continuity, they call it. And, you know, Jewish people, like, getting married to each other. You Know, having, having kids, like, contributing money to their institutions, you know, maybe making aliyah to Israel. And if people are like, no, I reject this. I reject this state that's committing a genocide. And I reject this ideology built on supremacy. And actually it's like, fine to live in New York City and to, you know, live and love and struggle alongside my neighbors. That's directly antithetical to their project. And I think that's why the boon has not just been erased, but it's mere mention provokes such anger. Like, sometimes I just look through my comments and it's just these endless comments from people being like, boondahl died in the Holocaust. Lol. Like, what do you. What do you say to this? Right?
- [110:53]
Dana El Kurd
That's so disgusting.
- [110:55]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah, the boondo's all gassed. Lol. You want yours to be gassed? You know, Zionists are thriving. And I'm like, this is the most psychopathic talk about self hating, right? Mocking people for being murdered in the Holocaust. You know, it's because the Boone's ideology of solidarity across difference, of hereness and of socialism is profoundly threatening.
- [111:16]
Dana El Kurd
And honestly, like, what, what thriving is happening. Like, people in Israel are terrified. There are missiles raining down like a garrison state. Cannot keep people safe. No such ethnostate can keep people safe. And I'm reminded also from your answer about Ariel Angel's article, I think last year in Jewish Currents, we need new Jewish institutions. I think it's like they see the writing on the wall that this is something that's going to happen. And with books like yours, with kind of a revisiting of this history, it only hastens this kind of political project coming to fruition. My last question that I have for you is more about the memory project nature of it all. You write in your book about your great grandfather. You've already mentioned Samuel Rothbard, about how he painted these memory paintings to kind of resurrect the vanished world of Eastern Europe. And you've also kind of written this book in the same way. What do you think the relationship is between this kind of recovery of erased history and building a politics for the present?
- [112:23]
Molly Crabapple
Thank you. I mean, I spent seven years on this book. I learned Yiddish.
- [112:27]
Dana El Kurd
That's wild, by the way.
- [112:28]
Charles McDonald
That's amazing.
- [112:29]
Molly Crabapple
I know, right? You know, I resented because I studied Arabic for so long and I, like, had finally gotten, like, I don't want to say good, but mediocre at it. And then I feel like Yiddish pushed it out of my brain and I'm just like, no, I want my Arabic Back. But yeah, so I studied, I learned Yiddish. I went to, you know, all the countries that I could, that the Bund was active in. I wasn't able to go to Belarus or Russia, but I went to, like, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania. I went to Ukraine during the Russian invasion. I translated so many books, I think I'm probably the only person who has read all five volumes of the terrifically boring Geschichte von Bund official for history. And I felt like I was doing necromancy, you know, I felt like I was in love with these rebel ancestors, these gun toting seamstresses, these lovers on the barricades, these stubborn people who constructed whole worlds out of love and grit, even when society wanted to crush them. I just, like, fell in love. And I didn't just want to resurrect them from erasure because their philosophy was opposed to Zionism, though. That was also. That was part of it. Of course I wanted to resurrect them because the boond were amazing, because they fought back against every single bastard of their age. They fought for an ethos that was rooted in human dignity and in human flourishing and freedom, but also in economic justice and leftism. I just fell in love and I wanted them to live again. And, you know, one of the things that the powers that be do is that they try to impose themselves onto the past. They try to say, because we won now, it was inevitable that we would win. It was always going to be like this. There is no alternative, as Margaret Thatcher said. And what you do when you preserve these Red Bull histories is you show that that's not the case. It expands our capacity for fight. It expands our capacity for imagination. Things could have been differently and people still can change the world. Yeah.
- [114:30]
Dana El Kurd
There's nothing inevitable. And you always have agency. I think that that's like the thing that, like, I get goosebumps thinking about when I think about these kinds of people, because they give you so much hope in the present that things could be different. Thank you so much, Molly. This has been such an interesting and provocative conversation. And thank you so much for learning Yiddish and for translating all those books so that we can read your book and we don't have to do all of that.
- [114:55]
Molly Crabapple
Exactly. So you do not have to suffer through the world's dullest socialist prose stylings.
- [115:00]
Dana El Kurd
Yeah, no, you've done it for us. And I'm so excited for the book. I. I'll put it in the show notes. Everybody should read it. Thank you so much, Molly.
- [115:07]
Molly Crabapple
Thank you so much, Donna.
- [115:18]
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- [115:52]
Andrew Sage
for decades, people in northern Nigeria have been suffering the violence of jihadist groups in the region. More recently, following the lobbying of some questionable interest groups and figures in the United States, President Donald Trump has dropped American bombs on Nigerian soil. What exactly is happening in Nigeria? Hello and welcome to It Could Happen here. I'm Andrew sage Andrewism on YouTube, and I'm joined again by James I'm glad
- [116:19]
James Stout
we're doing this one, yes, to talk
- [116:21]
Andrew Sage
about what's been happening in Nigeria since it has captured Trump's attention and thus Western media interest as of late. So first of all, what or where is Nigeria? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Nigeria is a West African country with a diverse geography and an even more diverse population. Hundreds of languages, hundreds of ethnic groups, several religions. In the most populous country in Africa and one of the most populous countries in the world, over 239 million people call Nigeria home, and the Nigerian diaspora is well over 10 million strong. Like much of Africa, Nigeria is rich in natural resources, particularly petroleum and natural gas, but heavily exploited by international and local capital. Thus, much of its population, by some estimates over half of its population, is considered multidimensionally poor. Modern Nigeria was stitched together from the British protectorates of northern and southern Nigeria, and it gained its political independence only recently in 1960 and became a republic in 1963. That north south divide is particularly relevant because it continues to define Nigerian politics today. Nigeria splits almost evenly between its Christian population, which dominates the south, and its Muslim population, which dominates the North. Alongside ethnic, linguistic and other political divisions, corruption and all the other baggage of a typical neo colony has made Nigerian politics quite the powder keg for some time. There have been tragic and deadly episodes of political and religious violence throughout Nigeria's history. Going in both directions, including the 1987 crisis in Kaduna State, and the early 2000s had several notorious riots and massacres as well, including the Yelwa massacre and the Jos riots. Link in the show notes for the details on those since 2009. However militant Islamist group Boko Haram has engaged in a protracted insurgency against the Nigerian government and terrorized the Christian and Muslim population through bombings, assassinations and abductions with the overall intent of establishing an Islamic breakaway state in North Nigeria. But for the past few months, there has been a concerted effort to paint a narrative of Christian genocide in Nigeria, a narrative that has long been co signed by the likes of Donald Trump. See, back in 2018, Trump had actually called out the killing of Christians in Nigeria, yet stopped short of calling it a genocide. But according to an article by Ayoola Babola on the myth of Christian genocide, it was not long after Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shatima's September 2025 remarks at the 80th session of the UN General assembly, where he reasserted Nigeria's long standing solidarity with Palestine, that the Western, largely pro Israel far right began their campaign of claiming Christian genocide in Nigeria. In his address, Shatima did mention the problems Nigeria was having with extremism. But these commentators ran with a much more specific narrative. The same people who deny the Palestinian genocide and prop up the mythical white genocide in South Africa have gone on to push this Christian genocide story. Bill Maier, the guy who still can't prove the claims he made about October 7, has gone on to tell people that what's happening in Nigeria is, to paraphrase, so much more of a genocide than what's happening in Gaza. End quote. In late October and early November 2025, Trump tweeted that Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria, named Nigeria as a country of particular concern, and announced the United States was ready, willing and able to save our great Christian population around the world. And for some reason, Nicki Minaj is out there backing Trump's Christian persecution narrative as well.
- [120:09]
James Stout
Perfect.
- [120:10]
Andrew Sage
Why are you in it?
- [120:12]
James Stout
Yeah, just to be clear, for anyone who's not aware, Nicki Minaj, not a person from Nigeria or with any particular insight into the situation there.
- [120:20]
Andrew Sage
She's also not Trinidadia and I just want to clear that up. Yes, her birth certificate is from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, but we do not claim her since her statements about how Covid and the vaccine and her cousin's balls, like from that moment onward, people have been like distancing themselves from hell in Trinidad anyway.
- [120:41]
James Stout
I can see why.
- [120:43]
Andrew Sage
So in November 2025, according to a BBC report, Trump also said that he would send troops into Nigeria, guns a blazing, if its government continues to allow the killing of Christians. Then in December 2025, according to another BBC report. The US has launched strikes on 25 December as a Christmas present against militants in the Islamic State group in northwestern Nigeria. What should be noted though is they did not strike Boko Haram, which is based in northeast Nigeria.
- [121:14]
James Stout
Yeah, it was really interesting to look at the build. I wrote about this a bit for my newsletter, but the US was flying intelligence gathering flights essentially for some time over Nigeria. Right. Clearly, like there must have been some kind of agreement with the Nigerian government to allow this. Right. That they were clearly trying to identify, like where Iswap and Boko Haram were. And like you could see them winding up to this strike that. Yeah, they, I guess they waited till Christmas Day to go for it.
- [121:43]
Andrew Sage
Yeah, yeah. So there was the Christmas present of the US bomb in there.
- [121:48]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [121:49]
Andrew Sage
And this happened less than a week, by the way, after the alliance of Sahel States, that being Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali commissioned a joint military force of 5,000 counterterrorists. And that move was following the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS plan to launch a 260,000 member counterterrorism force. So there's a lot of military action happening in West Africa right now coming from the inside and the outside. In a January 2026 report, Trump claimed. I'd love to make it a one time strike, but if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many time strike strike, end quote. Trump has also accused the Nigerian government, as I said, of repeatedly failing to protect Christians. So Trump is a known liar to take everything he says with a grain of salt, as is the rest of his administration. In general, you really can't trust politicians and pundits. So let me break down, down what is actually happening in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has said that Muslims, Christians and those of no faith alike are targeted. According to Ayoula Wawalula, the government of Nigeria is indeed failing to adequately address the devastation being wrought against communities in Nigeria. But critically, it is not religious in nature, or rather, religion is only a part of the picture. It can be used to explain the whole story on the ground. So there are several groups wreaking havoc in North Nigeria. You have a few different Islamic State affiliated groups. You have Boko Haram, which is the main one. And you also have the conflict between the Fulani herdsmen, who are mostly Muslim, and various farming groups who may be Christian or Muslim. So where the herdsmen are concerned, that kind of conflict has actually been taking place between the herders and the settled people for literal centuries. The only difference is that now you have them carrying AK47s instead of just sticks and machetes?
- [123:52]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [123:53]
Andrew Sage
How they got those AK47s is really thanks to the history of the West's intervention in Africa, but we'll get to that in a moment. Critically though, if you step outside of the religious Freeman, you would see a criminal economic and political motivation behind these actions. They may be going after land or wanting to extract ransom or pursue a particular political goal. The Muslims in North Nigeria are not safe just because they're Muslim. Boko Haram's victims are mostly Muslim because Boko Haram's target is anyone who stands between them and their political aims. Everyone who isn't Boko Haram or aligned with Islamic State West African province is considered an enemy. One article on Trump's beef with Nigeria by Youssef Bangura talks about six types of violence in the country. We have the Boko Haram Islamist inspired violence in the north east, whose main victims are Muslims who reject the group's Islamist ideology. We have the banditry in the northwest, which affects Muslims and Christians in equal measure. You have the herd of farmer conflict in the Middle Belt, which affects Christians and Muslims, although reports indicate that Christians are the main victims of that violence. You have the Huda farmer violence in the northwest, which is distinct from the Huda farmer violence in the Middle Belt. So the one in the northwest has Fulani herders reportedly pitched against Hausa farmers, and both groups are Muslim. You have the violence inflicted by the indigenous people of Biafra and bandits in the east against their own people, Igbos, who are Christian. And you also have general banditry in large parts of the country, which has rendered travelling by roads between cities very risky. So there's been a lot of Western attention drawn to just some of the victims, the churches, the church leaders and the Christian communities, even though mosques and imams and Muslim communities and animists have also been devastated. And it's turned the multifaceted violence into a narrative of targeted anti Christian violence, seemingly at least from the Trump and Zionist camp, for the purpose of demonizing Muslims and I guess in some convoluted way weakening global support for Palestinians because Palestinians are also Muslim, so they're all the same. I dunno, that's just speculation on my part. Even Christian leaders in Nigeria have been calling out this framing, though. Archbishop Matthew Manoso Ndagoso was quoted extensively in an article for Aid to the Church in Need, which is an international Catholic organization. Rather than pin the blame on Islam, he said, in the Northwest the farmers are mostly Muslims and they also have conflicts with the Fulani as moving the middle belt. It is inhabited mostly by Christians, so there will most likely be a Christian farm. Religion and ethnicity are very sensitive problems in Nigeria. They are always used for convenience. But primarily this conflict is not religious. I am absolutely sure if you apply for a job and you don't get it, you might say you were rejected because you were a Christian. And the same for Muslims. Opportunists such as politicians use these factors to their own advantage. But if you go to the root, you discover it is little or nothing to do with religion. End quote.
- [126:58]
James Stout
That excellent analysis from the Church. I'm surprised it came from that source, but I'm glad it did, you know.
- [127:03]
Andrew Sage
Yeah. Catholic Church of all places.
- [127:06]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [127:07]
Andrew Sage
So he even claims that the kidnappings of priests have little to do with religion. And I'll quote him again. In the last three years, seven of my priests have been kidnapped, two have been killed and one has been in captivity for three years and two months, four released in 50 of my parishes. Priests cannot stay in their rectories because they are targets. They are seen as an easy source of money for ransom. So he's emphasising there that it's really about the money that the Church is perceived to be able to provide to these kidnappers more so than any religious targeting in particular. Of course that is only one archbishop's perspective on the situation. I think Babalola makes an important point in his article on the myth that I would like to quote as well. Crucially, Christians at times become the chosen targets in particular assaults. Churches have been attacked during worship, priests abducted and entire Christian villages razed in Plateau venue and southern Kaduna. These episodes are not separate from the general crisis, but are rather moments when Christian identity is weaponized to mark a community for terror. In this sense, Christians bear both the general weight of insecurity shared by all Nigerians and the sharper trauma of faith based targeting in certain attacks. But Babalola doesn't forget that these groups terror has a severe impact on the Muslims as well. In fact, he makes an important comparison I wanted to highlight which is that in areas ravaged by armed groups, the first victims tend to be those who have religious or ethnic groups in common with the militants killed because they are seen as infidels or not noble enough or not committed enough to the ideals of that movement. If you look at the history of Zionism in the Middle east, for example, before the founding of the State of Israel, there were bombings of several Jewish heritage sites across the Middle east and Records have later showed that they were carried out by terroristic Jewish gangs who sought to instil a fear in Jewish communities across the region to sow discord between the Jewish communities and their neighbours for the purpose of forcing them to abandon these Middle Eastern states and relocate to Israel to further Israel's economic and geopolitical goals.
- [129:23]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [129:24]
Andrew Sage
So it's not unheard of for a group to target its own coreligionists for its geopolitical economic ambitions.
- [129:32]
James Stout
If we talk about specifically the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Right. Isis as opposed to the Islamic State in West Africa, like it killed more Muslims than anyone else, Right, Exactly. Those were the bulk of the people it murdered.
- [129:44]
Andrew Sage
We could even look at a very old historical example, the Latin Crusade. You had all these Christians from Europe going on a crusade and because they didn't get paid, they decided to ransack their core religionists in Greece and you know, in the wider Byzantine Empire and eventually, you know, deconstruct the Byzantine Empire entirely and establish their own Latin Empire.
- [130:11]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [130:12]
Andrew Sage
So I didn't want to gloss over the real challenges that Christians specifically are facing in North Nigeria though. Since 1999, Sharia law has been introduced and enforced in 12 northern states. And according to the same archbishop that I quoted earlier, this has ensured that religious persecution in the north is systemic. He said, and I quote, I cannot build a church. Even if you buy land, you cannot get a permission of occupancy and therefore you cannot build. And many of these states do not allow the teaching of Christianity. Yet the government employs and pays imams to teach in schools every year. They have money to build mosques in the budget, but they will not let you build churches. In my state there is a university and across the street there are five mosques and no church. Who wanted to build one. They didn't allow it. If you build a church without permission, the government can't tear it down. And this is what we are going through. It is serious. We want our government to be held accountable for people to be treated equally. So again, religious conflict is still part of the picture, but not in the way that western governments are painted. What's happening is these issues are being amplified by opportunists and far right lobbyists. And as I established earlier, we should be addressing where these terror groups have even come from, because the west hands are not clean in that picture either. Groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have known connections in their history to Western Midland. And American policy in Africa has at least indirectly armed these groups. Thanks to the fall of Gaddafi in Libya and the American led destabilization of other Muslim countries in Southwest Asia and North Africa. The death squads armed with AKs that are dispersed across the Sahel region, victimising Africans of all faiths or at least some of their firepower to that Western intervention, to the flow of arms coming out of Libya. The west has repeatedly shown that it is not care of people's lives. So what is the real beef that Trump and co have with Nigeria? Well, according to Bangura's article, Trump is not feeling the fact that the US is dependent on China for rare earths and Nigeria is very resource rich when it comes to rare earths like lithium, cobalt nickel and all that other stuff. Chinese companies have invested more than US$1.3 billion in Nigeria's lithium processing industry. And Russia has growing leverage in the region thanks to their involvement with Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. So in an effort to wean America off of China, Trump's been trying to after the deal the situation. So he signed agreements in Southeast Asia to increase the production and processing of rare earths and exports to the US. He stepped in to broker peace deals between the DRC and Rwanda so the US can invest more in the DRC's minerals. And what Trump really don't like in Nigeria's case is that Nigeria's President Tinubu is not playing ball with him, at least in this case in Trump's eyes. Tinubu did not do enough to reverse Niger's military coup and Tinubu did not let the US relocate their Nigerien military base to Nigeria. Tinubu also didn't let Trump relocate deportees to Nigeria even when Ghana, Rwanda, Eswatini, South Sudan and Uganda all accepted them. Furthermore, as established before, Nigeria continues to condemn Israel's genocide in Gaza now when it wants to. The US can't intervene in other countries without the talk about humanitarianism. You could look at Guatemala in 1954 when they tried to implement some land reforms and that went against the United Food Company's interests. So the US invaded and you also had the US willing to simply support whatever opposition exists in the country. Like in the Congo in 1961 against Patrice Lumumba, in Chile in 1973 against Salvador Allende, and in Iran in 1953 against Mohamed Mossadegh. So they will use humanitarian talk. Whether they use that talk or not, the results tend to be disastrous for the people in those countries. US intervention sucks pretty much everywhere. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and more besides. So we can count on whatever Trump attempts in Nigeria being An abject failure. More recently, the United States announced it'll be sending a military team to Nigeria after a string of recent attacks, that being 200 troops. So we'll see what happens next. But it's clear that US intervention is not the solution. Its intentions are definitely malicious. So what can the future be for the people of Nigeria? How can its people be free? Obviously the battle against these reactionary forces rages on, but a military solution to militarisation will not be enough. In fact, it carries some serious risk in the region as a whole in terms of escalation. An article by Ayodele Oolabi in Al Jazeera recognised that with Nigeria's entanglement with the US and the 260,000 strong ECOWAS force, the AES is going to feel threatened as it's trying to keep western influence out of the region. So there's a danger of future ECOWAST deployments overlapping with AES operations and potentially leading to clashes. And if there isn't a de escalation of tensions between ECOAs and AES, we can end up seeing interstate wars that would devastate communities in the region and give the insurgents opportunities to expand. It could very well set up another proxy battleground for global powers in some kind of new cold war. So they have to find some way of avoiding this clash and see if they can build a cooperative security framework despite their vastly different interests.
- [136:01]
James Stout
Yeah. And to a degree we already see like global powers. Right. Like Russia has been honing its most horrific war crimes in parts of West Africa for a long time. Right. With its like private military contractors.
- [136:14]
Andrew Sage
Exactly.
- [136:16]
James Stout
Ukraine has sent special forces to assist the people fighting against the Russian private military contractors. Like we've seen Nigeria's own government kill its own civilians in its counter terrorism operation. Like all of this just makes life less livable for people who are already like on the thick end of climate change for one thing, and have suffered under centuries of colonialism for another.
- [136:42]
Andrew Sage
That's a geopolitic analysis, I suppose. But in the long term, I think there's much to be done to rebuild the revolutionary front within Nigeria, led by Nigerians themselves, to chart another path for the future of the country away from a status of vassalage. Yeah, you know, left and left adjacent movements were very diminished in relevance and credibility after the end of military rule in Nigeria in 1999 due to several reasons that we could get into at another time. But by the time we got to the Narsars movement in 2020, left forces were present but didn't have the level of organisation and strategy necessary to rise to the occasion. But according to an article in Progressive International by Ayoola Babalola, there's potential for a resurgence. The End Bad Governance movement had demonstrations in August October 2024 which saw leftist groups like Take it Back and the Socialist Workers League play a central role in organising and mobilising and protests. Unlike earlier moments, these groups articulated clearer demands, coordinated protest strategies and attempted to provide ideological direction. This is in spite of facing crackdowns and arrests of key figures in the left and progressive spaces. Of course, not everyone mobilising against Nigeria's struggling economic and political conditions are committed to left or left adjacent ideas. But still the question remains unresolved. Can this renewed street level influence be transformed into lasting organizational power, or will it repeat the cycle of mobilisation followed by fragmentation that has littered movements before it? This violence taking place in Nigeria is bound up with the violence taking place across the world. It is bound up in imperialist interests, in capitalist interests, in status interests and in petty tyrants interests. From Nigeria to Congo to Sudan to Palestine, violence and suppression tactics wielded in one place are often brought to another. Babalulla says in his article that a genuine pursuit of justice must confront proximate perpetrators as well as the transnational systems of power that sustain them. What we must not allow is for the global perpetrators of criminality and terror to tell the world where to focus its attention. In other words, don't let the perpetrators of these violences tell you where to focus. We must look everywhere, look holistically at what's happening and put the power and solidarity in the hands of the people affected to resist that violence. That's all I have for today. As usual, all power to all people. Peace,
- [139:25]
Charles McDonald
Foreign.
- [139:30]
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- [140:05]
Garrison Davis
This is it could happen Here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by James Stout, Mia Wong and Ryan Robert Evans. This episode we are covering the week of April 1 to April 8. The DHS shutdown has surpassed 50 days. Last week, House Republicans tentatively agreed to the Senate deal to fund DHS without ICE and cbp, though this agreement is stalled while Congress is out of session till April 14. Fox News has partnered with Kalshi to incorporate its political betting data into news coverage. Fox joins cnn, CNBC and the AP in entering into deals with the so called prediction market. Kalshi. Kalshi announced, quote, prediction markets add accountability by rewarding accuracy. That's why the three leading networks have chosen Kalshee. No spin, no partisan lens, just incentives to be right, unquote.
- [141:05]
Robert Evans
It's just gambling.
- [141:07]
Mia Wong
It's so cool that the whole world, all media is now just espn.
- [141:11]
Robert Evans
Incentives to be right again, like people are. There's like one of the sub markets within Kalshi is people like bringing in lawyers to make threats over like tiny differences in grammar that invalidate them either losing money or mean that they should have won. The like, like none of this is about what actually happened. It's, it's becoming as much about what you can game or like threaten the news into not reporting. As we talked about the week before last with that case in Israel and insider trading. And insider trading.
- [141:38]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, no, it's, it's just turning politics into like a corrupt casino.
- [141:43]
Mia Wong
Yeah, yeah, it's just mob sports betting.
- [141:45]
Garrison Davis
It's worse than sports betting because sports betting is actually based on like real odds. Right. These odds are completely created by users with their money. Like it's, it's, it's completely manufactured. There's no actual like basis for a lot of these bets. Right. Like, like the betting on the, like the Papal Conclave. There's no basis for an American Pope getting elected. Right. There's no actual odds that were like mathematically certain. It's just created through, through money.
- [142:09]
Mia Wong
Well, to be fair, the sports odds are also just kind of made up by guys too. But like. Yeah, yeah, no real. They're slightly, just a tiny bit.
- [142:17]
James Stout
It's vibes based like it's people looking at horses. Is a lot of what's happening in sports betting.
- [142:24]
Garrison Davis
Yes.
- [142:25]
James Stout
Making, approving or disappearing. I think I saw that something close to a billion dollars was bet on oil prices. As we approach Trump's deadline.
- [142:34]
Mia Wong
We already had that. Just play the oil futures market. It's too complicated for people, I guess. I. God damn it.
- [142:42]
Garrison Davis
No, it's really bad. According to a March poll from the Institute for a Middle East Understanding Policy project, sampling almost 600 Texas Democratic primary voters, 76% say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and 80% support ending weapons funding to Israel. 44% of Talarico voters said his criticism of Israel was important to them and swayed their vote. Over 1 in 5 voters. 22% said reducing support for Israel was one of their top three factors impacting their vote, while only 2% said the same about increasing or maintaining support for Israel. And 88% of voters said they agreed with the statement Talarico made during a primary debate about cutting off weapons to Israel. On Sunday night, 13 gunshots were fired into the front door of Indianapolis City County Councilor Ron Gibson, who just voted to approve a half a billion dollar data center. A note was left under the doormat that read no data centers, quote, unquote. Gibson and his son were home at the time of the shooting.
- [143:50]
Mia Wong
Yeah, these data centers are really staggeringly unpopular. There's been a bunch of reporting on even the ones that are attempted to be built. Something like 50% of them are just not able to do it because of massive public local backlash because it makes
- [144:05]
Robert Evans
life worse around them. Your power bills go up. They're loud.
- [144:09]
Mia Wong
Yeah, it's like, it's like old school. It's like old school environmental NIMBYism. Sort of like, I don't want these assholes in my small town stuff. There's just like the anti AI sentiment in general. They're hideously unpopular. And this kind of stuff is just going to continue as these data centers continue to be built.
- [144:26]
James Stout
Okay, time for me. So Donald Trump has said that he will discuss United States withdrawal from NATO. For those who work in the New York Times, that's a North Atlantic Treaty Organization with Mark Rutter, who is the NATO Secretary General, during their meeting, which will happen today, which is Wednesday, April
- [144:44]
Mia Wong
8th, if this happens, it would be utterly epochal. Like, it would be one of the two things they're going to point out as like the dawning of the new era of.
- [144:55]
James Stout
Yes. Seismic shift.
- [144:56]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Like what Geopolitics is. This is like the fundamental bases of this in this week are like ceasing to exist.
- [145:04]
James Stout
Yeah. Shirley Kittelson has been released by Katib Hezbollah after they made her read a video confession in which she confessed. And to be very clear, this is very clearly extracted.
- [145:16]
Robert Evans
Yeah, It's a coerced confession. Yes.
- [145:18]
James Stout
Nothing in this is true. But in the video, they made her confess to passing information to U.S. consulate in Baghdad. In one point in the video, she said she had been collecting information on leaders but forgotten their Names, which is very credible and true.
- [145:34]
Mia Wong
Most real confession.
- [145:36]
James Stout
Yeah, it's ludicrous. Her release came after Iraq released several Khatib Hezbollah members. So seems like a straight swap, which is what this was about in the first place. Right. It's not about her or her work per se. It's about her being a trading chip that they can trade. Finally, Republican Brandon Gill has sharply criticized the Dignity Dignidad act recently. And this has become like something of an online discourse topic on the right. I'm not exactly sure why it's happening now. Rep. Salazar from Florida has tried to introduce this act several times in the last few years. We've actually covered it when it was introduced in 2025 on this show. It's a bipartisan act to reform the immigration system. That is bad. It creates what's called a dignity status, which is essentially like an underclass of people who. There is no pathway to citizenship. There is no pathway to voting, but it comes with the right to renew it and the right to residency. Right. So it creates like a sub citizen class. It's bad. It is not a progressive immigration reform.
- [146:42]
Garrison Davis
But is Brandon Gill criticizing it from the right?
- [146:46]
James Stout
Gill is coming from another perspective than I am. They think it gives incentives for illegal immigration and it's an amnesty.
- [146:52]
Garrison Davis
Okay.
- [146:53]
Molly Crabapple
Yeah.
- [146:53]
Garrison Davis
So he's criticizing from the right.
- [146:55]
James Stout
It's interesting to see the split among Republicans on this and that's why I wanted to bring it in. Right. Like we spoke last time about the Florida sheriff's breaking with with Trump on mass deportations. There are a number of things which indicate that there is clearly a faction of the Republican Party which has realized massive deportation of people who have not been accused or convicted of any crime is not a popular stance, especially when you keep killing people. On that note, actually, ICE have shot somebody else. This broke relatively late on Tuesday night. They shot someone in Patterson, California. The person has been identified as Carlos Iva Mendoza Hernandez. He's wanted in El Salvador for questioning in connection to a murder. It is another of those incidents in which they accused a person of weaponizing their vehicle. And there is a dash cam video which has been released which shows a person attempting to leave in a vehicle. It's a little hard to tell if the person is attempting to weaponize their vehicle, but this doesn't look that way to me. It looks like that person is trying to. Trying to make an exit. We have seen a number of these. Right. Where federal immigration agents have shot people behind the wheel of their car.
- [148:10]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [148:10]
James Stout
I should add that his attorney claims that he is not wanted in connection with that murder and has provided a document from the government of El Salvador which seems to confirm that. So we have, once again, the DHS said versus what we seem to be seeing proved out by documents.
- [148:26]
Garrison Davis
Right before we get to Iran, which there's a lot to discuss, there is another news story a little bit closer to us that we think deserves some fair coverage. Statements made on a podcast last year by a top FEMA official resurfaced this last week. Greg Phillips, who is in charge of disaster response, claims that he once teleported to a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia. Phillips also says he experienced a separate incident in which he teleported in front of a church. The fact that this was a Waffle House does lend the story a bit of credibility. I have suspected for years there's some sort of paranormal field around Waffle Houses. Personally, I believe that when you walk into one, there is a small chance you could walk out of another in a separate location. The craft store Michaels has a similar, has a similar energy to it.
- [149:20]
Robert Evans
Look, anyone who's gone drunk to enough Waffle Houses knows that that's true, right?
- [149:24]
Garrison Davis
So there is an aspect of the story which is very popular, believable. But there's some details that Phillips has included that makes me a bit more skeptical of his characterization of this incident. Let's listen to his claim on this podcast right now.
- [149:38]
Charles McDonald
We had a, a teleport incident, two of them, which, which transported me about 40 miles from, from where I was and, and near Albany, Georgia, to the, to the ditch of a. To the ditch of a. Of a church. I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was.
- [150:02]
Garrison Davis
So. So to defend these statements, Phillips has taken to Truth Social to share biblical accounts of teleportation as supporting evidence of teleportation.
- [150:14]
Robert Evans
Great.
- [150:16]
Garrison Davis
Employees at the three Waffle Houses in Rome, Georgia were interviewed by the New York Times and they say they do not recall anyone being transported there by means of teleportation, nor did they recognize pictures of Greg Phillips. But in a follow up statement by Phillips on Truth Social, he said he was going through cancer treatment at the time of this alleged teleportation incident. Quote, I was healed of cancer and it was a miracle. The podcast at the center of this controversy was part of chronicling that journey. And during that journey, things happened that I can't explain. I was in the opening days of intensive treatment, heavily medicated, not thinking about future headlines. That context was nowhere in the reporting. Unquote. I think it is important here that he says he was heavily medicated during the time around this.
- [151:08]
Mia Wong
Yeah, I bet.
- [151:10]
James Stout
I love how he uses cop voice. Like a teleportation incident.
- [151:15]
Mia Wong
Yeah. But however, I. I'm gonna point out that Garrison, the next thing you're about to read, he was not heavily medicated when he said this. So.
- [151:23]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. Phillips added to this truth. Quote, the word teleportation was not mine. It was used by someone else in the conversation. Reaching for language describes something with no easy name, which is not true.
- [151:36]
Mia Wong
He said teleport. He said teleport.
- [151:39]
Garrison Davis
I think what he means is he didn't. Wasn't his like, initial term then started
- [151:43]
Mia Wong
using it, I guess, but he keeps using it.
- [151:46]
Garrison Davis
He. He continues. Quote, the more accurate biblical terms are translated or transported, not new ideas for people of faith. If you believe that God moves in ways we cannot fully explain, as I do, then having faith is not a sound bite. It is the whole point. I believe in miracles, all caps. God bless America. He is risen, unquote. Now, one detail from the podcast that has not been mentioned as much, I think offers to help some idea of what's. Of what's really going on here.
- [152:17]
Charles McDonald
It was an incredibly frightening moment to experience yourself in your car, flying through the air. It was possible. It was real.
- [152:29]
James Stout
He was teleported in his car.
- [152:31]
Garrison Davis
He was in his car. Which for me changes this entire thing because.
- [152:35]
James Stout
Yeah, it really does.
- [152:36]
Garrison Davis
These headlines were kind of. Were kind of imagined, as if his body, like, dematerialized somewhere. Rematerialized in a Waffle House. Something that's, you know.
- [152:45]
Robert Evans
You know, certainly he just blacked out
- [152:47]
Garrison Davis
while driving, which is very different. Which is very different.
- [152:51]
James Stout
Robert and I once saw a guy teleport in a car when we were driving around Texas.
- [152:55]
Robert Evans
Yeah, I teleported on Xanax once about 30 hours into the future.
- [153:01]
Garrison Davis
So the fact that he zoned out while driving and ended up at a Waffle House, much more, Much more explainable because many, many people in slightly. In slightly altogether downright believable. Downright believable outside of Waffle Houses in their car. This is a very common occurrence. This is probably about, maybe 10 to 10 to 30% of the waffle House clientele shows up in this sort of environment where they are. They are not operating on their full faculties either through some sort of drugs, alcohol, medication, what have you.
- [153:35]
Robert Evans
I've seen UFOs at a waffle House before.
- [153:37]
Garrison Davis
No, Right. The Waffle Houses are, you know, are. Have some kind of pull that I think attracts people like a Magnet who are in us in an altered state towards them as like a beacon.
- [153:48]
James Stout
Yeah, that.
- [153:48]
Robert Evans
That pull is smothered in covered hash browns.
- [153:51]
James Stout
Yes, yes.
- [153:52]
Robert Evans
So.
- [153:53]
James Stout
And the fact that they're open at
- [153:54]
Robert Evans
4:00am oh, and bathrooms you can do heroin in.
- [153:57]
James Stout
Don't forget that says it on the sign.
- [154:01]
Mia Wong
I also want to make sure that we mentioned that in the same week in which the New York Times, the guy who was writing the headline, didn't know what NATO stood for. They also titled the initial title of the article they wrote about this was, and I quote, fema official says He Teleported to Waffle House. Experts are Dubious. This is. This might be the worst Experts Disagree headline ever written.
- [154:29]
Garrison Davis
I think this is good. I actually. Out of. Out of the two polls of New York New York Times headlines this week, the data one is iffy. This one fully. I fully agree with. I fully agree with their choice to say that experts are dubious about the teleportation.
- [154:44]
James Stout
This does make me sad because the New York Times is also the outlet that ran what is, in my opinion, the best headline ever written. It was about the fact that More.
- [154:53]
Mia Wong
Oh, that one's good.
- [154:54]
James Stout
Okay. It was on the subject of a scientific study which looked at moray eels and their ability to climb a ramp out of a pool to eat some food, which proved in theory that moray eels could hunt on land. And the headline was when an Eel Climbs a Ramp to eat a squid from a clamp. That's a moray title from a better time. Yeah, yeah. What a different era.
- [155:16]
Mia Wong
Truly a masterpiece.
- [155:18]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. Whoever wrote that, I hope you're doing well.
- [155:24]
Garrison Davis
We will now teleport to an ad break and rematerialize to discuss the back and forth. Ceasefire. Not ceasefire with Iran.
- [155:48]
Robert Evans
We're back. And depending on when you listen to this, we may either be back to war with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz could be closed or open. We're in like, just this. This beautiful.
- [155:59]
Garrison Davis
Like Schrodinger's.
- [156:03]
Robert Evans
Schrodinger's Ceasefire. No one knows where it's going to go after this.
- [156:09]
James Stout
Yeah. If you don't open your phone, then you never know how many wars and ceasefires have started since the last time you opened your phone.
- [156:16]
Robert Evans
That's right. They can't make you believe that a war is going on if you choose to not be informed.
- [156:21]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [156:21]
Robert Evans
Other than by looking at gas prices.
- [156:23]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. That. That is a thing.
- [156:25]
Mia Wong
God.
- [156:26]
James Stout
All right, let's try and do this in chronological order because this week has been bonkers. So let's start with last Friday, when you last listened to Ed, if you listen on the day we release them, Good Friday. And that is kind of important because a United States Air Force F15E Strike Eagle belonging to the 48th Fighter Wing crashed in southwestern Iran last Friday after being hit by a manpads. The MANPADS is a shoulder fired surface to air missile. The plane carries a pilot and a wizzo. WSO is an acronym. It means Weapons Systems Officer or Weapon Systems Operator. I'm just going to call them Weapons Officer just to make it easier for everyone going forward. And both crew members safely self ejected from the plane. The United States very quickly launched a massive csar, that's combat search and rescue operation involving helicopters, low flying aircraft and close air support from both MQ9 Reaper drones and A10 aircraft. During this operation in which the aircraft flew within small arms range of the ground in Khuzestan Province, several aircraft were damaged. One of The Jolly Green 2 Rescue Helicopters was hit with small arms fire. An A10 Thunderbolt crashed in the Strait of Hormuz and the pilot was recovered. Another was hit and the pilot ejected over Kuwait. But this effort did result in the safe recovery of the F15's pilot, but not the weapons officer the following day. That happened during the day in daylight hours, which is remarkable. It is extremely rare to see this happening like low flying helicopters over what is notionally enemy territory in the middle of the daytime. On Easter Sunday, the United States launched a huge operation which resulted in the recovery of the weapons officer. This was preceded by a disinformation campaign which hoped to make the Iranian state believe that they had extracted the weapons officer by land, which they hadn't. The operation involved a ton of Special Operations forces assets who flew to an agricultural airstrip outside Isfahan. Yep, this seems to have gone largely unremarked upon in the reporting. There is some like crackpot theory that this was all cover for an operation that extracted enriched uranium from Isfahan because there is a nuclear research facility at Isfahan. I have not seen any evidence to support that, but I think it is likely that they knew of this agricultural airstrip because of plans which were made for a potential raid on the Isfahan nuclear research facility. During the operation, MQ9 Reaper drones bombed, quote military age males who were close to the airmen. Iran had offered a reward of $60,000 for capturing this person before the United States got to them. And it is common for people in this area who like, if you're like herding animals, right to carry a gun, like to protect Their animals or to protect themselves. There were some kind of propaganda videos of like local people looking for the airmen.
- [159:42]
Garrison Davis
Right.
- [159:42]
James Stout
They were carrying like Iranian flags and they're like antiquated bolt action rifles. But it's also very possible that some of these drone strikes may have occurred against people who were just going about their business in, in the region. Right. Like if they didn't, they said military age males. It's, it's a broad remit. And anyone who would doubt that being a shepherd would be a military aged male. Right.
- [160:03]
Garrison Davis
Would be military aged.
- [160:05]
Mia Wong
Yeah, yeah. This is like one of the most sickening terms that u. S. Warfare is invented.
- [160:11]
James Stout
Yeah. Military age male is like anyone, anytime people are using that like you gotta. Doesn't pass a sniff test.
- [160:16]
Garrison Davis
No. It could be anyone from like 14 years old to like like 69.
- [160:21]
James Stout
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [160:23]
Robert Evans
You'll be surprised who looks like an adult when you're a scared man with a gun.
- [160:27]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. Or looking from thousands of feet up on a drone camera. Right. Yeah.
- [160:32]
Mia Wong
It's, it's, it's a term invented for we are just going to start shooting at random people. We have no idea who they are. We're just going to kill them.
- [160:39]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [160:40]
Mia Wong
And it's hideous.
- [160:41]
James Stout
I was recently rereading a. I think it's called a theory of the drone. It's a philosophy book about drones and drone warfare. And there's a series scene in the opening of that which I think is which you could probably get the free preview of the book if you have a kindle and read that scene. But it's very illustrative of how vague this term can be. The rescue operation saw the planes land at an airstrip. Then a little bird helicopter took off, collected the airmen who had been evading capture in a mountainous area. He was then carried back by the helicopter to the airstrip where the two larger aircraft that had bought the helicopter and all the personnel had become stuck.
- [161:19]
Garrison Davis
Incredible.
- [161:20]
James Stout
Yeah. I mean, I guess normally they would do some kind of soil sampling, but I think there probably just wasn't time. Yeah. So the United States elected to destroy those aircraft in place and send three more aircraft to recover their personnel. We can see that Iran has published footage to that. Right. It seems that they also destroyed the little bird helicopters. I've seen some reporting that the little bird helicopters were just like on a one way flight like that. They flew into Iran knowing that their range wasn't long enough for them to fly back and that they always planned to destroy them. I don't think that's the case, I think they got them out the back of the C130s and assembled them quickly.
- [161:59]
Mia Wong
That.
- [161:59]
James Stout
Yeah, that is, that is a thing they have the capacity to do and that is what makes the most sense. So on that same day, Easter Sunday, kind of a big deal for the Christian folks. Donald Trump truced the following quote. Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking street, you crazy bastards, or you will be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah.
- [162:29]
Robert Evans
I love the President.
- [162:30]
James Stout
Yeah. Yeah. That is the leader of the free world. Yeah.
- [162:34]
Mia Wong
My extremely low stakes conspiracy is that this was not Trump. This was written by Trump's staff. Because it's slightly off.
- [162:41]
Robert Evans
It could have been. It doesn't sound like him, really.
- [162:45]
James Stout
Yeah, he's not normally a swearer. Like, he gets angry.
- [162:48]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [162:48]
Charles McDonald
The.
- [162:48]
Robert Evans
A lot of stuff isn't really him.
- [162:51]
Mia Wong
No.
- [162:52]
Robert Evans
That's a weird thing for him to throw in.
- [162:54]
Garrison Davis
I can very easily believe that this is. That this is him like going nuts on something.
- [163:00]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Like he could have done.
- [163:01]
Robert Evans
Possible.
- [163:02]
Mia Wong
I think there's a low chance that this was one. This was like a staff written thing.
- [163:07]
Robert Evans
It's just, it's, it's, it, it's weird wording from him. Like, it's a strange message. Although the last couple from him have all seemed kind of strange.
- [163:15]
Mia Wong
Yeah. He is just out of it.
- [163:16]
Robert Evans
The one he put up after the ceasefire announcement, where he's like, where he puts in quotations that the Navy will be hanging round.
- [163:23]
James Stout
Yeah. Yeah, that's.
- [163:24]
Robert Evans
That's not. Doesn't sound like him much either. But also, like, who else would he let.
- [163:28]
Mia Wong
Right.
- [163:28]
Robert Evans
That it's, he's, it's just. But it is weird, right? That does not sound like any previous Trump post hanging round to say fuck
- [163:37]
James Stout
in a Trump in a presidential tweet. Like, I don't know why a staffer would do that.
- [163:41]
Robert Evans
No. And I agree with you, James.
- [163:43]
Garrison Davis
These things are usually transcribed. Like, usually he reads these out loud and someone writes them down and then he looks at them and, and then. And then. And then they hit post like that.
- [163:52]
Charles McDonald
That's.
- [163:52]
Garrison Davis
That's how all of his truths were structured in that documentary. Yes.
- [163:56]
James Stout
Does he dictate the capitalization when he looks them over?
- [164:00]
Garrison Davis
Like, he. He may.
- [164:02]
James Stout
Okay. Because he has a fascinating and quite unique approach to capitalization.
- [164:06]
Garrison Davis
Like, specifically, like, there will be nothing. Like, it is definitely like a Trump. A Trump verbal tick.
- [164:11]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [164:13]
Robert Evans
That's a super Trump line.
- [164:14]
Mia Wong
Yeah. But then like, the next part is weird.
- [164:18]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [164:18]
Robert Evans
Hanging round.
- [164:20]
Charles McDonald
That's.
- [164:20]
Robert Evans
That's not really a Trump sounding line.
- [164:22]
Mia Wong
Okay, sorry.
- [164:23]
Robert Evans
It's weird.
- [164:24]
Mia Wong
We've all been distracted. Yeah.
- [164:25]
James Stout
So let's talk about what he said on Tuesday. Power plant day, bridge day.
- [164:30]
Andrew Sage
Yeah.
- [164:30]
James Stout
He said, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.
- [164:35]
Robert Evans
That's a Trump line.
- [164:36]
James Stout
Yeah. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail. Maybe something.
- [164:46]
Robert Evans
Did they.
- [164:47]
James Stout
Maybe some. Do we. Yeah.
- [164:49]
Garrison Davis
I don't know.
- [164:50]
James Stout
I'm not so sure. Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight. One of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. Real journey that you go on. Yeah. From a civilization will die tonight to God bless the great people of Iran.
- [165:17]
Mia Wong
Nightmare.
- [165:19]
James Stout
I don't know what to make of that. Like, it seems like he's just obviously striking civilian targets. It is a war crime. It is a war crime. Israel does all the time. We covered that last time we spoke. A whole civilization will die tonight. Seems borderline, like, genocidal as a threat.
- [165:39]
Robert Evans
Yeah. I mean, that's not borderline.
- [165:42]
Mia Wong
I think that is. I think that's a threat of genocide. Yeah. Like, this is. Which, by the way, is also like. Like, if you say this and then kill one person, like you are guilty of the crime of genocide. Like. Like attempted genocide.
- [165:55]
James Stout
Like, it's not good. This is. It is not good. Let's talk about what's actually happened right since then. Just before the deadline, a huge number of strikes hit Iran, including the Ministry of Intelligence building in Shiraz. There's some evidence that. That may have had some tunnels underneath it. Aerospace Research Institute, Bridges, an aluminum factory. Brigadier General Majid Hademi, who is the head of IRGC intelligence, was also killed in the targeted strike. And we hit Carg island again. Good.
- [166:25]
Robert Evans
Finally.
- [166:26]
James Stout
Yep. Yeah. Led a lot of people to think that this might have been a precursor to some kind of US land operation, however.
- [166:33]
Garrison Davis
Or nuclear weapons. A lot. Right?
- [166:35]
James Stout
Yeah. Right. We've seen this a lot. Right.
- [166:37]
Robert Evans
Again, when the President's saying you're gonna wipe out, it doesn't make me feel calm. You should assume that the President might actually try to wipe out a culture. I mean, I. Like that. Is my strong stance on this. Is that based on what he's saying? It is not unreasonable for People to flip out over this statement.
- [166:54]
James Stout
No, it's absolutely not.
- [166:55]
Robert Evans
People should be outraged that a president
- [166:57]
James Stout
said he really strong enough.
- [167:00]
Robert Evans
It's really bad.
- [167:01]
James Stout
Like, it's very bad.
- [167:03]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Like he should be holed up in front of a tribunal like Milosevic.
- [167:06]
Robert Evans
Like, I am not on team. We should just move past.
- [167:09]
James Stout
Absolutely not. Like it's. It's easy because everything's so insane to be like another insane thing.
- [167:14]
Robert Evans
Everything's fucking enough.
- [167:15]
James Stout
This is a guy who has the trigger for all the nukes, saying he's going to wipe out a civilization.
- [167:21]
Robert Evans
Like, I would love to be the. Nothing ever happens. Nothing happened here. It's fine. Like don't, don't yield a Trump derangement syndrome guy because it's a lot easier. But like, this is not something anyone should move past. He should go on trial for. Like this alone. Like outside of the other stuff.
- [167:39]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Each of these tweets would constitute a reason for a trial in any previous presidency since then. Pakistan offered to mediate a ceasefire and these negotiations were ongoing. As Donald Trump was truthing, Iran reportedly made a list of its own demands. This is a translation from Persian. So like not. Not a word for word quotation. Right. It listed these in its telegram channels as controlled passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with Iran's armed forces. The necessity of ending the war against all components of the axis of resistance, the withdrawal of US combat forces from all bases and deployments in the region, establishing a secure transit protocol in the straightforward moves that guarantees Iranian control, full payment of damages to Iran, removal of all primary and secondary sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian assets and property abroad, and the ratification of all these items in a binding UN Security Council resolution. The parties then agreed to a two week ceasefire. Trump again shared the news of this on Truth Social. I'm kind of done reading out his truth, so I'm going to skip that one. That was a hanging around one. Very shortly thereafter, Israel began a massive bombing campaign in Lebanon and Iran continued to launch missiles at the occupied territories. Caroline Levitt has said that Trump refused the Iranian plan.
- [169:04]
Molly Crabapple
The Iranians originally put forward a 10 point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team. Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that plan as being acceptable
- [169:21]
Dana El Kurd
to the United States, and that is false.
- [169:25]
James Stout
So she was pretty emphatic about that. Trump attacked CNN for publishing the plan this morning. Trump has said that the Israeli attacks on Lebanon were a separate skirmish. Israel Struck Lebanon a hundred times in just over 10 minutes today. They dropped whole tower blocks in Beirut. That, that is not a skirmish. Now he said they're not part of the deal because Hezbollah is not part of the deal. Of course, in Iran, state media are pushing that. They've got, they have somehow achieved all of their 10 points which I think were their sort of goals for negotiation or basis for negotiation. Trump has said to one reporter that the tolls on the straight could be a joint venture between the United States
- [170:10]
Garrison Davis
and Iran, which, which suggests there's some parts of this, of this deal that, that are, that are true, that he has kind of agreed on that are
- [170:18]
James Stout
at least on the table. Right. Like these are the bases at. Which was how they were initially reported by CNN and others that these had been accepted as a basis for negotiation. They had not been accepted whole cloth, as some people, some whom I think are acting in bad faith have said since this morning. The Wall Street Journal has reported that tolls will be paid in cryptocurrency or Chinese yuan.
- [170:44]
Robert Evans
Yeah.
- [170:44]
James Stout
And that Iran is broadcasting VHF messages. It's very high frequency, it's radio frequency warning non paying ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz that they will be targeted. Trump approved. He said Strait of Hormuz is open. This doesn't seem like that the toll's
- [170:59]
Garrison Davis
about like 2 million, right?
- [171:00]
James Stout
Well, there have been various proposals, sometimes said $2 million. I've seen different dollar sums per barrel of oil transiting the strait. I guess it would depend if it's, if it's, if it's a US Iranian partnership, you know, how are we going to account for the exchange rate? Everyone has to get their piece. Right. Yes. The $2 million number was thrown around a lot.
- [171:21]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And it's worth noting that the strait is not open. No, it is simply not the number.
- [171:28]
Robert Evans
Israel hasn't stopped launching strikes.
- [171:30]
James Stout
Well, even if they wanted to open it right now, they would have to remove the mines that they've put in it.
- [171:36]
Robert Evans
Right. We don't know how many mines there are, if there are.
- [171:39]
Mia Wong
So there are still ships going through. There's not many of them. Like there's. I think it was the number I saw for today was four. Yeah, yeah. Like so, like, like it, it is tech. Like it is possible to go through. But four is like one of the lowest numbers that has happened since the strait was first closed. So it has, it has simply not been reopened. Trump says this constantly.
- [172:01]
James Stout
It's down to one channel would be my guess. Right. Like it's because. And then they're advising those ships, I'm guessing, or sending a pilot craft perhaps to go between the mines.
- [172:10]
Mia Wong
Yeah, I haven't seen. Seen any reporting on how they're getting them through.
- [172:14]
James Stout
Yeah, I haven't.
- [172:16]
Robert Evans
The extent to which they've laid mines is really unclear.
- [172:20]
Mia Wong
Yeah.
- [172:20]
Robert Evans
Like, all we know is that they have the capacity to do so and that the US has been striking craft that are set to lay mines. But, like, I haven't heard of any evidence of a ship getting hit with a mine yet.
- [172:31]
James Stout
Right. Yeah, neither have I. So perhaps they haven't laid any.
- [172:34]
Robert Evans
We don't know what they've done. They may have decided that that was more of. Than they needed to do at this point.
- [172:39]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah.
- [172:40]
Mia Wong
And so far, all of the attacks on ships have been with other, more conventional weapons.
- [172:44]
James Stout
Yeah. Either sea drones or just missiles of various kinds.
- [172:49]
Mia Wong
Yeah. Shooting them with guns in a couple of cases.
- [172:53]
James Stout
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Garrison, let's start with this clip of J.D. vance talking about the inclusion of Lebanon in this ceasefire.
- [173:00]
Mia Wong
First of all, I actually think. And there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and of a lot, a lot of bad faith, you know, propaganda going on. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states.
- [173:28]
James Stout
So, yeah, let's talk about Israel.
- [173:31]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [173:32]
James Stout
A country which famously loves it to respect a ceasefire. Israel has continued to strike inside Iran. It has not stopped since the announcement of this ceasefire. Right. It has shown no indication of wanting to stop. It has also continued, as I said, its massive bombing campaign inside Lebanon. It seems to be the case that whatever was negotiated, the Israelis do not perceive the ceasefire as applying to them, or at least the IDF does not, I should say, rather than the Israelis. Right. And therefore Iran does not perceive it as. As being obliged to no longer strike Israel. Yeah.
- [174:16]
Garrison Davis
I mean, the whole situation right now is very unclear and is literally changing by the. By the hour.
- [174:20]
James Stout
Yeah. Like by the time we're done recording this.
- [174:22]
Garrison Davis
Right, yeah. So we're recording this Wednesday afternoon. By the time this comes out Thursday night, slash Friday morning, there could be a whole different situation.
- [174:31]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. I'll try and record a pickup if
- [174:33]
Garrison Davis
we have to, but yeah, as of, as of Wednesday afternoon, this is what the sort of ambiguity around the deal looks like and the level of compliance regarding Israel and the United States.
- [174:45]
James Stout
Yeah. There are two more things I want to talk about that have been reported on the list. Obviously, this has been reported on widely because it is a threat to all of our lives if we're going to start a nuclear war. The Pak's Kurdistan Freedom Party says its leaders headquarters. This was initially reported as home. They did send me a text that used the word home. WhatsApp. But I think, judging by what I have heard from other reports in a region it's better described as headquarters was struck with several Iranian missiles. This came after, according to Fox News, the President claimed that the United States sent weapons to protesters in Iran in January. But that, quote, the Kurds kept them. Now, a video of Trump addressing the issue does not explicitly name the Kurds. It does imply that they don't have guns.
- [175:34]
Mia Wong
You know, we sent some guns, but the group that was supposed to give, which I said would happen to my people, I said it, I called it. Exactly. We sent guns, a lot of guns. They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs.
- [175:48]
Charles McDonald
You know what happened?
- [175:49]
Mia Wong
The people that they sent him to kept them because they said, what a beautiful gun. I think I'll keep it. So I'm very upset with a certain group of people and they're going to
- [175:58]
Charles McDonald
pay a big price for that.
- [176:00]
Mia Wong
But the Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they're not going to be shot and as soon as they can get weapons.
- [176:10]
Garrison Davis
This is one of the most terrific things I've seen.
- [176:13]
James Stout
It's up there with him threatening to nuke around while flanked by the Easter bunny.
- [176:19]
Garrison Davis
I hesitate to use the word Lynchian because that word gets misapplied a lot
- [176:23]
James Stout
and, and Kafka esque simile.
- [176:25]
Garrison Davis
And this is not a, a perfect invocation of Lynchian either. But it's getting closer with this, with
- [176:32]
James Stout
the sort of, one of the more Lynchian things to happen in real life.
- [176:36]
Garrison Davis
It's incredible stuff with like the Easter jazz in the background.
- [176:39]
Robert Evans
Crash of vibes. Yeah.
- [176:40]
Garrison Davis
As there's like flowers over the archway.
- [176:44]
James Stout
Yeah. I think I've come.
- [176:45]
Garrison Davis
No, this sort of, the sort of juxtaposition, Right. Which I think is the key part of lynch is like, is the surreal with the mundane. And you have parts of this here where you have this sort of intensity of the stuff Trump's talking about with the Easter jazz and his like, purple tie and it's Easter like decorations in the background. This is, this is a stunning piece
- [177:07]
Robert Evans
of media, stunning piece of history.
- [177:09]
James Stout
God Yeah, I saw this yesterday and I thought I need to go expose my colleagues to this. Like one of the most incredible 30 seconds of video. To come back to the topic at hand, various Roger groups have denied this and it would be an extreme logistical challenge to provide weapons to Kurdish armed groups, most of whom have most of their personnel in Iraq, and for them to transit those weapons to Tehran. I don't believe that that would have been something that any US administration would entertain.
- [177:42]
Robert Evans
What guns would they give them that they don't? Because if these groups tend to be pretty well supplied with small personal arms, we're talking about like your battle rifles and you know, long range precision rifles and the like, what they lack is man portable anti aircraft and man portable anti armor. Those are kind of some of the most precious pieces of gear to them. And I doubt Trump was offering to send that into Iran. Among other things. We probably don't want to be sending a bunch of man portable anti aircraft into Iran right now.
- [178:14]
James Stout
Like that could backfire.
- [178:17]
Robert Evans
But that's the only shit I could see these different groups wanting to take for themselves.
- [178:21]
James Stout
Yeah, it's especially strange because like I watched a lot of videos of armed attacks on like Iranian police in January of this year and they were using very basic weapons to include quite a few of the Pak using pump action shotguns. Yeah, I don't think the US sent them pump action shotguns.
- [178:39]
Robert Evans
No, that would be a weird. We don't. The US military doesn't have a lot of pump action shoddies just laying around. That's not like the first gun they'd have a bunch of to hand over to somebody. Yeah, they probably got more AKs than that.
- [178:50]
James Stout
Yeah. And like there were AKs used as well. But like these are very basic weapons as you say. Like this doesn't seem like anything that would come from the U.S. also in Kurdistan, an Iranian drones struck Zagazawi village killing Musa anwar Rasool, age 39, and his wife Musta Asad Hassan. Their children both survived. This is really heartbreaking and like there were really horrible videos of their children like, like confronting the, the fact that they are now orphans. Right. And because of stories like this one, which I do not see any basis for in fact, Kurdistan is being absolutely hammered by Iranian bombs. Right. Little children are losing their parents. And like I'm really disturbed, as I say every week by the campus tendency to ignore this or to say that it has to happen because the Kurds don't have a state or even the sort of blue wave tendency to sort of Hand wave this and say, well, Donald Trump started a war, so Iran gets to murder Kurdish civilians. Like, I just find it so heartbreaking. And Robert and I have both spent time in Kurdistan and, like, have a fondness for the people there, but makes me mad.
- [180:02]
Robert Evans
It's all pretty bleak and disappointing.
- [180:05]
James Stout
Well, you know what else disappointing? Every week we have to do this. It's an ad break.
- [180:21]
Garrison Davis
All right, we're back. We still have three or four important stories that we're gonna do here before we close. James, do you want to start with your section on the threat to press freedom?
- [180:35]
James Stout
Yeah. So I think this is important. President Trump has said that his DOJ will seek to prosecute the person who, quote, leaked the information that the F15's weapon safety officer was missing and evading capture in Iran. Quote, we're going to go to the media company that released it and we're going to say, national security. Give it up or go to jail. Trump said, quote, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life. It wasn't the pilot, it was a weapons officer, but airmen. Right. I can't quite find who broke the story because it's not really a story that broke. It didn't require anyone to leak anything, to know that someone was missing because the wreckage. And without seeing the wreckage, people weren't really willing to publish the story. Right. Because they had no confirmation. And Iran says wild shit all the time.
- [181:27]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [181:28]
James Stout
The wreckage was photographed and published by presumably Iranian sources. And it very clearly showed the livery of a US Air Force F15 based out of Lakenheath, which is near Cambridge in the United Kingdom. There were some very early reports before we saw photos that the plane shot down with an F35. And that would have been a single seater. Right. But as soon as the images came out, everyone knew that wasn't the case. It Nope. Was an F15 Strike Eagle. Yeah. And there are single seater F15 variants, but I don't believe any of them are active duty. U.S. air Force Strike Eagles will always have two people. It's not a single seater. Right. So nobody had to leak that information for it to be obvious that if they had collected one person, then there was still one person. This does represent quite a serious attack on the First Amendment. People are killing and dying over Iran and our tax dollars are supporting that. Have a right to know. Journalism has played a role in the way Americans perceive conflict for a very long time. Right. We can think about the napalm girl Photo. I understand that photo now has disputed authorship. We can think about Walter Cronkite. The Vietnam War. We can think about Abu Grahib. There is no federal press shield law, though. And journalists have been been held in contempt for refusing to reveal sources on nat security issues before. This is a serious threat and it's one that I think everyone should take very seriously.
- [182:52]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, well, and it's a very important part of the. Of the last little section of the newsroom TV show. There's a whole plot line about this and it shows.
- [183:01]
Robert Evans
Yes, yes, yes, Gareth, there sure is.
- [183:03]
Garrison Davis
So I just thought that's worth mentioning.
- [183:05]
James Stout
You guys have told me not to watch sex. It'll make me angry. And I've respected that.
- [183:09]
Robert Evans
You should not. James, you will lose your mind. It's not good for you.
- [183:14]
James Stout
A lot of stuff's making me angry right now, so I'm gonna give that one.
- [183:17]
Robert Evans
Too much Sorkin at the moment is very quickly becomes toxic.
- [183:21]
James Stout
Too much Sorkin is really fucked up a lot of people in this country. Yeah.
- [183:25]
Robert Evans
Speaking of things that'll really fuck you up are beautiful tariff music.
- [183:29]
Mia Wong
Sorry if you don't like it.
- [183:33]
Charles McDonald
Rock Chasma rocket.
- [183:45]
Robert Evans
Ah, so glad that we're back to talking about tariffs.
- [183:49]
Mia Wong
So, okay, we have a couple of Iran related tariff things. Garrett, are we playing the nightmare clip?
- [183:57]
Garrison Davis
We had to play the nightmare clip.
- [183:59]
Mia Wong
We're playing the nightmare clip. Okay. This is okay. When. When inevitably in the course of humanity, they have to make a museum to explain to people what capitalism was. This is what they are going to show.
- [184:14]
Garrison Davis
This is a clip from the quote unquote news agency CNBC deadline that President Trump has set.
- [184:22]
Dana El Kurd
APM has threatened to destroy a civilization.
- [184:27]
Mia Wong
How does.
- [184:28]
Molly Crabapple
How does. How does an investor process that is it.
- [184:30]
Dana El Kurd
Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?
- [184:35]
Robert Evans
Big upside risk or downside risk to genocide?
- [184:38]
James Stout
How do we.
- [184:39]
Robert Evans
How do we do that?
- [184:39]
James Stout
She kind of looks up and then just goes right in.
- [184:43]
Mia Wong
Like when. When they have to like explain to people, right, like how. How 8 billion people were like consumed into these, like, roles that they were forced to inhabit by the machinations of capital. This is gonna be the one.
- [185:00]
Charles McDonald
Oh, God.
- [185:03]
Garrison Davis
Turns out the markets responded very positively to Trump's threats to destroy a civilization.
- [185:09]
Mia Wong
It's. I, you know, what if. What if we didn't have market. What if. What if there wasn't a line? I. Oh, God. Okay, so speaking of bad things, I guess so on Wednesday, Trump posted on Truth Social, quote, a country, capital C country supplying capital M military weapons to Iran will be immediately Tariffed on any and all goods sold to the United States of America, 50%, effective immediately. There will be no exclusions or exemptions.
- [185:46]
Garrison Davis
So can he do this?
- [185:48]
Mia Wong
Yes. Keen eyed listeners may remember that the legal authority he was claiming to have to do this, the Supreme Court made go away. So can he do this? Look, okay, the, the way he's describing this, right, sounds like he's using trade authority. It may be that buried somewhere deep in the annals of like sanction policy or some shit, maybe there's something. I went through all of the trade authority that I know of to try to find any legal authority for this. The short version is there isn't. The long version is. Okay, so I guess in theory maybe if you squint right, you could use Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. But that's supposed to be a national security risk from unfair trade practices, so it could technically work. But the thing is you also have to that specific one, we've talked about this on the show before. You have to like set up a commission and do a trade study and there's like all this stuff. So it can't work immediately.
- [186:53]
Garrison Davis
No. And Trump doesn't seem like a big set up a commission guy.
- [186:57]
Mia Wong
I mean, well, thing is they actually have done this for China already. But I don't know, if you squint like really hard, like, like if you like really, really squint at like section 232, like maybe in theory, like, but no, if you're really willing to believe that like the President has the ability to be like this is what the law says, then maybe the only way I can see this working is if he invokes section 338, which is the, this is like the remaining part of the Smoot Hawley tariffs now.
- [187:35]
James Stout
Famously good smoothie.
- [187:37]
Mia Wong
Yeah. So like, okay, there is a small chance that like you the listeners may have heard of the Smoot Hawley tariffs and that's because it's the one that like made the Great Depression worse.
- [187:45]
Robert Evans
Yep.
- [187:46]
Mia Wong
And no one's ever used them since. It's not even clear if they're on the books anymore. Because in like this is a legitimate thing of academic discussion. Just like whether these are even still in effect because they haven't been used, they're technically still there. But also no one has like ever used them. And also there's been like subsequent laws regulating trade. So I don't know, there's no, there's no way he can do this legally that wouldn't immediately fall apart or it wouldn't fall apart eventually to a court challenge. Except maybe the like Smoot Hawley like nuclear bomb desperation thing. I don't know. It's very unclear to me whether any of this is ever even going to be attempted to be implemented. He shouldn't be able to do this. It's just Calvin Ball, but who knows?
- [188:37]
James Stout
Yeah, it would be China, I presume, is what he's going for there.
- [188:40]
Robert Evans
Right.
- [188:40]
James Stout
Like China's so weapons to Iran.
- [188:42]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And like there's also a lot of speculation, like I think Reuters reported this, that this might be a thing because there's going to be a trade summit with Beijing. But if you're a trade person in Beijing, you also know that he can't do this. So it's not real leverage. I don't know. Nightmare. So let's talk about some relatively fun, I guess, news back at home.
- [189:09]
Garrison Davis
Interesting, certainly.
- [189:11]
Mia Wong
Yeah. So one of the things that happened this week was there was a series of elections and the result of those elections was the Republicans got absolutely hammered, like all up and down the ballot in Wisconsin. They did, they performed terribly in Georgia. So the big Democratic win was in Wisconsin. So polls had Chris Taylor, who was the Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, up by about 7 or 8%. Chris Taylor won this election by 20.
- [189:38]
James Stout
Oh, wow.
- [189:39]
Mia Wong
Yeah, there was also a full sweep of the whole like Moms for Liberty school board slates in a bunch of elections in, in very conservative Waukesha County. The specific one where every single one of them lost and they fully cleared out all of the monster Liberty people was a very specific one that was famous for doing a whole bunch of these right wing book bans and stuff like that. And they're, they're all gone. And this is, this is, you know, a continuation of a trend that we've seen over the past couple of years. Really well, like year, year and a half where all of these weird, monster Liberty weirdos just get clobbered. Now also in that same county, in the actual like mayoral election of Waukesha, like the city of Waukesha, the Democrats won that election, which they haven't done in ages.
- [190:28]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, this is like one of the Republicans biggest Republican like stronghold victories and like they will always win. This deceit.
- [190:34]
Mia Wong
Yeah. You know, this is something that like everyone from Wisconsin talking about, which is if they can't win here, they can't win Wisconsin at all. Yeah, there's, there's no way. Right. And again, like, you know, I'm going to get into this more in a second, but like The Democrats were projected to win this seat. And this is obviously a by election. And this, this is this, the Supreme Court seat that they won is like them getting to 5, 2. So it wasn't like the majority seat in the way that the last one of these elections were, but they were projected to win by like seven and they won by 20.
- [191:07]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's big.
- [191:08]
James Stout
Wow.
- [191:09]
Mia Wong
Which is astonishing.
- [191:11]
Robert Evans
Part of again, you, you mentioned the, a bunch of these like school board elections in Wisconsin. It's not just Wisconsin. I mean in a lot of the most conservative territory, the most conservative counties in Texas over the last like year, basically every school district that was taken by the Moms for Liberty types has been completely like, they have been completely thrown out. And that has been happening around the country. There's a lot that people are focusing on when looking at like, why are numbers so fucking dog shit for Republicans white now, right now? Why are they getting beaten by such wide margins? And it's certainly way more than one thing is responsible. But I think something that has not gotten enough attention that has been dooming the Republicans electorally is that they got what they wanted in the branch of the chunk of our government that is hardest to ignore for the average American, which is like what's happening to their kids in schools. And a bunch of regular people who were not all that political saw that, like, my kid can't like check books out any. The fuck is happening here. And they, they, they went crazy. Not crazy. They got really pissed off. Yeah, rightfully so. And I think this is going, I. My hope is that this turns out to be one of their worst like strategic missteps in this period of time is their belief that we can just go fucking apeshit on schools and no one will care.
- [192:27]
Mia Wong
Yeah, well, and this brings me back to something I've been talking about for a while, which is that so like one of the other results that we're sort of looking at here is so there, there was an election in Georgia in this like, as a special election for the seat that was Marjorie Taylor Greene's old district. This is like, like one of the most unhinged Republican districts in the entire country. Trump won it by 40. And the Republican Clay Fuller did win, but he only, he won by 12 points in a county that Trump carried by 40.
- [192:57]
Garrison Davis
Yeah, yeah, that's like, it's what, like it's like a 28 point shift.
- [193:00]
Mia Wong
Yeah, right. It's, it's unbelievable. Now obviously they didn't win here, but there's been a lot of stuff about how. Okay, well, this is just because Democrats, Democrats do better among high information voters. Those are the people who vote in these off cycle elections that aren't during the normal election cycle, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of this kind of stuff that's a kind of stuff that puts you ahead as the polls were showing in Wisconsin, that puts you ahead by like 7. That does not explain a 13% over performance. Yeah, yeah, right. And I think what is happening here is something I've said consistently and this is something that I think Robert is sort of explaining. Why this is happening is that pollers are still using, they're still using as their basis for what they assume the electorate is going to be. They're using the data from the electorate from the 2024 election. Yeah, because that's, that's the standard practice. Right. You, you, you use as a sample, you know, and you, you make some like adjustments because it's a by election and stuff like that. But like they're using as, as a sample base of voters, the people from 2024. And that electorate does not exist anymore because it's been completely destroyed. Yeah, right. All of these people have suddenly been mobilized. Like the whole city of Minneapolis has been like turned into this like, weird. I don't know, I'm making that sound negative. It's like, like there's like Minneapolis has had a level of mobilization that is like possibly has never been seen before in US History. All of these like people who had been, you know, just like not political at all are. And this is the other thing with like these school board elections is that these are mostly people who were not political people at all who just swept in because they like their schools got fucked with. The, the entire electorate has changed.
- [194:33]
Garrison Davis
It shows there's like a deep fluidity here.
- [194:35]
Andrew Sage
Right.
- [194:35]
Garrison Davis
There's a lot of people who supported Trump because of economic conditions which were blamed on the Democrats and they moved for Trump. And there was a lot of these same people are not like Trump or Republican loyalists. They're, they're reacting to the economic conditions and the messaging from each party. And this is reflected in the, you know, the number of Trump Zoran voters, even the number of people who vote Trump and AOC in New York. Right. Yeah, they're not like mega loyalists. Right. But, but it, it's showing how there is a big fluidity among, among the types of people that do decide elections.
- [195:08]
Mia Wong
Yeah, but then there's all, there's also, and this is, I think the, the, the other side of this Too Right. Is that there's a bunch of people who haven't voted or just didn't give a shit at all. And those people are suddenly being mobilized, and this is turning into like. Like the Democrats are, like, winning a whole bunch of, like, rural counties in these elections. Right?
- [195:25]
Garrison Davis
Yeah.
- [195:25]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And now I. The. The. The last thing I want to talk about in sort of this kind of section of Everybody Hates the Republicans is that the Issues and Insights TIPP survey for April shows Trump with a 39% approval rating. This poll, which is done a bunch of times every year, they give, like, a bunch of topics where they give A through F rankings, from like, immigration to the economy to, like, the wars in Iran and Ukraine. And, like, a plurality of the votes were an F on every single one.
- [195:55]
Garrison Davis
Even immigration.
- [195:56]
Mia Wong
Immigration was the one that was kind of close. Between that and A. Every single other one was down double digits. If you look at CDF versus AB or if you ignore C. Right. It's so much more in the category
- [196:12]
Garrison Davis
of Ds and Fs on the negative side in general. Yeah.
- [196:16]
Mia Wong
Yeah. This is for every single issue.
- [196:19]
James Stout
I'm guessing it was kind of a binary distribution. Right. Like a lot of as or a lot of Fs, and not much.
- [196:24]
Mia Wong
There's actually a surprising number of Bs.
- [196:26]
James Stout
But that's interesting.
- [196:27]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And like, a decent number of Ds. But, yeah, it was like, mostly Fs. And then everything else is kind of spread out between the other ones. I mean, all of this is before the, like, I'm a civilization will die tonight stuff, which.
- [196:39]
Garrison Davis
Which did cause negative reactions from people in the. In the conservative base.
- [196:44]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [196:45]
Garrison Davis
And the people voting in Georgia and. And Wisconsin. I want to play this clip here. This was a clip from. From. From Georgia of a Georgia voter who was interviewed on Election Day.
- [197:02]
Charles McDonald
It's giving war crime.
- [197:05]
Molly Crabapple
You can't do that.
- [197:07]
Charles McDonald
We don't just annihilate people because we
- [197:10]
Molly Crabapple
can and, you know, make a grab
- [197:13]
Charles McDonald
for the money and the oil. And that's what we've done in Venezuela and that's what we're doing in Iran.
- [197:19]
Robert Evans
It's giving war crime.
- [197:21]
Garrison Davis
It's giving war crime.
- [197:22]
Robert Evans
I need to take a second.
- [197:23]
Garrison Davis
This is a beautiful, beautiful positive.
- [197:26]
James Stout
Yes. That's the embedded message than the Democrats have managed to come up with on this.
- [197:30]
Garrison Davis
I just need. This is.
- [197:31]
Dana El Kurd
This is.
- [197:31]
Garrison Davis
This is like a woman in her 30s or 40s.
- [197:33]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [197:33]
Garrison Davis
Holding. Holding a kid at 9. This broadcast was at 9:33am in Rome, Georgia, on Election Day.
- [197:42]
Mia Wong
Yep.
- [197:43]
Garrison Davis
It is. It's giving war crime.
- [197:45]
Mia Wong
Yeah. And, you know, if you look at that, like the YouGov economist poll, which is from, like, April 1, but, like, even at April 1, he had a. Just an atrocious 35% approval rating, which is. That's like. That's like end of the Bush administration shit. All of this. The. The important part of this is that, like, the Democrats are still really historically unpopular right now because everyone's pissed at them for not doing anything. But the actual mass of people in this country fucking hate all of this. They're pissed off at everything that is happening. Anything you ask about that Trump is doing, they are fucking angry about. And, you know, this is. This is. This is the kind of anger and the kind of just generalized rage that I think there's no really good way to measure outside of the tools that we've developed for elections or in terms of just like, you know, sometimes you get street mobilizations. Like this anger, like, is the defining thing of the United States right now is that everybody's pissed the fuck off about this. And, yeah. And every opportunity they get to express that this shit fucking sucks, they do. This is what American politics is. Even as everything is unbelievably, hideously bleak from all of the shit these people are doing.
- [198:59]
Garrison Davis
Speaking of people who are pissed off, there's one final story that I'll go through pretty quick before we close this episode. Last Wednesday to celebrate April Fool's Day, Trump fired Pam Bondi as Attorney General. Trump told Bondi about his plan to fire her while in the car together to watch the Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship.
- [199:19]
Charles McDonald
Jesus Christ.
- [199:20]
Robert Evans
There's video of it. There's video of it. It's amazing. Like, credit to Fox. But they got a shot of them in the limo and Trump is clearly telling her, and it's when we know he was telling her. It's an amazing little artifact. All you can make out is their faces kind of, and their body language, but it rips. It's so funny.
- [199:40]
Garrison Davis
Now, Bondi tried to convince Trump to let her stay on till at least summer, but to no avail. Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve as acting Attorney General until the President nominates a full replacement. On Tuesday, Blanche said, quote, nobody has any idea, unquote, why Bondi was fired, except for President Trump, though sources close to the White House have told multiple outlets that Trump had a growing frustration with Bondi for a while, especially related to her failure to successfully prosecute certain political enemies and the fallout from her handling of the Epstein Files. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has been floated as a prospective replacement for Attorney General at the epa. Zeldin has led efforts to roll back environmental regulations and climate protections related to endangered species, wetlands, and emissions. Before working in the second Trump administration, Zeldin lost the race for New York governor to Kathy Hochul by 7 percentage. A relatively close race for New York.
- [200:41]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [200:42]
Garrison Davis
Zeldin is a Trump loyalist, fought against the President's two impeachments while in Congress and refused to certify the 2020 election results.
- [200:51]
James Stout
Great.
- [200:51]
Garrison Davis
Zeldin's a retired U.S. army lieutenant colonel who served four years in active duty as a military intelligence officer, federal prosecutor, and military magistrate, and in 2006, was deployed with the 82nd Airborne Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
- [201:06]
Mia Wong
Wait, so he's a troop cop? Military magistrate, Troop judge.
- [201:10]
Garrison Davis
He served in that. He served in a few roles, yeah.
- [201:13]
Mia Wong
That's troop cop.
- [201:14]
Garrison Davis
He served as a prosecutor and a judge.
- [201:17]
Mia Wong
The hated and reviled. Yeah, troop cop.
- [201:20]
James Stout
It looks like maybe he at some point went to law school there. Right?
- [201:23]
Garrison Davis
He went to law school in New York, either during that time or beforehand. It all kind of takes place around because I. I think he got out of law School around 2004. At the time, he was the youngest person to finish law school in New York.
- [201:35]
Mia Wong
Oh, wow.
- [201:36]
Garrison Davis
He was in his early 20s. After he got out of the military or out of active duty, he briefly served as an attorney for the Port Authority of Newark and New Jersey, and also private practice for a little bit before he went into the State Senate and then eventually US Congress. Now, before Bondi's firing, Pam Bondi was scheduled to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee about the Epstein files on April 14th. Now, Democrats on the committee still want her to testify as she holds relevant knowledge. But on Wednesday morning, the Justice Department released a statement saying Bondi would not appear at the Hearing on the 14th, quote, since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General, unquote. This is a little bit untrue. She was not subpoenaed by her title as Attorney General. She was subpoenaed by name as Pam Bondi. Now, Oversight Committee Democrats have responded by saying if Bonnie does not comply with the bipartisan subpoena addressed to her by name, they will, quote, begin contempt charges, unquote. Republican Nancy Mace has said, quote, pam Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of Attorney General. Our motion to subpoena Pam Bondi, which was passed by the Oversight Committee was for Bondi by name, not by title. She will still have to appear before the oversight committee for a sworn deposition. The American people deserve answers and we expect her to appear as soon as a new date is set, unquote. So it appears they will try to reschedule her for a new date. Bondi's firing is interesting in the context of Kristi Gnomes firing as for the first year or so of Trump's second term, he really resisted making changes to his cabinet. Right. These, these sorts of frequent changes were a hallmark of his first of his first term.
- [203:16]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [203:16]
Garrison Davis
And for the start of his second, he seemed to not want to do that and instead got like his ranks of loyalists that he was going to work with. But since Kristi Noemi's fire ring, that has clearly changed. And this has prompted speculation about who could be next from people like Tulsi Gabbard to Kash Patel or Pete Hegseth. I think Gabbard is, is certainly, certainly one of one of the people. If I was one of these three, I would, I would be most nervous if I was Gabbard. Patel's an odd, is an odd character. I really not sure what's in the future for him. A podcast and I think that what happens eventually in Iran will determine what goes on with Hegseth.
- [203:56]
James Stout
There have been rumors that some of the reason that Hegseth has been sort of purging high command in the military is that he has concerns that those
- [204:04]
Garrison Davis
people could be his replacements.
- [204:06]
James Stout
Like alternates for him. Sec Def. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Patel was under more heat I feel like during following the shooting of Charlie Kirk.
- [204:15]
Mia Wong
Right.
- [204:16]
James Stout
The assassination and that their failure to find the assassin for some time.
- [204:20]
Garrison Davis
Yeah. And and his and his plane tickets and his trips with his girlfriend.
- [204:24]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [204:24]
Robert Evans
The failure with Savannah Guthrie too.
- [204:27]
James Stout
Yeah.
- [204:27]
Garrison Davis
Trump. Trump did not like that clip of him in the hockey locker room.
- [204:31]
James Stout
Yeah, yeah. There have been quite a few now you mentioned them.
- [204:34]
Garrison Davis
Before we go, we should mention there is still about a week left of Webby voting. It could Happen here is nominated for a Webby as is James series Migrating to America which aired on It Could Happen Here and of course behind the bastards links to vote for our shows in the Webby Awards will be in the episode description. Voting goes till April 16, most important election of our lives. Stay in line, vote early and often etc. Etc.
- [205:03]
James Stout
If you'd like to email us with tips that are relevant to our news coverage, you can do so cool zone tips. Proton me if you have a marketing message to send us I will block you.
- [205:19]
Garrison Davis
All right, that does it for us here at It Could Happen Here.
- [205:22]
Mia Wong
Put a trans girl on your couch.
- [205:24]
Garrison Davis
We reported the news.
- [205:26]
Molly Crabapple
We reported the news.
- [205:33]
Robert Evans
Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe.
- [205:39]
Molly Crabapple
It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening,
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Mia Wong
people.
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