It Could Happen Here Weekly 242

Summary

It Could Happen Here Weekly 242 – Detailed Episode Summary

Podcast: It Could Happen Here
Episode: Weekly 242
Date: July 25, 2026
Hosts/Contributors: Robert Evans, Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout, Carl Cassarda

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Episode Overview

This episode is a weekly compilation featuring three main stories:

1. A practical, emotionally-informed guide to gun ownership in the wake of political instability
2. An in-depth critique of political prediction markets and their mainstream media adoption
3. Explanations of shadow banking and its risks, plus a news segment tackling the week’s most pressing US political updates, including the far-left terror summit, Rubio's Cuba efforts, tariffs, and ongoing US election security concerns.

The tone throughout is a mix of grave, darkly humorous, and analytic, aiming to arm listeners with both knowledge and practical advice amid a chronicle of institutional collapse and reactionary policy in the US.

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1. Should You Buy a Gun? Responsible Gun Ownership in a Time of Chaos

Guests/Speakers: Robert Evans, James Stout, Carl Cassarda (of InRangeTV)
Primary Segment: [02:28–61:41]

Main Theme

The hosts address the recurring question in times of societal stress and political instability: "Should I buy a gun?" They focus on responsible, emotionally-stable gun ownership, practical acquisition, safe storage, training, and the necessity of community-oriented firearm education.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Emotional State First, Ownership Later

• Assess your mental health before buying:
  “If you are dealing with suicidal ideation… don’t go rush to pick [a gun] up now. For one thing, I assure you they will be available in the future.”—Robert Evans (07:39)

• Threat modeling is hard:
  “We, as humans, are bad at threat modeling… You have to ask: Can I possess this responsibly? Do I know how to use it responsibly? Am I in a place—mentally, in my living situation—that possessing this very quick and easy to use lethal device is safe to have around?”—Carl Cassarda (09:32)

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2. Budget, Safe Storage, and State Laws

• Don’t spend all your budget on just the gun: “If you have $1,000, you don’t need to go out and spend $1,000 on your gun. Perhaps it would be better to save some of that money and put it towards other things.”—James Stout (10:24)

• Safe storage is key and law-dependent: “In Oregon, we have very strict safe storage laws… You need to be aware of what your local legal situation is.”—Robert Evans (13:26)

• Don’t cheap out on a safe:
  “The cheap $90 thing with the cylindrical key lock isn’t it. So I would estimate… $250 for a safe that’s actually worth a damn.”—Carl Cassarda (14:44)

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3. Training and Choosing the Right Firearm

• Training is non-negotiable:
  “Without training, you are a liability with the gun… every bullet that leaves that barrel, it's your fault.”—James Stout (17:36)

• Handgun vs. Long Gun for Defense:
  “If you are looking for a self defense weapon, a handgun probably shouldn’t be what you pick unless you are looking to carry a gun.”—Robert Evans (16:14)
  “If you’re only worried about your house… there’s no reason to pick a pistol.”—Carl Cassarda (18:47)
  “For home defense, it’s hard to go wrong with a shotgun… should not be ignored.”—Carl Cassarda (19:06)

• State Laws Can Change What’s Practical:
  “In California, it’s extremely easy to buy something on Amazon, slap it on your gun and render it a felony.”—James Stout (19:33)
  “A shotgun is likely to not run afoul of the law anywhere…”—Carl Cassarda (20:50)

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4. Inclusive Community & Training Accessibility

• Training spaces can be hostile or unwelcoming:
  “I got… xenophobia, homophobia, jokes… as soon as I walked in [to a training class].”—James Stout (23:14)

• Build real, inclusive communities:
  “Owning a thing doesn’t make a community… The more we build communities… alternative voices in the firearms space, the more we’re going to have safer, better spaces for us to work together…”—Carl Cassarda (24:30)

• Recommended Resources:

  • Tactical Girlfriend YouTube for beginner content
  • InRangeTV (Carl’s channel) for deeper dives
  • Operation Blazing Sword and Liberal Gun Club for instructional and local resources
  • Armed Equality for LGBTQIA-friendly firearm education

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5. Practical Gun & Accessory Recommendations

• Handgun:
  “Pretty much boil it down to a 9 millimeter… a Glock is the de facto [recommendation].”—Carl Cassarda (32:35)

• Long Gun:
  “Almost anyone… can handle a basic AR-15… most functional for most people.”—Carl Cassarda (43:45)

• Accessories:

  • Eye protection, hearing protection, proper storage
  • For carrying: reliable holster and belt
  • For home defense: consider a flashlight (and a separate, non-gun flashlight for daily use)

• Avoid “range toys” and meme firearms:
  “Don’t bother with AKs. This is the United States of America. This country believes in the AR-15.”—Carl Cassarda (49:03)

• Do NOT build your own as a new owner:
  “If you’re a new gun owner, don’t piece together anything… you want something from a… reputable manufacturer with a warranty…”—Carl Cassarda (31:46)

• Don’t buy more than you need:
  “For the most part, a person getting into this… does not need [an optic/red dot]”—Carl Cassarda (39:20)

• Medical Training is Priority:
  “Before you ever buy a gun… Go take a class from Stop the Bleed and learn how to use tourniquets and medical gear.”—Carl Cassarda (56:48)

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6. Risks of Organizing and Legal Advice

• Be wary of leftist gun groups—wait before joining:
  “It might be good to just put a holder on joining a new organization until we’re a few months into this thing… Just don’t start—if anyone ever talks to you about let’s make a militia, don’t do that.”—Robert Evans (59:00)

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Notable Quotes

• “Handguns are the most difficult thing to use skillfully under distress… least effective at doing the job you think they’re going to do.”—Carl Cassarda (16:27)
• “Owning a thing doesn’t make a community… The community building thing is real.”—Carl Cassarda (24:30)
• “A stop the bleed class and an IFAC is more likely to serve you or your community more than any gun ever will.”—Carl Cassarda (58:15)

Useful Timestamps

• Safe Storage & Laws [11:49–15:14]
• Choosing Firearms & Training [15:15–24:22]
• Community & Training Resources [23:14–29:37]
• Accessory Rundown [50:16–57:15]
• Medical Training [56:48–58:15]

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2. Prediction Markets and Political Gambling – How Crypto & Betting Are Eating the News

Host: Garrison Davis and Mia Wong
Primary Segment: [65:25–102:45]

Main Theme

A critical analysis of how “political prediction markets”—crypto-based gambling platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi—have gained mainstream credibility, reshaping political reporting and public perception of election odds, despite deep transparency and accuracy issues.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Are Prediction Markets?

• Crypto-based markets (Polymarket, Kalshi) let users bet on yes/no world events, e.g., “Will the US strike Venezuela by year’s end?”
• Their odds are increasingly featured in mainstream news as if they were scientific probability.
• Massive daily volumes—over $3 billion weekly as of mid-2026.

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2. Regulation Is Minimal or Absent

• Polymarket faced US/regulatory bans but is still easily accessible via VPN and crypto.
• "Prediction markets" claim they aren’t gambling, to avoid regulation. Kalshi is regulated as derivatives trading—but not as securities or gambling; enforcement is unclear.
• Under Trump, regulatory investigations were dropped; Trump Jr. became an advisor and investor for both Kalshi and Polymarket.

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3. Media Legitimacy, Confusion, and Manipulation

• CNN and other news orgs now broadcast prediction market odds as “the data,” with little context.
• Most viewers can't distinguish prediction market odds from poll-based probabilities.
  • Example Quote:
    “To a viewer who just tuned in… it would be very unclear that these numbers are actually from a gambling website.”—Kerry Brownstein (67:35)
• Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes: “Compelling”—refuses to call gambling addictive (82:23).

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4. Insider Trading Is a Feature, Not a Bug

• Platform CEOs and advisers admit insiders bet with special knowledge; some claim this makes the markets “more accurate.”
• “The [prediction] market’s practice of curating insider trading… there’s a lot of benefits from it… It’s sort of an inevitability that this will happen,”—Polymarket CEO Shane Copeland (76:20)
• “You can literally be the person who decides, and be betting on the side hedging on it.”—Nate Silver (78:15)

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5. Societal/Moral Critique

• Users bet on war, disasters, hardship—“betting on when Israel will bomb Gaza” (69:00), “how many acres will burn in LA fires.”
• Platforms spread and amplify misinformation by posting speculative “projected” news based on betting trends, which other outlets then treat as news (98:44).
• New “financialization of everything” agenda—turning opinions and world suffering into tradable, addictive assets (98:13).

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Notable Quotes

• “[Political prediction markets] create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.”—Kalshi CEO Tarek Manser (98:13)
• “CNN and others have decided to partner with platforms that enable people who decide when to drop bombs… to win millions of dollars by betting money on the choices they themselves are making.”—Kerry Brownstein (98:44)
• “The day before Kalshi announced their partnership with CNN… CBS aired a 60 Minutes puff piece on Polymarket anchored by Anderson Cooper…” (81:48)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• How prediction markets work in media: [65:25–74:57]
• Regulation, legality, and insider trading: [74:57–81:48]
• Social impacts, ethical critiques: [95:54–102:45]

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3. Shadow Banking—What Is It and Why Is It So Dangerous?

Host: Mia Wong with Molly Conger
Primary Segment: [106:14–167:54]

Main Theme

A deeply irreverent, metaphor-rich (burgers and all) but robust primer on how shadow banking—institutional finance outside regulatory structures—enables massive, unchecked risk, fraud, and systemic instability. Builds understanding from “what is a bank” up to why the entire financial system remains teetering on illusory assets and leveraged bets, referencing both 2008 and current crises.

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Core Concepts Explained

1. Shadow Banking Defined

• “Financial activity by institutions other than central banks, banks, or public financial institutions.”—Financial Stability Board (109:34)
• In practice: unregulated/loosely regulated loan-making and investment, moving liabilities off traditional banks’ balance sheets.

2. Scale and Systemic Danger

• $85.7 Trillion in shadow banking assets as of 2023—nearly 3x conventional banking’s $31.1T—huge systemic risk (116:06)

3. How It Actually Operates (with Burgers)

• Bank: takes your money (deposit), loans it out (asset), but can’t instantly pay everyone if called back—a need for regulation and government insurance (FDIC)
• Shadow Banks: do everything “backwards,” spinning debt into “assets” via securitization, hiding risks, and escaping regulation.
• 2008 crisis: repeated use of the same collateral (houses) for multiple securities, hiding liabilities.

4. Why It Persists

• Because it’s profitable, you get more return… until the whole system collapses.
• Regular banks and shadow banks are interlinked—your money and pension might be tied up in unregulated high-risk debt.

5. Social and Political Ramifications

• The system’s unreality provides conspiratorial fodder for the far right, but the culprits are not a cabal—they’re often the boring, white Christian frat guys running regular and shadow banks.
• Shadow banking enabled mass fraud, dispossession (robosigning scandals), and remains unpunished/upregulated since 2008.

6. New Forms of Risk (AI, Graphics Cards, etc.)

• As of the episode’s recording, the new wave of shadow bank instability is linked to private credit (unregulated corporate lending) and speculative assets, including physical goods like graphics cards.

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Notable Quotes

• “They’re doing betting markets with the entire world economy.”—Mia Wong (117:58)
• “It’s astonishing, because at least with NFTs I can look at the picture of the monkey. I can’t look at any of this.”—Molly Conger (160:18)
• “There is a limit to which you can run an economy that’s purely based on gambling… and we’re going to hit it really soon.”—Mia Wong (160:55)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• What’s a bank/shadow bank: [110:06–118:05]
• Burgers as metaphor: [123:23–137:05]
• 2008 crisis and why they keep getting away with it: [133:13–136:04]
• Contemporary private credit/AI speculation: [166:26–167:07]

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4. News Update & White House: “Executive Disorder”

Hosts: Garrison Davis, Robert Evans, Mia Wong, James Stout
Primary Segment: [204:40–282:22]

Highlights

Major Stories:

• Escalating US Crackdown on the Left:

  • Marco Rubio-led “international” summit on the threat of left-wing political terrorism (209:16)
  • Rubio and Stephen Miller conflating isolated violence, property destruction, and present-day left-wing activism with 1970s left terrorism and Cuban/Iranian influence
  • Plans for new designations—foreign terrorist organizations, visa bans, debanking, and using the secretive Alien Terrorist Removal Court (James Stout, 237:18)
  • Miller’s rhetoric: “It always becomes a gulag…” (230:00)

• Rubio’s Cuba Agenda:

  • 100-page State Department report tying Cuba to all US leftist activism since the 1960s (248:37)
  • Plausible preparations for US intervention (US Nimitz carrier strike group in Caribbean)

• Election Security/Voter Suppression:

  • Trump uses manufactured “foreign influence” claims to push SAVE Act (restricting mail-in voting, strict voter ID, purging voter rolls)
  • Conflicting statements from admin officials about actual evidence of foreign election tampering (269:58)

• Tariff Escalation (“Tariff Rubicon”):

  • Trump invokes the never-before-used Section 338 of Smoot-Hawley (Great Depression), signaling intent for sweeping new tariffs against Canada and other countries—possibly illegal, but will be in effect until legally challenged (273:27)

• Election Updates:

  • Florida: Groypers dominate youth support; youth swing to far-right candidate (260:36)
  • Wisconsin: Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong leads
  • Michigan: Corporate/AIPAC-backed Haley Stevens using AI ads, identity politics attacks, and manufactured Obama endorsement to block leftist candidate Abdul El Said (263:36)

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Memorable Quote Roundup:

• “If anyone ever talks to you about let’s make a militia, don’t do that. At this point there’s a good chance they’re the FBI.”—Robert Evans (59:00)
• “They’re doing betting markets with the entire world economy.”—Mia Wong (117:58)
• “It always becomes a gulag. It always becomes the mass imprisonment of political enemies… psychological and actual terror.”—Stephen Miller (230:08)

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Summary Table of Major Segments

| Segment | Start Time | Key Topics | |---------------------|------------|---------------------------------------------------------| | Gun Ownership | 02:28 | Safety, training, laws, community, practical advice | | Prediction Markets | 65:25 | Crypto, mainstream media, regulation, ethics | | Shadow Banking | 106:14 | Mechanics, risk, metaphor, past & present crises | | News & US Politics | 204:40 | Left terrorism crackdown, Cuba, election, tariffs |

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This week's "It Could Happen Here" arms listeners with urgently practical knowledge (what’s really needed to own a gun safely), demolishes the credibility of political prediction markets now infecting journalism, cuts through the jargon to demystify the mechanisms and dangers of shadow banking, and gives a deeply researched weekly update on reactionary legal, electoral, and economic developments in the US—with a focus on new tools of repression being rolled out against the left, and the continued dangers of unstable, unchecked executive power.

Do not skip the sections on gun safety/medical training if you’re new to firearms, or the thorough takedown of “data-driven” political betting if you care about the state of journalism and democracy.

Transcript

[Ari Chambers]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, Portlandia fans.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Kerry Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

[Ari Chambers]

The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We're launching Podlandia AO Rewatch, our brand

[Mia Wong]

new podcast where we revisit every episode

[Kerry Brownstein]

of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.

[Ari Chambers]

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life, guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Krisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Kyle is going for it. Here you fully improvised, not just words, but a song about.

[James Stout]

Well, I thought you were all going

[Robert Evans]

to write a song.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mia Wong]

What's up, fam?

[Ari Chambers]

I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

[Robert Evans]

Hey, what's up, y'?

[Kerry Brownstein]

All?

[Ari Chambers]

It's your girl, Sam J.

[Molly Conger]

And we're the host of Everyone Watches

[Ari Chambers]

Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I heart women's sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out shout outs to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Chrisean Rock's boxing journey. She looks good, her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast Disgraceland, I tell the stories behind music's biggest names.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Like how the story of the Foo

[Ari Chambers]

Fighters isn't just about music.

[Kerry Brownstein]

It's about grief.

[Ari Chambers]

In the moment, everything changed.

[Carl Cassarda]

Imagine that you're in the biggest band

[Ari Chambers]

on the planet, as Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana.

[Carl Cassarda]

And the phone rings and you learn

[Ari Chambers]

that your singer, your friend, the reluctant voice of a generation, Kurt Cobain is dead. Listen to Disgraceland on the iHeartRadio app,

[Kerry Brownstein]

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ari Chambers]

This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse, the

[Molly Conger]

world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here

[Ari Chambers]

to tell whoever's respons, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out

[Robert Evans]

who Sydney Sweeney was?

[Ari Chambers]

If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of

[Kerry Brownstein]

men do better or do less so I don't have to do so much.

[Ari Chambers]

I'm Yamanika, and I'm out.

[Mia Wong]

Listen to youo're the Problem with Yamaneka on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Corezone 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. What's pew, pew in my pews? This is Robert Evans and it could happen here. A podcast about it happening here as it seems, seems to be more every week. And when things get worse, one thing that a lot of folks start talking about is should I buy a gun? And obviously this is a fraught question and the only responsible answers to it are very complicated. And so to talk over some very complicated answers, we've got James Stout and we have in the audience with us the great Carl Cassarda. Carl of inrange tv, thank you for coming on to be our resident firearms expert in this podcast where we try not to be deeply irresponsible.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's always a pleasure to come back to the show and people always ask for more collabs and here we are. But on a very important topic. And yes, the only question I have is now is when do you change the name of the podcast to. Oh, no, it's happening here.

[Robert Evans]

We're talking with the marketing people. It done happened here.

[James Stout]

Oh, shit, it's happening again.

[Robert Evans]

It's been happening here. Yeah, here it is here now. Right, right in this moment. Be here now, comma it.

[James Stout]

Yeah, we've got it. We got to work out which one SEO is best, but we're on it, Carl. Don't worry.

[Carl Cassarda]

Great.

[Robert Evans]

We're working on it.

[James Stout]

So as I think both of you know, but maybe listeners don't. Gun sales typically soar before elections, as do ammunition purchases people are afraid of. Gun bans has been traditionally one reason why. And the firearms industry is not afraid of hyping those up to increase sales in election years. And normally prices increase in line with demand. Like if you go back to November 2020 and look at the prices of ammunition and guns compared to now, you'll see how much incredibly higher they were. That was for a number of reasons, but considering inflation, gun prices are pretty low right now.

[Robert Evans]

You know, that is kind of a recurrent thing for the most part is that while everything else gets more expensive, television and firearms remain affordable.

[Carl Cassarda]

Guns have gotten to the point where they're more affordable than they've ever.

[Robert Evans]

Huh. Yeah, they really are.

[Carl Cassarda]

AR15s are. I used to talk about this on in range. AR15s are essentially cord wood, and you can get a fully fled, good to go. AR15 now for like four to 500 bucks.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Pistols for 250 bucks.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

The prices on guns are like, through the floor. And yeah, it's interesting to note that, like, if you are a gun manufacturer or firearms dealer, even if you don't hype elections, it would be unintelligent of you to not prep for elections because they're so consistently the Christmas of gun sales. So this is an instance in which we didn't see that. And it's. It's kind of interesting.

[Robert Evans]

I think there's an element because obviously when we talk, I think to people who are not into guns and talk about how cheap guns have gotten, they're like, well, that's very bad. And there's definitely downsides to that. But an upside of that is it does kind of suggest we are not seeing the degree of panicked hoarding for a civil war that we have seen at previous points when gun prices were not as. As cratered and ammo prices were a lot higher and ammo available availability was a lot lower. Like, in some ways, that's kind of an optimistic sign.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. Or the dark side of that is the traditional prepper air quote is so saturated in guns and ammunition that they

[Robert Evans]

don't even need another one.

[Ari Chambers]

Right.

[James Stout]

Well, that's.

[Robert Evans]

I think that is where a lot of people are.

[James Stout]

Yes. Also, capacity really increased in 2020, and I think they've been pumping out. It's interesting to look at the cost of 9 millimeter and 5.56ammunition, which, if you're not familiar, are like the most commonly used defensive ammunition rounds compared to more niche stuff like that hasn't gone down as much. If you're trying to get 300 wisdom or something.

[Carl Cassarda]

The funny thing is that, yeah, 5.56 and 9 millimeter, both defensively as well as just recreationally, are the most common ammunition by far. And some of the weirdo stuff I like to shoot, like percussion caps for percussion revolvers, you can't find that stuff to save your life. That stuff's through the roof and expensive. So they've literally just bunkered down intent there and are making 5 by 6 and 9 millimeter because that's where the demand is and will continue to be.

[James Stout]

Yeah, I can't find. You can't see it. I have a little reloading set up here. I can't find shotgun primers or certain powders anywhere now.

[Robert Evans]

And this is going to be a problem because if we have another Cowboys and Aliens kind of situation, what are we going to use? You know, what is Harrison Ford going to use to save us anyway? Nobody saw that movie. Why am I making that joke?

[Carl Cassarda]

Let me know. I've got a good stash of percussion casualty.

[Robert Evans]

We're all getting be leaning heavily on Carl.

[James Stout]

Carl for all humanity.

[Robert Evans]

So I think we've gotten a little bit ahead of our skis here. We should, we should start by talking because again, I think we've all seen a lot of people being like, well, I guess I should get a gun now as in the wake of Trump's victory.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And I think the first caveat we should give everyone is like, if you are reacting in a way that is totally reasonable to this news, being depressed. Right. If you're somebody who deals with suicidal ideation, if you have been spiraling lately, if you have been thinking about self harm, if you are just not in a stable mental place, and especially if you have no experience with firearms and are not in a stable mental place, don't go rush to pick one up now. For one thing, I assure you they will be available in the future. They are not gonna get harder to buy.

[Carl Cassarda]

No. You know, it reminds me of a line from the movie We Were Soldiers, which is actually a pretty, pretty good movie, historically speaking.

[Mia Wong]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's a lot of fun.

[Ari Chambers]

Not at all.

[Carl Cassarda]

In spite of Mel Gibson, it was pretty good. And there's a scene where like the old hardened soldier from World War II in Korea gets to Vietnam and he's like, he's just got a pistol and everyone's around him saying, don't you want an M16? He goes, don't worry, there'll be plenty of those laying around if I need one. So.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

Kind of that's where we're at in this country. Don't worry, there'll be plenty laying around if you need one.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. We are not entering a period where that's, you know, I think there are some specific worries where there may be attempts to restrict specific groups from arming themselves, but even so, I wouldn't say that elevates it above a threat. If you are dealing with suicidal ideation. Having a gun is not a talisman, as our friend Tactical Girlfriend often brings up and you shouldn't treat it as one. And part of what that means is that, like, you have to model, like, the threat that you're facing. Right. And if you are not in immediate danger, if nobody is threatening to kill you specifically, you know, then that may not be the safest thing for you. Right. And particularly, I think the other side of it that Carl, you are much more qualified to talk about with than me is that if you are going to buy a firearm, if you want that to be a thing that can actually protect you in a situation where you are in danger, where someone is threatening your life, you have to train with it.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that. Not to make light of that at all with that little joke about that movie, but the reality is we, as people, humans in general, all of us, are bad at threat modeling. And that's not to say that the perceived threat that we're seeing with the results isn't real. I think it is. But that said, at the moment, if you're dealing with some of those issues like you mentioned, or the living situation you're in, or even the community around you isn't one in which a firearm laying around is particularly safe, could mean that you're actually inducing more threat and risk to yourself than what might come in two years. So that is something we have to think about very carefully. Can I possess this responsibly? Do I know how to use it responsibly? Am I in a place not only in my living situation, but my mental state that possessing this very quick and easy to use lethal device is safe to have around? Those are questions you should ask first before worrying about tomorrow.

[James Stout]

Right? Yeah. I mean, maybe we should address a couple of things that Karl said right off the bat. Like you said, having a firearm lying around.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

One thing that we should address is I know I recently purchased a new gun safe, but if you have X budget to buy a gun, Robert also mentioned that without training, you are a liability with the gun. Right. Maybe we can break down. If you have $1,000, you don't need to go out and spend $1,000 on your gun. Right. Perhaps it would be better to save some of that money and put it towards other things. I think it might make sense to just break those down for people in case they're not familiar.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I think that might be a good place to start is if you decide, number one, I'm in an emotionally stable place. I either have some specific threats, or I want to be prepared for a future where those threats are more likely and let's start with a budget of $1,000, right? And you know, this is one of the. There's going to be people who can't afford a budget of $1,000. And that's very unfortunate. But this is one of those things that, like, isn't fair, right? Like guns cost money. Not everyone has disposable income. But $1,000, I think, is a reasonable floor for not just acquiring a firearm, but like, the things you need to be able to start building proficiency with it. So, like, let's talk about that, Carl. Like, what would you do? What would you advise someone with a grand who is looking into getting into shooting and also being set up to potentially defend themselves if they need to?

[Carl Cassarda]

Right. So this, this. Well, it's such a nuanced question and answer because there's so many variabilities there, one of which is you have to understand the living situation you're in. Are you living in a place that is solely your own? Do you live with roommates? Do you have, do you have children and your parents? I mean, like, these things all come into the equation about how well can you secure this thing should you acquire it? And so that comes up to do you need a full bolt into the wall safe? Do you need something that is locked with cable underneath the bed that still is reasonably difficult to get into but is accessible? Otherwise, do you have a situation in which you're the only one that could access this and therefore you're not worried about that? So the first thing you have to think about is I'm taking possession of responsibility of this. It is a lethal weapon. What am I going to do to make sure that that doesn't fall into the wrong hands, whether they're people that live within your own structure or outside of it, should something go awry? So you have to consider that. So right off the bat is what are the situation I'm in and what are the things I need to consider to make sure this doesn't leak out of my control? Because we've seen in so many instances, especially some of the horrible spree shootings and such, in which it's not the person that possessed the gun, but someone around them that took it from them and used it for that.

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely.

[Carl Cassarda]

And that's because it wasn't stored well. And so that's number one. So you're going to think about one, are you getting a small, a pistol

[Ari Chambers]

or a long arm?

[Carl Cassarda]

And that's a discussion to be had, too. But those two equate. And then depending on which one of those two you're acquiring determines the kind of safe storage requirements that also align with your current living situation. Of course, the best thing is a safe bolted to the floor that only you can get into. But that's not viable for everyone.

[James Stout]

Yeah, right.

[Carl Cassarda]

But it's something, right?

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

What comes along with that is you also. This is going to be true at every stage of this process. You need to know the laws of your state and maybe even your local area. Right. Like in Oregon, we have very strict safe storage laws. Right. Like, you can be held accountable to a higher degree in this state if you don't secure a weapon and someone gets access to it. Right. Now, obviously, if you have a safe and someone drills into your safe, you're not liable. Right. Like you took the actions you could to stop them from being able to get to your firearms. There's not an expectation that you have a fortress of solitude or whatever, but you have to have taken reasonable steps to lock them away. Right. And you know that's going to be different. A lot of states have absolutely no requirements whatsoever. But you need to be aware of what your local legal situation is.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

I appreciate you bringing that to the table because myself, living in Arizona, we have no such rules. And so I could essentially.

[Robert Evans]

You can just keep them on the floor.

[Carl Cassarda]

I could stack them in my front yard. Right. I'm like, ah, just put them out in the yard, we'll see.

[Mia Wong]

I had extra ars.

[Robert Evans]

I use them to make a fence cheaper than wood right now.

[James Stout]

They're literally cold wood now.

[Carl Cassarda]

So the thing about that is this is, again, these. These things get more and more complicated over time. And we don't make this conversation impenetrable.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

But like, the kind of safe you acquire is important too. And this is. That's a deeper topic than we could ever do in one video.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

I'm going to go ahead and just dovetail out to a friend of mine, Deviant Olaf. He has a channel, he does a lot of video work about gun safes and which ones are good or bad. But let's just say the cheap $90 thing with the cylindrical key lock, isn't it? So you got to be a little better than that. So I would estimate, let's go with cost. You're buying, let's say an AR15. You're probably going to need to spend, and I'm guessing here around $250 for a safe that's actually worth a damn.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. That's about what I spent recently for a little handgun safe.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

So let's build on that. Right. Let's say you've decided that you want a gun and that it is safe for you to have a gun. I think, yeah. The first thing you ought to prioritize is making sure that no one for whom it is not safe gets that gun, which we've addressed. Right. The second thing that you need to prioritize is that you could use that gun safely and you are not a liability every time that you pick up and load that gun. Right. Yes.

[Robert Evans]

And part of that is in. And maybe I will have different opinions on this, but I think we're probably simpatico picking the right type of firearm. I see a lot of people saying, I am worried I'm going to get attacked. You know, I am, I've been, I've gotten a death threat. You know, I'm scared particularly of this group of, you know, Nazis or whatever. So I'm going to buy a handgun. And I will tell you right now, my opinion is that if you are looking for a self defense weapon, a handgun probably shouldn't be what you pick unless you are looking to carry a gun.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, no, that's a good quote. Right. I carry a handgun because it's unwieldy to walk around with a Biff. 50 BMG.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I cannot, I cannot take my AR with me in the street. Right. So I keep a nine on me.

[Carl Cassarda]

You know, handguns are the most difficult thing to use skillfully under distress and duress than any other firearm. And above and beyond that, they are actually the least effective at doing the job you think they're going to do than anything else.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

There are a shocking number of people are shot way more times than you would expect they could survive with a handgun. Right. Like that is just a reality of the way that they work because they're much, much less powerful than a rifle. And it's also like, I had a friend a couple of years ago who bought a snub nose. 38 thinking, well, this is simple, I can't fuck it up. It's a good. And I took her out and was like, I need, I'm gonna, I'm going to set up a 10 foot target and we'll see how many times you can hit it with this gun. And she could not do it one out of five times. And then I brought out my Glock and she was able to hit it every time. Right. And it's because one of those is a much easier weapon for somebody who is complete, a complete novice to learn how to use functionally. Right. And it's not the snub nose.

[Carl Cassarda]

30 in the roughest of most senses. Typically the smaller the gun is, the more professional you need to be to use it.

[Robert Evans]

Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah. And with that in mind, you're responsible for every shot you fire. Right. Training in self defense by fucking accident because you don't know how to clean your gun or what have you. Every bullet that leaves that barrel, it's your fault. And every one of those is potentially someone's life. So when you're thinking about buying a gun, you want to have something where you can a handle it safely and be discharge it and know where that bullet's going to go.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. So on that note, this has been asked for me many times and we're talking about, we're all, we are on the same page. It's like when someone asks me this question and it comes up more than you think. First of all, we're getting past the issue of like are you safe to own this and safe storage. So now we're at the point you are buying a gun. Right. So you have to think about what's the threat. Are we worried about three years from now and the potential realities of a very caustic and dangerous political future. Are you worried about only home defense? Are you worried about your own self protection walking down the street? Because obviously you're not going to be, well, not obviously, but for the most part you're not going to be carrying an AR15 down the street. But if you are only worried about your castle, make a joke about castle doctrine. If you're only worried about your house, inside your house, there is no reason to be picking a pistol. None whatsoever.

[Robert Evans]

Now I will say that there's a number of folks in the lefty gun space who will say, so just get an AR15. That's not always going to be practical, depending on your loss. Right. Like that is not something that we can say everyone will be able to do. Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

But we can say there will be a non handgun option that will probably be a better fit for you.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, absolutely. And this is where we see a lot of people in the gun space. It's kind of weird. There's like cultural shifts in the zeitgeist. What's the coolest defensive thing of the time. But there's a lot to be said depending on what you think you're going to have to shoot at. Hopefully never of course. But like an AR15 does things like armor piercing in terms of Kevlar and da da da da but for home defense, it really still is kind of hard to go wrong with a shotgun in many instances. And that should not be ignored.

[James Stout]

You know what else shouldn't be ignored? It's our obligation to pivot to advertisements about every 15 minutes on this show. All right, we're back. Karl, you'd mentioned that you think a shotgun sometimes can be more effective than AR15 especially. Another thing I will add is you're in a state like California, the laws regarding semi automatic center fire rifles are incredibly confusing. It's extremely easy to buy something on Amazon, slap it on your gun and render it a felony.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I would generally say like in most situations, an ar, if you're new to shooting, it's going to be easier to figure out. They're very simple, easy to upgrade and modify. But like, yeah, in California, in a state, New York is similar. It's very easy to commit a felony with an AR15 and not know that you are. And you don't want to find out that your gun is a felony when you have to use it in self defense.

[Carl Cassarda]

Right. This is an instance in which the good old man, again, I'm not trying to, I'm not on, I'm not on team shotgun here. But when it comes to cross all state lines, I mean, sure, there's an exception somewhere, but for the most part a manually pump activated shotgun.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Is likely to not run a fall of the law anywhere. Additionally, there's a good chance that if you were to, and we have to consider all realities, there's a good chance that should you need to use it, that when you're in court trying to defend yourself for using this lethal weapon, a shotgun doesn't seem to evoke the same concerns, let's say from courts and from judges that an AR might, an ar, you know, regardless of how common they are and how much they proliferate society, there's still those scary rifles. A shotgun does not tend to evoke that same kind of response. It is most likely legal almost anywhere. And the diversity of ammunition you can use in it really bridges the gap from 1 yard to 100 yards or more. But a lot of people that are new to guns will think, well, shotgun, I don't need to aim. That is incorrect. Shotguns need to be aimed as much as any other longarm. They're just very effective when they actually connect.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's one of those, I think because I do change what I am taking with me based on where I go and when I'm in California, I generally, if I'm going camping or something. I'll make sure I have a 12 gauge in the car. Right. Because I'm not going to try to get whatever this month's gun laws are. Right. That's just not practical to me. That said, I think because there are a number of people who will be very frustrated as talking about shotguns. One thing that they are right about is there's a different type of training that's necessary with the shotgun. And they are in some ways more complicated to use than an ar in part because for every shot, well, unless it's a semi automatic, like for every shot you're pumping it. Right. And like that is a. That is. There's muscle memory that has to be built there. Right. It's harder, you know, maybe a little bit slower to get up to a level or at least you have to train differently with it. Right. The other thing about it is that like it loads very differently. You know, a shotgun is a completely different kind of ammunition than an AR has. Which all goes back to the whole like you have to be willing to train with whatever it is you're going to use. Fair enough, yeah.

[James Stout]

See ideally like if you're in this position of thinking if you can find a friend or failing that a range that will allow you to try different guns, I think as a novice you're going to pick up if you've never shot a gun before. I probably wouldn't pick up a 12 gauge shotgun and start pewing away because the recoil will be quite profound and noticeable to you. So don't start there, start with something else.

[Robert Evans]

There's smaller shotguns, a 20 gauge, you

[James Stout]

know, and those are fine. It's 50 if you're a smaller statute person. Even a 28 or 16, so hard to probably buy defensive ammunition for. But I think if, if you can, when you begin that journey, often I see people say with hang ons, find one that fits your hand. You probably have no idea what fits you and feels good. If you're just starting out, finding someone who is local to you, ideally who has some experience, who can help you along that process, I think and someone who you trust. Right. I have to train. I have a concealed carry weapons permit in California. The last time I went to take a course like from the outset I got like xenophobia, homophobia, like jokes that I guess the guy who was instructing the course thought that everyone was in on. Just like they made me feel unwelcome and I'm a cishet white guy. Yeah. But I think maybe we should Address that. Like, if you're thinking of getting started, what kind of instruction should you look for, where should you look for it? And like what would you recommend? Maybe other sources too. Karl, like your YouTube channel has been a great resource for me.

[Carl Cassarda]

This is where we're in the firearms. Owning a thing doesn't make a community. So there's always this phrase, the gun community.

[Robert Evans]

It's not a thing.

[Carl Cassarda]

Owning a thing doesn't make a community. A community is a group of people that bond together over mutual beliefs and hopefully care for one another. So there is no firearms community. But that said, the broad scope of people that have been interested in the topic for the longest duration of time has been mostly seceded to a group that we would not find ourselves aligned with or comfortable with being around. And so this is where the community building thing is real because the more we build communities and we're behind in this regards in terms to alternative voices in the firearms space, but the more we build that community not only online but amongst one another, the more we're going to have safer, better spaces for us to work together to learn how to use these things safely and efficiently. And that is a challenge. If you walk in sight unseen to a place that is probably foreign to you in firearms land. Sadly, at this point in time there's a pretty good chance it's not going to be something you're going to be comfortable with, quite honestly, just like you mentioned James, like it's going to be that kind of stuff. There's probably going to be Trump stuff on the wall. There's probably going, you're probably going to hear some jokes that are just jokes but you know, they're really not. That's the kind of space that that's filled with. And so when people come and say, well, who can I go to to get this training with? I'm like, that's challenging. There's some options online. There's like Operation Blazing Sword, there's a, there's, there's. The liberal gun club has some training options as well. But what's better is finding people interconnecting with people of like mind around you if you can and working together and then actually building a real community that isn't a gun community. And that's where we're going to find solace and the ability to get better at this stuff together. Not a great, not exactly a strong answer, but it's the truth. But if you're going in, yeah, if you're going in just unhindered, you're going to expect it to be a place that you're probably not going to be happy with.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And I think that's a really good point. I'd like it. Can we talk a little bit more about training options? Like not just because you mentioned Operation Blazing Sword, I'd like to hear a little more about them, but also where people could go for like reading and videos in order to kind of find more information on how to develop proficiency.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. So okay, so YouTube University doesn't teach you how to actually like effectively hit targets with something you can, you can't. There's no way to learn that besides doing it. But in terms of just general firearms understanding, learning some of the history, learning about how guns work, There are some YouTube resources out there. Tactical Girlfriend you already mentioned has four years of a legacy of content on her site that a lot of it is focused on beginner style content. In fact, she just posted a playlist. She has kind of stopped making videos in general. She mentioned that a while back, but she still has her content online and she posted a playlist recently of all of her how to get going videos 101 stuff. And that would kind of be where

[Robert Evans]

I'd start with yes, absolutely.

[Carl Cassarda]

My channel, inrangetv has some of that. I tend to focus a little bit on the more esoteric and like next level things, but that's not to say it's not there as well. So I'm not trying to self promote, but I would actually say her playlist is going to be better than some of my own. Although we have stuff like that on inrange TV as well. If you want to open up that dark void called Reddit, the Liberal Gun Club has resources on it. If you go there, they have a list of people and local resources. You can also google the Liberal Gun Club. I'm not even trying to say anyone doing that is necessarily identifying as a liberal, but they are. They have gathered lists of statewide resources, as many as they can, that are providing training in regional places. That would be a good place to start. Operation Blazing Sword is a subset of that Blake alv. I can't pronounce the Blake has been on my channel and you'll find him there in the Liberal Gun Club listing. When I think of that, I would say go to YouTube, hit up tactical girlfriend, go to Inrange TV if you want to see maybe not 101 but next level stuff, but a friendly space to you and then check out the Liberal Gun Club. Best I can say, because they do have a list of Resources that they're gathering across the country.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And I think one thing that Tactical Girlfriend talks about that is a. Because. Because you're right. And I think this is an important point that like you have to spend time shooting. And you know, that costs money in order to get better. But there is one thing that you can do that does not cost ongoing money to get better with a handgun. If you're again looking to carry a gun, which is dry fire training. Right. Which is a very useful process of building proficiency, you can do it. I mean, you could do it every day if you want. It will help. It does not replace needing to go shoot. Right. But you can. Guides. Tactical Girlfriend talks about it a lot. But you can find other guides online. And that is a way that you can kind of stretch your ammo budget and gain additional proficiency.

[Carl Cassarda]

There are even products designed specifically for that. One of them pop mine. And there are others like Mantis X. And you make sure your gun is safely unloaded and you're proficient with that part of it. You put these devices in and you can actually fire at a dry fire is firing with no ammunition. The gun. Click. Add a target on the wall and it'll teach you things about like, did you pull to the right, did you push to the left, did you dip the gun? And those are very good products that you can use once you buy them. Gets more money. But you can train proficiently in a safe place without firing live ammunition and improve your skills quite a bit. That's a good point.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I would say another organization I would plug is Armed Equality, especially for like LGBTQIA people. They're friends of mine. Very nice people. Perhaps we should go back then to that. Like Robert's mentioned dry firing. We've mentioned.

[Robert Evans]

Well, first I think we need to go to ads. James.

[James Stout]

You're right, Robert. We should go back to Chumba Casino here.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So dry fire at the wall and think of Trumba Casino.

[Carl Cassarda]

Or just download an upgrade from neural link that you got from Elong.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Our primary sponsors, the brain chip.

[James Stout]

All right, we're back. So we've had discussion about training, safe storage and a little bit about like what to look at, firearms wise. But I want to go back to that third one. Because you are marketed at so heavily when you are trying to buy a firearm. Right. And the likelihood of you getting misinformation. Right. We all know smaller statured people who have been given. Yeah. A snub nose.38. A gun that's entirely inappropriate for them. Carl.

[Robert Evans]

What?

[James Stout]

Like, if you could maybe go through like each major category. Right. If we do handgun, shotgun, semi, automatic, rifle, maybe one that is compatible with AR band states and one that's, you know, you're in real America.

[Robert Evans]

There are some options, like the Ares SCR that are basically AR15s that are a lot easier to keep in compliance in a state like California, but they are also more than twice as expensive as like a budget AR15. Right. Like, which is not to say it's impossible to have a budget AR15 that is in compliance, in compliance with California law. It's just I am not going to take on the responsibility of telling you how to do that legally because when I lived in California, I was only about 80% sure that I was in compliance with the law.

[James Stout]

If you're in California, my advice would be to go to a shop and buy the gun complete.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[James Stout]

Don't piece it together off the Internet.

[Robert Evans]

That's good, good advice.

[Carl Cassarda]

Oh, well, if you're a new gun owner, don't piece together anything together because the knowledge to make something reliable that you've put together from bits and pieces is not a good idea. You want something that's got a. I mean literally, you want something from a quote unquote reputable manufacturer but has a warranty. Like, let's just be that. Don't even start with trying to put something together.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

So let's just go ahead and start with pistols. So the challenge there is like, of course it would be very nice to be able to buy like four of them because you can train with a.22 and practice with this and. But let's go with the constraint that we had earlier of this thousand dollars and you're going to buy a pistol and with it you plan to train, get better be proficient, but also maybe have to use it for self defense. You really want to stick with a 9 millimeter. I mean, there are smaller guns like 380s and such like that, but we're getting into specialist guns.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

What is what I'm going to say here across the board when I recommend something, it's going to be the opposite of specialist. It's going to be the most bland, boring possible thing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

And when it comes to that, and I know that everyone's like, but it's a 9 millimeter, probably a Glock.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Carl Cassarda]

The Glock 19 is a relatively reasonably sized gun. The 17 is a little bigger. The 19 is in this nice middle ground. It is carryable. It's small enough to be Concealed should you have the right to do so. But it's big enough to be viable for being reasonably accurate with. With not extensive amounts of training, but enough training to be. To get good.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

And it's a bunch of rounds of 9 millimeter magazine that just plain works.

[Robert Evans]

Yep, yep, yep.

[James Stout]

If you're on a tight budget, I will say that cops are always, you can find trade in police clocks pretty cheap. Cops don't shoot very much. You can sometimes get some pretty good deals on those.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Carl Cassarda]

That said, I'm revealing a little bit of future history of what's going on in range. We're doing a video in a couple weeks. There is a strange trade imbalance between us and nevermind the politics. Turkey and they are making some really high end, really well made guns. There is a Glock clone from Turkey that I can't vouch for yet. But this is the kind of where we're at in the gun space. This thing is interchangeable with all Glock parts and the gun's like 250 bucks.

[James Stout]

Oh well you can't be.

[Robert Evans]

We don't know yet.

[Carl Cassarda]

I'm not saying go buy that, but I'm saying we're going to do a review of it. The point is there are Glocks and Glock like things that can get the price down.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Right. And so you're looking at, you know, if you get a budget AR for 500 bucks, you know, a budget not 9 millimeter handgun. Because even if with not counting that one, there are other budget options that are in the 300 ish dollar range. You just have to look around a bit. And I should also note, buying used with a firearm is not like buying used with electronics. If a gun is well maintained, it will outlast you. Right. There are some parts that will need replacing from time to time. Right. Your springs and stuff are going to age faster than other things. And like barrels you can shoot out, but it takes quite a bit of shooting to shoot a barrel. You know, Smooth. Right. So it's never bad to consider like finding like you said like a police trade in or something like that. Like that could be a great way to save money.

[Carl Cassarda]

Absolutely. So when it comes to the pistol, we're talking about buying just one. Pretty much boil it down to a 9 millimeter.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Carl Cassarda]

That is probably a polymer frame gun, not some big heavy steel thing. A Glock is the, is like the de facto. But there are others. I mean there's, there's HK is, there's Ruger.

[Robert Evans]

I like Sigs, but they're pricier. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

The thing about Glock is Glock's been around forever. It's the standard. Finding, accessorizing, buying magazines, or even getting repairs done to a Glock is ubiquitous across the country. If you get a Glock, you'll be able to deal with it, fix it, do whatever you want to it straight up.

[Robert Evans]

And what has helped me a lot in general is, you know, I have my carry gun, I have my home defense firearm, and then I have bought, built a couple of firearms from the ground up. And I would certainly, as you said, I would never have started there. But because I had the extra money, doing that means that has given me so much deeper of an understanding of what goes wrong, when things do go wrong with a gun and how to fix it. I've replaced every part on my carry gun at this point over time, and it's given me a much deeper level of understanding of just mechanically how these things function. Building an AR15 was the same process and I'm really, I do find that valuable. Obviously it's throwing more money at the problem too.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, totally. So the other advantage of 9 millimeter, which is reasonably cheap to feed and shoot, reasonably cheap to practice with. For those of you that don't know anything about guns, you will typically practice with what's called FMJ bulk pack ammunition. Nine millimeter, 115 grain. It's just a bullet that's got a copper jacket on it and that's your practice ammo. And then for carry, should you be carrying it, you'll probably want to carry something that's specifically designed to be defensive ammunition. It'll be far more expensive per box. But once you get to the point of yes, I am ready, safe and capable to carry this, you're going to want to pick something gold dots spear. Gold dots are a hollow point designed to specifically be for self defense. But make sure the gun you've chosen works reliably with that defensive ammo, because even though it works 100% with that FMJ, it may not work with the defensive ammo you might have to play with a little bit.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

We should also note when you are buying ammo online, which is not going to be legal in every state, but most people will be able to do this. It pays to be careful. There is a lot of stuff that is sketchier out there and there can be consequences. I have had a firearm, I have had like a handgun blow up in my hand as a result of getting ammunition that I had not shot before. This was in fact Turkish I think it was because I think it was a hot load. But it's possible that it was the result of a bullet, a squib that then jammed in the barrel and then another round came in after it. I generally have been pretty good at checking to make sure there's a hole in the paper with each shot, which is something you should be making sure of, like when you're shooting. Because if you get, if you shoot a round that like does not have enough powder behind it, right. If you get a bad round, it can jam in the barrel and then the second round can cause the barrel to burst. This is also why we always wear eye protection. But when looking at ammo, if you think this looks like good ammo and it's cheap, look online, add like Reddit to the name. See what other people say about it. Right? Like, see if you can find anything written about that. If other, usually other people. If it's like a less reliable manufacturer will have said, I've had a bad experience with this ammunition.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yep.

[Robert Evans]

Do your diligence right the first time you're shooting a new kind of cheap target ammo.

[Carl Cassarda]

That being said, like, there's a lot of names that almost anyone that's never owned a gun before will recognize. Names like Remington. Winchester.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Carl Cassarda]

That's not to say that they don't make mistakes too. But like if you're going to go buy a Winchester bulk pack of ammunition, you are buying at least what is generally considered consumer level reliable ammo. If you're buying it.

[Robert Evans]

Absolutely.

[Carl Cassarda]

Crazy Bob's reloading shack.

[Robert Evans]

Right. You don't know what you're going to get. That was what. Because it's a lot of the sketchy stuff, isn't even a manufacturer. It's like ammo that you may not notice immediately. It's like, oh, wow, this seem really cheap. And then it'll say in small letters, remanufactured. Right. Which means somebody has reloaded it. Reloaded ammo. And like, you know, you can reload ammo and have it be perfectly good ammunition. But do you know who reloaded this ammo? Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

I will tell you as a person that shoots a lot and has been doing it for decades. I personally, even with all that, I will never fire remanufactured ammunition. I don't want to deal with Crazy Bob's weird Bad Wednesday.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes, exactly. Crazy Bob's Bad Wednesday bullets.

[James Stout]

It's a great day for. Yeah, yeah. So we've addressed the pistol, right? Like, I want to address long guns and then you Mentioned a couple of things, Carl, which you should also address, which are like accessories. Robert mentioned eye protection. So ear and eye protection.

[Carl Cassarda]

Let me add one more piece to the pistol and we'll move on the thing. Now the whiz bang thing now is every pistol has a red dot sight on it. A red dot sight is essentially an electro optical box that sits on the top of the slide and you look through it to aim and it projects a red dot like almost like a laser dot if you're not familiar with it to aim with for the most part. I'm not saying you shouldn't have one because they're cool, but for the most part, a person getting into this specifically for self defense does not need one of those. You don't need to spend 300 on a red dot. The iron sights that come on any of these guns should be sufficient for most purposes. So don't get suckered into. I need that. If that's something you want later, think about it. But it's not a requirement.

[Robert Evans]

Now that said, if a gun has one on it, I don't agree with people who say like you can't learn to shoot on a red dot. I think that that now you should. You will need to look up because it may not be cited. How to cite it. Right. Like. Because it. It like red dots are a thing. Like you need to dial them in. Right. And there is a way to do that. Again, you can find guides to this online just like you can find guides to like mounting a scope on a rifle. These are complex mechanical tasks. A red dot less so than a scope. But you can't just buy a gun with a red dot on it and trust that that red dot points out where the bullet's going to go. That's not how they work.

[Carl Cassarda]

Absolutely. My point being is if you gave me. You said this person here needs to be able to hit a target 15 yards away. You've got one hour.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

I would not be messing by giving them a red dot. I would give them something with iron sights and just get them through the task. That's what I'm where I'm going with that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I think that's perfectly reasonable. Yeah, I prefer like now that I know what I'm doing to use my red dots and stuff. But I also pretty regularly shoot with iron sights in part because I like it. Like it's, it's enjoyable mechanically and it's kind of how I learned.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Well, don't get me wrong, it is better.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

It also adds another level of complexity.

[James Stout]

It's more to go wrong. Like if you're installing that yourself, it's annoying and it's easy to, to mess up and then you're upset and. Yeah, yeah, let's move on to long guns. Like one thing that we should mention is you might buy an army specifically in AR actually and find that it comes with no sighting systems at all.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[James Stout]

And so that's the thing to build into your budget. So let's talk about like what to get for your budget in, in the long gun category. Carl.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, so, so when we go to long guns we talk about rifles and shotguns. Let's stick with rifles for now, I'm assuming. So in that regard this is the, this is the thing where like actually I have a video on my channel about the nfa which is the National Firearms act, which is what regulates a lot of like, like machine guns and stuff. But this also occurs across many gun control laws. They're frequently ableist, very much so. And the things that they post the most restrictions on are the things that are actually most capable. And that means, that means AR15s in their general guys with a pistol grip and a red dot sight which we just mentioned for pistols and a 30 round magazine is the thing that is going to be the most I could get anyone, I tell you, anyone capable of hitting a target at 50 yards within a four hour training session with a red dot sided AR15 and a good magazine, it's a good ammunition. AR15s are light, low recoil, they're loud because of the 556, but they're light, low recoil guns that almost any one of most body structure can handle. Now there's exceptions of course if you have specific physical challenges, that's another discussion. But if almost anyone tiny to large can handle a basic AR15 and it is the gun that is most focused on for gun control. Ironically places like California where they take away things that make it more functional like the pistol grip or reduce your magazine capacity because they're trying to diminish the functionality of the gun. But the reality is the reason they're doing that is because that is the gun that is most functional for most people. And it is therefore the one that almost anyone can handle pretty well with the smallest amount of training.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And I think there's a good point there in if I were coaching someone who was buying an AR that has no, you know, does not have iron sights on it at all. You are. It is much easier to learn how to sight in and use a red dot on an AR than learning how to adjust the sight. The iron sights on an AR15. Right. Like, not that you can't learn that. You should again, you have to. You can watch a video on it, but it's much more intuitive to set up a red dot in that way.

[Carl Cassarda]

This is actually where I would flip flop. If you're with the pistol, don't concern yourself too much with the red dot. If you're going with an AR15, concern yourself with the red dot.

[James Stout]

Please get a red dot.

[Carl Cassarda]

Do the opposite.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Unless you were like in the marines or something and you know how to dial in your irons. Right. Like, and even then you're gonna have a better time with a red dot.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, yeah, totally. And once. And a red dot is very intuitive. So one of the things that people are familiar with firearms, but when you bring up a long arm, there's multiple points of contact to the person shooting the gun. When you bring up a pistol, you probably have two hands on it and you're pushing your arms out almost like you're like making a triangle. When you're using a long arm like an AR15, there's a buttstock on your shoulder. Your cheek is on the actual comb, which is the base of the stock. Your other hand, your support hand, is holding the gun up on the front of it. You have a minimum of three points of contact with a red dot. That makes it very similar, stable, and easy to get reliable hits. And the red dot means you can keep both eyes open. Don't need to worry about the idiosyncrasies of focusing on a front sight. Essentially, if it's zero, meaning the dot is regulated to where the gun hits. And you put the dot on the thing and press the trigger without doing something like jerking the gun, you'll hit the target. And so that's why that matters.

[James Stout]

Yeah. So what sort of budget should people be looking at and like, would you be comfortable recommending, like, even brands that they should look at?

[Carl Cassarda]

It all comes down to cost. When it comes to AR15s, you can spend as much money as you want. The reality is I have a video on the channel. Never mind if you like or dislike the company. They're one of the ones that really push the lower cost products out there. PSA stands for Palm Auto. Palmetto State Armory. You can go there and get your branded Trump lower, but at the same time, you can get an AR15 for like 400 bucks. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And like, in the gun space, you're not gonna find someone to buy who is spotless and selling guns in large numbers cheaply.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, like that's generally not so. Like so. So for 400 bucks or around there from PSA you can get a traditional, what's called an M4. It's essentially a 16 inch carbine. It won't have any sighting system on it, so expect to throw another 200 bucks ish onto a reasonable red dot sight on that. So for around the $600 range, you're gonna get a gun that's gonna weigh seven pounds but it's going to have low recoil and you're going to have something that's for the most part reasonably reliable. Is it the best of the comp is the best of the best? No, but it's reasonably lightweight. It is well manufactured. I've done videos about them on my channel, they've worked just fine. And so 4 to 400 ish for the gun and the 200 for the sighting system. Couple mags you could get out the door for under 700. With everything probably under that, maybe under 600 even if you're careful. Oh, but let me plug one thing. If you've got lots of, lots more money, double that, you get a what would stoner do carbine which I designed. It'll be half the weight and super reliable from Katie Arms.

[Robert Evans]

But I love mine. Doesn't bring any money to me.

[Carl Cassarda]

I'm just saying the point I'm making here is you can get something good enough and if you got more money, there is better out there that are lighter, more reliable guns. But you don't need to is my point. I'm not trying to sell anything here.

[James Stout]

Yeah, they are one of the few manufacturers who offer like a California compliant solution at checkout which is nice for California people.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. So that can be a really beneficial thing to you in terms of not having it be something that you're scared about.

[Carl Cassarda]

California compliant will probably mean no flash hider, no pistol grip and a fixed magazine. At least at this point in time.

[James Stout]

You can have the removable magazine if you don't have the flash hide of the pistol grip and the collapsing stock. So.

[Carl Cassarda]

Okay, all right, well if you can buy it from them ready to go. There's. I know there's also magazine capacity requirements or in, in. So maybe you have to buy like a couple 10 round mags or something like that.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Obviously 30 round mags are better than 10 round mags. And for most, if you live in a place like California, do not worry too much about that. If you get a Little proficiency on that. A couple 10 round mags will do a lot.

[Robert Evans]

And to be honest, in self defense shootings the odds are low that you will be firing that many rounds. Right now if you're in a self defense shooting where you do need more bullets than that, there's really nothing that can replace having those bullets available.

[James Stout]

But yeah, don't get wrapped around the axle on it like it's not something you can change.

[Robert Evans]

The fact that you only have a ten round magazine does not mean that you can't become proficient.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. And I don't want anyone here to think that I'm saying you shouldn't. You should be able to get a 60 round mag one. As far as I'm concerned, places like California that have these restrictions have them statistically speaking. And I don't know if these, this data's changed. Most self defense shootings happen within three yards, three seconds, three shots fired.

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Yeah, yep.

[James Stout]

I think it's really good to remember that when you're seeing some YouTuber tell you you need to be able to have 30 rounds and 500 yards.

[Robert Evans]

I don't go downtown without my backpack and my SBR300 blackout with 630 round magazines accessible.

[James Stout]

Conservative man, scared of cities.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

I carry an RPG and I take the little safety cap off because I like to live that way.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Dangerously. My clothing is made out of debt cord. I just wear nothing but debt cord wherever I go. We're all going down.

[James Stout]

At least you'll take some people with you. This whole city blocks done Self defense martyrdom.

[Carl Cassarda]

But let me say one more thing about longarms. Another thing you'll see from people that are new in the space, depending on like what they've seen or what they've consumed, this is going to get some hate. Don't bother with AKs. Just don't. This is the United States of America. And this country believes in the AR15. And what that boiled down to is they're everywhere, they're prolific. The parts are here, the repair is here, they're well manufactured. When you stray from that course to something like an ak, you're first of all, you're losing ergonomics. But that's a different problem. You're dealing with an unknown quantity of problems. You get an AR15, that's what's in this country, it's what's prolific. If you were in, if you were in somewhere, war torn Africa, get your AK here.

[Robert Evans]

I'll say this about the war torn AK countries because I've been In three countries where the primary arm is an akm. Right. Like a kind of ak. Right. Syria, Ukraine, and Iraq. In all three of those countries, every soldier who knew their stuff, who was proficient and had the option, chose an AR platform if they could. 100% of the time, they're just better firearms.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's been my experience as well.

[Carl Cassarda]

They look cool, but. But. But don't go there. Yeah, just get an AR15. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Like, I love my AKs, but they're. They're range toys. Right? Like, yeah.

[James Stout]

So let's talk about accessorizing, which, again, is much easier with AIs and AKs. Like, what other stuff do you need to build into your budget? If you've not shot before, you might not know that. You need air pro, I Pro sling, maybe holster.

[Carl Cassarda]

Well, we'll start with the firearms accessories. Right. So with the pistol, you're. First of all, we talked about safe storage, so that's already off the table. With the pistol, if you plan to carry it, you need a good, reliable holster and a good, reliable gun belt.

[Robert Evans]

Good Lord. Yes.

[Carl Cassarda]

It. Depending on how you want to carry it, that'll determine the kind of holster. If you want it outside the waistband, which means it sits outside your belt, that's one thing. If you're carrying it concealed, you're probably going to want an inside the waistband, which goes between your belt and your body. Again, another level of training there. Because when you're drawing from that, things can go wrong. And that's where people tend to shoot themselves. So that's something you need to be very cautious of. But with a pistol, typically you're going to want probably an extra magazine or two. It may come with one, depending on what you bought. A quality gun belt and a quality holster.

[Robert Evans]

Now, what about a.44 Derringer and an ankle holster on each ankle? Right? Like, that seems like the ideal solution. Anytime you're in danger, you just got to squat right down there, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, get real.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yep.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

When you've been pushed, pushed onto your back by the mob and you're there in that scene and you're pulling it out of your ankle holster. Yeah, right.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, no. Just. Just get a wire around the trigger and attach it to your toes so that you can squeeze your toes and

[Carl Cassarda]

fire, what you need is the belt buckle. Revolver from North American Arms.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

That is great.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah. No, from that freaking movie. The vampire movie. Quentin Tarantino.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, geez.

[Carl Cassarda]

Dusk till dawn. Dust till dawn.

[Robert Evans]

Dust till dawn. God, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

No, but for the pistol belt, a magazine or two extra it might come with them. And a quality holster. Now the obvious question is what's a quality holster? And the obvious answer is there's too many out there to be able to offer you that answer right now. Probably something polymer if it's going to be outside the waistband. And this will be another one that'll get people fired up. Generally avoid the Serpa holsters unless you really want to have a lot of training. Serpa holsters are one that have a little button on the side that allows the gun to come out if you're not trained well or have the wrong gun in it. It also allows you to accidentally shoot yourself quite easily as well.

[James Stout]

Yeah, best avoided.

[Robert Evans]

That's a very good point. And also one thing I will note is there's a danger that a lot of people aren't aware of with leather, which is that leather holsters. Now there are some leather holsters that have like a trigger area reinforced with Kydex, which is, you know, a rigid plasticky substance. But if it's not in time, those can start to like get weaker and worn in such a way that it can also cause it to press the trigger when you holster it. Like that's a thing that has happened to people. So I generally think you want whatever. You want the trigger guard to be rigid and not something that's going to warp and be malleable around the trigger. Right. The whole point is that it stops the trigger from firing.

[James Stout]

You want to avoid that. How about with the long guns, like what are you going to need to budget for those? And then other things like for shooting generally that you'll need if you don't already have them.

[Carl Cassarda]

So when it comes to the longarm, we already said if you're going to get an AR15, you're going to want to stick some sort of red dot sight on it. The lowest cost ones that are the unbelievably bomb proof are a Chinese company called Holosun.

[Robert Evans]

Hell yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

I have a holosun from 2017 that still works just fine.

[Robert Evans]

I love my holosuns.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yes, my Holosun's been bounced down an asphalt road and it still works fine.

[Robert Evans]

So yeah, it's the opposite of a fail sun. A hollow sun.

[Mia Wong]

Exactly.

[Carl Cassarda]

So you can pick up a red dot hollow sun. Those can go in. You can get those sometimes. Sometimes as low as like 150 bucks.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

So you'll need a red dot sight. A sling is nice, not required, especially if you're going to be using them within the premises of your Property, you probably don't need to worry about that. Also, slings can cause issues like get caught on things or on things in your house or even tangle you up. So that's a training issue. So sling is iffy, an extra magazine or two. And if you're planning on needing to use this for a defensive purpose inside of your home or structure or at night, it's not the worst thing in the world to throw on a flashlight.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. Especially if it's like a defensive firearm, like your home defense gun or a carry gun, like a flashlight. And also if you're. I think it's generally a good idea if you're going to carry a carry firearm with a flashlight, have another flashlight that's not on a gun. Because one thing you should never do is use your gun flashlight to look at just random shit that you need a flashlight for.

[Carl Cassarda]

When you come home at night, it's dark, you forgot. You forgot. You can't find which key is the right key.

[Mia Wong]

You're using your gun to illuminate your door.

[Carl Cassarda]

Don't do that, don't do that, don't

[Robert Evans]

do that, don't do that.

[James Stout]

That's a pretty good list of accessories there. Make sure you have allowed ear and eye protection as well.

[Carl Cassarda]

So that's where we're going to go on the safety side of things. You need proper shooting glasses. That means not the glasses that you picked up for readers at Walgreens. Their shooting glasses can be as cheap as nine bucks, all the way up to hundreds of bucks. You can get them at the sporting goods store, but they're designed with the kind of plastic to be able to take shrapnel or hits from pieces of fragments that are high velocity. They're meant for that. So $10 shooting glasses.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes.

[Carl Cassarda]

Hearing protection. Those can be squishy earplugs you put in your ear, or they could be over the head. Moths. Do not ever shoot guns except in the most critical conditions or situations without eye protection and hearing protection. Because that's the kind of stuff where you lose an eye and every time you fire that gun, you're losing hearing every time.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes, yes. And like, for the. Really? Because obviously most like, it hurts to shoot a firearm without hearing protection. Like, you can get away with shooting a gun without eye pro every time. But the one time. Right. Which is why I really emphasize eye protection. It's easy to convince yourself, I don't need to have it on right now. You do, because that's the day that

[Carl Cassarda]

it does the thing.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. Guns do fuck up, for lack of a better term. And you really don't want your eye unprotected if they do.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's a bad day.

[Carl Cassarda]

Absolutely. On the safety side of eye protection and hearing protection, it can be as cheap as $10 shooting glasses and a bottle of the squishy earplugs. You're going to be in there for 20 bucks.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't have to be expensive. Make sure you have it and make sure you use it.

[Carl Cassarda]

But you know what? Before you do any of this, you know what's the smart thing to do? Go take a class from stop the bleed and learn how to use tourniquets and medical gear.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Carl Cassarda]

And have that around anyway before you ever buy a gun. Go do that.

[James Stout]

Yes.

[Carl Cassarda]

That's the most important thing you could do for anyone.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, that. And that, that, as you said, should be a priority before getting the firearm. And if you have the money to get and train a gun, you have no excuse for not having an individual first aid kit, an IFAC and the knowledge of how to use it. Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

And I think stop the bleed classes are usually free. You can look it up@stopthe bleed.com or.org. google it. Take a class that teasy, how to use a tourniquet, use how to use a bandage. Have an ifac, as was just mentioned, which can be a pretty simple kit. And as you said, Robert, if you can afford a gun, you can afford that and have that with you on the range anytime you're shooting. Because as you said, guns can up. They usually don't, but if they do, you're going to want that ifac and that IFAC and that training might just help your neighbor one day when they get in a car accident or whatever.

[Robert Evans]

I regularly make the decision not to carry my gun with me places. Right. You know, I'm going to go out and get drunk tonight. I don't need if I have a firearm on me when I'm drunk. But you know what I always have is the ifac. Right. Every single time, you know, because number one, drunk with an ifac, I'm. No, I might. I'm probably less effective, but I'm not going to endanger anyone.

[Carl Cassarda]

You're just like, hey, buddy, I think

[Robert Evans]

you need a perma kit.

[Mia Wong]

And he's like, no, give me your.

[Robert Evans]

Google said this goes around the neck.

[Carl Cassarda]

But once again, a stop the bleed class and an IFAC is more likely to serve you or your community more than any gun ever will.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

I think that's a great place. I would say that if you are going down this pathway and you're looking to join openly leftist gun organizations, there are several. Right. John Brown Gun Club, Socialist Rifle association, and we've had those people on our show before. Be cautious when you're doing that and keep an eye on things because that could be something that might get you into trouble in the long run. So it's something to be aware of.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It might be good to just put a holder on joining a new organization until we're a few months into this thing coming up next year. Maybe have an idea about what kind of things might be safe and what kind of things might be less safe.

[James Stout]

Definitely no.

[Carl Cassarda]

But none of that stops you from using signal, building community and learning how to use a file firearm properly.

[Robert Evans]

Right. At meeting people. Yes. And like training with them, you know, or and taking. Getting training, getting building proficiency. Absolutely. All of that is legal and will remain legal. Just don't start. If anyone ever talks to you about let's make a militia, don't do that. It's time to leave that conversation. Right. Because among other things, at this point there's a good chance they're the FBI.

[James Stout]

If you live in Michigan, do not.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

This podcast brought to you by cointelpro.

[James Stout]

Yeah,

[Robert Evans]

yeah, yeah, that's great.

[Carl Cassarda]

But I mean, it's a tough challenge. And so the other thing you can do is also once you've got your basic proficiency up and you know that you are safe in terms of handling things. Let me throw this out there too. It doesn't have to be any specific one. Although, remember, you're going into a space that may not be politically your comfortable place. A good place to build up skill is to go shoot matches, competitions.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

For the most part, it's business oriented. You'll see. You'll hear some stupid comments here or there, depending on what match you're at. But the reality is you're not there for that. You're there to get better with your gun on a course of fire that they put up for you. Pay your 10 bucks or 20 bucks. Learn how to shoot better in those conditions. And that's another space to Once the basic training's out of the way, don't go to a match to be training. Use the match to help increase your skill after you've gotten training. But those matches can be a place to really help you out a lot. And there's a lot of them around and those are easier to find than almost anything.

[James Stout]

Yep. Practice score is where you can look them up if you're into that kind of thing.

[Robert Evans]

Excellent.

[James Stout]

Thanks very much for joining us.

[Robert Evans]

Carl, do you want to very Briefly

[James Stout]

plug your YouTube channel? Where can people find you?

[Carl Cassarda]

Well, sure. And thank you for having me on the show. It's always a treat. I really appreciate it. It's always great to be able to just to hang out with you both. Should do it more often. You can find my work, it's InrangeTV. You can find my website at Inrange TV. I'm distributed decentralized across multiple platforms, a predominant one being YouTube. Cover everything from civil rights history, human rights to firearms to from old west flintlocks up to the most modern machine guns across the channel. Some of it is instructional, some of its history. And I've got a cool video dropping tomorrow, in fact, well, tomorrow based on when we're recording this on the Opium wars and how Britain and China's firearms technology discrepancy caused Hong Kong to be owned by Britain. That's the kind of stuff I do on my channel. So check that out. And if you want to find matches that are going to be a place that is truly an inclusive space, we do run matches called brutality matches. You can find [e-mail] they're not monthly. We have run a couple of them across the country. But I can guarantee you that's a space you will feel comfortable because we

[Mia Wong]

make it that way.

[James Stout]

Awesome. Yeah, thanks, Kelly.

[Molly Conger]

What's up, fam?

[Ari Chambers]

I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'?

[James Stout]

All?

[Ari Chambers]

It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I heart women's sports because, let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Findler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what do we. What do we eat?

[Molly Conger]

The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars,

[Ari Chambers]

the moments that take over your entire timeline and the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, Naomi, you get the Palm. Naomi, you get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches. Watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. At concerts we dance to the same tune, at games, we hug total strangers. And yet, in these moments, there's also something we don't do. We don't act based on how they look, who they love, where they're from, or what they believe. We just act because the things that make us different will never change what makes us human. Go to lovehasnolabels.com to learn more. Brought to you by Love has no

[Kerry Brownstein]

Labels and the Eye Counsel

[Molly Conger]

I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert.

[Mia Wong]

And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor.

[Molly Conger]

And this is our new podcast, Wellness

[Mia Wong]

actually, because you're getting a of sense a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays and some of it is awesome and some of it is, well, actually bullsh t. Fortunately, we're both people

[Kerry Brownstein]

who know how to read, studies, parse

[Molly Conger]

data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore.

[Mia Wong]

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[Kerry Brownstein]

wellness topic like what's the deal with peptides? What's the deal with GLP1?

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[Mia Wong]

So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. Might actually be just what the doctor or the economist ordered. Listen to wellness actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and I love playing music with people so much that

[Ari Chambers]

my podcast called Playing along is Back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.

[Mia Wong]

Every episode's a little different, but it

[Kerry Brownstein]

all involves music and conversation with some

[Ari Chambers]

of my favorite musicians.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Over the past two seasons I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Levy, Mavis

[Mia Wong]

Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy. Really too many to name.

[Ari Chambers]

And this season I've sat down with

[Kerry Brownstein]

Joshua Homme, Sarah McLachlan, John Legend, and more.

[Mia Wong]

Check out my new episode with Finneas. So I went home and I asked

[Robert Evans]

Billy if she wanted to wanted to sing it. She immediately made it her own thing.

[Kerry Brownstein]

So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing along

[Ari Chambers]

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

[Mia Wong]

wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Last week two major news networks, CNN and cnbc, partnered with the so called prediction market Kalshi, an online political betting platform to use Kalshi's real time betting data in TV news segments, online news content and as Kalshee announced on X the Everything app. Quote to integrate prediction markets into CNN's global newsroom. With Kalshee threatening, quote A new era of media is here. This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, regular CNN Viewers may have noticed this integration has already been happening for some time. This past election cycle, news anchors used betting odds in place of an addition to polling data to weigh the likelihood of candidates winning elections. CNN's chief data analyst Harry Enton, a Nate Silver protege who used to work for 538, trailblazed the use of political gambling data in news stories. Earlier this year, Kalshee praised Enten by name in their announcement of the CNN partnership. Quote, Enten is an expert at translating what data and polling are saying on any given issue and through this integration he can tap into real time prediction markets data to better inform and fact check his reporting, unquote. Here's an example of this reporting in a CNN segment from October 2025.

[Mia Wong]

If you go back six months ago, you go back to April Kate Ball when what were we looking at? Well, we were looking at the Democrats with a very clear shot of taking control of the US House of Representatives. According to the Cauchy prediction market odds. We saw him in an 83% chance but those odds have gone plummeting down. Now we're talking about just a 63% chance while the GOP chances up like a rocket, up like gold, up from 17% to now a 37% chance. So we'll look like a pretty clear likely Democratic win in the House come next year. Has become much closer to a toss up at this point. Although still slightly leaning Democratic, Harry Enton

[Kerry Brownstein]

never clarifies how these quote unquote odds are formed or what they really are. To a viewer who just tuned in or maybe isn't paying that much attention, it would be very unclear that these numbers are actually from a gambling website. They're just big percentages displayed on screen the way you would see polling data or legitimate information used in a newsroom. This short section using the Kalshi prediction market odds was then followed by three minutes of analysis using selective midterm voting data from 2017 to 2018 to support the movement in these gambling odds. The gambling odds themselves were the load bearing piece of information in this piece. Kalshi's main competitor, another so called prediction market called Poly Market, partnered with X, the Everything app and Yahoo Finance earlier this year to integrate their prediction data into online news content. Time magazine and Sports Illustrated have also both launched deals with the prediction market platform Galactic so what exactly are these prediction markets and how do they function? On polymarket and Kalshi, users can bet yes or no on the outcome of a question relating to world events, which is called a market. As more money is wagered on either side, the odds of the outcome change. Currently, top questions include various predictions for time, person of the year, will the US Strike Venezuela before the end of the year, the release of the Epstein files, and who will be the next president? Kalshee has Trump's chances at 6%. Here's Polymarket CEO Shane Copeland explaining on 60 Minutes, you make money if you're

[Mia Wong]

right, you lose money if you're wrong,

[Kerry Brownstein]

and as a result it creates this information that's really useful for people. These companies would like you to believe that the ratio of people betting yes or no on a certain outcome of world events is somehow useful or reliable information for the general public to forecast the future. Whether that's through betting on the likelihood of an upcoming recession, the winner of a sports game which days of the week Israel will bomb Gaza or what movie will win best picture almost $50 million is currently being wagered over a potential Russia Ukraine ceasefire in 2025. Production markets currently have $3 billion in weekly trading volume. I do need to note these companies argue that hedging outcomes of world events legally is not gambling because that would be illegal. Payments through unauthorized gambling sites are illegal under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement act of 2006, which suppressed the early prediction markets of the 2000s. But Kalshi is regulated as a platform for trading financial derivatives rather than securities trading or straight up legalized gambling, and this determines what entity they have to register with and what regulations they're subject to. Kalshi launched in 2021 with a federal license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and after a years long battle in October 2024 a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Kalshee allowing online prediction market betting on US elections, rejecting claims by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that the practice was illegal gambling and their concerns that prediction market betting could undermine election integrity. Former CFTC Chairman Rostam Benham made a statement in May of 2024 Reading quote contracts involving political events ultimately commoditize and degrade the integrity of the uniquely American experience of participating in the democratic electoral process. Allowing these contracts would push the cftc, a financial market regulator, into a position far beyond its congressional mandate and expertise. Unquote. A Week before his dad took office in January 2025, Donald Trump Jr became a strategic advisor at Kalshi. Polymarket launched in 2020 without registering with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and was fined $1.4 million by the CFTC in 2022 for operating as an unregulated exchange and was henceforth prohibited from allowing bets from US based users. Though the Poly Market CEO sees it a little different.

[Mia Wong]

It was a $1.4 million fine and also it was a settlement and you could not have customers in the United States.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Yeah, we had to go and geoblock trading the US and move certain operations offshore.

[Mia Wong]

And it wasn't, hey, you're banned from

[Kerry Brownstein]

trading the U.S. it's like until you're licensed.

[Mia Wong]

I mean, it was breaking the law.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I mean, people say breaking the law, it's like, which law? You know? So if anything, it's incompatible.

[Mia Wong]

It's incompatible with the law, with the

[Kerry Brownstein]

regulatory matrix that existed the past two years. Polymarket has found to be facilitating illegal gambling and subsequently banned in the countries of Switzerland, France, the uk, Poland, Singapore, Belgium, Romania and Australia. Most of these bans just require geo blocking users, which can be easily circumvented through the use of a vpn. And since the financial transactions on Polymarket are all done through cryptocurrency, it's not clear that Polymarket is taking any steps to enforce these bans beyond geo blocking. In the midst of facing regulatory hurdles and bans from across the globe, Polymarket still exploded in popularity last year, attracting investment from Peter Thiel's venture capital firm and hundreds of thousands of new users, primarily driven by betting on the US Presidential election, speculation on whether Biden would drop out of the race and who Trump would pick as vice president, all despite the platform technically being banned in the United States. After the first presidential debate in July 2024 around the attempted assassination of Trump and the RNC, Polymarket gained 60,000 new accounts. The year prior, Polymarket averaged 2,300 new accounts per month. August 2024 saw 70,000 new accounts. September 90,000. October 300,000. The month after Trump's second inauguration, 400,000. Currently, Polymarket has over 60,000 daily active traders and hundreds of thousands of monthly traders since October 2024. To give another example of their recent growth, in April 2023, Polymarket's monthly volume was about $3 million. A year later, it was 39 million. In November 2024, it was 2.5 billion. Last month, it was 3.7 billion.

[Ari Chambers]

Foreign.

[Kerry Brownstein]

2025, cash. Patel's FBI and the CFTC under Trump dropped investigations into whether Polymarket was illegally allowing US users to place bets using VPNs. Shortly thereafter, Donald Trump Jr's venture capital firm invested in the platform and Trump Jr himself joined Poly Market's advisory board. Curiously, a few days after Trump Jr joined Polymarket, the commodity futures Trading Commission announced it was going to allow polymarket to operate in the United States after acquiring another company that held a U.S. license. This past October, Trump's own Truth Social announced it was partnering with crypto.com to launch Truth Predict, quote a revolutionary prediction market backed by President Trump for enhanced decision making, unquote. When Barry Weiss's 60 Minutes did a puff piece on Polymarket with its CEO last week, Anderson Cooper inquired about the risk of insider trading. Poly Markets CEO Shane Kaplan seemed to think that a little bit of insider trading might be good actually.

[Mia Wong]

But predictive markets do rely on someone having some inside information. Yeah, I think that people going and having an edge to the market is a good thing. Obviously you need to curate them and

[Kerry Brownstein]

you need to be really clear and stringent on where the line is drawn and like sort of ethics and we

[Mia Wong]

spend a lot of time on that.

[Kerry Brownstein]

But it's sort of an inevitability that this will happen and there's a lot of benefits from it and you know, people, people will adapt. The CEO did not elaborate on what Poly Markets practice of curating insider trading looks like and where their quote unquote stringent line is drawn, because in reality it doesn't seem this line exists. They essentially encourage insider trading through these vague statements and lack of clear enforcement. From the point of view of these platforms, insider trading makes their prediction markets more accurate. So it's a net positive. And if it fucks over some users on the other side of a bet, that's just the cost of business. Last week, an alleged insider trader won over a million dollars for bets on Google's 2025 Year in Search rankings, listing 22 out of 23 in the correct order. This user has made a series of early bets related to Google the past year, like the exact release date of Google's Gemini 3.0, which they won $150,000 on. But because this polymarket user isn't trading stock, there's no clear regulatory mechanism to stop this behavior. And polymarket can't reverse these trades because they run through the blockchain. Not that they would even necessarily want to. Professional gambler, political data analyst and Poly Market adviser Nate Silver was also asked about insider trading on the China Talk podcast two months ago.

[Carl Cassarda]

Are you worried about insider trading with this, with all this political betting?

[James Stout]

I mean there's an aspect of like

[Mia Wong]

look, these are all crypto. You know, you get on these markets with crypto and like, like there were markets like which way is Suzanne Collins

[James Stout]

going to vote vote and you know

[Mia Wong]

the sort of the like, you know, like the tail outcomes for like a legislative assistant in her office are, you know you can make 10 times your salary in like a minute.

[Molly Conger]

Right?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

What's your, what's your think on thinking

[Mia Wong]

on this for, for sure. I mean look, I think there are

[Carl Cassarda]

a couple of qualifications though.

[Mia Wong]

Like first of all, I think people on the inside often aren't as well as informed as they think and or

[Carl Cassarda]

there are some downsides to having an

[Mia Wong]

inside view and not an outside view. You might drink the Kool Aid so to speak.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

You might be in a bubble. Yeah, look, I mean, I mean there are ones where it's like you can literally, I mean there's been a lots of group chats, people talking about like very, very sketchy trades and one way bets that are being made in the stock market of like what's going to happen with a trade deal. I mean you can literally be the person who decides. Right. And be betting on the side head on it. If they're kind of weird, if there are incentives to make money in a world of 8 billion people, many of whom are very competitive and all of whom not all of them, most of them have access to the Internet. Right. People are going to find a way, a way to do it. Right.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Let's pause here for a sec. What do you think? Nick goes on to list as a comparison to political insider trading as like an unfortunate but somewhat inevitable consequence of our evolving system of finance.

[Mia Wong]

Like in the crypto space we've seen like increasing number of like crypto kidnappings. Right. Well, I mean that's one of the

[Carl Cassarda]

consequences if people are worth vast amounts

[Mia Wong]

of wealth that isn't very secure. It's just, it's just gonna gonna happen until you up security or have better solutions or whatever else. And so like you know, I don't think there's necessarily any more or less insider trading on like poly markets and there might be for in sports betting sites we've seen a lot of sports betting scandals or for regular equities. You know, I, I believe the literature says that like members of Congress achieve abnormal returns from their stock portfolios.

[Carl Cassarda]

I'd have to double.

[Mia Wong]

I'm sure there's some debate about that I have to like to double check that, right?

[Kerry Brownstein]

It's fine, bros. It's just like cryptocurrency kidnapping. It's fine, actually. So Nate goes on to say that prediction market insider trading isn't that different from congressmen doing insider trading on the stock market or like rigged sports betting. But he really neglects to emphasize that those things are also bad and should be aggressively clamped down on. That shouldn't be allowed. And prediction markets intentionally skirt regulation. They currently have far less legal protections for users against unfair practices. And with crypto they can be pretty anonymized, enabling bad actors. And now news companies are legitimizing turning everyone's phone into a corrupt casino for world events, whether that's Israel starving Palestine or how many tweets Elon Musk is going to publish this week. The day before Kalshi announced their partnership agreement with CNN and then CNBC, CBS aired a 60 Minutes puff piece on polymarket anchored by Anderson Coop.

[Mia Wong]

When we met with Copeland last month, more than $3.6 million had been wagered on whether or not Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro would be out of power by the end of the year. Polymarket users didn't think so. They gave it only a 23% chance. And if you buy no on that and you're buying it at 78 cents and at the end of the year he's still in power, you get a dollar per share.

[Kerry Brownstein]

So you've made a profit of 22 cents per share.

[Mia Wong]

I can see why this would be. I mean, I don't want to use the term addictive, but it would be compelling. I mean, maybe it is addictive.

[James Stout]

I don't know.

[Mia Wong]

Certainly compelling. This is how I see it. If you are into geopolitics, this creates an incentive for you to dig in to what's going on in Venezuela and try and get an edge.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Anderson Cooper, who both works for the newly Couchy partnered CNN as well as CBS's 60 Minutes, is so hesitant to call this clearly addictive practice addictive, quote, unquote, compelling. Here's how polymarket CEO Shane Copeland explained the platform earlier in this piece.

[Mia Wong]

It's a site where you can basically bet on current events, some sort of

[Kerry Brownstein]

question about the future, like an election. And as a result, when a ton of people are betting, you get the betting odds, which basically tell you how likely each outcome is and how accurate is it. It's the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now.

[Mia Wong]

Until someone else creates some sort of super crystal ball.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Anderson Cooper responds with Narration that the CEO, quote, may be prone to hyperbole, but he's definitely onto something. Unquote. In explaining how poly Market users attempt to seek truth and gain an edge, Copeland told the story of how in 2024, an anonymous French user made over $80 million on polymarket by betting on Trump winning the presidential election. And to bolster his Bets, he contracted YouGov to conduct private polls in swing states. People thought he just liked Trump, and

[Mia Wong]

he had actually commissioned a ton of private polls.

[Kerry Brownstein]

He did something called neighbor polling, which is you ask people who they think their neighbors are likely to vote for. For scenarios for an election where there's a stigma to saying you're gonna vote for somebody and people feel some sort of social awkwardness. And what he noticed was there was huge discrepancy in the neighbor polling versus the normal polling. And the neighbor polling favored Trump enormously. He thought Trump was undervalued. If this guy was not able to make 80 million, but rather able to make $80,000, he would have never gone through the hassle. But when you get markets that are big enough, you create this incentive for people to go back above and beyond

[Mia Wong]

to try and find truth.

[Kerry Brownstein]

What the CEO is arguing here is that the sheer scale of money being wagered creates incentive to quote, unquote, find truth. In media discussions of prediction markets, there's this specter of objectivity around the gambled odds, which obviously the CEO of polymarket has a personal incentive to encourage. But Anderson Cooper here doesn't challenge this notion of capital T truth. Even though Donald Trump was way ahead in prediction market odds back during the 2020 election, which had his chances of winning that election far higher than what pure polling models showed. Kalshi claims that prediction markets can help journalists quote, unquote, fact check, but doesn't explain how fact can be determined from speculative gambling markets. Where is the fact in gambling? Well, we will find out after these ads. To quote from Poly Market advisor Nate Silver's blog with a Silver Bulletin quote, it's basically good when people are more exposed to probabilities and they become more normalized. But of course, I also analyze polls and build probabilistic models myself in that capacity. I strongly disagree with the notion that prediction markets can serve as a good substitute for polls. These sorts of claims are sometimes advanced by the prediction market companies themselves, including polymarket. To be fair, one minor pet peeve is that both reporters and readers often confuse probabilities for poll results, unquote. As Nate goes on to explain, if Trump is up 55 to 45 over Kamala Harris. On a prediction market, that's not saying that Trump is expected to win by 10 points. It means that 10% more users on the website favor Trump winning, which is pretty close to a toss up. This confusion is a huge problem, which is bolstered in both how prediction market companies market their platform, but also how journalists use gambling data in news stories. If you see a social media post, an advertisement, or a random news segment showing percentages tied to pictures of two politicians in a race without context, those betting numbers could be interpreted in a number of ways and influence someone's perception of an election and maybe even their choice on who to vote for or even whether to vote at all. In an October speech, Zoran Mamdani referenced Kalshee billboards predicting a Cuomo victory in the Democratic primary.

[Mia Wong]

When I walked the length of Manhattan just a few days before the election, hundreds of New Yorkers marched alongside me. And when we strode into Times Square under a billboard with betting odds that showed Cuomo's chances of winning at nearly 80%, we knew that the so called experts were set to get it wrong yet again. Andrew Cuomo was supposed to be inevitable. When you see the Kalsh odds that

[Kerry Brownstein]

have our chances of victory in the 90s, know this.

[Mia Wong]

You are reading the same things that Andrew Cuomo read when he went to sleep each night in June believing that his victory was promised. We cannot allow complacency to infiltrate this movement.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Kalshee excitedly shared the latter half of that clip proclaiming breaking Zoran Mumdani references his Kalshi odds on stage. Kalshi is mainstream, unquote. Despite this clip demonstrating how prediction markets often suffer from inaccurate bias, last week Discount Steve Kornacki, former 538 analyst and now CNN's data expert Harry Enton shared this segment about the Tennessee District 7 special election on X the Everything app with the caption odds are Dems will come within 10 points of a win, if not outright win.

[Mia Wong]

I would say if you had to look at the congressional map, any district that Donald Trump won by 22 points, you would say, you know, you've got like nearly a 100% chance of winning if you're running for Congress there.

[Kerry Brownstein]

But what are the prediction markets saying right now?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, what are we talking about in terms of prediction market odds? Look, the Democrat has a 15% chance of winning in that race, okay? A 15% chance, which ain't nothing in a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points. But here I think is the key nugget on this side of the ledger and that is a GOP win by under 10 points. There's a 68% chance of that.

[Robert Evans]

So there is a more than two

[Mia Wong]

thirds chance that the Republican candidate, yes, they win, but they win by a significantly lower margin of down Donald Trump. We're talking about double digits smaller. We're talking about a huge, huge shift to the left. We're talking about when you add these two together, we're talking about a more than 80% chance that there is a clear double digit shift to the left and a 15% chance the Democrat actually wins in a district that Donald Trump won by 22 points. That just shows you how bad the environment is for Republicans right now that the Democrat has any sort of a chance in this talk to me.

[Kerry Brownstein]

But he's just authoritatively rattling off complete speculation on a Democrat victory. As big screens display percentages in huge text with source Kalshee in tiny text at the bottom of the screen. Ordinary polling showed that this was a close race that leaned red by two to eight points and the Republican did end up winning by nine points. To quote the broken clock Nate Silver quote. Without having polls to look at, the prediction markets would probably kind of suck at making election forecasts. Translating polls into probabilities is considerably more complicated when there are many correlated races at once, such as in the battle for the Electoral College or control of Congress. Prediction markets had a strong 2024 in this regard. They leaned toward Trump when our model had it at 50 50. I don't think this was because of any special modeling insight per se, but because they incorporated some sort of prior intuition that Trump would overperform his polls again. So give the markets credit for that. These sorts of soft quote unquote intangible intuitions can be valuable, though you'd need a lot of data to determine whether they add or subtract value in the long run. As Nate himself acknowledges. Someone like Andrew Cuomo had much higher betting odds throughout the entire New York mayoral race than a purely statistical model would show. A contention I have with Nate, one of many is though I call prediction market numbers gambling odds, they are not actual probabilities. These odds aren't based on objective mathematical principles like flipping a coin, the three door problem, or even something like blackjack. These odds are created whole cloth through guessing, sometimes educated or data informed guessing, but still primarily through people's intuition which is susceptible to to group impulses. Many random world events lack a reliable basis of continuous controlled data that's needed to form a probability like that which is applied to legalized sports betting. This is quite evident in the betting odds around the last People conclave which had very little relevant data to use for informed predictions. There was no existing probability to support the election of an American Pope, a first time occurrence with prediction markets. People can still do research to make an informed bet, but it's not really the case that X candidate is mathematically expected to win an election. 80 out of a hundred instances, a hive mind of users have formed that statistical division. Through the power of money, 80% of users are betting that a certain result is likely to occur. So the problem isn't just that like Nate says, people are confusing probabilities for polls. It's that they're confusing prediction market betting odds for mathematical probabilities. It's this difference that allows betting on sports outcomes via Calcium polymarket even in states that ban typical sports betting. Because you're not actually betting on fixed odds, you're betting against other investors. And now news companies are not just manufacturing consent and normalizing political gambling, but are actively encouraging the use of these platforms and endorsing the predictive capacity of these gambling markets. Anderson Cooper calls it the quote unquote wisdom of crowds. But we already have methods for learning group consensus like polling, which may have problems, but frankly far fewer problems than gambling on world events. Beyond the moral qualms of betting money on human suffering, prediction markets are susceptible to not just personal bias but group bias based on the current ratio of odds. This in group consensus can be influenced by short lived trending topics and these platforms cater to a hyper online point of view. Prediction market users provide a very non representational sample variety pulling from a very specific type of guy who regularly uses these platforms. To quote from Kalshee's CNN partnership announcement quote cal she has become the definitive source for staying informed about the future and is used by reporters, politicians, pundits. Wall street and Main street had recently called the New York City mayoral election eight minutes after polls closed hours before the media data. It's because of this accuracy that Kalsh data will serve as a powerful complement to CNN's reporting. Journalists can more easily surface credible information to their audiences about the real time probabilities of future cultural and political events, unquote. In practice, this reporting mixes gambling data and actually reputable or credible polls in a confusing way. Like this recent CNN segment which cites calciods on whether Trump will send tariff stimulus checks as well as CBS YouGov polling data on if tariffs lower prices. Back to back in the same segment

[Mia Wong]

do they think that the tariffs, that these rebate checks are actually coming and at this point. No, no, I mean chance Trump tariffs, the tariff stimulus chance are sent to Americans by August of 2026. It's a 25% chance. That's a one in four. So that's not nothing. But the American people right now are craving, craving some relief. And at this point it doesn't look like it is coming. Although I will note John Berman this 25%, it is greater than this 6% who say that tariffs decreased prices or that 5% back in March, which are just, you never see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5%. So look, 25% ain't nothing but at this point it's low.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Robert Evans]

The prediction markets think that only 1,

[Kerry Brownstein]

1 in 4 chance that it will actually happen there. Is this really what the future of political forecasting is going to be? Maybe, maybe not. But there are four horsemen of this political gambling apocalypse. Nate Silver, via his gamification of election predictions based on his time as a professional gambler, sports betting. Especially since the Supreme Court struck down a federal law banning sports betting outside of Nevada in 2018, resulting in almost 40 states subsequently legalizing some form of sports betting which has facilitated the accessibility of gambling to grow dramatically across the country the past 10 years through the spread of online sports betting apps. The third horseman is Trump or the Trump administration through their removal of regulatory hurdles facing prediction markets. And finally that CNN guy, Harry Enton, a Nate Silver protege who trailblazed the use of political gambling data in news stories the past year. These four horsemen, Nate Silver sports betting Trump and Harry Anton have created the cultural and political conditions for political gambling to spread like wildfire, which hey, is also something you can bet on. During the LA fires, prediction market users could bet on how many acres would burn. So what is the end game of this, this gambling apocalypse that seems to be inching its way closer and closer? To answer that, here's a clip from Kalshee co founder and CEO Tarek Manser.

[Ari Chambers]

The long term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We are living in a world where

[Ari Chambers]

like we, we have an abundance of information but there's a lot of noise and like we don't really understand what's real from what's not. And prediction markets are an antidote to that. They, they do a very, very good job at distilling information and surfacing truth to people. And you're seeing this sort of massive shift where like people are using them whenever they think about questions about the future, you know, whenever they're debating about anything. And I think that trajectory is going to keep going. That's a new consumer habit that I don't think is going to be undone.

[Kerry Brownstein]

This is the demon child of crypto and sports betting. This financialization of everything to form a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion, creating new addictive consumer habits. These companies want to apply the logic of smartphone sports betting to everything, where everyone gets to be their own little Nate Silver while carrying around their own digital casino in their pocket, getting addicted to gambling on speculation of world suffering. And CNN is complicit in this. CNN and others have decided to partner with platforms that enable the people who decide when to drop bombs around the world to win millions of dollars by betting money on the choices they themselves are making at the expense of the rest of the world. And these companies think this is a good thing because the betting odds can serve as a potential heads up that something is likely to happen. Simple consumer protections for users, which currently are non existent, are just not enough. Congress needs to be far more involved in regulating online betting and in the case of political events, it should just be completely banned. It is detrimental to a healthy society. It incentivizes corruption, cruelty and erodes public trust. Gambling doesn't need to go away entirely, but it should return to being time and location locked. Go to Las Vegas like a fucking adult. Currently there is no existing mechanism for individual states to regulate prediction markets. Only the federal government can. And Trump's federal government certainly seems like it's not going to considering the President's son works for both of the main platforms, Kalshi and polymarket. And while news companies are legitimizing this, these platforms are now working as their own news aggregators. Specifically Polymarket social media account, which is acting as a news aggregation account because that drives traffic back to their website where people can bet on the news stories that Polymarket is sharing, even if those news stories are speculative or completely made up. On December 5th, Polymarket posted, quote, Justin suspected J6 pipe bombers legal counsel projected to argue he was included in Trump's pardon of Those involved in January 6th, unquote. This claim subsequently spread all around the Internet, parroted by people of a variety of political orientations. But if you read closely, the original Post says suspected J6 pipe bombers legal counsel projected to argue he was included in Trump's pardon. Polymarket is just spreading gambling information as if it is news content, quote unquote, projected just means that Poly Market users are betting on this. But these projected posts are mixed in with other posts just aggregating the day's news. So unless you are paying super close attention, which rarely people on the Internet are, this becomes a Trojan horse of disinformation. When news companies use the term projected on election night, usually that indicates with pretty clear mathematical certainty that an event is going to happen. When polymarket uses projected in news tweets, it only indicates that Internet gamblers are swinging around money in an effort to create truth with once legitimate news companies, not just complicit, but active participants in this process. That does it for us today at it could happen here. See you on the other side.

[Mia Wong]

What's up, fam?

[Ari Chambers]

I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'?

[Robert Evans]

All?

[Ari Chambers]

It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast for from together. And I heart women's sports because, let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is just like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating?

[Molly Conger]

The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars,

[Ari Chambers]

the moments that take over your entire timeline and the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, naomi, you get the Palm. Naomi, you get the Palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. At concerts, we dance to the same tune. At games, we hug total strangers. And yet, in these moments, there's also something we don't do. We don't act based on how they look, who they love, where they're from, or what they believe. We just act because the things that make us different will never change what makes us human. Go to lovehasnolabels.com to learn more. Brought to you by Love has no

[Kerry Brownstein]

labels and the I counsel.

[Molly Conger]

I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert.

[Mia Wong]

And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor.

[Molly Conger]

And this is our new podcast, Wellness

[Mia Wong]

actually, because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays. And some of it is awesome and some of it is, well, actually bull. Fortunately, we're both people who.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Who know how to read studies, parse

[Molly Conger]

data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore.

[Mia Wong]

Each episode, we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and

[Kerry Brownstein]

wellness topic like what's the deal with peptides? What's the deal with GLP1s?

[Molly Conger]

What's the deal with creatine?

[Mia Wong]

What's the deal with cupping?

[Molly Conger]

What's the deal with sleep?

[Mia Wong]

So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. Might actually be just what the doctor or the economist ordered. Listen to wellness actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ari Chambers]

Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love

[Mia Wong]

playing music with people so much that

[Ari Chambers]

my podcast called Playing along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.

[Mia Wong]

Every episode's a little different, but it

[Kerry Brownstein]

all involves music and conversation with some

[Ari Chambers]

of my favorite musicians.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Over the past two seasons, I've had

[Mia Wong]

special guests like Dave Grohl, Levy, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy. Really too many to name.

[Ari Chambers]

And this season I've sat down with

[Kerry Brownstein]

Joshua Homme, Sarah McLachlan, John Legend, and more.

[Mia Wong]

Check out my new episode with Finneas. So I went home and I asked

[Robert Evans]

Billie if she wanted to sing it. She immediately made it her own thing.

[James Stout]

No fade.

[Mia Wong]

You really know how to make me cry when you give me those o

[Kerry Brownstein]

so come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing along

[Ari Chambers]

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

[Mia Wong]

wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen Here podcast, where a bunch of incredibly convoluted and very silly financial instruments destroy the entire world economy. I am your host, Mia Wong, and with me today is someone who does not spend all of her time deep in the bowels of arcane bullshit written by different Federal Reserve boards. And that is Molly Conger, who is the. The host of the Absolutely delightful. I mean, okay, I guess this is a who is really winning here Kind of question. In terms of the things we research

[Molly Conger]

now, you spent a lot of time reading stuff written by Federal Reserve guys. I read a lot of stuff written by guys who want to kill the Federal Reserve guys.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And you know what? I still don't know what the Federal Reserve is, and I'm not gonna find out.

[Mia Wong]

You know, I. I don't actually think knowing what the Federal Reserve is somehow.

[Molly Conger]

It doesn't change anything.

[Mia Wong]

I don't think it's actually relevant to this. I mean, it kind of. It's. Obviously, it's relevant to everything, but.

[Molly Conger]

But what Mia means to say is the reason I'm here is because I don't know what the economy is, and at this point I'm afraid to find out.

[Mia Wong]

And unfortunately, your worst fears are happening.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, don't worry. By the end of this, I will not understand.

[Mia Wong]

I am going to attempt to explain the economy. And by, by the economy, I mean shadow banking. Yeah. Also before, before I go into this though, you should, you should listen to weird little guys. It is, it's really good. I like it. All my friends really like it.

[Molly Conger]

Thank you.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's somehow a nice comma, kind of relaxing show about Neo Nazis.

[Molly Conger]

So, yeah, it's got very chill vibes for a show about guys who are trying to like, blow up school buses.

[Mia Wong]

Yep, yep. So, all right, you know, I'm reading this, I'm looking over this script. Miraculously, this isn't. Oh, wait, hold on. I think I cut the part where people blow up school buses. There was legitimately a segment in here that I might put back in where someone blows up a school bus.

[Molly Conger]

But what a crossover event.

[Mia Wong]

Oh boy, oh boy. The Saudis really good at that shit. Turns out. Okay, okay, but let's get back to the topic at hand, which is what is shadow banking and why does it matter to all of us, people who live in the normal real world and not in fake finance world world?

[Molly Conger]

Does it have anything to do with shadow wolves?

[Mia Wong]

Unfortunately, no.

[Molly Conger]

What about shadow facts?

[Mia Wong]

Sadly, actually, there probably is a connection between the financing for the Lord of the Rings movies and, and shadow banking. I'm just too tired to work it right now.

[Molly Conger]

I have dragged us off track and we haven't even gotten on track yet. What is shadow bank?

[Mia Wong]

Okay, so the good news, the good news. This, this is, this is the first, it's not the last piece of good news. We're going to get this episode. But comma, the definition used by most non academics is actually not that bad. There's a pretty good. It's very wishy washy because it's a congressional report. And so it's specifically not supposed to be taking a stance in either direction on anything because it's the Congressional Review Office and they're supposed to be neutral, et cetera, et cetera.

[Molly Conger]

Allegedly.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, right. You know, and like, obviously they're not, but like, you know, so it's like kind of Fine. Congressional report on the subject. And they do the thing that almost everyone does, which is they go back to the definition created by the Financial Stability Board. And I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna quote that because it's not that bad. Quote. Financial activities facilitated by institutions other than central banks. Banks or public financial institutions.

[Molly Conger]

So it's banking that doesn't involve a bank?

[Mia Wong]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

Canceled.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I'm out.

[Molly Conger]

I'm out already.

[Mia Wong]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

And they don't mean, like, me loaning you $20?

[Mia Wong]

No, no, no, of course not.

[Molly Conger]

They just mean unregulated banking.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Which you can't legally call banking.

[Mia Wong]

I mean, you actually can legally call it banking. It's just things get weird really quickly.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, I'm not, I'm not a bank understander, but I know at least in Virginia, you can't incorporate a business that has the word bank in the title unless you are legally a bank. Because it. Because that's like, misleading.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

I don't think they can legally call themselves a bank, but I guess you can call it banking activity.

[Molly Conger]

That's stupid. And I'm mad already.

[Mia Wong]

Yes. Oh, you're gonna get so much more mad by the end of this. So the base definition is it's not that complicated. Right. It's something that does banking stuff that is legally not a bank. You know, and so we could talk about what, what kinds of things is this? Right.

[Molly Conger]

It.

[Mia Wong]

It's like private equity firms, it's hedge funds, it's venture capital firms.

[Molly Conger]

So it's like evil stuff that ruins the world for no reason except for like 10 guys make money.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

But it's also, you know, pension funds, it's like insurance companies, it's sovereign wealth funds, business development companies, repo markets, broker dealers, special investment vehicles, securitization vehicles, money market mutual funds, asset backed commercial paper conduits.

[Molly Conger]

Hey, here's the thing, buddy. Most of those things you just said to me are fake and they make me upset.

[Mia Wong]

It's really bad.

[Molly Conger]

Sovereign wealth fund. Shut up. That's not, that's nothing. I still, you know, all these, all these things are just like different ways of saying like, you're poor and you're gonna die.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is sovereign wealth fund is like kind of a less fake one in that it's like it's all fake. Hey, this is like, it's all fake. It's the. Well, it's like this. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has pooled all of the money it's gotten from its like, horrific crimes and Put them together into one giant thing, and that's a sovereign wealth fund.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, so it's good is what you mean.

[Mia Wong]

No, I am, I am a notable. There is, by the way, a camp of people who believe that sovereign wealth funds are like a socialist thing and that you could use them to do socialism.

[Molly Conger]

I'm gonna jump out the window.

[Mia Wong]

I think. This is so stupid. Yeah, I.

[Carl Cassarda]

This is.

[Mia Wong]

We haven't even gotten into the nightmare stuff, so. Remember I was talking about the Financial Stability Board definition in that congressional report, right? Where it's like, okay, this is a bank that does non banking stuff or a non bank that does banking stuff. Sorry.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I guess we should say. I guess we forgot to say at the top. The reason you're explaining shadow banking to me is because we saw an article last week that what, those, those not banks were putting a stop on withdrawals from their not banks. And I didn't know what that meant.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, that's amazingly. This. This is so convoluted. We're not even going to get to that this week.

[Molly Conger]

Right. But like, that's, that's why we're expl.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Why.

[Mia Wong]

Right. There's like. Yeah, there's like. There was like a mini bank run going on with these like, shadow banks.

[Molly Conger]

No, it's not banks.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So we're going to get into how that can happen and why. But, but before we get there, we need to talk about. All right. To get a sense of the complexity of this. Right. The congressional report, like the accepted terminology for this is not shadow banks. It is.

[Molly Conger]

Right. That can't be their official name. That's not their government name.

[Mia Wong]

No, it's. It's non bank financial intermediation. Now what the fuck is that? And this is where this episode goes completely off the rails. Because the components of what count as intermediation are so complicated. I am not going to try to describe it until literally the end of this.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, is it like. What is Venmo officially?

[Robert Evans]

Like.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Like, Venmo is not a bank, but it provides like financial services.

[Mia Wong]

Actually, I. It might because it's.

[Molly Conger]

Because that's like a financial intermediary, right?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it might technically be a non bank. I don't know what the regulatory structure is.

[Molly Conger]

It's not legally a bank.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, I think that technically is one

[Molly Conger]

score one for Molly.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. But okay, so this is gonna get really bad. Okay, so when I first started researching this episode, right. The first thing that I click on is the Federal Reserve's chart of how the shadow banking sector works compared to the no wall banking sector. Molly, you have seen this because I posted it as a joke in our group chat. This chart, I have like a very, very large like it is like a big normal ass sized monitor that I like do my work on. I had to zoom in to 380% just to make out the letters that label the boxes on this chart. If you want to read it, you have to zoom in to 500%.

[Molly Conger]

That doesn't seem like a well made chart.

[Mia Wong]

No, here's the thing. It's actually really good. It's just this complicated. I learned later from a paper by Copenhagen business school professor Odni Helgedir. We're gonna come back to Helgadottir's work a lot in this episode. But I learned from, from her because she has also experience seeing the same chart and going, what the is this fuck ass chart? I found out that the Federal Reserve recommends that in order to have the diagram be legible, you are supposed to print this chart as a three foot by four foot poster.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, that makes sense. Like meeting style, but like on a big easel. Put it on easel.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, right. But like again, this is, this is a diagram that he's just labeling the parts of the system and making and making like a line that shows how stuff moves through it, I guess.

[Molly Conger]

I still don't know what we're talking about.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So this is what we're going to get into in a second. But first we have to talk about something even more bleak, which is that. Oh yeah, by the way, these like non banking bank things like these, like all these like venture capital firms, all these hedge funds, all these fucking weird ghoulish banks that are not banks. Yeah. They have twice as many assets than the regular banking system.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, that doesn't seem good.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, it's about to get worse. It's about to get worse. Molly, that's.

[Molly Conger]

That's like saying I keep 70% of the food in my house outside on the porch. Like no, it goes in the fridge.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, oh, it's so bad. It's so bad. So, okay, there's a pretty good congressional report that I was talking about earlier that has this terrifying quote, quote, as of 2023, the broad measure total financial assets and narrow measure assets at NBFIs. This is the shadow banks reached $85.7 trillion and $22.2 trillion respectively in the United States.

[Molly Conger]

But that's more than our gdp.

[Mia Wong]

That's almost three times our gdp.

[Molly Conger]

So that's a fake amount of money.

[Mia Wong]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

That's not real at all.

[Mia Wong]

But it kind of is. Right. These compared to total financial assets of $31.1 trillion at banks in the same period. So again, this is, this is almost three times our GDP in assets that they manage or control.

[Molly Conger]

So where does the money live?

[Mia Wong]

In a whole bunch of unbelievably convoluted bullshit. Like combinations of like loans and real estate and stuff like that.

[Molly Conger]

That's not real money. So like, okay, imagine this is Schoolhouse Rock and instead of the like the singing bill, you're like a dollar bill. Like, where are you?

[Mia Wong]

We are about to explain this.

[Molly Conger]

Where does the money live?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So, okay, okay, we're. We are about one, two paragraphs away from getting to this. Or like one paragraph.

[Molly Conger]

Okay.

[Mia Wong]

So the other thing that's very important about this, and this is something Molly was kind of touching on at the beginning of the episode. Maybe I should have opened with this. Yeah. These people, these are the people who blew up the economy in 2008.

[Molly Conger]

Well, yeah, because they, they're making stuff up.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. It's so, it's so bullshit. Molly, you're gonna get so mad.

[Molly Conger]

This is Calvin Ball. You. I win.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. It literally is. It's nonsense. It's gibberish. They're doing fucking betting markets with the entire world economy.

[Molly Conger]

Oh yeah, we can all do that now.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's fun. It's like we, we, we now have the power to do the shit that destroyed the entire world economy in 2008. So the thing about shadow banking and the reason why it's complicated to, to explain is that it's a catch all term for like a million types of institutions that do different things. Right. The commonality they have is that they're all not regulated by the banking regulations.

[Molly Conger]

Right. It's like we found a way to do financial crime that's not illegal because they forgot to make this illegal.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And you know, but, but the thing is it's so embedded into the system that like the US debt that working is dependent on the shadow banks buying it. Like.

[Molly Conger]

Well, I don't believe in that either, so I'm good.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, it's so fake. I. Molly, I'm not even going to attempt to explain what an overnight repo purchase is to you because it's the fakest thing I've ever seen where they just, they, they make $1 trillion exist overnight and then it stops existing at the end of the night. It's incredible.

[Molly Conger]

I love how much of the economy is based on guys just imagining stuff and agreeing on the thing they imagined and then trading their imaginary tokens like this is fucking pogs. Grow up.

[Mia Wong]

Yep, this is, this, this is unfortunately what, what our entire world is based on. It's so fun. Oh God. Okay, so what, what is actually shadow banking? I, I, I've given you like the broadest definition possible, which is like it Again, it's the, it's doing bank shit without being a bank. But let's go back to the beginning of the term, which is where most people tend to start or get to eventually. This is from an IMF paper. Quote. The term shadow bank was coined by economist Paul McCully at a 2007 speech at the annual financial symposium hosted by the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And basically it's institutions that borrow money in the short term through money markets to finance long term loans. But they aren't banks, so they can't go through the Fed.

[Molly Conger]

They're financing loans with other loans.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, we're going to, so from, from, from a.

[Molly Conger]

Not bank.

[Ari Chambers]

Bank.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, but the big loan is from a real bank and then the little loan is from a fake bank.

[Mia Wong]

Give me.

[Molly Conger]

And none of the money is real.

[Mia Wong]

Hold on, hold on. Okay, we're, we're, we're, we're going to get there. We're, we're going to explain this in terms of burgers. It's going to be okay. I believe in us. Perfect. Perfect. Yes. But the other thing he describes is, is, is, and this is from Helga Daughter. Quote in the speech. He describes shadow banking as the whole Alphabet soup of leveraged up investment conduits, vehicles and structures. So what he's talking about specifically is these are the guys who blew up the economy in 2008. Like these specifically. This is what he's talking about. Right. These are the people who took a mortgage and then did a bunch of bullshit to it in what's called a securitization chain. They did a bunch of bullshit to it so you could give the loan to someone else, so you could sell it to someone else. And this blew up the entire world economy. That's what he's talking about. He's talking about the banks that are not banks, the shadow banks that did all of this bullshit to turn like someone's mortgage into a fucking thing you could bet on.

[Molly Conger]

So selling debt is like selling the idea of future money.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And then sometimes that future money doesn't come.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So.

[Molly Conger]

Or doesn't exist.

[Mia Wong]

So, so, okay, I will say you do not need to understand this yet because we haven't we still have not started the actual explanation.

[Molly Conger]

I'm never going to.

[Mia Wong]

I believe in us. We can do this. It's not that bad. Okay.

[Molly Conger]

I'm not torturing you on purpose. I'm just.

[Mia Wong]

No, it's okay. I, I, I believe in you. So I, I, I want to mention that I'm, I'm very indebted here to the paper I mentioned earlier from Copenhagen Business School Professor Adni Helgadottir, who wrote a. She, she, she wrote a very good simplified explanation of this in her Review of International political economy article called Banking Upside down the Implicit politics of Shadow Banking expertise. But, but okay, as you can tell by the fact that it's called Banking Upside down, the implicit politics of shadow banking expertise. This has been. When she's simplifying it, she's simplifying it from like economist down to, like a political scientist or an anthropologist can understand this. I am about to attempt to simplify this down to. A regular person can understand this. So I'm drawing on a lot of her stuff for the first part of this explanation. But I am, I've turned it into burgers.

[Molly Conger]

So I'll do my best. I'm being very brave.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, so a shadow bank, right. It's something that does banking shit. That's not a bank. So what do I mean by banking shit?

[Molly Conger]

That was my next question.

[Mia Wong]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

I think we need to start with what is a bank?

[Mia Wong]

Yes. So first. So, okay. Okay. And this is, this is, this is where we're starting here. What does a bank do?

[Molly Conger]

I put my money in it and they hold it for me.

[Mia Wong]

So no, actually, and this is the interesting part.

[Molly Conger]

No, they do stuff with it.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, yeah?

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

They're holding onto the promise of my money.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So, okay, let's just look at this for a second. So, okay, so regular people give them money to store in the bank. This is called a deposit. The bank takes your money and loans it out.

[Molly Conger]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

And uses that to make more money. This is how it pays you interest. Right? Is that it's taking your money and it's loaning it out to other people. It's buying things with it.

[Molly Conger]

That part I understand.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And this is obviously a cartoon image. And I know there's gonna be econ people who are gonna be mad at me. Look, you. If you understand, why are they listening

[Molly Conger]

to this if you already know what this means? Go away. This isn't for you. I'm not humiliating myself for your entertainment.

[Mia Wong]

Like, like for, for the political economy people here. When I Say stuff that might, that's like technically kind of fuzzy.

[Molly Conger]

It's for me, the podcast Idiot.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, like you, you understand this. Like I'm working at the level of hamburgers here. So, like we have to do some abstractions. So, so, okay, the important thing for our purposes, right, is that there's two things here, right? There's like the deposit, it's the money you give them, and then there's the loans, right? And these operates on different timelines, right. You can take the deposit out at any time, at least in theory, but they can't get the money from the loan back at any time.

[Molly Conger]

Right?

[Mia Wong]

Now this is like one of the critical things of what a bank is, is this timeline thing thing, right? It turns your, your money, which you can take out at any time into a different kind of thing, this loan, which can't be taken out immediately. Right. And then they use that to make money. So this is called maturity transformation. This is a very simple concept they have made very complicated. This is one of the core aspects of that definition I was talking about earlier. This is one of the four things in it. But you now understand this. It's not that complicated. It's, it's, it's take short term, make long term, and we'll get to doing the reverse in a second.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I don't think it works the other way.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's gonna go so badly. It's gonna be like so badly.

[Molly Conger]

I don't know about bank, but just generally speaking, like, in terms of time and like how like material reality works, I don't think it works the other way.

[Mia Wong]

It's. It's not great. It's not great, Molly. It's not great.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Okay, so.

[Mia Wong]

Okay. There is, however, a problem here, right, which is what happens if everyone tries to get their short term money back at the same time?

[Molly Conger]

Oh, you can't.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Right, because you have deposit insurance.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

Because the, the banks aren't holding short term cash. What they're holding is long term loans. And those loans, like you can't pay someone a loan. Well, okay, actually this entire. The crux of this episode is they

[Molly Conger]

found that they did do that.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Yes. And it blew up the entire world economy.

[Molly Conger]

But if I, but If I wanted $40,000 out of my. If I had a checking account with $40,000 in it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And they gave me my neighbor's mortgage as a promotion like that wouldn't work for me.

[Mia Wong]

That wouldn't work for me. No, fuck that. No, no, no.

[James Stout]

You need, you need, you need, you

[Mia Wong]

need something that can buy a burger and they're not giving you that. So. Okay, this is very, very bad. If people try to do this. It is called a bank run. It is not good.

[Molly Conger]

It's bad.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And so this upset, this blew up the entire world economy so many goddamn times that eventually we got financial regulation. Now this, this regulation requires banks to have money that is like actual cash they can hand you, like right now on hand at all times. And the government gets to, and this is, that's a little bit simplicious, but like, yeah, that's how it works.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Molly Conger]

Like, and it's insured by the government.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Like the government will give you your money back if the bank goes under up to like a certain amount.

[Molly Conger]

$250,000 FDIC insured.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. This is, this, that's, that's what that means. Right? The government will give you your money back. But also there's, there's a trade off to this, you know, so this is a massive benefit for the banks, right? The fact, the fact that if they go under, all of their assets will be repaid by the government. Government, it's a, it's a massive benefit for them because it means that putting your money in the bank is like safe.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I love that.

[Mia Wong]

For me, right? Yeah, it's good. Now the cost to the banks is that the feds get to see their balance sheet. Right? The Feds get to see what they're doing with their fucking money and they get to make sure that these banks aren't doing insane shit.

[Molly Conger]

Okay, that makes sense because they're insuring it.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And that like they're not doing like unbelievably risky, awful shit. And also that they're actually holding enough money to be able to pay people out.

[Molly Conger]

Right. Okay, so far so good. I wait, I understand Bank.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Now, shadow banking boldly asked the question, okay, but what if you did all of the banking backwards? No one had access to the books and the government will only pay you back if the entire world economy looks like it's going to die.

[Molly Conger]

I feel like at that point the government should just, just, just step back and just.

[Mia Wong]

Here's the thing, here's the thing, right? I, I, I, Yeah, like I'm, I'm so down with this. Like, yeah, I don't know. Fuck it. Like every single one of you motherfuckers is going to pay this off by working as a barista for 30 years. Like, fuck you. But the government was like, nah, we want, like, we want capitalism to keep

[Molly Conger]

working make every hedge fund manager work at a Waffle House.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Okay, I'm say something and then I'm going to make a disclaimer. So the kind of shadow banks that did 2008 work in the opposite direction. They start with debt, they take that debt and they turn that debt into, like, cash. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Can I do that?

[Mia Wong]

No.

[Molly Conger]

Does that work for me at my house?

[James Stout]

No.

[Mia Wong]

So, okay, And I also want to mention there's a bunch of other kinds of shadow banks. The kind of shadow bank that's going under right now is not really this. The kind of shadow bank that's like exploding right now is the kind of shadow bank that's like, what if, what if a bank that wasn't a bank gave a completely unregulated loan with secret terms to a corporation? And that's the one that's going under right now. But, but for a long, long time. The kind of shadow bank that was really important to the global economy and this is still like a massive portion of how all of the economic system works, is these ones where you're trying to take debt and turn it into something you can trade for cash. So, okay, you take debt, right? You start off with a mortgage.

[Ari Chambers]

Okay.

[Mia Wong]

So these mortgages pay out over the extremely long term. Right? But you want to be able to trade this mortgage for cash.

[Molly Conger]

Right?

[Mia Wong]

And this is a process called securitization. Turning this mortgage into something you can sell for cash is making it into what's called a security. So now what happens right, when it's packaged into a security, when there's a securitization process, and then like the regular bank, the regular bank sends the mortgage to the shadow bank, and the shadow bank, like, does, like, stuff and turns it into a security. And now what this means is that instead of you, who paid the mortgage owing money to the bank, you own it to the shadow bank or whoever the, the shadow bank sells it to. Right.

[Ari Chambers]

Okay.

[Molly Conger]

So the real bank is involved. The real bank is involved.

[Mia Wong]

Yes. Oh, yes. The real bank is making so much money off of this. Is, this is why 2008 happened?

[Molly Conger]

Oh, because Wells Fargo did this with everybody's mortgage?

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah.

[Carl Cassarda]

Oh, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Okay. Because I couldn't figure out, because you said, this is how 2008. And I was like, I thought Wells Fargo did that. That's a real bank. But the real bank was shadow banking.

[Mia Wong]

The real bank figured out a way to sell their mortgages. And it's going to get much worse as we go through this. But that's, that's what Causes this, right. Is like turning, is turning these mortgages into these like securities and like these like collateralized debt obligations and these like special packaged bullshit that you could sell to someone. So the way I would describe this is it's like. Do you know how a bond works?

[Molly Conger]

Honestly, Mia, I do not.

[Mia Wong]

Okay, let's do this. We can do this. Okay. So the kind of bond that you are normally likely to encounter is a government bond.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Okay. So you pay the government money to buy the bond. And what the bond says is at a certain point in time you hand it back to the government and they pay you more money.

[Molly Conger]

Right. It's like a promise for later.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Right. So it's basically a loan. But it's a loan in a form where like the government's technically like selling it. And then the other thing about bonds, right. Is if you hand the bond to someone else. Well, okay, I mean this is technically bear bonds, but like you can then give the bond to someone else. And now. And now if they give it back to the government, they get the money in like 10 years. They get the money. Right, right.

[Molly Conger]

Okay, I get that.

[Mia Wong]

And you can sell these things. And this is what these people are doing with mortgages.

[Molly Conger]

That's not as like secured as like a government bond. Because if I have a hundred dollar government, like if I have a hundred dollar bearers bond, I know for a fact that on the date on the bond it's going to be worth a hundred dollars.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

They're going to pay out. Right.

[Molly Conger]

But if it's.

[Robert Evans]

The mortgage might not work.

[Molly Conger]

The government's going to pay it. But like the mortgage guy, the person who has the mortgage, that's not.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

That's not real. That's not money. Nope.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

That's like, that's, that's a promise. But like my hand is behind my back.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's a shit show. And this whole process is the largest sort of. I'm not sure if that's actually the largest I would need to actually like get. I've never, I haven't seen in depth breakdown sectorally.

[Molly Conger]

But like none of this is real. You could just say whatever.

[Mia Wong]

This, this is one of the most important kind of shadow banks because in order to turn this mortgage into a security, the moment you do that, you do this by creating what's called a special purpose vehicle or someone else creates one. It's called a special purpose vehicle. Yeah, it's. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare.

[Molly Conger]

I'm put this mortgage on a roller coaster.

[Carl Cassarda]

Ye.

[Mia Wong]

I, it's fucking ridiculous, right? It's a special purpose vehicle. It does a loop de loop. But the moment you create one of these, the moment you create one of these, like security mortgages, right, That's a shadow bank. You've, you've created a shadow bank, right?

[Molly Conger]

Because that's not real banking, that's shadow banking.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. Because you're creating another entity that is not a bank that's doing the banking stuff.

[Molly Conger]

I thought that the banking and the shadow banking were like separate things, right? Because it's. Because the shadow banking is like.

[Mia Wong]

No, no, no.

[Molly Conger]

It's like, oh, they're doing non bank stuff.

[Mia Wong]

They're all in on it.

[Molly Conger]

If the bank is doing shadow, I would, I'm stupid, but I would call that a crime.

[Mia Wong]

This is, this is another thing that cost 2008. Because a bunch of what was happening.

[Molly Conger]

Why isn't that a crime?

[Mia Wong]

Because our country is run by the bourgeoisie, Molly. That's why. It's not a crime.

[Molly Conger]

You're just telling me this for the first time.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's bad. So, so what, what, what, what happened? What happened in 2008? One of the things that happened, right, is so all of these regulators are supposed to be looking at the balance

[Molly Conger]

sheets of these companies, but they're hiding stuff off the books.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

They were hiding these things in these like special purpose vehicles, like in these like shadow banks.

[Molly Conger]

They didn't open the trunks on the special purpose vehicles.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So no one could see the fucking dead bodies in the trunks of the vehicles because they weren't on the balance sheet that like the government had access to.

[Molly Conger]

What's the point of the balance sheet if you don't put the whole balance on it?

[Mia Wong]

I'm fucking, I don't know. And this is like legitimately, when, when, when, when you read the accounts of like, why shadow making has exploded, by the way. It's exploded since 2008. It's like way bigger.

[Molly Conger]

It exploded like in popularity or like exploded as popularity.

[Mia Wong]

There's so much, there's so much more of it. There's so much more of it. Because also.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, because it went so well, it went so well in 2008 that now.

[Mia Wong]

Because, because here's the thing, after 2008, we got like a little tiny bit of banking regulation and the banks lost their fucking minds. And so more and more money went into all of these unhinged shadow banking things.

[Molly Conger]

Okay, but so like when a toddler has a tantrum, you don't give them a billion dollars.

[Mia Wong]

When the shadow banks Went under. These things were not backed by the government. The government bailed them out anyways.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, they didn't have to do that.

[Mia Wong]

Nope.

[Molly Conger]

So they really. They learned their lesson. They really learned their lesson this time.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Like, they bailed out these banks and they fucking sold you out. And, like, you know, like, one of the things that I think people have forgotten was there's this thing called robocalls during the Obama administration. Right. Part of how the financial recovery happened was that all these banks would like, go to courthouses. Right? Right. And they would just repossess mortgages on mass.

[Ari Chambers]

Oh.

[Mia Wong]

And they had like a robot that was like, sign. It would just. It would just sign, like a blank check. Sign on. Off on all these mortgages that were supposedly underwater. And they would just steal people's houses. People who were on top of their payments. People who like to know money. They would just take their houses. And this happened on Mass. And this is like how the banks recovered was they stole everyone's houses.

[Molly Conger]

And that's a crime, right?

[Mia Wong]

Yes, it should have been a crime.

[Molly Conger]

Crime.

[Mia Wong]

Like it was illegal. It didn't matter, though, because everything you're

[Molly Conger]

describing to me is a crime.

[Mia Wong]

It's so nightmarish. Well, here's the thing. Most of the stuff I'm describing is not a crime. This was actually a crime.

[Molly Conger]

But why is nobody in jail?

[Mia Wong]

Because Barack Obama went up in front of these people and said, I am the only thing standing between you and the guillotines. I'm pretty sure that's a direct quote.

[Molly Conger]

And why didn't he bring the guillotine with him?

[Mia Wong]

Because he wants the capitalist system to continue.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, that's like. That's a silly question. I know who Barack Obama is.

[Mia Wong]

It's. That's.

[Molly Conger]

I'm just upset.

[Mia Wong]

It's not good. Okay, so. So let's get. Let's get you another question that you asked, which is why. Why would you do this? Why would you do this?

[Molly Conger]

Oh, to make money.

[Mia Wong]

Yes, but it's actually more complicated than that.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, okay.

[Mia Wong]

So on the one hand, these assets, you know, a mortgage does make more money than just putting your money in a bank.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

That's like the basis of banking is that they. They can use your money that's sitting in the bank and getting interest, and then they make more money by spending it elsewhere.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Elsewhere.

[Molly Conger]

But. So they're just doing this because they hate us, not just to make money.

[Mia Wong]

No, there is an actual explanation.

[Molly Conger]

There's a third reason.

[Mia Wong]

So then why. Why would you ever have your money In a bank or like, buy something like, say if. Like government bonds you can sell really quickly. Right. Why. Why would you ever want that? And the reason why is something called liquidity.

[Molly Conger]

Right? You want to be able to spend the money.

[Mia Wong]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

Rather than wait 30 years for it to get paid.

[James Stout]

That.

[Mia Wong]

Yes. Liquidity is just. How easy is it to turn whatever you own into cash? Right.

[Molly Conger]

Real money. Because most of what we're talking about is not money. It's the idea of money.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

So, so liquidity is, is. Is literally. It's the burger test, Right. Can you buy a burger with this?

[Molly Conger]

Can I eat this?

[Mia Wong]

Money is like the most liquid asset, right? Because you can, you can. You can turn this into a burger.

[Molly Conger]

Right. So liquidity is the only part of this that's actually money. Everything else is not money. Money.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, well, liquidity is the measure of how money is it basically. Like, how easy is it to turn this into burger?

[Robert Evans]

Is.

[Molly Conger]

Is this a special vehicle? Securitization? It's not real, Mia.

[Mia Wong]

No, it's fake as. Right. This is not that complicated. Right? If. If you, if. If it's like, like you can. You can buy a burger with $10. Yes. Right. That's liquid.

[Molly Conger]

Actually, you kind of can't these days.

[Mia Wong]

I know. I look, I look, I imagine a world where you can buy a burger for $10.

[Molly Conger]

Imagine. Imagine a burger.

[Mia Wong]

Yes, imagine a burger. That's purchasable. Now, what you can't buy a burger with is like, the 10 bucks that a guy you work with owes you for buying him a burger.

[Molly Conger]

Depends on how well you know the burger guy.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, but that's. That's where things get bad.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Right. Now, the thing is, right, so the 10 bucks the guy you work with, like, owes you, not liquid. You don't have the money in your hands. And if you want to get it from him, you have to, like, go ask him for the money. And Maybe he has 10 bucks and maybe he doesn't.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

At which point you can't get your $10 back until he has the money.

[Molly Conger]

But that. But that $10 that I am theoretically owed is an asset that I have, not a debt.

[Mia Wong]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

Okay.

[Mia Wong]

Yes, this is an asset.

[Robert Evans]

This is stupid.

[Mia Wong]

Now, loans. Loans are not liquid assets, Right? And they're not liquid assets because you can't get the money back, like, immediately.

[Molly Conger]

So I don't have $10 I can spend, but on paper, I do have 10 theoretical dollars.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

And this is also like most of what billionaire money is fake, right? It's like most of Their money is like in like a stock or some shit or like it's weird fake money.

[Molly Conger]

Like theoretically they could access this amount of money, but they don't have it. Yeah, it's not real.

[Mia Wong]

Now okay, there is this question, so why. Why would you keep your money in fake money instead of real money? And the answer is that it gives you more money back because say, say you're an asshole. Right. And you're charging interest on your co worker for that burger loan.

[Molly Conger]

Right. So that $10 is actually worth more than $10 more money.

[Mia Wong]

Yes.

[Molly Conger]

So the $10 that I don't have is theoretically worth $12.

[Mia Wong]

Worth more. Yeah, it's worth more than the money that you do have.

[Molly Conger]

I can get cheese on the burger.

[Robert Evans]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Right. And this is, this is like the fundamental thing of the banking system. Like one of them is that illiquid assets or like assets that you that aren't money are worth more than money.

[Molly Conger]

I guess like when I put a small amount of my savings into a cd, that's what I'm doing. Except normal style, they're doing it weird. Yeah, basically because that's like an illiquid asset that I'm, I'm, I'm trading the ability to access that liquidity for the potential of more money later.

[Mia Wong]

Wait, sorry, when you say C, do you mean like a, like a physical, like a disc? Like a cd?

[Molly Conger]

No, a cd. Like at the bank. The bank.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, like the. Yeah, yeah, like the investment product. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I was like.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, no, I'm not talking about buying compact discs.

[Mia Wong]

I, I went to sleep at 5am this morning.

[Molly Conger]

Investing. MIA. Ever heard of it?

[Mia Wong]

Wow, there's act. There's actually a really an annoying thing researching this episode because there's like. So CDOs are like a type of loan that we'll kind of get to in a bit. But there's also a tech position called cdo. It's like cheap. Chief something.

[Molly Conger]

Officer Dookie. Officer. Who cares?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, whatever the fuck, right? But like when you're trying to search for stuff that's like about CDOs, right. The other one keeps coming up. I hate it. Okay, okay, locking in, locking in.

[Molly Conger]

Right, Lock and load.

[Mia Wong]

Now what if you both wanted more money and also the ability to buy a burger?

[Molly Conger]

I guess I would probably break one of Carl's fingers. This is the guy who owes me the $10. Carl.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, but even then it's hard to even. That's like, like this is too hard for these people.

[Molly Conger]

I would go to Carl's house and kick him out of it.

[Mia Wong]

Well, yeah, so, but the other thing is like you are not very rich, okay? These people, if you are really, really rich, I am talking like billionaires, maybe like high, high class, multi millionaires. Well, you can go to a shadow bank. Oh, right.

[Molly Conger]

You can get a loan based on the loan.

[Mia Wong]

No, well, here's like. So the, the thing is that you have money, right?

[Kerry Brownstein]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

But you want to turn your money into more money. Like you have like actual cash, right? Like you are, you are, for example, a pension fund.

[Molly Conger]

No, I'm not.

[Mia Wong]

You have a shit ton of cash. Or imagine, imagine a pension fund, right? This is. Okay, this is also really hard because it used to be easier to explain this because like we used to live in a world where people had pension funds and had mortgages and now we no longer have pension funds or mortgages.

[Molly Conger]

I live in an apartment and I will always live in an apartment.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. No, so, okay, so like imagine, imagine a pension fund, right? You have a shit ton of money from your members paying into the fund, but it's cash. You need to turn that cash into more money. But also you're a pension fund, so you constantly have to take money back out in order to pay the people who are retiring.

[Molly Conger]

To pay old people. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And this is also a thing that like, you know, if you're just like a rich person, sometimes you want your, A lot of times you want your money in assets that are like, you can, you can turn back into real money but also make you a shit ton of money.

[Ari Chambers]

Money.

[Molly Conger]

Right. They need to sort of revolve a little bit. They need to be like. Yeah, I don't know, like a jello. Like partially liquid.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And, and this is, this is what the shadow banks do, right? Because the thing that you can buy is one of those mortgages. They've turned into like a security. Right. You can go buy someone else's debt, but because it's a magic security now. And these are called mortgage backed securities. And again, if you're old enough to remember. Yeah. Anything of anything about 2008, that's what blew up the whole economy is, is these mortgage backed securities.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, I've heard of that. Because it was bad.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. Terrible idea.

[Molly Conger]

And so we're still doing that.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Okay, good.

[Mia Wong]

I mean, it's, it's less. Specifically the mortgage back ones are less bad. Also they started doing it with like commercial retail loans, which is incredible.

[Ari Chambers]

Great.

[Mia Wong]

So that's really fun. They're also doing with other unhinged. That we're gonna do, like, next episode. And what these people are really buying aren't just these, like, you're not buying, like, one person's mortgage. Right, right.

[Molly Conger]

They're, like, pooled and, like, bundled.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. They're like. They bundle them all together, and then you. You buy the rights to a percentage of. Of the pool.

[Molly Conger]

It's not like when you sponsor, like, an elephant in Africa or something and they send you a picture of, like, a specific element.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

They don't send you. They don't send you a picture of the family you're harming.

[Mia Wong]

No.

[Molly Conger]

These are the Joneses. You own their house.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's. It's a. It's a show. Um, no. Well, I mean, eventually you might have to go figure out who that is because you, like, own whatever the fuck percentage of, like, the mortgages or whatever. But, like. Okay, so these are. These are just, like, someone else's debt that you're buying. And, And. And the people who can do this are, you know, people who have billions of dollars. It's not you, the listener. And by the way, if you, the listener, have billions of dollars lying around for some reason.

[Molly Conger]

Can I have some, please?

[Mia Wong]

Yes, please, please give me some of them so I can. House knows, like, literally every trans woman and, like, trans person. I can. I can do it. Like, please give me your billions of dollars so I can. I can achieve this goal. But, like, we're talking about, you know, like. Like the pension fund of California. We're talking about mega corporations, insurance companies, the kinds of things that can actually buy these. Like, you know, now this is where we get to one of the other problems, which is that these things are not insured. So.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

What do you do in order to try to make it less risky? What do you get if you can't pay the loan back? And this is what's called collateral.

[Molly Conger]

I don't know. Swift punch in the nuts. Oh, no.

[Mia Wong]

They take your house, right? Yeah, that's supposed to be the thing. So. Okay, the way that, like, shadow banking loans tend to work is that they. They have collateral, Right. So you. You give them something or. Or it's either you give them something directly or you promise to give. It's like if you promise to give them the thing. Yeah. And giving it to them directly is like a repo market thing. We're not really going to get into those right now. But this does this. That's like. That's also a kind of shadow bank. But there's a problem Right. Which is what if the thing that you're paying, you're paying as collateral? Like, what if your house becomes worthless? And what if. What if, Molly.

[Molly Conger]

And it's completely uninsured and there's no way to fix it because I don't

[Mia Wong]

even have anything to give now, Molly, what if, and this is purely hypothetical, it could never happen in the real world, Molly. But what if somehow someone. Someone decided to use the same house as collateral for multiple different securities?

[Molly Conger]

Well, that could never go wrong.

[Mia Wong]

What if, Molly, they made a word for this. That is so complicated. I am not going to attempt to read it on the show. What if, Molly?

[Molly Conger]

What is it in German or something?

[Mia Wong]

No, it's like this. Just like this.

[Molly Conger]

It's like the.

[Mia Wong]

It's like the length of my head. It's like hyper. Hyper something bullshit. Like, I refuse to say it because it is just like a completely, like, finance goal bullshit term they made up.

[Molly Conger]

So. But the point of. The point of collateral is that you can use it to pay off the loan if you default on the loan. And so that literally won't work more than once because once I eat the burger. Once I eat the burger, it's gone. Yep.

[Mia Wong]

And this is one of the things that happened in 2008.

[Molly Conger]

I can't prom. I can't promise 10 guys my burger.

[Mia Wong]

Now, Molly, here's the amazing thing here, right? Because the. But the advantage for these companies, right, Is like, if you're the bank that has the mortgage, suddenly you can spin your mortgage off into like, multiple securities that you can sell.

[Molly Conger]

Right. It's worth 10 times more. And that's great for you.

[Ari Chambers]

Yes.

[Mia Wong]

And comma.

[Robert Evans]

We.

[Mia Wong]

We haven't even. Again, I just. I just described a system where these people are promising the same house to most of all people. This isn't even the extremely unfathomably reckless and greedy shit.

[Molly Conger]

No, it is.

[James Stout]

Is.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, it is. But it's not the worst of it.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, good.

[Mia Wong]

Okay. So do you remember that quote from when I was giving the first definition of shadow banking?

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

Like I gave. I gave. I gave this quote from the guy who invented the term where he called it quote. The whole Alphabet soup of leveraged up investment conduits, vehicles and structures.

[Molly Conger]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

So we've kind of talked about the conduits, vehicles and structures, Right. Those are all of the shadow banks that, like, make the things.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Right.

[Molly Conger]

I love the conduits, vehicles and structures. Yeah. All the acronyms.

[Mia Wong]

But what does leveraged up mean? Oh, now, okay, in. In this case, it means that a bunch of these banks have taken out a shit ton of like risky high interest loans in order to buy more of these fucking mortgages because they think they can make more money off of it.

[Molly Conger]

So they took out, they took out loans to buy these unsecured securities.

[Mia Wong]

The regular ass banks were doing this. Yeah, they, they went into debt to buy more of these shitty mortgages, so

[Molly Conger]

they took out loans to buy what are essentially unsecured loans.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. Because I thought it would make them

[Molly Conger]

more money, but there's no money involved.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, oh, oh, Molly. Oh, Molly.

[Molly Conger]

It's hypothetical money.

[Mia Wong]

It is about to get, get so much worse.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

So, okay, so sticking with leveraging for a second, right, you might have actually heard of something called a leveraged buyout.

[Molly Conger]

I have heard those words. And then I stopped listening.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So here's the thing. Leveraged buyouts are something that actually happens in the real world that does fuck you directly, which is a whole bunch of companies that used to be like normalized companies, like died because venture capital firms, who by the way, are also shadow banks.

[Ari Chambers]

Oh.

[Mia Wong]

Did this. Right. They came in, technically speaking, they did it through like risky bond purchases, but basically they, they did a bunch interest loans and then they go buy a

[Molly Conger]

company and then they like strip it

[Mia Wong]

for parts and then they try to raise the stock price of the company. Yeah. And then they strip for parts, sell everything and, and get out. Right. That's what a leveraged buyout is. These people are sort of are doing kind of a version of that, but like they're, they're taking on this debt in order to like buy fucking shitty underwater mortgages because they look like they're making so much money, they're taking on

[Molly Conger]

real debt to buy hypothetical debt. Debt.

[Mia Wong]

Huh. Oh, it's about to get so much worse.

[Molly Conger]

That doesn't seem like a good idea.

[Mia Wong]

It's about to get so much worse. So that's what, like the leveraged part of that.

[Molly Conger]

I don't even know how you do that in burgers.

[Mia Wong]

I, I don't know. You're, you're, you're going into debt to like buy the promise of burgers in the future so you could sell those future burgers.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, but burgers are real. The thing. We're not talking about a real thing at all.

[Mia Wong]

Well, technically, technically speaking, somewhere at the bottom of this is mortgages. However, comma, we're about to get into a kind of asset where there isn't anything behind it. And this is where the really, really, truly unhinged shit starts. It hasn't yet which is that these companies figured out a way to bet on whether these mortgages were going to fail or not.

[Molly Conger]

That's so tight, Mia. I fucking love that. I love it. Yes.

[James Stout]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

This, by the way, I can't emphasize enough how unhinged this is. The mechanism they're using to do this is called a credit default swap.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, I've heard that phrase.

[Mia Wong]

This was supposed to be how they did insurance. Their mechanism for doing insurance on all of these insane loans they were doing was originally like, okay, I'm going to. You're. I don't know. So you have a bank, right? The bank has given out a risky loan. So this bank goes to another bank.

[Molly Conger]

They shouldn't do that.

[Mia Wong]

And they say, say, hey, if this person actually pays a loan back, I will pay you money.

[Molly Conger]

Okay. So the other. So the other bank is like taking a gamble here.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. So the other bank that's giving out the loan. Right. Gets money if the loan goes under. So in theory, they're sort of like insured against the risk. They call it like, hedging. They're like, so, like. So theoretically it's less bad for them because now even if the loan goes under, they still get money back from that other bank.

[Molly Conger]

So the other bank is just a book.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And the other bank is betting that they are going to get it. So then. And if the loan does get paid, then that bank makes money.

[Molly Conger]

And this is legal for everyone to do?

[Ari Chambers]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

This is real banking or shadow bank? This is real bank.

[Mia Wong]

No, this is technically.

[James Stout]

Actually.

[Mia Wong]

No, this. This is actually both. Both of you do this. Technically speaking, the instrument, like. Like the actual, like credit default swap or whatever is made by the shadow banks, but then they're brought by the regular banks.

[Molly Conger]

I'm starting to think that the banks are the shadow banks and that all of this is just fake and bad.

[Mia Wong]

Like, so here's the thing. Here's the thing about these systems, right. Is that like a lot of the original literature on it was considering them separate. But it's like, no. Like, the regular banks are making their own shadow banks do these things. They're all involved in these assets. They're also investing in the shadow banks, which is the problem we're having right now.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Molly Conger]

It's like it's the same guy. He just like turns his chair around at his desk and he's like, now I'm shadow bank Todd.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. Well, and sometimes it's that some. Sometimes there legitimately just other entities they work with.

[Molly Conger]

But yeah, but there's still it's still the bank engaging. So it's like, oh, these are non banking practices. Yeah, but the bank is doing it.

[Mia Wong]

Well, but here's the thing, the important part for that though is that like the non bank also can do this with other non banks.

[Molly Conger]

Even better even.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, right.

[Molly Conger]

I just feel like, I just feel like once we're, once we're talking about shadow banking, like the real bank should not be in the room like go home, Wells Fargo, you don't belong here. You're drunk.

[Mia Wong]

No, but like they're funding all of this, right?

[Molly Conger]

Like if the real bank is involved with the shadow banking, that means like I can't opt out of being involved in this because they have my money.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, you know we were talking about that at the top that like so some of these like fang banks had to like stop their withdrawals. Oh yeah. One of those, by the way, was J.P. morgan.

[Molly Conger]

But that's a real bank.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. They're involved in the shadow banking shit. So they are exposed to when they're like fucking $700 million loan to like a fucking. Actually which one was the $700 million? I think a 700 million dollar loan that went under was the one that was to a subprime auto loan company.

[Molly Conger]

That's a bad investment.

[Mia Wong]

It's like, oh yeah, it's so evil. It's so evil.

[Molly Conger]

Why am I trusting all of my money that I have in this world? I'm letting this guy hold on to it, who's obviously not good with fucking money.

[Mia Wong]

Well, because the FDIC is insuring it. Right, but it's. Why are you in charge of it?

[Molly Conger]

Why are you in charge of having the money? You obviously don't make great financial decisions because you invested $700 million in subprime auto loans.

[Mia Wong]

So Molly, this is the, this is the point where I, we need to bring debt the first 5,000 years back into this and emphasize the extent to which the financial class has always been deeply connected to the, to the military and why it's always been deeply connected to war financing.

[Molly Conger]

I'm starting to realize that this is all very bad.

[Mia Wong]

It's very bad. It's all very bad. And this is, this is to some extent why. Right, like part, part of what right wing conspiracies about the financial system is, is that like these people are like, like the right wingers. Like these people are. There's, there's like a baseline level of anti Semitism like in the U.S. right. Because it is a, is a Christian society that is just like what fucking Happens there. And these people are like, okay, we can channel all of the anger at like, oh my God, my fucking house got stolen by the bank. Because. Because they were betting on the mortgage to fail.

[Molly Conger]

And I still understand why that's legal.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, well, all these right wing conspiracies do is they look at that shit and they go, oh, well, it was the Jews. And it's like, no, like, fuck off. Like, these are all.

[Molly Conger]

No, it was the bank.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Kerry Brownstein]

And the other thing, and this is

[Mia Wong]

actually a really important thing that's not well understood here, is that like the actual people who run these fucking banks, the people who work at them are all fucking white Christian dipshits. This is like a real, a really, like, persistent issue that everyone fucking has, which is that like one of. One of the great successes of anti Semitism was like creating the image of the banker as a Jewish person. And no, they're not the bank. Like, I fucking went to school with these people. They're all a bunch of fucking white frat bros. They're fucking white Christian frat bros. Oh, right, you, University of Chicago.

[Molly Conger]

You have a degree in economics from

[Kerry Brownstein]

the University of Chicago.

[Mia Wong]

Not for economics. I have an anthropology degree, thank you very much. I took. I took a. Not a fucking fake degree. Like the stupid econ bullshit I say,

[Molly Conger]

that's actually so evil to study economics in Chicago. You probably met some of the most evil people on.

[Mia Wong]

I was just like in a dorm with them. Okay, so.

[Molly Conger]

But you saw that I know all these people.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And like, it is not. It is not a bunch of Jewish people. It's a. It's a bunch of Christian frat bros. Like, that's like the thing that's actually going on. There's actually a whole one day I will write the behind the Bastards episode about leverage buyouts and about how, how like there was like a Jewish guy who kind of like, like did a lot of the inventing stuff. But him breaking into the banking thing was like a whole thing because there was so much anti Semitism because all of the banking sector was run by all of the like, weird dip, like, CIA, like, like wasp.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, the Mormons have a huge hedge fund.

[Mia Wong]

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, so like the. What is it? I read an article about it. The hedge fund that the Mormons operate, like, they have their like, best and brightest finance bros. Like, you know, Mormons do their two year mission. If you're really good at finance your mission, that you don't have to go to South America and like tell people about The Book of Mormon. You can work at the hedge fund as your mission.

[Mia Wong]

It's, it's a nightmare.

[Molly Conger]

I'm doing hedge funds for God.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. That's a stats of shadow bank, by the way.

[Molly Conger]

Yep.

[Mia Wong]

It's great. So, okay, okay, coming back to this again, right, so we're talking about like, what, what causes 2008 and how do these shadow banks, like do this, this? And the answer is that they've turned all of these mortgages into these like fake securities. They can, they can trade, right? They package them all together and they find out something really crucial, which is that if they throw a bunch of loans that they obviously know are going to fail together and send them to a regulatory agency. And by the way, all of these like bonds that they're issuing have like grades based on supposedly like how safe they are. And they figure out.

[Molly Conger]

I know about that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

And they figure out that they can send a bunch of really shitty bonds, but if they package enough shitty bonds together, they could send them to the regulators and the regulators would have, would evaluate some of them as being good and then you could sell the good ones to your pension fund because they thought it was a good bond and it made money.

[Molly Conger]

That's just lying.

[Mia Wong]

And then, and then. Yes and yes. And then, and then behind the scenes, right? All of these fucking companies, all these shadow banks, all the regular banks, they're all doing these, they're all doing these credit default swaps, right? So they're all betting on which ones of these are going to fail.

[Molly Conger]

I'm putting all of these boys in timeout. Like I'm going to put them in the bottom of a pit.

[Mia Wong]

So evil. And they, they start, they start doing these, making these like even more complicated instruments, right? Where now what they're, what they're selling to you isn't just the package of mortgages. They're also selling you the credit default swaps with the loan. So theoretically what's happening is like they've created an instrument that regardless of what happens to the loan, you make money.

[Molly Conger]

That's not how anything works.

[Mia Wong]

No, it's bullshit. It's so obviously bullshit.

[Molly Conger]

I made up this fake thing where no matter what happens, I get rich. That's cool. I would love to do that.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And nobody was like, wait, well, I mean, a couple some people were, but like, like people didn't just be like, wait, hold on. No, obviously you can't make an asset that makes money regardless of whether the thing fails or not.

[Molly Conger]

I invented a money machine.

[Mia Wong]

Like, that's fucking Ridiculous. And then eventually, yeah, it was like, no, they ran out of fucking mortgages. You know, one of the ways that the blame for this was deflected onto regular people was that they blamed the banks or like, they blamed regular people for, like, not being able to pay the mortgages. But the thing is, by the time you get to the point where you're, like, packaging all the. You're betting on the mortgages, right? If you're a bank, even if you're the regular bank, you don't make money off of, like, someone paying their mortgage back. You make money on betting on the mortgages. So you're incentivized to just keep giving out loans. You know, won't happen because you can sell those loans off of some other dipshit and then you. And then you can bet on those loans that they're going to fail and you can make money. And that's how you make your money, because you're.

[Molly Conger]

You're not a bank anymore. You're a bookie who's cheating.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

I don't think that's good, Mia.

[Mia Wong]

No. This was the entire fucking financial system. And we just let these people stay in power.

[Molly Conger]

And I'm just supposed to just continue living my life like this?

[Mia Wong]

I don't know. Like, I. Looking at this and then learning that all of these people got fucking bailed out by the government and none of them went to prison and they know

[Molly Conger]

they're cheating liars who are faking and making it up, or are they, like, so high on their own supply, they're like. They're like, no, bro. No, bro, this is totally gonna work. It's totally gonna work.

[Mia Wong]

Well, here's the thing. Some of them know and some of them don't, because some of them believe

[Molly Conger]

that this is cool.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Like, some of them legitimately thought that this was just going to work forever.

[Molly Conger]

Like, do they believe they're negative money backed by other fake money backed by the idea of promises of fake money? They think that's money.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. I thought it was going to work.

[Molly Conger]

It's not.

[Mia Wong]

It's not. Nope. And it turned out to not be any fucking money. And it blew up again. Like, entire countries, countries were buying these. They went bankrupt.

[Molly Conger]

So, like, this is less real than a bored ape. Nft. And that's really saying something.

[Carl Cassarda]

It's.

[Mia Wong]

It's astonishing because at least the.

[Molly Conger]

At least I can look. At least I can look at the picture of the monkey. I can't look at this.

[Carl Cassarda]

No.

[Mia Wong]

Like, it. Like, you can't look at the bet you're making on whether, on whether monkey go down. Like it'll, it's like, like all.

[Molly Conger]

All my apes gone.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

But it's depression because the entire world is just this now. It's the shit the banks were doing where you're betting on whether the mortgage going to fail but now it's, you're betting on whether like what day we're going to drop a bomb on a run.

[Molly Conger]

Like nothing is real and everything is gambling.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. And this is, you know what, what I would call a sort of terminal crisis stage of capitalism where like, because

[Molly Conger]

everything is so divorced from any material reality, from any good or certain nervous

[Mia Wong]

like there is a limit to which you can run an entire economy that is purely based on gambling. Like they're just. There's a limit and we're going to hit it really soon.

[Molly Conger]

That's got, that's gonna break, right?

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah, it's going to break. It's gonna break spectacularly. However, comma, I do have good news for you.

[Molly Conger]

No, you don't.

[Mia Wong]

I do. I have good news. You now actually understand what non bank financial intermediation is.

[Molly Conger]

No, I don't.

[Mia Wong]

I'm going to walk you through it. You actually do. So I'm going to quote the IMF's definition of non bank financial intermediation. All entities outside the regulated banking system that perform the core banking functions. Credit intermediation, that is taking money from savers and lending it to borrowers. The four key aspects of intermediation are maturity transformation. We know this one, right. This is, this is what the bank does.

[Molly Conger]

The loan gets older.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And it gets paid back over time.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Well it's you, you, you turn your short term thing into a long term investment or you do the opposite.

[Molly Conger]

Opposite's not good.

[Mia Wong]

They're both kind of a disaster. But like. Yeah, yeah, the opposite is kind of how we got into this mess. There's liquidity transformation, which we know this too.

[Ari Chambers]

It's.

[Molly Conger]

It's turned turning money into a thing that's not money.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. Or turning not money into thing you can buy burgers with.

[Ari Chambers]

Okay.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

We got this leverage. We also know this, which is you go into a bunch of debt to buy something else. And then there's credit risk transfer, which we know that one too. It's the betting market where you're supposedly swapping the risk by. But both of you two are now betting on whether this thing is going to fail.

[Molly Conger]

So it sounds like even, just like regular banking is kind of just gambling now.

[Mia Wong]

Now Yep, yep, yep. Well, and it's fun too. So this is the thing that used to be talked about more and isn't now, but like, most of like, like the world's corporations are also basically this now. Like, and this has been a thing for a while, but it's like the auto manufacturers don't make their money off of cars. I mean, they sort of do. They make some money off cars. Like, most of what they make their money off of is like the Ford Finance Company, which is like the auto loans thing. And then the, the auto loans thing trades a bunch of, of like, does all of this other financial bullshit to make money.

[Molly Conger]

So like, I don't think that's a good idea.

[Mia Wong]

That's, that's what capitalism is.

[Molly Conger]

So everything, everything is fully reliant on

[Mia Wong]

this, like stupid gambling bullshit.

[Molly Conger]

Emperors wearing no clothes, economy.

[Mia Wong]

Yep.

[Molly Conger]

And if anybody, if anybody points out that none of this is connected to a material reality, everything falls apart.

[Mia Wong]

Well, here's the thing. The thing that stops everything from falling apart is that the one thing you can do with your money is turn it into guts gun.

[Molly Conger]

Now I'm listening.

[Mia Wong]

And that's what stops it falling apart, right?

[Molly Conger]

Because now I'm listening.

[Mia Wong]

And this is also a sort of graverism. But it's like behind every like, bank is a man with a gun. Because the reason that this money is even sort of real is that the bank can like, you, like the police will come get you, right? Like men with guns will appear and coerce you to pay shit. Right.

[Molly Conger]

But what if, what if instead of burger, we bought gun?

[Mia Wong]

You know, like, this is what is broadly referred to as the social revolution. It is broadly considered a negative by the financial sector. It is broadly considered a positive by everyone the fuck else. That's not true. It's not considered a positive by like, I guess the people who own regular businesses. And this is like the shit that like, you know, it was kind of less unhinged back then. But like, if you go read the people who were like, doing this shit in like the early 1900s, if you read their writing, it's all them being like, oh, yeah, no, by the way, like a bunch of banks just like turned the entire Ottoman Empire into like a debt peon. And now their entire economy is just dedicated to paying off these fucking loans. And this is like hideously fucking evil. Like they're, they're all complaining about the same shit.

[Molly Conger]

And the important lesson we learned from that, the important lesson we learned from that was to do it more. More.

[Mia Wong]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, to invent increasing, seemingly more complicated ways of doing that.

[Mia Wong]

Yep. And like this, this is, this is why the term Third world is a slur. Because instead of being a political movement, because those, the countries in the political movement that was called the Third World movement, all of their economies got annihilated because they had these like, loans whose interest rate could change. And the US jacked up all the interest rates. And so suddenly their loans were like, like the amount you had to like pay on the loans, it went from like, like 20% or something to like 50 or 100 or some shit. And you know, and like, and these countries have never recovered. Like Nigeria has never really economically recovered from the shit that happened to them. This, this is why a whole bunch of Latin America is like this too. Like, like why there's so much sort of like riding systemic poverty is that their economies were entirely transformed into machines to like pay back these fucking debts taken out by these dictators. This is the whole fucking economy now. And, and you know, there's other shadow banks that do other kind of completely unhinged shit, right? And I've been focusing this week on like specifically the kind that blew up the economy in 2008. But there's another kind that's like blowing up the economy right now, which is called private credit, which is. I mentioned this briefly earlier, but private credit is when these like unregulated companies that are not banks give out unregulated loans with unknown terms to other companies and then those loans go to shit. And there's a whole bunch of ways that can blow up. Including, by the way, these companies are funding a bunch of the AI bubble.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, and that's, that's a great investment. It's great, you know, because much, much like a mortgage, there's a real physical thing, like a house involved, right? It's not just vibes.

[Mia Wong]

Oh yeah. Oh, Molly. Molly. They. Those motherfuckers. I'm gonna talk about this a bit. I might have Ed Detron on for this part of it too. Just because like Ed does this all the time. But like those out there selling securities that are backed by fucking graphics cards. Like at least the more. I can't believe I'm fucking saying this, but, but like at least the mortgage backed securities, like there was a house you could steal to get your money back. Graphics cards.

[Molly Conger]

All my. All my apes are gone.

[Mia Wong]

My graphics gone.

[Molly Conger]

All my apes are gone.

[Mia Wong]

Like there's other ones that like, it's, it's so bad, it's just. Oh, but that, that's for another time because it is late as fuck and we are out of here. Molly, thank you. Thank you for sitting and enduring an hour of of you knowing what a shadow bank is now.

[Molly Conger]

I almost know what a bank is. I'm still working on the rest of it, but I think I'm getting closer.

[Mia Wong]

I, I believe in you. I, I, I, I think we've made real progress today. I, I don't know. Now, now, now you can kind of understand what's going on. When this sector explodes again in, like,

[Molly Conger]

two weeks, you'll have to explain it to me again then.

[Mia Wong]

I.

[Molly Conger]

What's up, fam?

[Ari Chambers]

I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'?

[Kerry Brownstein]

All?

[Ari Chambers]

It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from together. And I heart women's sports because, let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is just like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we? What are we eating?

[Molly Conger]

The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars,

[Ari Chambers]

the moments that take over your entire timeline and the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout outs to you, Naomi, you get the Palm. Naomi, you get the Palm for that. Because we're not taking. Just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. At concerts, we dance to the same tune. At games, we hug total strangers. And yet, in these moments, there's also something we don't do. We don't act based on how they look, who they love, where they're from, or what they believe. We just act. Because the things that make us different will never change what makes us human. Go to lovehasnolabels.com to learn more. Brought to you by Love has no

[Kerry Brownstein]

labels and the I Counsel.

[Molly Conger]

I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert.

[Mia Wong]

And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor.

[Molly Conger]

And this is our new podcast, Wellness actually.

[Mia Wong]

Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays. And some of it is awesome and some of it is, well, actually bull fortunately, we're both people who know how

[Molly Conger]

to read studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore.

[Mia Wong]

Each episode we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and

[Kerry Brownstein]

wellness topic like what's the deal with peptides? What's the deal with GLP1s?

[Molly Conger]

What's the deal with creatine?

[Mia Wong]

What's the deal with cupping?

[Molly Conger]

What's the deal with sleep?

[Mia Wong]

So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. Might actually be just what the doctor or the economist ordered. Listen to wellness actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Molly Conger]

In 2015, teenager Joy Morgan discovered strangely

[Robert Evans]

compelling YouTube sermons from the religious group

[Molly Conger]

Israel United in Christ, or iuic. Her initial curiosity developed into devotion. She distanced herself from friends and family, embraced new identity, immersed herself in the IUIC and believed she'd found the truth. IUIC is the best family that I've ever had. In fact, she had found what many called a cult. And On Boxing Day 2018, joy disappeared forever.

[Ari Chambers]

In the new six part investigative podcast,

[Molly Conger]

the Missing Sister, Charlie Brinkhurst, Cuff and

[Kerry Brownstein]

Freeturn explored Joi's story, the family she

[Mia Wong]

left, and the religious group she found.

[Robert Evans]

You know when you get that feeling where you just I don't want to be here.

[Mia Wong]

I want to get out.

[Ari Chambers]

Okay?

[Robert Evans]

I want to go home.

[James Stout]

Now.

[Molly Conger]

It's a story about truth lies a young woman yearning to belong and a family still waiting for answers.

[Ari Chambers]

All episodes available now.

[Kerry Brownstein]

To binge listen to the Missing sister

[Ari Chambers]

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or

[Mia Wong]

wherever you get your podcast.

[Robert Evans]

In 2020, millions of Americans took to the streets to protest police violence. They were met with police violence on a massive scale. Shootings, vehicle attacks and assassinations occurred alongside these protests, often in defense of the police. And in total, at least 25Americans died. We now know that President Trump repeatedly urged General Mark Milley to deploy US Military forces to crack down violently on demonstrations. Milley claims that Trump told him to have his soldiers crack skulls, beat the fuck out of and just shoot protesters. In the end, we were all lucky. Military leaders, including General Milley, resisted calls to use their men to suppress domestic dissent. National Guard were called in to police several major cities, but in many cases their behavior was tame compared to the militarized police police who more reliably shot and beat protesters. For millions of Americans, 2020 was their first exposure to the violence the state will do to avoid change and Then Trump lost the election. He and his followers tried to carry out a coup, but failed for now. And millions of Americans who'd taken to the streets mostly went back to their lives. Some were satisfied justice had been done. Others were furious to have stopped short of instituting real change. But at the end of the day, business went on as usual. A version of normal prevailed. In 2021, the military of Myanmar, known as the Tatmadaw, overthrew the elected government in a coup. Hundreds of thousands of citizens, most of them young Gen Z and millennial men and women, took to the streets. Police responded with tear gas, water cannons, and eventually bullets. The international community expressed its horror at the brutality of the Tatmad. But that's all they did. Over the course of several months, the military pushed protesters mostly out of the cities. And a protest movement against the military coup turned into a civil war. Now those same protesters, mostly kids who wanted nothing more than a normal life, have become revolutionaries. With homemade guns, 3D printed rockets, and stolen rifles, they battle the Todmadaw. Some of them fight in the jungles, some of them fight in the city, and some of them fight on the Internet. This is their story. We're sitting in a large suburban home in Maisot, Thailand, a small city on the border of Myanmar. The boys singing and playing music around us range in age from 17 to 22. Their existence in Thailand is a crime. If they are caught here, they'll be forced to cross the border into Myanmar, whose government executed their friends and sold the organs for prisoners profit. But tonight they're playing music. We're drinking beer. Later, James Stout and I will play pool with them and get our asses just catastrophically wrecked.

[James Stout]

We met Andy, age 22 and head of the family, through his Instagram page. That's not his real name, but for obvious reasons, we can't identify him. We first met when I sent him a DM asking we could buy one of his photos for our first series on on Myanmar. He was a bit skeptical, but I tried my best to get him to see. We just wanted to give him money and promote his work. Over the next six months or so, we went from talking on the phone to messaging almost every day to Robert and I booking tickets to Thailand to sitting on the top floor of their house. It used to be his landlord's office, but now it's home to Andy and his partner, Sarah. That's also not her real name because she's a citizen of a Western nation working in Tower Thailand. The boys we talk about are his Brothers, his cousin and friends. They live at a small building across the garden and in the daytime they sit under a gazebo and play their guitars. The first night we met Andy and Sarah, we sat behind a bar in an unpaved alleyway. We drank beer out of sippy cups because selling beer is still banned under local Covid regulations. But apparently the cops don't check sippy cups. We drank far too much, in fact, and the next day I woke up with a head headache and a blurry photo of me, Robert and Andy engaged in a pose, which was half hug and half mutual support structure. We walked home and according to my phone, at some point we took photos of a puppy. And in a hopefully unrelated incident, at some point I started bleeding. It was immediately obvious that Andy needed the chance to blow off some steam. Over the last year and change, he has chronicled every stage of the coup and it's after. In early videos, we see joyous protests, moments of resistance and splendor in the streets of cities like Miyawadi. Later, we see violence, death and guerrilla warfare. Andy didn't have what you would call an easy childhood, thanks in part to Myanmar's long history of revolutions being crushed by the army. People there, like people everywhere, want to be free and determine their own futures. And so each generation has its own upright and each generation has its own massacre and very little progress to show for it.

[Ari Chambers]

I was born in 2000. So when I was seven, 2007, there was a revolution. It's called Saffron Revolution. It wasn't like this, it wasn't what happened now, but there were a lot of people that were involved in it. A lot of people got killed and a lot of people left Myanmar and came to the refugee camp camps in here. And we were one of the families that came to the refugee camps. Yeah, in my sot, Thailand. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Andy's mother is Buma, the dominant ethnic group in Myanmar due to their decades long control of the military and government. His father is Karin, the ethnic group once used by the British government as soldiers. Since 1949, the Karen have fought a war in the mountains against the Tatmadaw. Their name is often anglicized to be spent spelled just like the English name Karen, which given present Internet trends, makes explaining the conflict sometimes awkward. Andy primarily identifies as and was raised Bama. His family left after the Saffron revolution. They did not flee to escape political repression, but because the economy had collapsed. This put them in an awkward position in the camps which were filled mostly with Karen people who had Fled state violence.

[Ari Chambers]

We weren't refugees. Right. We were more like. Like, how do you say, like, economic refugees. You know, we go because. Not because our village has been burned down and our family has been killed. You know, so then if we were to go back to Yangon, we still could find a job. We still could find, you know, but then for these current people, like, this place is the only place that they could exist at that moment. Right. And probably still now, too. So, yeah, so they said that. But that education wasn't very good. Good there. There's the. The life wasn't good, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't. It was very bad. Honestly. It was very bad. It was a lot of violence, a lot of hate, a lot of understandable, you know, like, these people have gone through so much and so much trauma that. And nothing. No one is coming there to fix that. So they had a lot of anger. They had a lot of problems. But my. My mom said, yeah, we're going back because the education here is very bad. And if you go back to Myanmar, at least, you know, if you do, like, the thing that people do, maybe you'll get somewhere. Yeah. In the future here, there's no future. That's what she said. So we went back, and I stayed in Myanmar for, like, four years.

[Robert Evans]

Andy had never been very political. His family was more or less neutral, tending to side with the military more often than not. Out of a sense of inertia. Myanmar tended to cartwheel between attempts at democracy and military dictatorship. So when the world media celebrated their first democratic elections in 25 years, in 2015, Andy was not particularly excited.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah. So, I mean, we did realize that there was a change in the country. Right. Because we grew up in the military detectorship. But then when Kant Suji took over, there were some changes, like the phones got cheaper, the Internet got cheaper. And if you look back then, you can see big, big changes. But the thing is, it was never real democracy. And I think a lot of people in the Western countries thought that it was democracy when Aung San Suu Kyi took over.

[Robert Evans]

Aung San Suu Kyi came to prominence during a 1988 uprising against the military, which ended in bloodshed in the streets of Yangon. And she'd been a longtime democratic activist. As Andy noted, Westerners celebrated her election as the first democratic head of state for Myanmar. She even won a Nobel Prize. But the agreement her party had made with the military gave the general significant permanent control over the government.

[Ari Chambers]

But I think most of the people in the country knew it wasn't real democracy because you know, the military always had 25% seat, 25 seats in the parliament, right? Like they were always, they were in charge of electricity, Internet, all these, all these big things, weapons, army, like the military itself, they are in charge of all these things and they make it very clear.

[Robert Evans]

And even with a Nobel Prize, Aung San SUU Kyi did not fight to stop the Tat Madar from pursuing their decades long wars against the ethnic armed organizations in the hills. Nor did she act to stop their ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people. In fact, she and others in her party didn't even call them Rohingya. They called them Bengali and insisted they were illegally residing in Myanmar, despite mountains of evidence documenting a group by that name living in what is now the Rakhine State. I think most Americans and Westerners in general can empathize with the feeling of electing someone who promises change and then getting very little of what you'd expected.

[Ari Chambers]

I think Aung San SUU Kyi used to be this hope that, that was like the opposition against the military. But I think one, she got power, she couldn't do all the things that she promised to do. Or like, you know, we looked at her before, we looked at her as something, you know, something hope for everyone, for all the ethnic groups and for everyone in the country. But then once she became empowered, she mainly focused all these changes for the Bema people. Well, you know, the mainland people, like the military was still fucking killing people and killing ethnic groups. Did they do something, you know, like, so then for the ethnic groups, what's the difference?

[Robert Evans]

And so while Andy was hopeful that his country might take a better path, he was not exactly convinced that things were going to get better. Conflict within his family eventually pushed him to make the decision to leave.

[Ari Chambers]

My dad was very abusive. He would beat the shit out of my mouth every day like that. It was fine. Like it was fine. When I, when we were younger, we couldn't do anything, you know, we just kind of watched it, right? But the older we got, the more we involved, the more we tried to stop it. But then we would fight with him too, you know, and that. So at some point it became too much. And so I left my home, I think in 2016, just by myself. And I was like, I've been to medicine. I thought, I will go back here, you know.

[Robert Evans]

So. Andy lived across the border on his own for more than five years. He'd fallen in love, gotten a home of his own and set himself up in the sort of odd jobs you can do without papers or legal residency. And that's where things were for him when the top Madaw carried out their

[Ari Chambers]

Coup in early 2021, 2021, February 1st, I was in Mehsad, I was here and yeah, in the morning I will up called me my girlfriend and she said, the military just did a coup in your country, you should call your family.

[Robert Evans]

The military claimed voter fraud and used that as the pretext to stay in power. It's a situation that should be unsettlingly familiar to most of our audience. For a while. Safe in Mae Sot, Andy watched it in horror as he texted with friends and family across the border.

[Ari Chambers]

They arrested Aung San SUU Kyi and all the big leaders right at the top. So we were kind of like, okay, is someone going to tell us what to do? And especially for us us, we didn't have any experiences. We didn't know anything about any of this that I'm talking about right now. I didn't have any knowledge of that. But yeah, so after I think six day, the military cut off the Internet like for like two days. And I've lost all contact with everyone inside my family, my friends. And that's the night I started playing it. Like I started thinking, oh fuck, I should go back and like and, and I saw the protest photos from Yang. They looked amazing, right? And I'm like, I'm a photographer, I should be there and you know, document that.

[James Stout]

While Andy was staring at the protest photos from the capital of Myanmar, Naypyidor, as well as Miawadi and the largest city, Yangon, wondering he should take his camera and document yet another rising for democracy in his home country. A young woman named Amira was in the thick of those protests in Yangon when the coup started. Amira, aged 17, had just finished high school. She was looking forward to university and more pressingly looking forward to playing futsal with her friends. She liked to spend her days crafting, she says, making little things to gift or to keep. Like every other day when she woke up, she spent 10 minutes in medication before facing the world. On the 1st of February. Aung San Suu Kyi was her hero, she said in our interview. Her boyfriend translated for her. We'll get to their story later. But when the coup began, they lived a world apart. But they joined their whole generation in feeling enraged by the Tatmadaw, trying to rip the freedom their parents had fought for from them. Amira took her rage into the street. Someone gave her a bullhorn because of her voice.

[Ari Chambers]

And then she became the leader, you know, with the.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, the bullhorn.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

What kind of stuff would you say to the bull through the bullhorn?

[Ari Chambers]

Oh, she's saying this is Anfield and then this is what the, the, the arresting the Ausansuji is Anfield. Not fair.

[James Stout]

Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, gotcha. Gotcha.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Ari Chambers]

And then, and then she believed that. She believed in what? Like everything is possible and we haven't do anything, we haven't studied yet and then, but when we study and then we can finish it. So everything is possible. So that's what she believe in. So she went on the road and then she protest.

[James Stout]

Across the city from Amira on Coup D, Myouck's girlfriend woke him up with the news that the government they'd voted for had been arrested. We're calling him Myouck here because that's his name. In the revolution, everyone has one Amira's baby because she's so young and yet so fierce. Meowk, if you're wondering, means monkey. These revolutionaries who have risked life and limb for each other didn't know the legal names of the people they call their revolution family because it's safer that way. And we don't either. Meowk had spent the night. Well, I'll let you hear how he phrased it.

[Ari Chambers]

Actually, I was just like, I was chilling with my ex girlfriend, you know, I was chilling and we were, you know, Netflix and Che.

[Mia Wong]

Netflix and Che.

[Ari Chambers]

Like totally wise. 31st January, Nuffles and Che. I think it is a Sunday. I think, yeah, Sunday, Nuffle and Che, we sleep together.

[James Stout]

If you didn't catch that, they were Netflix and chilling.

[Ari Chambers]

You know, I was literally not wake up by any louder show. I was so sleep. But at 4am There's a phone rings and I suddenly wake up. This phone ring from my girlfriend. Her auntie called, call, call her and she says there's a coup de feet.

[James Stout]

Oh.

[Ari Chambers]

And she wake up, she told me there's a coup. Duffy. Ah, I didn't, you know, I don't believe it. I didn't believe it. So other time I checked the social media. Oh, oh, me, I'll actually do this. I'm so angry and I'm so angry. You know, I was going down downstairs and I told to my family, everyone's angry at those times the Internet cut off.

[James Stout]

The next revolutionary we're going to meet is a Fellow we'll call Dr. Wonder because that's his revolution name. When the coup started, he was just waking up after a 24 hour shift at the hospital in Yangon where he worked, doctors were some of the earliest and most visible dissidents in the protest. Their rarity and therefore their relative value to the regime made them a potent symbol of the pro democracy movement. But as Dr. Wonder made clear, many older medical professionals were not at all certain that resistance was the right move. Here at the morning I saw the news that bad news, really, really bad news for us.

[Mia Wong]

It was,

[James Stout]

how could I say that they broke, you know, they broke. Our future doctors were some of the earliest, most visible dissidents in the pro democracy process. Protests, their rarity and relative value to the regime made them a potent symbol of the pro democracy movement. But as Dr. Wonder made clear, many older medical professionals were not at all certain that resistance was a right move. On that morning, we go back to our, our society, our hospital. We are, you know, all professors, all concerned. They not much interest about that because

[Mia Wong]

they told us, you know, whoever rules

[Ari Chambers]

our country is not our business.

[Kerry Brownstein]

It is one of our senior doctors

[Ari Chambers]

from our society for our department pull us like that.

[Robert Evans]

But we reply him, we no, this

[James Stout]

should be last time. If you didn't catch that. He said it should be the last time. The last time kids had to die in the streets. They didn't want another generation to have to go through the same thing. So they got together a proposal, a sort of manifesto for peaceful nonviolent resistance. And they submitted it to their seniors.

[Ari Chambers]

We negotiated with our, you know, young

[James Stout]

residents our society study. And we discussed about that. And we plan to start with one of our prior movement before civil disobedient.

[Ari Chambers]

We have got a red rebound movement

[James Stout]

because we want to write peacefully on the media. Okay, we started like that. And then some of our seniors from our society study AOL from Mandalay Hospital. Okay, they accept our proposal. Yes, because our generation has already passed that difficulties before.

[Ari Chambers]

But not your generation should not accept that.

[James Stout]

Three days before the coup, TK got off a plane in San Francisco. He's from Myanmar, but he lives in the Bay Area.

[Robert Evans]

Now.

[James Stout]

Before you ask, he says that the Burmese restaurant there is not as good as the stuff back home.

[Ari Chambers]

It's only three days.

[James Stout]

Three days before.

[Ari Chambers]

Three days before I went back to the United States. And I wish I stay in a Yangon and doing the revolution and participate in every way that I can. But I couldn't do frontal the long distance, you know, so. So that's all I can do for now.

[James Stout]

TK had just been in Myanmar. He had connections to many people on the ground there. His friends were there, his family were there. When the government cut off Internet access, he remained able to get good international reporting on the situation in his home country. Slowly, he found ways to communicate with his friends and a growing core of the protesters taking to the streets.

[Ari Chambers]

I was a kibo fighter. I have no idea about the politics.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I have no idea about the military stuff.

[James Stout]

This is the single most common sentiment we've heard across all the revolutionaries we've met. None of them considered themselves to be very political. Prior to the coup, they started marching in the street because a military coup was obviously bad. But they stayed there because the violence dished out by the state was so horrific. Safe at their house in Mesa, we talked to the boys and his brothers and cousins, all of whom were living in Naypyidaw when the coup kicked off. It didn't take him long to try and join them.

[Ari Chambers]

Then I went in. I went to Miaori, which is across the border in Myanmar side. And I was there for a week. And it was something else. Like, I've never been to protest. I've never been involved in any of this thing, and I never thought I would be. I don't know. I always thought, like, I wasn't going to be a part of it. But when I went there, the first day I arrived, there were 200,000 people on the street protesting. And then it's like. And this big group of people walk in streets after street, and everyone coming out of their house, and we have this symbol, like, three fingers from hanger gang, I think. Yeah, yeah. So that's like our symbol for democracy now, our movement now. And everyone come out of their house doing that and, you know, like, giving us water, food, everything.

[Kerry Brownstein]

It was beautiful.

[Ari Chambers]

Like, it was something else. It was something else. And then from that day, I was like, hook. I was like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do now. I'm gonna be a photographer, and I'm gonna. In this, you know, and I'm gonna. I'm gonna take photo of these people and their stories, and I'm gonna share it. And that's. That's my part. That's my rule.

[James Stout]

Soon. Soon he found friends among the protesters. Within a few days, he was feeling a feeling that so many people felt in 2020. It's a feeling you felt if you've ever been in the thick of a crowd of people filled with righteous anger and facing down overwhelmed police or soldiers. It's a sensation I can't really describe to you if you haven't experienced it, but I can say that there's no time that I've ever felt more empowered than the times I've been crushed shoulder to shoulder with strength strangers, toe to toe with state violence and watch cops break and retreat. It's incredible. It's addictive. And if I'm honest, it's probably why Robert and I booked a flight to visit a stranger. I'd been dming on the gram.

[Ari Chambers]

I think after three days, I met this group of people, young people, like students, trying to be lawyers and stuff. And I figured out that they were the ones trying to organize these big protests. Protests, like 200 people, 100,000 people. They were the ones that's making that happen. So I started kind of following them, trying to get close, because I wanted to get stories from them. And then they became they. And they realized what I've been doing. They've been watching, like. And so they were, like, very welcome. And they took me to this hideout that they go to. And then we will have discussions, meetings about what we should do the next day. But then. And kind of it's because it's a small town, right. Slowly, I think, police and military started realizing that we are that group, too.

[James Stout]

So by now you're probably wondering what that cover of Dust in the Wind.

[Mia Wong]

Here he is.

[James Stout]

It's a song the boys learned when they first took to the streets, but it tells a story of a previous revelation, one that didn't succeed.

[Robert Evans]

Can you tell us what that song's about? Like, do you know what the lyrics are and stuff? In English?

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah, yeah, we can try.

[Robert Evans]

I heard the word democracy in there.

[James Stout]

I'm pretty sure.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah. It's like all the lives that we lost in fighting for democracy.

[James Stout]

Do people use it for the spring revolution as well as 88?

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah, because it's the same thing. Tell the World. And that's the name of that song.

[James Stout]

Tell the World, it's called.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah, like, tell the World. So basically the song is like. Yeah, they sang it in the. Back in the 88. And then it's like. We used it quite a lot when. When we were in the protest too. Yeah. And the Lars are, we'll keep fighting until the end of the world for the sake of history and revolution in our blood and of the fallen heroes who fought for their democracy. Oh, our dearest heroes. This is the land of, like, heroes. Yeah. And, yeah, it goes on and then, yeah, basically saying, like, something like, the history went wrong along the way, but we have to fix it.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Ari Chambers]

Like, the country has shed its blood and how could they commit such violence to its own people, you know. Yeah. And yeah, like they say, like the. The blood on the roads and the streets are not dried yet. And for the sake of these people who have died for the democracy, for fighting for democracy, for the sake of

[Robert Evans]

them, we have to keep fighting.

[Ari Chambers]

Basically.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Now in their exile, they keep singing it to remember the first day of the revolution when the fights were in the street, not the jungle, before they lost so many of their comrades. Yeah.

[Ari Chambers]

And then that was the night protest in front of the police station. Oh, they.

[Mia Wong]

This is.

[Ari Chambers]

They're singing the song. They just sing.

[Carl Cassarda]

Yeah.

[Ari Chambers]

It got very, very heated.

[James Stout]

The protest our friends were just talking about occurred in Miyawari. But the song popped up all across the country. When you played it in Yangon, you all sing it.

[Ari Chambers]

Yeah. In Yangon. It wasn't one guitar, it was a whole band like woke up. We have like protesters sitting down and then there's a group of people who are playing this and repeatedly there are a bunch of songs that will play and then there's like words that we would say and. Yeah, like slogans and stuff.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Ari Chambers]

And you'll see from the footage how it's.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Stout]

How does it make you feel singing it now?

[Kerry Brownstein]

It's scary.

[Ari Chambers]

You know, it's like the. The song. The song is very real. So like at first we didn't want to play the song. It's too dark, it's too. It's too intense, right? Yeah, like. Yeah, but it's not like the levels are there. Like you can see it, you know it. It's like cuz we go. We've been through it too. So it's very intense. And yeah, I think the first time I heard it, like I heard the song, I remember that weird feeling of. Yeah, still have it like every time we sing it now, like this is not one of the songs that we usually sing. It's not a fun song.

[James Stout]

On the next episode, which you'll be able to download tomorrow, we'll talk about how the hunter began to clamp down on the protests and how the protesters decided this struggle was too important to abandon and decided to fight back. Hi everyone, it's James here. I just wanted to know. Note that lots of the words in this script are Burmese or Karen or Thai. And we've made every effort to make sure that we pronounce them correctly, but we're sure we've obviously made some mistakes along the way. That's not out of a lack of respect or out of a lack of re recording. On my part. But we did want to note that where we've made a mistake. We're very sorry for doing so.

[Mia Wong]

What's up, fam?

[Ari Chambers]

I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'?

[James Stout]

All?

[Ari Chambers]

It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together. And I heart women's sports because, let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is just like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we? What are we eating?

[Molly Conger]

The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars,

[Ari Chambers]

the moments that take over your entire timeline and the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, Naomi, you get the Palm. Naomi, you get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. At concerts, we dance to the same tune. At games, we hug total strangers. And yet, in these moments, there's also something we don't do. We don't act based on how they look, who they love, where they're from, or what they believe. We just act because the things that make us different will never change what makes us human. Human. Go to lovehasnolabels.com to learn more. Brought to you by Love has no

[Kerry Brownstein]

Labels and the Eye Counsel.

[Molly Conger]

I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and data expert.

[Mia Wong]

And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor.

[Molly Conger]

And this is our new podcast, wellness actually.

[Mia Wong]

Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness information nowadays, and some

[Molly Conger]

of it is awesome and some of

[Mia Wong]

it is, well, actually, sexually bull.

[Molly Conger]

Fortunately, we're both people who know how to read, studies, parse data, and can tell you what's worth trying out and what you can safely ignore.

[Mia Wong]

Each episode, we tackle the health news of the week and then take a deeper dive into a misunderstood health and wellness topic.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Like what's the deal with peptides? What's the deal with GLP1s?

[Molly Conger]

What's the deal with creatine?

[Mia Wong]

What's the deal with cupping?

[Molly Conger]

What's the deal with sleep.

[Mia Wong]

So join us for a weekly dose of sanity. Might actually be just what the doctor or the economist ordered. Listen to wellness actually on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Molly Conger]

In 2015, teenager Joy Morgan discovered strangely

[Robert Evans]

compelling YouTube sermons from the religious group

[Molly Conger]

Israel United in Christ, or iuic. Her initial curiosity.

[Ari Chambers]

Curiosity developed into devotion.

[Molly Conger]

She distanced herself from friends and family, embraced new identity, immersed herself in the IUIC and believed she'd found the truth. IUIC is the best family that I've ever had. In fact, she had found what many called a cult. And On Boxing Day 2018, joy disappeared forever.

[Ari Chambers]

In the new six part investigative podcast,

[Molly Conger]

the Missing Sister, Charlie Brinkhurst, Cuff and Free Turtle.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Explore Joy's story, the family she left

[Mia Wong]

and the religious group she found.

[Robert Evans]

You know when you get that feeling like you just, I don't want to be here.

[Mia Wong]

I want to get out.

[Robert Evans]

I kind of want to go home.

[Molly Conger]

Now it's a story about truth lies, a young woman yearning to belong and a family still waiting for answers. All episodes available now.

[Kerry Brownstein]

To binge listen to the Missing sister

[Ari Chambers]

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or

[Mia Wong]

wherever you get your podcast, This is

[Kerry Brownstein]

it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Mia Wong and Robert Evans with a special segment by James Stout. This episode we're covering the week of July 15 to July 22. On Monday morning, someone poured gasoline in front of an entrance to the federal immigration court in New York City city and lit the gasoline on fire. A 43 year old army vet was arrested outside the building and has been charged with arson. The man brought a sign reading ICE off our streets and also allegedly launched bundle of fireworks and fired pellets from an airsoft rifle. Three U.S. service members were killed this week on an air base in Jordan as a result of Trump's war with Iran. The New York Times reported that the Trump administration has tried to obtain phone and text records from New York Times journalists and their families to uncover the source of leaks regarding the security capabilities of the new Air Force One. Courtesy of the Qatari government. Kash Patel is overseeing this investigation. This is a huge First Amendment breach.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Kerry Brownstein]

After multiple failed election campaigns, Katie Porter has announced she is leaving politics to become a book influencer.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, God.

[Kerry Brownstein]

And has rebranded her Instagram account account to Katie Porter Turns the Page.

[Robert Evans]

What? Okay. I mean, bold move to Be like, you know what the growth industry of the future is books. I can't fault the desire there, but I just don't think history is going to really work that way. Katie.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Secretary Kennedy has announced the Trump administration is pausing more than $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota due to, quote, suspected fraud and non compliance. Play a short clip here.

[Robert Evans]

That includes more than $867 million for California and over $200 million for Minnesota. If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate.

[Kerry Brownstein]

This will seriously harm, if not kill

[Robert Evans]

people, huge numbers of people.

[Kerry Brownstein]

This is just a billion dollar cut to Medicaid citing quote, unquote fraud.

[Robert Evans]

It's aimed at blue states that the administration sees as enemies.

[Kerry Brownstein]

You know, let's move on to our first main story and it'll be kind of a through line this episode. As I briefly mentioned last week, on Thursday, July 16, Mark Rubio and the State Department held an international conference on the skirmish scourge of left wing violence and antifa terrorism. This is just the latest escalation following Trump's designation of antifa as a quote, unquote terrorist group last year and the emboldening of law enforcement's targeting of left wing groups. The National Security Presidential Memorandum number seven. According to the State Departments, this international conference was attended by representatives from 66 countries. Over 60 senior ministers were invited, but only 17 ministers actually were in attendance. Attendance though other, quote, political leaders and experts and law enforcement officials traveled to D.C. for the event, including the senior chief of the Hellenic police from Greece. According to a reporter from the La Horta newspaper, Mexico was invited to the summit, but the president declined to attend because the conference seemed, quote, more political than really related to combating criminal groups.

[Robert Evans]

Hoops. Yeah, amazing. Imagine that.

[Kerry Brownstein]

And before the conference, Washington Post reported that many senior ministers were confused as to the purpose of the event and why they were invited to the conference with two European diplomats telling the Post, quote, we don't have antifa and quote, our law enforcement authorities have not focused on left wing terrorism because this is not considered a high priority threat in our country.

[Robert Evans]

It doesn't really exist.

[James Stout]

Yeah, to us.

[Kerry Brownstein]

So this international summit put on by Marco Rubio was titled the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism. Come on, very serious.

[Robert Evans]

Completely leaving out the right. And also, as we'll talk about later, blaming a lot, basically the entire modern left on Cuba because it's a mix of Marco and everyone trying to pander to Trump. A lot of these are grievances either rooted in the 70s or like a four month period in 2020? Yes, right, like that's their entire conception of the left.

[Kerry Brownstein]

To open the summit, Rubio told this story of a civilizational threat posed by leftists, Marxists and anarchist political violence. Violence that has laid dormant since the 70s, but has now awoken. Rubio applauded our counterterrorism strategies in taking down, quote unquote, radical Islamist extremism. But while our focus has been on ISIS and jihadist terrorism, law enforcement and the counterterrorism apparatus has been unable or unwilling to go after left wing violence. Let's hear from Rubio.

[Mia Wong]

For far too long, however, our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot. A blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left. Even today, the very idea that far

[James Stout]

left terrorism could be a serious threat

[Mia Wong]

is treated as a right wing fever

[James Stout]

dream, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy. It's treated this way by many in the press, by many in academia and our universities, and by many of our legacy institutions.

[Mia Wong]

You will no doubt see the dogma

[James Stout]

rear its head in the coverage of this very conference.

[Mia Wong]

In spite of the clear and the undeniable reality, in spite of the objective

[Kerry Brownstein]

numbers and statistics, one of the main tactics employed by Rubia, Stephen Miller and others throughout this conference was the subtle conflation of mass casualty incidents from the far right with instances of property damage, or in the most extreme cases, targeted assassination attempts against political figures attributed to the far left. Which people on the far right also do, by the way, much more often.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Rubio said, quote, a whole industry grew up in our countries around the study of extreme. We have think tanks and fellowships and journals and consultancies with the unspoken understanding among them that only one kind of political violence was a true threat to the system. A bomb planted by a neo Nazi group was a nefarious and murderous act of evil. It is but a bomb planted by a Marxist revolutionary, well, that's just merely a tragic excess of idealism. Perhaps its means were misplaced or overseas zealous, but its ends were virtuous and just. Unquote.

[Robert Evans]

No one's ever said that. No one in US politics has ever said that. You can find some maniacs who've said anything about anything, but like, that's simply not a discourse in America.

[Kerry Brownstein]

CVE researchers generally would not describe Marxist bombing plots as virtuous and just.

[Robert Evans]

I've never heard a bombing plot described as virtuous. The only act of what you could call terrorism I have ever seen in the recent days people call virtuous is, you know, what happened to that healthcare

[Kerry Brownstein]

executive which Rubio does talk about.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. And that is definitely a lot of people cheered that on, but I can't think of a single instance in which a bombing has ever been cheered on.

[Mia Wong]

Also, like Marxist bombings. It's like, when was the last time a Marxist, like, actually said like, this is not a real thing.

[Robert Evans]

It is in that what Rubio is talking about is a spate of left wing affiliated bombings that occurred from 1971-70. He talks about this in the Cuba and that's what he's saying that hasn't happened.

[Mia Wong]

Like Weather Underground has been above ground

[Robert Evans]

for like, that's entirely what all this is based on.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. And it's like, it's not a thing now.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

Is what old people remember about the left in the 70s.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah.

[Kerry Brownstein]

You know, it's not directly referenced, but I know the DOJ did make a big hubbub about foiling a quote, unquote, far lefter. It's kind of like an anti imperialist, like Maoist bombing plot in California late last year. Also, a confidential human source who was working with law enforcement was involved in the planning of this operation, which was stopped by law enforcement before they could ever carry out the attack.

[Mia Wong]

And that's the closest thing to like an actual like Marxist.

[Kerry Brownstein]

That is the closest recent thing. Yes.

[Mia Wong]

Like that's it. Like in the last, like very long number of years.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Now, Rubio claimed that, quote, an extraordinary ideological prejudice was embedded in the way we talk about political violence and extremism to the point that this prejudice has become the neutral and objective baseline quote so entrenched in the mainstream conventional wisdom that it came to be regarded as an apolitical fact. For an example of this, Rubio mentions the protests against the murder of George Floyd.

[Mia Wong]

Many people in positions of power have

[James Stout]

repeatedly dismissed acts of violence and even

[Mia Wong]

terrorism as legitimate forms of political expression,

[James Stout]

so long as they served a left wing cause.

[Mia Wong]

It is why during those George Floyd so called George Floyd riots in the

[James Stout]

summer of 2020, as criminals and extremists burned and looted their way through America's

[Mia Wong]

great cities and nearly brought the country

[James Stout]

to to its knees, city governments all

[Mia Wong]

across the country simply refused to prosecute the people conducting these acts of violence and terror.

[James Stout]

It is the reason for the now infamous image, maybe you all recall this, of a news anchor from a very

[Mia Wong]

prominent agency, a news anchor standing in the neighborhood consumed in flames. Meanwhile, the cryon on the bottom read that the protests were mostly peaceful.

[Robert Evans]

Can't Even say Chiron, right?

[Mia Wong]

My God, this was something worse than a double standard. Left wing violence was not just excused. It was treated as sacrosanct. A protected class unto itself.

[Kerry Brownstein]

A protected class unto itself. Protecting their ability to light trash on fire in the middle of a street.

[Robert Evans]

That's what happened. There weren't thousands of arrests and prosecution.

[Kerry Brownstein]

That is the other thing is that the Trump administration did that a little bit, but this was at the end of 2020. The Biden administration did tons and tons of like federal arrests with people involved in these protests, people who are still in jail. Meanwhile, the January 6 people are out of jail and have had pardons.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Rubio referenced instances of political violence in Europe from recent times. Like a firebomb attack on the home of a Greek politician that killed that politician's mother earlier this month. Rubio did not mention that four suspects have already been arrested and that this firebombing was the first time in over a decade that someone was killed in an attack targeting a politician in Greece. Rubio also referenced a five day blackout in Berlin last winter caused by a power line sabotage. People claiming to be responsible for the attack associated themselves with a far left eco extremist group. And lastly, Rubio mentioned that in February of this year, quote, a French 23 year old succumbed to traumatic brain injuries, beaten to death on the streets of Lyon by a group of far left militant thugs. This 23 year old was a neo fascist, quote unquote activist. That's what he's referred to in local news coverage, who died two days after being brutalized in a large street brawl during a far right protest outside of a university event featuring a Palestinian lawmaker. Eleven antifascists were arrested for this. Rubio tried to connect the current emerging threat of far left political terrorism to historical Marxist struggles. In the 20th century, and particularly the 1970s. Rubio name dropped to urban guerrilla groups in Central and South America. Farc, the National Liberation army, the Shining Path, Maoist guerrillas in Peru, as well as European groups like Italy's Red Brigade, the Red army faction in Germany, Marxist extremists in Greece and in the us The Weather Underground, the Black Liberation army and the Symbanese Liberation Army.

[James Stout]

And today we face a new wave of this old evil. Here in the United States, the share

[Mia Wong]

of left wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades.

[James Stout]

In Germany, far left violence has jumped by more than 40% in just the last year alone. In Greece, more than 80% of radical

[Mia Wong]

violence is now driven by far left and anarchist actors. These are not abstract statistics.

[James Stout]

Americans have seen what those numbers mean. An all out assault on our immigration

[Mia Wong]

officers, sniper attacks, explosives, armed ambushes, a transgender shooter opening fire on Catholic elementary

[James Stout]

school students as they pray, his gun

[Mia Wong]

marked with slogans like where is your God now?

[James Stout]

A health care executive executed in cold

[Mia Wong]

blood in the streets, multiple assassination attempts

[James Stout]

on a sitting president, and the murder

[Mia Wong]

of the greatest conservative activist of a generation.

[Kerry Brownstein]

So there's a lot there. Anarchist violence certainly isn't new in Greek, no? And again, in the American context, this little speech by Rubio conflates mass casualty events with property damage and isolated targeted violence. He references vague quote, unquote, all out assaults on immigration officers, as in big protests in Minneapolis. He references a one sniper attack by a suicidal man who was not very political and leaned libertarian. In tax, he references a transgender shooter who also was not politically motivated in the traditional sense and initially planned to shoot up an LGBTQ music venue. The United Healthcare CEO assassination is arguably the closest thing here to like left wing motivated violence.

[Robert Evans]

It's definitely politically motivated.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Even that suspect wasn't particularly like left wing politically. No, belief in some political ideology was not the driving force behind that assassination. It it wasn't ideologically motivated, but rather materially motivated based on interactions with our inhumane healthcare system. Trying to understand every public act of violence, whether that's a shooting or an assassination, just as existing in between. This left right binary is a very limited way to actually try to understand public acts of violence, because not all shootings have an obvious ideological drive. However, public acts of violence can be downstream of someone's personal experiences and material conditions. As for the Trump assassinations, two have been from people who were largely moderate liberals, not leftists. And the first attempted assassination did not appear to have what we would traditionally consider to be a political motive, again from someone with a conservative background who was closer to what we would describe as having like a school shooter mentality. I'll talk about this a little bit later, but. But I think it's really important to understand that just because the target is a political figure does not mean it is political violence. The attempted assassination on Ronald Reagan is a key example of this. And investigations into the first Trump assassination found that the shooter, Thomas Crooks, searched online for a variety of events to commit a shooting at. In the month prior to the shooting, he did more than 60 Internet searches related to Biden, Trump, Trump, and information about the upcoming DNC and RNC conventions. Trump's campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania just happened to take place in the right place at the right time. And for someone who's just trying to do a high profile shooting, it might not even matter what the outcome of that attempted shooting is. These public acts of violence usually have a suicidal component, a drive for self annihilation while simultaneously gaining some final sense of meaning or purpose. By crudely emblazoning yourself in history through a violent act. This kind of public suicidal violence can be a sort of final attempt of communing with the world. The AP summarized a report published last year by the center for Strategic and International Studies that found that left wing terrorist attacks as of July of last year year had surpassed those from the far right for the first time in more than 30 years. But a closer look at that data showed that the uptick reflects a very low starting level and a concurrent drop on the far right. Quote, there was an average of 0.6 left wing incidents annually from 1994 through 2000, compared with an average of 20.6 on the right. The report shows from 2016 to 2024, there were an average of 4 per year on the left and 22.7 per year on the right. Those numbers have dropped dramatically on the right as of early July 2025, with only one incident. Meanwhile, there had been five from the left. So, yes, left wing attacks in 2025 did outpace what that report as of July categorized as right wing attacks. But that's because there was a big drop off in right wing attacks once Trump came into office and a very small increase in attacks attributed to the left. And that is the sort of statistics that Rubio is using to make this push.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. And it's worth noting. It's like, okay, so why have there been less of these sort of right wing political terrorism events? And it's like, well, because ICE is just doing them instead.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, the state's doing the violence for them.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah. It's the same reason that you can look at the period in which sort of like jailhouse lynching suddenly like collapses. And the reason they collapse is that, you know, the US Government just starts executing those people. And, you know, this is like a very explicit deal that's made between the state and, you know, the specific kind of lynch mob is like, we'll just carry out death, like penalty sentences against these people if you stop storming prisons and lynching them in there. So, you know, that's like what's happening here, right, is like you have people with mass shooter profiles who are, you know, ICE officers shooting, like immigrants in the streets now.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Kerry Brownstein]

One thing that was really common Throughout Rubio's whole speech and some of the follow up remarks by like Miller and Bessett is like a big thing that was undergirding their rhetoric was this assumption that if the target of violence is viewed as right wing, then the attacker must be left wing. And any attack that goes against what they would consider like a right wing symbol, whether that's ice, whether that's the president, whatever, then whoever is attacking that symbol, symbol must be coming from the left wing or have some left wing motivation. And that's the way that they're trying to frame a lot of this. One of the old categories of violent extremism is called anti government violent extremism, which is a very broad category which can encompass some people who have explicit ideological drivers, but also can include people who are doing public suicidal violence who will target the government or political figures as an expression of their own own political and societal alienation. Someone who does this kind of public suicidal violence can often lack a recognizably coherent political philosophy that can be easily grafted onto our Democrat Republican binary with there sometimes being a mix of political beliefs across the left right spectrum. But now that Trump is in office, any attack against the federal government can be used by the Trump administration as an example of left wing terrorism attacking a right wing government. Take for instance the sniper attack in Texas targeting an ICE facility and vehicles. Although actually shooting multiple immigrants, this shooter was described by his friends as being largely apolitical but leaned libertarian. This shooting also had a suicidal aspect in that he did kill himself after the shooting shooting With Trump in charge of the federal government, nihilistic and self destructive attacks against American society may take a form which can be characterized as left wing violence. Another example of this is the plot against the UFC Freedom250 event where self described Christian patriots who saw themselves as aspiring revolutionaries tried to start the Second American Revolutionary War war by targeting high level politicians and public figures. At the UFC White House event, these people are not on what I would consider the left wing, but in the conservative coverage of this attack, this was framed as an anti capitalist attack targeting Trump's cabinet. Towards the end of Rubio's speech, he started talking about this like international strategy that they want to develop to handle this emerging threat. Quote, this is an international conference because we are facing an international transnational threat. These are not distinct and isolated cells, they are interconnected networks. They do not recognize our borders, they do not believe, in fact in the nation state itself. They coordinate, they communicate, they travel, they train and they act together, sharing the same infrastructure, sharing the same enemies, sharing the same mission. I'll play one more clip from Rubio here.

[Mia Wong]

Antifa militants and their comrades travel from across Europe and to the Americas to participate in each other's attacks, to funnel propaganda and training materials and target information through shared encrypted channels, moving through underground networks of safe houses and finance and sustain their operations through transnational funds. And they work alongside hostile foreign states

[James Stout]

that share their mission. Like Iranian proxy networks who are increasingly intimately tied to leftist militant groups around the world.

[Mia Wong]

The Cuban regime's sprawling intelligence and ideological network helped to build the far left

[James Stout]

in our country and in our hemisphere. And it remains inextricably linked to the far left groups and movements across and beyond the West. Today. Today's far left terrorists can raise money

[Mia Wong]

in one country, they can host their

[James Stout]

communications in a second country, they can

[Mia Wong]

receive training in a third country, they can recruit militants in a fourth country and then together strike a target in a fifth country.

[Robert Evans]

A thing that we've never seen happen.

[Kerry Brownstein]

This is complete fiction.

[Robert Evans]

A thing that's never, ever happened.

[Kerry Brownstein]

This is like, not once.

[Robert Evans]

Where are they training, Marco? Cuba.

[Kerry Brownstein]

This is like a Tom Clancy novel that's.

[Robert Evans]

He does think they're training in Cuba. Actually, I. I shouldn't ask that. Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

The only thing that functions like this is the Central Intelligence Agency.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Mia Wong]

Like, nothing else works like this.

[Robert Evans]

That's not entirely true. Like the global far right does, to a degree, work.

[Mia Wong]

That's true.

[Robert Evans]

Right. Like, there's an element. Now, I wouldn't even describe it that way because that's more elaborate than I've ever seen the global far right do, honestly. But, yeah, their versions of that do occur. Where people are, like, traveling to one country for armed training or whatever.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, yeah. I guess you could look back at the old, like, world anti communist networks.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[Mia Wong]

Like league networks where they would do that, but like this.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I mean, I wonder if they would consider stuff like traveling to, like, Rojava. Right. A leftist traveling to Rojava or traveling to, like, you know, see, like, Zapatistas. Right. If that's kind of what he's thinking of or if he's even thinking about it in, like, a real literal way.

[Robert Evans]

I can tell you specifically what he's thinking about in this. I mean, he's thinking about two things. He's trying to directly draw a comparison for political purposes to the influencers who interviewed Cuba recently. But the thing that he is actually thinking about is the way a chunk of the global far left worked in, like, the 60s and 70s. Gaddafi trained the IRA, right. Like there were a lot of, like not all of them, but like there was people did travel from left wing groups to other places and then carried out attacks in other countries. That was a thing that occurred during what is often called the golden age of terrorism. This is a lot of this is just more Marco not leaving the 70s behind. Like even though again, it's 50 years since that kind of shit's been going on almost. And Gaddafi's dead. Like the IRA isn't exactly active anymore either.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We'll return to talk more about far left transnational terrorism after this ad break. We are back. There's one last part about this antifa far left terrorism summit that happened at the State Department that I want to hone in on and that is the remarks made by Stephen Miller. So brace yourself for a short clip of Miller here.

[Mia Wong]

President Trump issued a directive, in our

[Carl Cassarda]

parlance, it's called a National Security presidential

[Mia Wong]

memorandum, or NSPM NSPM 7 to be exact, that directs for the first time

[Carl Cassarda]

in American history all of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work together

[Mia Wong]

to disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute these political terrorists that are operating in our country.

[Carl Cassarda]

There's no point at which the left

[Mia Wong]

wing terrorist is satisfied with his gains and ceases progressing inevitably left to run its course.

[Carl Cassarda]

It always becomes a gulag. It always becomes the mass imprisonment of

[Mia Wong]

political enemies, the stripping of their rights

[Carl Cassarda]

and freedoms, inflicting immense pain, humiliation, suffering,

[Mia Wong]

in order to establish complete and total control, control through psychological and physical, physical and actual terror.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We must disrupt, identify, defund, debank, arrest and prosecute these political terrorists or else they will turn the country into a gulag and conduct the mass imprisonment of political enemies and establish total psychological control.

[Mia Wong]

It's just that we must do the genocide before they do the genocide against us thing.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Like, and that is a lot of how Miller and the ambassador for the Counterterrorist and Bureau zero talk about this like we need to stop this before it gets bigger. We know it seems kind of small right now, but by the time that everyone realizes this is a huge threat, then it's already too late. Then we've already lost. We have to end this thing right now as it still is. Like an infant. Like, we cannot let this thing grow up. That is very much how he talks about it. And he is really frustrated about the way that attempts by the Trump administration to do this have been curtailed or have not been able to, to really be followed through on to the extent that he wants. And he has a specific thing that's been happening that he's really upset about. And that's a little term that some people in the audience might be familiar with called jury nullification.

[Mia Wong]

There's a real threat that those who are not themselves terrorists, but who support

[James Stout]

left wing violence

[Mia Wong]

will create the kin conditions that allow that violence to go

[Carl Cassarda]

on without any meaningful inhibition.

[Mia Wong]

So to be specific, we've seen some

[Carl Cassarda]

of our nation's cities in America, like Washington, D.C. and New York City.

[Mia Wong]

Something, again, it's an American term, but

[Carl Cassarda]

it's known as jury nullification.

[Mia Wong]

This is when a person is obviously guilty of a crime, but the juror, because they're ideologically sympathetic to the perpetrator, will not sentence them to the crime which is obviously committed. We've seen in the United States again and again individuals who are part of left wing organizations who've committed assaults against ICE officers or federal law enforcement, who have been brought to court where clear

[Carl Cassarda]

evidence has been presented against them that the jury has refused to convict for purely political reasons. When you've reached that point, it demonstrates

[Mia Wong]

how deeply the cancer has begun to infest your society.

[Kerry Brownstein]

According to a new report in Just Security, quote, nearly half the cases nationwide brought against protesters and immigrants for assault against a law enforcement officer were dismissed by judges, withdrawn by prosecutors, or resulted in jury acquittals. In at least 18 publicly reported instances, grand juries have refused to indict. At least 16 grand jury subpoenas have been blocked or withdrawn, and judges have dismissed or prosecutors have dropped at least 79 cases, cases relating to ICE protests or federal law enforcement surges across D.C. chicago, Minnesota and Los Angeles. In a period of two months, the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. dropped more cases than it had in the previous 10 years combined, unquote. And that also shows the scale in which they're bringing these cases against protesters. This is something that Miller is really upset about. This is something that is severely prohibiting the administration's ability to go after, quote, unquote, left wing terrorism, what they view as left wing terrorism. And he's really frustrated about this. Here's one last quote from him. One of the hallmarks of left wing violence and terrorism is its completely pretextual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence. This is the tactic that the left always uses to try to protect itself from facing criminal punishment. It is essential that we are wise enough and strong enough to understand that these appeals must fall on death ears. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching. In the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization. And Miller and Rubio went on pretty lengthy rants about how the threat of left wing violence really is this civilizational threat against what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural. It's a quote from Miller against this like ugly hatred that fuels the left, this sort of like resentment for failing at life. And now they want to attack those of us who succeed, those of us who build very fascistic stuff at the end of both of their speeches.

[Robert Evans]

And also very Ben Shapiro stuff to be honest. The whole builders and takers thing, I mean he didn't start that. But it is interesting to see there's so many old throwbacks to this because you can tell these are guys who get started in right wing politics before the current era because they keep hearkening back to stuff that's just, just like not as big a part of the modern vernacular. Which is always interesting to me, like how stuck a lot of these guys are in the past.

[Kerry Brownstein]

At a post conference press conference for foreign press, the coordinator and ambassador at large for the Bureau of Counterterrorism reiterated that the US counterterrorism strategy is still focusing on three main types of threat. Narco terrorists, Islamic or jihadist terrorists and far left territories terrorists and that they need to quote, identify terror actors and plots before they happen. He calls far left terrorism a resurgent threat with a clear upward trend and that they are quote committed to addressing it before it metastasizes. That they want to halt this scourge before it grows into something larger, more unified and more deadly. The Ambassador outlined three concrete outcomes from this conference. The first was on designations and accountability. And like Rubio, he promised that additional foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorist designations for quote unquote, far left groups are under active review and are going to be incoming soon following the four designations of Europe based groups last year. So there's going to be more left wing or antifa related groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

[James Stout]

Uh huh.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Secretary Besant talked about how how legitimate non profit and charitable structures are being exploited as a mechanism to conceal the movement of illicit funds to support political terrorism. And the Ambassador talked about how international partners are discussing prospects to quote, align their own legal frameworks to ensure that these networks cannot simply relocate across borders as a part of these terrorist designations. The Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence will take steps to dismantle the funding which sustains these groups. And the State Department is also offering payments of up to $10 million for information disrupting far Left terrorist financing. The second outcome of the conference was on operational coordination, like deepening information sharing between partner agencies and coordinating on travel restrictions and strengthening the protection of critical infrastructure like transportation and energy systems. It was also announced that Germany would host the next quote, unquote, counter Terrorism Workshop. The last concrete outcome of this event was new visa restrictions, quote, targeting members of far left terrorists and aligned groups. For more on that, let's throw to our colleague James Stout.

[James Stout]

Hi everyone, it's James. Coming at you with the second attempt to record this. Find myself traveling every Wednesday at the moment, so apologies for missing out. I'm recording with everyone else. I will be back next week, I promise. And we will return to our usual shared conversation. But I did want to check in with everyone this week because I want to talk about a couple of things. Last week, for the first time in its history, the United States government attempted to remove someone through the use of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. This is something that was first published by Seamus Hughes at Court Watch. I want to give credit where credit for you. Seamus spends an ungodly amount of time looking at PACE visa and other court documents and found this. Some background on this court, right? It's established in 1996 by the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. That law allows the Attorney General to designate someone as a terrorist and use this process if Title 2 removal would be a threat to national security. Now, the hearings in the atrc, I will say they fly extremely close to the sun with regards to constitutional rights and the concept of a fair trial. There are lots of provisions in this law for classified evidence, for restrictions on the things that the defendant can obtain by discovery. The law also says, quote, an alien subject to removal under this title shall not be entitled to suppress evidence that the alien alleges was unlawfully obtained. That's great stuff. It's just worth noting rent 1996 is before the start of the global war on terror. And, and it therefore predates the existence of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, where the United States had a base at Guantanamo Bay. But the large scale extrajudicial torturing of people, what they called enhanced interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, had not begun in 1996. Right. I'm not saying that they were not doing extrajudicial things in 1996. I'm just saying that like the Gitmo as we understand it today, for those of us who have grown up with it as a political reality for most of our adult lives didn't exist in that sense then. But I'm not saying that there were not people detained there. They probably were. I'm not saying they did not do extrajudicial things in pursuit of, quote, unquote, anti terrorism. Believe they did. Boasberg mentioned this court, Judge Boasberg, we remember him from the El Salvador Secot cases, when he told the government that there was a procedure for someone accused of terrorism. Because the government basically said, oh, well, these people are terrorists. Look at that. We put them on a plane, sent them to. To a death camp in El Salvador, essentially. Right. A prison that very few people leave. Eventually, most of those people did leave in this case, but it was very unusual for someone to leave that camp. And what he said was, quote, so if there's a national security concern with having these hearings, whether via habeas or otherwise, you can always go to the atrc, which will be a first. But that's what it's there for. Right. So at the time, he's pointing to it saying, if you can't put the evidence for these people's, the need to remove these people out in public, that's why we have the atrc. Why don't you use that? That Trump administration said, we can use that. That does not mean we have to use that. And that was their argument. Right. The court is open not just to people engaged in terrorism, it's also their families. It's also people accused of things like soliciting others to engage in acts of terrorism and raising funds. It also appears that once a person, they've submitted an application for removal through this court, they can detain a person. The court has this crazy website. It looks like it was very hastily created. Created. It's not a usual website for a court at all. Usually court websites look like they were made in the late 1990s. They are very difficult to navigate, and they have a huge amount of data that it's hard to find. That's why a lot of us like to use Court Listener or some other website rather than going directly to the. To the court pages, which can be very hard to navigate. This page lists the judges where each of the judges comes from a different U.S. circuit. And it has the two documents that the court has made available so far. One is pretty much all blanked out. The other one is a court order in which the court's chief judge asserts that, quote, the government could benefit from an opportunity for more thoughtful consideration. So they've made an application to remove someone by this court. And that is a response of the court at this time. Right. Obviously, this is very concerning. Right. Immigration court to begin with I think is getting closer and closer to being something that is sort of openly flouting the Constitution and people's rights there. You know, immigration judges are not judges in the sense that you understand judges to be, even though some of them have worked hard to give people due process and many of them are now being removed, one could surmise, because of that. But if we look at this, in addition to the United States adding groups in Mexico and Europe to the FTO list foreign terrorist organization. For those who aren't familiar, it's especially concerning. Right? And it's especially concerning when we look at another announcement this week which explicitly cited NSPM7 which we've spoken about lengths on this show, limiting visas for people it calls anti fascist and far left terrorist groups. The announcement began. I'm going to quote from extensively here, right. Far left terrorist and aligned groups use sophisticated organized networks to perpetrate violence as a political tool, seeking to implement an extreme political vision through intimidation and coordinated campaigns of terror. It is a strategy that explicitly aims to undermine the political foundations of free and self governing societies, utilizing bombings, assassinations and other forms of terrorism to silence speech, limit political opposition, change policy outcomes and sabotage political processes. This announcement also said that it targets members of far left terrorists and other aligned groups who have supported or incited acts of terrorism, supported violent criminal activity, participated in economic sabotage, financed, recruited or provided logistical support for violent or criminal actions committed by far left terrorists and other aligned groups and or facilitated the convergence of far left terrorists and other aligned networks for the purposes of violent action. Some of these are pretty broad.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Economic sabotage, normally I would say with ludicrous suggested like that could include bds, but I think given where we are, it's not crazy to think that, right. Some of these facilitating the conversions. Right. Is that like holding a big summit is like the logistical support for violent criminal actions? Does that mean bail funds? All of these things. Cash bail I guess is lesser, less of a thing. Outside the US does that mean people who have done jail support? Right. That kind of thing. This is super concerning. The State Department explicitly cites section 212, subsection A, part 3, subsection C of the Immigration and Nationality act, which deals with the inadmissibility of aliens. This section begins, quote an alien whose entry or proposed activities in the United States Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is inadmissible. So that's a very very broad category.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Notably it is not subsection B which deals specifically with terrorism in which terrorists are inadmissible. This is a different one which deals with this very broad power given to the Secretary of State to decide whose admission would be bad for the United States foreign policy consequences. They've used this before, right? This is a favorite of this administration. But again, this is an example of a law which gives massive leeway to, in this case, part of the executive branch, Secretary of State. And it is therefore for he's using that leeway to do this. I think that we should be especially concerned when we combine this with some of the other things that we're seeing, right? We are seeing social media surveys of applicants. People have to submit their whole social media before they apply. We are seeing phone searches at the border more and more frequently, right? Famously the J.D. vance meme. But it's not uncommon to see these phone searches at the border. Now. Now, we have also seen this week the elimination of duration of status for a number of visas. F1s being probably the most numerous. F1 being a student visa.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[James Stout]

Also some foreign journalist visas, other visa types as well, included there. But I want to focus on the F1s because I think that will be the one that impacts the most people. So generally with an F1 visa, once you maintained status, that is, once you are still in school, you could keep your student visa, right? Now, these include like a time limit on the duration of the visa visa. For some people, this will be a serious issue. If you are entering, for example, just speaking from experience here, if you are entering a program in the United States in the humanities and you are entering with a bachelor's degree, right. Not a master's degree, you will then have to advance to candidacy, complete the requirements for your master's degree, and demonstrate competency in two languages. Let's assume you are not someone who is multilingual. That could take a while, right? Like, depending on how strict the testing is at the particular university you go to, then you will have to research, then you'll have to write, then you will have to do a dissertation. These time limits on the F1 visa are less than the nominal time to degree at some institutions. And that means that it's going to be very hard for graduate students, especially to come to the United States to do those degrees. That, combined with this, this denial of visas thing is going to have an impact on the way campuses look in the United States. It's going to have a broader impact than that. Of course it is. But this is a thing that I have direct experience with. F1 student visas. Are numerous. I've taught dozens, if not hundreds of F1 students. I came on a student visa when I did my PhD and one of the reasons that people come here, and this is something that I've heard from, from so many people, is that like this country has a Bill of rights and the very First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed freedom of speech. And that isn't the case everywhere. And that is a thing that is good, but it is more and more and more under attack, especially for foreign students. Right. We've seen this right from the very beginning of the Trump administration. And I believe that this will be part of that same attack. Right? And when we look at all these things together, together, these are the clearest signposts we have seen yet to the new McCarthyism. Right. We can talk about what Rubio said about Cuba. We can talk about this antifa summit, which I will talk about soon in more depth. But it is not hard to draw a line from, for instance, the prosecution and the persecution outside the legal system of Lincoln brigadiers, right. People who volunteered to fight fascism in Spain to what is happening to today. And it is sad but not shocking to see yet another shameful aspect of this country's history resurfacing and becoming policy again. So I guess I'll just finish up by saying if this has impacted you, if you are someone who's recently had a visa refused, if you are somebody who was trying to get in on F1 visa and is now finding shit, I don't think I can do my degree in that much time. What do I do here? I always want to tell stories about people, not just about government announcements. So you can hit us up. Cool. Zonetips. Proton me if you'd like to talk about that. Thanks. And I'll be back with everybody next week.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We will discuss tariffs and even more far left terrorism after this ad break.

[Robert Evans]

We're back. So earlier this week the U.S. state Department put out a 100 page report, this would be on Monday, about Cuba's history of trying to overthrow or manipulate US Politics via left wing activists and quote unquote, left wing militants going back to the 60s. When they say going back to the 60s, basically what I mean is pretty much exclusively the 60s and 70s is almost everything in this document that relates to the US Directly in any way. The document which is basically this is just to give you a little bit of background. This is all Rubio, right? Not just what Gar has been talking about, but particularly trying to drum up fear and panic around Cuba and justify an Invasion or regime change in Cuba. That's been his whole fucking life goal for a very long time. There's a pretty good Guardian article from last year with the title Marco Rubio Near's Goal of Toppling Cuba's Government. And I want to read a brief quote from that. The campaign against Cuba's government is the culmination of a personal pursuit spanning decades. In a video released on Cuban Independence Day this week, Rubio said in Spanish that a U.S. embargo was not the reason for the country's privations, telling Cubans that currently the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country. All roads have been leading to Cuba for Rubio, said a person who was known for Rubio since his time as a local politician in South Florida. He has wanted this for a long time, and now he finally has the authority to reach that goal. Now, Trump has made a couple comments that make people believe he is in the process of planning to try and force the government of Cuba out one way or another. Last Thursday, he told reporters, other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years doing something about Cuba, and it looks like I'll be the one that does it, so I would be happy to do it now. Hard to say if that actually means anything. Trump says a lot of stuff that doesn't come true, but there's been real world reasons to believe that he seriously intends to do this. I mean, first off, what happened in Venezuela, right, where we used our special operations forces to take out and extradite a legally elected. Well, to extradite the president of a sovereign country, right? This is something that, like, you've had, like a lot of planners in the Pentagon talking about for years is like, well, we could use these guys, guys to just deal with problems at the top. Right? And for Rubio, there's a lot of speculation that Venezuela was kind of a proof of concept for him, right. That we could, in fact use a very small footprint force, get the current ruling regime out of there, or enough of them that they're not willing to fight back anymore. And that might be something that the US Military is capable of doing. I don't have a great sense as to Cuba's defensive capacity or how functional they would be, be at doing this, or how much support the regime would enjoy in the event that the US Tried this or how much that support would matter. It kind of depends on the weapon systems they use at the moment. We know that the US Nimitz and its strike group have recently been brought into the South Caribbean Sea as part of an ongoing military buildup. And there have been some other signs that the regime is planning to act. Axios recently published an article that cited administration estimates that Cuba now has some 300 military military drones, quote, and was considering using them to attack a US base at Guantanamo Bay. US Ships or even targets in Florida.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Miami, your days are numbered.

[Robert Evans]

Now, folks, I'm gonna walk you through some stuff. First off, we don't actually have hard evidence that they bought any of these drums. There was some earlier reporting and I'm sure they have been talking with Iran and I know that they have ongoing defense agreements with Russia. And I wouldn't be shocked if they had bought like 300 of the of these, like Shaheed style cheaper suicide drones. Here's the thing. The night before we recorded this, Ukraine launched a major attack on Moscow using 400 drones. If Cuba does have 300 Iranian drones, that is roughly enough to carry out an offensive against US forces for two to three seconds. Perhaps a little more, maybe more like 15 to 20, you know, but it's not an invasion force. It's not really a defensive force. And we also don't know that they even have. Right. It wouldn't be weird if they did. But this isn't any reason to believe there's any kind of a threat coming from Cuba. The fact that they're trying to really hype up 300 drones, it's 20, 26. You can run through that in an afternoon.

[Mia Wong]

Yeah, and also, like, I just want to be very clear. Cuba is not planning to launch strikes on the United States. Come on, like you look at the

[Robert Evans]

last 60 years of history, right? We had one big dust up with him over the fucking Bay of Pigs. And obviously, obviously, the Cuban government funded and sent soldiers and doctors and other stuff into a variety of countries. And that led to conflicts in places like Africa with the US but there's never been any direct aggression from Cuba towards the United States. No, we're not in danger from them. One of the most ridiculous things you could do today is watch the celebrated Aaron Sorkin movie A Few Good Men, which is entirely about how well, you know, you don't understand how difficult it is protecting America from Cuba. You know, we really. We gotta be extra crazy to keep the Cubans off the walls of the United States. Like it's fucking nonsense.

[Ari Chambers]

And it's.

[Robert Evans]

Marco is number one. Marco comes from a Cuban American background. His whole family hates the Castro government. He has wanted and seen himself as ordained to destroy the communist government in Cuba for his entire life. That doesn't mean that there's any kind of realistic threat here or any real reason to feel like any kind of actual danger. And you can see that in the report itself, right? There's even some bits here where they almost admit it. Right? I'm going to read one segment. The Cuban campaign against America is unique. It is irregular and covert. Even at the peak of its military power, Havana never possessed the capacity to defeat the United States in a conventional armed conflict. Instead, the Cubans perfected a new model for a long war of attrition organized around espionage, infiltration, sabotage, proxy networks and a revolution, revolutionary infrastructure designed to turn America against itself. Did Cuba do that? Did Cuba turn America against itself? And also, if they've protected a war of attrition, why are they out of gas? And like, the United States is the healthiest economy in the world. I mean, it's because we stole a bunch of shit. But there's no evidence that Cuba's done some sort of horrible damage to the U.S. and in fact, all of the damage says otherwise, that we've continued to fuck over the Cubans for goddamn no reason for dangerous decades. It's incredibly frustrating. And again, the more you read this, the more you realize unless he's talking about, like, shit, that. Because he does periodically talk about, like, fucking South America and some of the different, like, Cuban, like, state involvement there. But when he's talking about acts that can be traced to Cuba that involve violence in the US at all, it's just shit from the 60s and 70s, right? Which is like, back when Cuba's economy was functional and they had the backing of the ussr and also, like, none of it ever came close to doing seriously damage to the United States as, like a national, like, as a nation, right? None of that. That was never in the fucking cards. You know, it's very frustrating to have to even take any of this serious. But you do, because they are going to try to blame and try to punish and imprison people based on this fucking fantasy, right? And one of the things you've seen a lot of quotes like, when Marco came up to talk and give a speech about this report, he accused Iran and Cuba of funding both antif FIFA and the dsa, right?

[Mia Wong]

Like, come on.

[Robert Evans]

And he'll make these comments in his speeches. The actual report isn't even willing to go that far. Because when you get to the meat of the report, Marquito doesn't even have the guts to call the DSA a Cuban op. Quote, the DSA was not founded as a Cuban intelligence or influence front. It was born in 1982 as a Fusion of socialist organizations and movements from both the Old Left and New left factions. And you know, like, they're right that people in the DSA are very angry about what the US is doing to keep Cuba because they're out of fuel and starving and being continually harmed by our completely pointless boycotts and trade fucking wars. Like there's not much more than that for most people to it. There's some weirdos out there.

[Kerry Brownstein]

But it is really interesting how carefully the report talks about DSA because like DSA is mentioned a lot. DSA is mentioned very frequently, but there's no direct connection. DSA is mentioned 24 times in a 100 page document. Document. But they're very careful to be like, DSA can be sympathetic to the Cuban government, but DSA is not a result of Cuban influence necessarily.

[Robert Evans]

No. And I think the argument they are making is that you had a split between the Old left and the New left and the Cuban government founded a bunch of New left factions. And because the DSA is a fusion of Old Left and New left factions, that means that they're partly result of Cuban operation. Sure, that's what they're trying to argue. Right. It's nonsense.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Or build some sort of historical justification to if they go after DSA people or activists who have gone to Cuba to deliver humanitarian aid that build some sort of framework to criminalize people who are sympathetic to people living in Cuba.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I think that's precisely what's happening. And one thing that's kind of telling is even among. Among news sources that are like sympathetic to the right and to the administration, no one's pretending that this paper isn't just Marco like pushing out his own personal vendettas. Like I found a Washington examiner article that summarized the report as Marco Rubio accusing the Cuban government. Here's an exact quote from the Washington Examiner. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused the Cuban government of running one of the most sophisticated infiltrations of US politics, in part using the Democratic. Democratic Socialists of America. So even with a lot of these articles, they're like, yeah, this is just Rubio fucking spouting off, right? Like, this is mostly old Marco. And among some of like the crazy like anti communist sites I've been reading, they're still like, well, there's nothing new in this. They didn't. Because they are reading like, well, nothing past like the 70s involves the US directly.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Which isn't to say there's not real danger here.

[Robert Evans]

Right. There is no huge danger.

[Kerry Brownstein]

One of the main activists at Code Pink, which was this organization that co organized some of those aid trips to Cuba, is under federal investigation right now. And this indicates that despite how much of this is just Rubio having fun with his little pet project, this does show where the targets of the administration are. And that can be the DSA and people doing humanitarian aid trips.

[Robert Evans]

And it's specifically because of that humanitarian aid trip. Right. Like, that gave Rubio a really good, you know, honestly, more than anything, I think just pissed him off because he hates the Cuban government more than anything. And the idea that anyone would want to bring aid to the people in Cuba is, like, infuriating to him. Now, again, we know that Trump is in the process of planning to try and force the government of Cuba out one way or another. That doesn't mean he actually will. Right. He hasn't committed fully to that yet. But given what happened in Venezuela and given what's going on in Iran, I think it would be foolish to say I don't think he's going to try. Right. Like, I think that's not the smart. If I'm making a bet, I certainly hope he doesn't. I hope they get scared. I hope shit with Iran is bad enough that they chicken out. But I think it would be foolish to assume they're not going to try and unseat the government of Cuba. Right.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I don't think that's the rational way to look at this. Right. And whether this is all bluster or not, you know, is going to be seen. But as I said, the US Nimitz and its strike group have moved into the south Caribbean. And there's a lot of talk about, like, oh, we think the Cubans are planning an attack on Guantanamo. Last Thursday, Marco Ruby repeated his claim that Havana has weapons they acquired from, quote, Russia and China and that they host Russian and in Chinese intelligence in country, which is also interesting that he, he's so stuck in the Cold War, he has to keep bringing Russia into it. Now, there's a big debate as to, like, how committed is Trump actually to unseating the Cuban government? And that's always hard to tell because when he does talk about it, it sounds like, oh, he wants that feather in his cap. But you also get the feeling this is a thing where whoever he talks to last, as in a lot of cases, going to heavily set his agenda. And Senator Chris Murphy, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, said something like that. Quote, I do think that as Trump gets older and he spends his day sleeping and worrying only about his ballroom. He's increasingly susceptible to dangerous people around him with dangerous agendas. And there is a crowd of Cuba hawks who have always wanted us to invade and who think they might be able to take advantage of an increasingly checked out old man. And I just think we have have to be prepared for that. And honestly, I think Chris pretty much that. Like that. Yeah, that's more or less right, Chris. I think that's, that's, that's basically an accurate summary.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Sanest man in the room.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that sounds right to me.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Let's turn to the midterm elections before we close in Florida. The groiper candidate for governor, James Fishback, who I did an episode of about a few months ago, is not going to win that election. But he is polling double digits, which is bad. And worse, he is dominating youth polls. He has 51% in youth polls. That's ages 18 to 34. Really a really dark look at a future of the Republican Party. Fishback is like barely even like a crypto fascist. He's barely even hiding it. I mean he plays with dog whistles, but all also just openly says a bunch of like anti Semitic stuff and very racist attacks, all with a sort of wink, wink, nudge, nudge in that classic groiper charisma style. But there's another aspect of the Fishback race I want to briefly mention is that there's been a lot of AI ads targeted against Fishback where it has like AI generated video, you know, deep fake style of Fishback with like the squad and Russia and Putin and Alon Omar and Rashida Taleb, foreign generals, Muslim leaders in the Middle east with hijabs. Basically he's like welcoming all of these people into his home and they cut up an anti Israel cake. And that's the ad. It looks, I mean like someone like me can tell it's AI. A boomer might not be able to. And this is something that Thomas Massie, since losing his race, has said that he, he believes through talking with, with voters, specifically older voters, that many boomers and older voters believed the AI ads against Massey, that Massie was in like a throuple with like AOC and someone else, Elon Omar. I think that he actually got calls, his office got calls asking if this was true. So these sorts of AI ads are a real problem, problem. Obviously the fact that these are against Fishback, I'm not being sympathetic to Fishback here, but this is a more general societal problem. Moving on to Another governor's race in Wisconsin. Democratic socialist Francesca Hong is ahead in the polls, but many people are still undecided. In a Wedgwood poll for mid July, Francesco Hong is up 38%, Mandela Barnes is 30% and David Crowley is 9%. Though undecided or supporting another candidate is pulling at 23% in that poll. So there could still be upwards of like 20% of people who are undecided. There's been some other polls in the past few days that show Francesca Hong about 15% above everyone else. So that is a good sign for her. I know there's been some, some organizers from New York and across the country going into Wisconsin right now to help with this last leg of the campaign. This is a very important race looking at what the future of the viability of democratic socialism is going to be in swing states. This past week, David Crowley reentered the race, which may split the moderate vote, which could help Hong win the primary. It's another thing to keep an eye on here. Here in Maine, Troy Jackson is set to be the Democratic Senate nominee after organizers and volunteers secured the vast majority of delegates for the nominee replacement convention. I've mentioned Jackson a few times on the show because he ran for governor with the endorsement of DSA and Bernie Sanders, he was the only person to receive the endorsement of dsa. Platner did not. Jackson's a former state lawmaker, a five generation logger, very pro labor, like the most like legitimate working class pro labor candidate. He's pulling a little bit ahead of Collins right Now, like about 3%. But this is going to be a very close race. This is going to be very tough. Another really close race right now is the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan with corporate and APAC backed Haley Stevens going up against left wing pop populist Abdul El Said. There has been a ton of outside spending the past few weeks with multiple attack ads smearing El Said as quote unquote sexist. And these are all just for him, like criticizing female politicians, like criticizing Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, like not attacking them for being women, but doing very, sometimes actually very soft criticism of like their ability to improve the world as political actors. But the playbook that Stevens and that larger campaign has been using has been trying to smear EL Said as a quote unquote sexist podcast bro. This is the sort of last, last slide of defense. This style of liberalism has had this going back to this sort of identity reductionism when they are faced with, you know, vast actual economic and policy differences between two candidates. The only thing they can do is oh, but Haley Stevens, I am a woman, woman and this man must hate women. AIPAC is helping with this. They have already spent at least $15 million with other corporate packs helping Stevens with another 12 million. As of July 1, there's already been over 46 million in ad spending, 74% of which supports Stevens. And there's a lot of money going in since that July 1st date as well. One of the pro Stevens ads has manufactured a fake Obama endorsement using old clips of Obama talking about Haley Stevens because she worked with him like 15 years ago. Now Obama has declined to comment on this sort of manufactured fake endorsement, which is effectively just letting them do that. If he's not going to say no, I haven't actually endorsed in this race, then basically he's allowing them to lie about him endorsing Stevens in this race. Meanwhile, El Said is on the news almost every week getting grilled about why he doesn't support Israel enough. And Israel has been a very important part of this race. This is in Michigan. Michigan was a big part of the uncommitted movement and Stevens is a ridiculously pro Israel candidate who has voted to send tens of billions of dollars in unrestricted aid to Israel, has stopped the Lebanon War Powers Resolution, has banned the State Department from citing Gaza Health Ministry death tolls, and Stevens also sees Israel in her dreams

[Mia Wong]

and in the United States Congress.

[Molly Conger]

I will continue to fight for the people of Israel. I will continue to fight for Israel's existence. Israel comes to me in my dreams. I see Israel's future.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Meanwhile, El Said wants to abolish ice, fight for Medicare for all and cut off all aid to Israel. He's certainly running a downstream of Zoran Mamdani style campaign with his videos. He has declined to explicitly call himself a democratic socialist, but there's a lot of similarities in his platform to some other DSA candidates like Zoran. Though Al Said is not endorsed by dsa, but he is running with backing of the UAW and the Working Families Party. Speaking of elections, let's close out by talking about election security because on Thursday night President Trump delivered what was promised to be a very important address to the nation on election security. The speech started out as a basically mini version of his last State of the Union before he announced the release of of heavily redacted CIA documents on how China tried to influence our past elections, intelligence reports on possible vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure, and finally claiming that 250,000 non citizens are registered to vote with no further details or evidence of that number. Basically this whole speech was a big ploy to try to pass the SAVE act to restrict mail in voting voting and disenfranchise voters with heightened ID requirements. Trump also talked about how China had stolen election data. What actually happened was China downloaded publicly available voter data in 2022 that the Trump admin now claims could be used by foreign countries to fraudulently vote in our elections. And of course China was looking at possible influence operations operations as many foreign countries do. Russia has done foreign influence operations. That's not changing vote tallies or hacking into voting machines. That's doing disinformation campaigns which as we've seen with tenant media Russia has certainly been involved in recently. And according to some of these documents, China was looking into if they wanted to run influence operations for the 2020 election election and they actually declined to. After Trump's address, reporters questioned John Solomon, a former right wing journalist who Trump brought on to his election task force to investigate possible voter fraud. And Solomon clarified that there's no evidence that any foreign power tampered with US Voting machines or manipulated the vote count.

[Mia Wong]

You acknowledge that there were no votes changed in 2020. I all I can acknowledge is what the intelligence shows.

[Robert Evans]

Right.

[Carl Cassarda]

Only know the intelligence committee has zero

[Mia Wong]

evidence that someone has flipped that a

[Carl Cassarda]

foreign power flipped a vote in 2020, 22 or 24.

[James Stout]

And you have no, you're able to acknowledge.

[Robert Evans]

We're not through all the documents you're

[Mia Wong]

able to acknowledge that Venezuela has not

[Robert Evans]

tampered with voting machines in the United States.

[Ari Chambers]

No.

[Mia Wong]

The intelligence is very clear.

[Carl Cassarda]

They did it on their own machines.

[Mia Wong]

Why is it important that they did

[Carl Cassarda]

it on their machines? Their machine protocols are the same as America.

[Robert Evans]

Why?

[Carl Cassarda]

Because for a long time they did.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[Mia Wong]

So the 20 and so the 2020 election was in fact the results as

[James Stout]

we the American politics.

[Mia Wong]

I'm still researching. So let me, let me. This is the first but there's no intelligence,

[Carl Cassarda]

there is no intelligence that the election would have said that Donald Trump was president.

[Mia Wong]

Said that tonight. Thanks for joining.

[Kerry Brownstein]

On Friday, the day following Trump's address, DHS Secretary Mullen announced that regardless of if the SAVE act passed passes, he will institute mandatory changes to election security, including scrubbing states voter rolls.

[Mia Wong]

We are going to make our second our, our security enhancements mandatory.

[Robert Evans]

Meaning that if these states want a

[James Stout]

grant and they want to re be reimbursed to work or to run federal elections, they're going to have, have to implement security issues.

[Mia Wong]

Just security issues.

[Robert Evans]

We're not trying to get into anything else.

[James Stout]

But we're saying that the machines had to be secured and that your voter registration list needs to be scrubbed.

[Kerry Brownstein]

If this actually happens, this could possibly lead to many people thinking they are registered to vote who are actually not come election day and then be unable to vote. This is a voter disenfranchisement tactic. Secretary Mullen later directly contradicted what John Solomon said the night before, saying that, quote, we know for sure that foreign adversaries have vital pieces of our voting machines and the quote, unquote key to the back end of these machines.

[Mia Wong]

We know that they can change voter

[James Stout]

registration and your vote.

[Robert Evans]

We know it's possible.

[Mia Wong]

There's not a question.

[James Stout]

It's not even for debate.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Finally, on Wednesday, the House advanced a bill to stop insider trading, except Republicans added SAVE act style measures into this bill to pass new voter ID requirements to please Trump. And part of why they put those Save act style measures into this bill is so that they could attack Democrats in upcoming elections for voting against a bill to stop insider trading. Literally seconds after this bill was voted on, the White House rapid response accounts started posting, quote, disgraceful. 198 Democrats just voted against banning members of Congress from trading stocks while they're in office. They're corrupt, as you can see. Very transparent ploy to manufacture a vote to be used in elections to attack Democrats, Democrats for being corrupt. This quote, unquote insider trading bill will now go to the Senate with those Save act style voter ID measures included.

[Robert Evans]

All right, thank you for that, Gare. And last but certainly not least, we've got one more edition of the Tariff Song and then talking about tariffs after it.

[Mia Wong]

All right, let's talk tariffs. So long ago in a galaxy far, far away, which is to say really, truly not that long ago ago, we did an episode on the hideously illegal tariffs Trump imposed under the quote, unquote authority of Section 122 of the Trade act of 1974. These are the ones that are based on this completely manufactured crisis about the US Facing a balance of payments crisis, a thing that cannot happen and is not happening now. These tariffs, which is just a general 10% tariff on all goods, are set to expire here on Friday, July 24, quite possibly the day you were listening to this. So on Monday, July 20, Trump took the most dramatic tariff action he has taken since the Supreme Court found he was illegally using the International Emergency Economic Powers act to apply terrorists in February. By the time you are listening to this, presumably he is going to have unleashed a wrath. You know, I was originally gonna say Raft, but wrath actually works too of Newton tariffs. But as of the time of recording, the one that has been revealed specifically is that he is imposing a 50% tariff on goods imported from Canada or some goods imported from Canada. Now, I'm going to get into what that tariff is actually going to do in a second, but the important thing here is not this specific tariff itself, but the legal authority Trump is using to invoke it. He is invoking Section 338 of the so called Smoot Hawley tariff. Matter of fact, if the name vaguely rings a bell, it's probably because Smoot Hawley is best known for exacerbating the Great Depression to the extent that it is in basically every, like every history textbook of the United States you will read in, in high school will have this in it. This act, Smoot Hawley is the final frontier for tariff authority. It is the tariff big red button. It is a power that has has never been invoked before, even by its creators. And I genuinely don't know if it even still exists. This is the tariff Rubicon, and Trump has just crossed it. Now, before we get into this more, let's talk for a second about Trump's nominal 50% tariff on Canada, which is actually much less of a big deal than it looks. The tariffs are supposed to take effect on August 19 and has about a million carve outs for, you know, different kinds of Canadian goods, including, for example, things like energy products, which is a huge amount of what we import from Canada. So this is only going to apply to about 5.2% of Canadian trade with the U.S. i mean, obviously that is still kind of a big deal for that 5% of trade. But you know, there's a good chance that these tariffs aren't going to go into effect at all and that this is sort of a piece of trade leverage for negotiations with Canada. These, you know, even if they did go into effect, aren't going to be the biggest deal. I'm also going to briefly mention that we finally got the long awaited pharmaceutical import tariff. And when I say long awaited, I have literally been waiting for these tariffs to be announced since the beginning of the administration to the point where I literally stopped covering the announcements that they were coming because they just never did. Apparently they are also kind of a joke. They impose a 100% tariff on pharmaceutical imports, which would be a massive deal according to. Except it starts in 2028 and eventually rises to 200%. And like, okay, yeah, sure, Donald, whatever you say, that's not happening, none of the specifics of the tariffs matter at all or matter much at all. What is significantly more important is Trump invoking 338 of Smoot Hawley. Now, the reason he's doing this is pretty clear. All of the other avenues he has to impose tariffs legally actually have restrictions attached to them. Section 122 tariffs, as we've mentioned, are only supposed to be when there's a balance of payments crisis and you can only impose a flat rate. And once he imposes them, they have to be renewed by Congress, and that's just not happening. So those are expiring on Friday. We've talked about the Section 301 tariffs a few weeks ago. Those are the ones that nominally are about forced labor, but those also have limits and can only be imposed after a long and slow process of trade investigation. Now, obviously, the way that Trump has used both of them is illegal, but even trying to use them illegally, they have definite limits. Section 338 of Smoot Hawley has basically no limits. And the one limit that's relevant for our purposes is a 50% maximum tariff rate. Otherwise, it lets the president impose tariffs on whatever country he wants. For the extremely nebulous reasoning of that country having placed, quote, the commerce of the United States at a disadvantage compared to the commerce of any foreign country, Trump can, you know, say any country is doing this for any reason. We are back to Calvin Ball nonsense. This nominal legal authority allows Trump to do whatever he wants, trade wise up to a 50% tariff. Now, again, it is widely expected that by the time you're reading this, we're already going to have seen more tariffs. I'm expecting something akin to a smaller scale version of liberation tariffs. By the time you're listening, you will know more. Now, the reason I'm talking about section 338 of Smoot Hawley and the reason I've described it as like the big red button of tariffs, like it's the tariff Rubicon, is because not only has it never been used before. Right. You know, the section 122 has also never been used before. But this one specifically, section 338, there is a real question as to whether it's even still in effect. Now, the argument you will most commonly see see is that Section 338 has never formally been repealed and therefore is still on the books. This is a law that was passed in 1930. The Trump administration is making the argument that because it has never formally been repealed, it is still on the books. However, the Problem is that there exists a thing called superseding statute or a, quote, implied repeal. This is the argument that I've seen that this law is not still on the books. I've seen various versions of it. The one that is kind of spreading around now for better or for worse, kind of for worse to some extent, is from Philip Zelikow, who is a Hoover Institute guy and a history professor who's writing in Reason magazine. So, like, you know, these are not the people I would normally turn to in terms of getting legal analysis on everything, But I actually think there's a kind of a decent argument that they might be right. And their argument is the. That, okay, because of the way that, you know, laws can supersede other laws.

[James Stout]

Right.

[Mia Wong]

If you write a second law that is about the same thing as the first law, and it covers explicitly the same thing, it can repeal the first law. It's sketchy. The courts don't like it functioning like that. But it does technically work like that. And, you know, Zilliqo argues that a whole train of statutes ranging from the Trade Expansion act of 1916 to our old freedom friend, Section 301 of the Trade act of 1974, cover exactly the same things and therefore have repealed the statute. I think that's actually plausible. And this is, you know, part of the reason why no one has ever actually tried to use this stuff, because there have been subsequent legislation to describe these exact powers and describe what you can do with them. So whether it even still exists is extremely dubious. Now, this is probably not going to survive a challenge in court, but until the legal challenge actually winds its way through the courts, Trump is going to be free to do his Calvin Ball nonsense. And we're back to, you know, 2025 era. TRUMP Just declaring a tariff is happening on a country every morning. Now, on a broader level, Right. What's happening here is that the way the Supreme Court has been doing shadow docket decisions have allowed Trump to simply keep breaking the law and seizing more illegal power and then using it until the Supreme Court gets around taking that power away. Now, obviously, this is not true of everything he's been trying to do with tariffs. In particular, he's been extremely successful in simply applying the tariffs and then keeping them into effect until the legal challenges go through the courts. That looks like what's going to happen here, which is going to give him probably another. I mean, it's going to give him at least half a year, probably, probably of the ability to just do whatever bullshit tariff policy he wants. Which means another year of completely unhinged economic instability for the entire global economy. It means another year of all you know, of supply lines being degraded, of prices increasing, and of all of us getting absolutely screwed. Okay, put a transfer. Go on your couch.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We reported the news.

[Ari Chambers]

We reported the news.

[Robert Evans]

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

[Mia Wong]

It Could Happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

[Robert Evans]

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[Mia Wong]

Visit our website, coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts

[Ari Chambers]

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[Robert Evans]

Thanks for listening.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Hey, Portlandia fans, Kerry Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

[Carl Cassarda]

The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form.

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We're launching Podlandia AO Rewatch, our brand

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[Kerry Brownstein]

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And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Krisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

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Kyle is going for it. Here you fully improvised, not just words, but a song about.

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Well, I thought you were all going to write a song.

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I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

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What's up, fam?

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I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

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Hey, what's up, y'?

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All?

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It's your girl, Sam J.

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And we're the host of Everyone Watches

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Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I heart women's sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out shout outs to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Chrisean Rock's boxing journey.

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She looks good.

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The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is

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If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of

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I'm Yamanika, and I'm out.

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Listen to youo're the Problem with yamaneika on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan, and on my podcast

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Disgraceland, I tell the stories behind music's

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Sonic Youth was cool, but was the band cooler than than the couple on

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