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- [00:00]
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- [00:33]
Isaac Saul
Coming up, a recap of the LA event. A lot of talk about a big homelessness proposal in Utah. A little bit of Nicholas Maduro, and a lot of talk about ticks. It's a good one. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Suspension of the Rules podcast. I'm your host, Isaac Sowell. I've just totally given up on the intro. We're fresh off the boat from Los Angeles, Irvine, California, I should say. Not Los Angeles. I don't want to do. I was accused of Orange county erasure. I don't want to do that. We were not in Los Angeles. We were in Orange County, Irvine, California, together. I miss being together. I'm here with Managing editor Ari Weitzman and our editor at large, Camille Foster. Gentlemen, how are you doing?
- [01:37]
Camille Foster
Good.
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Ari Weitzman
How are you, sir?
- [01:38]
Camille Foster
Tickled. I'm enjoying the kind of Trumpian intro there. I'm here from the Oval Office. What a great place. We are not Los Angeles. Los Angeles erasure. I was accused very unfairly. It's not true. Los Angeles is real. Orange county is real. They love me there. It was fun.
- [01:55]
Isaac Saul
I'm back.
- [01:56]
Camille Foster
I feel good. It's wonderful. I love the weave.
- [01:59]
Ari Weitzman
I was gonna assail Isaac for mentioning fresh off the boat, though. Cause I don't know if that's appropriate. That seems a little bit. Yeah.
- [02:08]
Isaac Saul
Is that not a PC thing to say anymore? Now that you say that? I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess there is some connotation there. That's probably not appropriate.
- [02:19]
Ari Weitzman
I use that expression, ride any boats, so.
- [02:22]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I basically describing fresh off the boat, any time I arrive anywhere, I'm like, oh. I'm like, you know, it's just like.
- [02:30]
Camille Foster
I think people probably just assume you're making, like a intentionally edgy, off color joke and they're like, oh, all right. Nice.
- [02:37]
Isaac Saul
Okay. For a guy who thinks a lot about language, I never considered that one. Yeah. Okay. Well, anyway, yeah, we were in Irvine, which was awesome. First of all. Thank you to everybody who came out, super fun night. We had over 300, I think close to 400 people in attendance. We had an awesome VIP after show hangout with like 30 or so people. Huge shout out to Barclay. The Irvine. The Barclay Irvine Theater. Who or Irvine Barclay Theater, who were awesome hosts and really took care of us and took care of all of our guests. I got to meet Dick and Emily from, you know, of this American Life and Question Everything fame, which was super fun. It was great to hang out with them. I'd love to go back to Orange County. I hope we get to do it again next year. And the onstage product was awesome. We got to watch Camille chop it up with Anna Kasparian and Alex Thompson. Anna's awesome. She's so. She was like, exactly who I thought she was. Like, she just brought the fire and said honest stuff. And, you know, I obviously disagree with her on plenty of things. And I know she's been raked over the coals and accused of being an anti Semite and all this stuff for her Israel commentary, which we did not talk about at all at the show. But she was basically exactly who I thought she was because she was just, like, really interesting and had some biting commentary and said some things I didn't expect her to say and whatever. And that's just what I've gotten from watching her show. So when I say that, I mean it in, like, a totally complimentary, great way. And Alex surprised me almost the entire night. Like, I was expecting him to be kind of like a sort of boring reporter. Like, we were going to have to coax him out into saying anything remotely, like, edgy or interesting or that was just, you know, nothing to do with any of his work or anything I've seen. He's an incredible reporter. It's just like, because he's such a straight news kind of D.C. source reporter, but instead he just kind of managed to say a ton of interesting stuff all night, whether it was about the gossip he hears about Donald Trump Jr. S relationships or whatever to just, like, what Republicans are whispering behind closed doors about Trump. I felt like he managed to walk this really difficult line where he didn't actually offer an opinion on basically anything all night, but he just injected really fascinating reporting and spoke for, like, this is how the Trump administration views this thing. Xyz, which I thought was really fun. And, yeah, it was a fantastic panel. I don't know if you guys have thoughts to throw in there, but I figured it would only be appropriate to start with that.
- [05:38]
Ari Weitzman
Yeah, had a really, really Good time. Would concur with all the things you said. Certainly. Anna was great. Alex was great. Anna did not raise her voice at all. There was no shouting. There was plenty of agreement and disagreement and more than that, just kind of thoughtful back and forth. I loved when the crowd got involved, both kind of booing and hissing an occasion. And applauding spontaneously. So it was great. It was a good time. Especially enjoyed the hang afterwards. Lots of really, really great, thoughtful people. Interesting feedback on the publication itself, on the Times. We are living in the nature of the news business broadly, and even some suggestions about the directions that we might go in the future.
- [06:29]
Camille Foster
I think just to add to the audience interaction, from my seat in the audience the whole time, not under the bright lights with you guys, I heard a couple shushes, too, which I appreciated. Yeah, people were locked in. And when there was a little bit of chatter, I heard some very, like, pointed shh. And John got shushed once. Even our executive producer.
- [06:51]
Isaac Saul
What was John doing?
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Camille Foster
He was having a whispery conversation with Mag Delena in the back. I thought it was pretty quiet, but it was distracting enough to Warren Ash. So that's.
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Ari Weitzman
That's funny.
- [07:03]
Camille Foster
That's at least an indicator that tells me we have an audience that really wanted to listen.
- [07:08]
Isaac Saul
Jon was talking while me and Camille did our thing on stage. I mean, that's just objectively rude. And he deserved to be.
- [07:13]
Camille Foster
Shush.
- [07:16]
Isaac Saul
Got what he had coming, in my opinion.
- [07:18]
Camille Foster
Yeah. Extremely inappropriate of Jon to be discussing the way the stage product looks and his role as executive producer. Who could imagine doing something so thoughtless? John, I know you're hearing all this and you need to take this feedback.
- [07:31]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, no, it was fun. Also, I got really jammed up a few times throughout the night, mostly because the panel found some agreement in places that bothered me. So I ended up defending gerrymandering. I had to defend Gavin Newsom, and I think I even defended regime change, too, all in the matter of about 90 minutes. So just to add some. There was too much nicety happening, so I had to go devil's advocate mode and, yeah, make the case to gerrymander the hell out of California and then also talk about how good Gavin Newsom is. I don't know. I might actually believe the gerrymandering thing. I've been thinking about it since I made the argument on stage. For those of you who aren't there, which is going to be most of the people listening to this, basically one of our topics was gerrymandering in California. Anna Kasparian made a very passionate case that Democrats and Gavin Newsom should not engage in gerrymandering because, like, it's so pathetic that Trump has to gerrymander or hold onto the House and Democrats should just be above it and whatever. And Camille generally concurred, I think, with that viewpoint, like, hold the principle. Alex didn't really chime in much. And then I made my argument, which was actually, like, Trump is the one setting all of this off. And despite the fact that I very much oppose gerrymandering as a principle, if we're going to just allow Trump to keep the House by gerrymandering all these Republican states and don't fight back, then Democrats are going to be in really big trouble in the long term, and the gerrymandering problem is only going to get worse. And if we want people to step back off the ledge and the best thing to do is Democrats fight back, gerrymander the hell out of everything they can. And it all gets to the point where it's so bad that everybody looks around and realizes, wow, this sucks. Like, we're not electing 90% of the people, the representatives that we're sending to Congress, we're basically just having them pick who their voters are and we should do something to fix this system. And that's the actual off ramp. And I didn't believe a word of that. I mostly agreed with Camille and Anna, but I was trying to add some. Yeah. Some ideological diversity to the debate that was happening on stage. And then I thought about it and I was like, maybe I do actually, like, Anna's response wasn't compelling to me. I don't even know if she gave a response to that argument, but I didn't really hear anything. That afterwards I was like, maybe that's right. Maybe I actually am right about that and that, like, there's a guy who's bullying everybody, like, hypothetical, you know, But Trump's. It's sort of like a bowling movie telling everybody, like, let's gerrymander. And your options are like, sit on your hands and hope he gets it out of his system and just doesn't keep doing it. Or, like, call in a bigger kid and fight back a little bit and make him realize that he can't just run around bullying people with no repercussions. I kind of like the latter approach more. Even if bullying is wrong. Yeah. I don't know.
- [10:44]
Camille Foster
I think it's one of those things where they're actually. This is going to be so unsatisfying. But I think that it's one of those things where it can be correct, like the correct stance, depending on what your goals are or what your affiliation is. Like, if you are a Democrat in Congress or a Democrat in California, and you want to push back against the Trump administration, and you are at least even on the side of the Democrats and saying, we need to have checks against the Trump administration's powers, Congress is not providing it, and if we allow more gerrymandering to happen across the country, fewer checks will be in place. And if you are aligned with that perspective and you have that goal politically, then saying we're going to use this weapon to fight back makes sense and sounds like the right response when you frame it, as we are currently in a fight for our lives here politically, and if we are bringing principles to a knife fight, we're going to get knifed. Whereas on the other side, if we are independents or moderates or people calling balls and strikes, principled observers from the sidelines, and we want to say, you know, it doesn't really make sense philosophically to say, in order to prevent the bad thing that's happening, we need to do more of the bad thing that's happening, we can say, like, that doesn't really check out logically, and that if we want to make a stand on principle, then on principle, you can't support the thing that you're principled against. Like, that checks out, too. So I think, like, both are right, and I don't know if that feels good enough.
- [12:19]
Ari Weitzman
Yeah. I think the special circumstance being that we are having this conversation in California where Proposition 50 is being voted on, and California also being the place that they have to vote to empower the government to carry out this partisan retributive redistricting effort, precisely because they had earlier decided that they wanted to have an independent commission have responsibility for this, to try to make the system more impartial, to try and give greater confidence in their institutions to every citizen of California, even the ones who are in these political minorities, and the notion that you would again vacate that principle, abandon it, in order to defend yourself against something that is essentially being positioned as a greater wrong, I think it is unique. It does bring the kind of tension into particularly sharp relief. And I think that it's a circumstance where I really think that Californians ought to be proud of what they had already done. Like, it was something that people all over the country have pointed to as a model for the way to try and combat a tangible problem that has been dealt with for a very long time. With respect to partisan redistricting. And I don't know, I'm just. I'm deeply uncomfortable abandoning that value for the sake of what perhaps could be some short term gain. Especially when I think there's also a pretty good probability that, especially when you listen to Steve Bannon and defend their approach, they openly talk about doing this so that they can attain a permanent electoral majority. People who talk like that, I don't know that they're actually going to win a lot of people to their side. I think that that suggests the kind of vulnerability and that you can attack that vulnerability without selling out your principles. And that's the argument I tried to make. Anyways, I think Anna's point, which is perhaps a little more salient than you are willing to give her credit for now, Isaac, and maybe it's just in retrospect, but Congress isn't doing all that much at the moment. They are rubber stamping things and perhaps Democrats could do more if they actually had a majority, but I'm not so sure about that.
- [14:54]
Isaac Saul
No, I do think that's a fair point. I mean, I guess my pushback to what you just said would be like, it's true that you could use this as an attack line against Republicans to kind of make them look weak and they can't win without rigging the game or whatever, but the whole point of gerrymandering is that if they do it well enough, even if you win the popular sentiment on that, you're still going to lose the election. Like, Democrats could have a 5% popular vote advantage and then also end up in the minority in the House, which is the whole problem. Not the whole problem, but one of the big problems of gerrymandering. So it's sort of like, yeah, you get to feel good about taking the moral high ground, but then you get trounced anyway in. Exactly. Like, they get everything they want by you not fighting back, kind of, um, which is tough. So, yeah, I mean, I guess this is. I created a tangent here, but it's. It's maybe a little less straightforward than I thought. Again, I think like my. I'm drawn towards the. Take the principled stance and don't gerrymander because we know gerrymandering's bad and you've said it's bad. And California's like this beacon of, you know, reform, the Independent Commission, however flawed it is, is better than what they're doing before. And now they're undoing all that. Like. Or they may undo that, I guess. One last question, Camille. Maybe you have a sense of this is Prop 50, which is the ballot measure that will allow the gerrymandering in California to happen. Is that likely to pass? It feels like it probably is. Right?
- [16:40]
Ari Weitzman
You know what's funny? I haven't looked at any of the recent polling. The last I looked it did seem likely to pass, but I don't know where we are and I should double check that.
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Isaac Saul
Yeah, I don't know either. But I'd be interested in what its actual odds are.
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Ari Weitzman
I asked Chat gp I suppose that impacts me. It's just dawning on me. Wait, you live here?
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Camille Foster
Well, according to the LA Times, voters in a recent poll that they put out do side with Democrats on Prop 50. And it is, they say 70% of those who plan to vote on election day oppose. Six in 10 likely voters support Proposition 50 and early voters favor the proposition. But 70% of those who plan a vote on election Day oppose it. Which is nuanced and interesting, which means it's going to be kind of close. But the LA Times, according to their analysis, says that more reflects the way demographics have shifted with how people vote and who's voting when. So I don't know. We'll find out.
- [17:47]
Ari Weitzman
The only statewide ballot measure. I mean, this is the whole reason this is the ball game essentially to go out and vote. So it will be interesting. I don't know if it has implications for the rest of the country, although there have been a couple of states that have suggested that they might want to do something. But were there at least discussions about it? But only California is actually pursuing this at this time.
- [18:10]
Camille Foster
I mean, pursuing this. But there are other states that are doing mid decade redistricting. So it's just. Are there states that are gonna be amending their laws so that they can do that same thing? Cause the ones that don't are actively doing that.
- [18:27]
Ari Weitzman
Right. They actually don't need to do it. Cause they don't have the same provisions in place to prevent them. But again, I do think there has been some recent research that I've seen that suggests that like at the national level, a lot of the gerrymandering efforts, like kind of just work themselves out in the wash. I do think that, you know, sounding the alarm, Texas did what it did and the President of the United States has encouraged other Republican states to follow their lead and to do more partisan redistricting. But is that likely to have a profound consequence? It's actually debatable. And whether or not you again betray your principles for some sort of, as some Sort of short term remedy to something that may in fact not be terribly consequential is. I don't know. I don't know if I love that, but here we are.
- [19:20]
Isaac Saul
I asked ChatGPT if fresh off the Boat to describe someone is inappropriate or not.
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Camille Foster
You were stuck on that. Dang, We've moved up. We've been talking about gerrymandering this whole time. I don't know if you're aware of that.
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Isaac Saul
It said short, short answer. Usually, yes, avoid it. Fresh off the Boat has a long history as a slur aimed at newly arrived immigrants, especially Asians, but not only. And it suggested some safer alternatives like newly arrived, just arrived, recently immigrated, new to city slash country.
- [19:51]
Camille Foster
None of which apply to you getting off a plane. But yeah, I will say I don't want to open another can of worms. And I'm on the side of like, yeah, this is the way that that phrase should be interpreted. But ChatGPT, I've noticed, does have a little bit of a liberal bias there and not. Not necessarily in or just in that answer. But I've asked the questions before and it claims that there is a consensus, that is a consensus that it just sees in more liberal media establishments. And I really wish that I had an example for you just like in the holster, but it's more of just like a thing that I've surmised. I don't know if you have a feeling on that, Camille, or if you just want to say, hey, let's move on.
- [20:36]
Isaac Saul
I copy and pasted the question into Grok, a known racist AI Chat bot. It also, somewhat sarcastically, yeah, it also said, yes, the phrase fresh off the boat, often abbreviated as fob. Fob, which I've never heard, can be inappropriate or offensive in many contexts today, although it depends on intent, audience and tone, which I think is maybe a more nuanced answer, actually. All right, well, we actually have some plans to talk about. Well, gerryman is really important, but I wanted to put a big policy discussion on the plate today. I feel like it had been a few weeks since, as a group we wrestled with some policy. And I kind of had that thought. There's just been like so much Trump stuff not related to legislation and the government shutdown, which is kind of like some policy stuff. And then there's all the culture war stuff that has kind of been, you know, I don't know, overflowing everybody's brains with ideas and thoughts and commentary. And then this thing fell into my lap, which was this fascinating story in the New York Times about a really important issue, which is homelessness and what they're thinking about doing in Utah. And so I sent this article to Ari and Camille and asked them both to read it and meditate on it and be prepared for a little bit of a conversation, because I think it's super fascinating. I think there's a lot here. And I'll start with kind of giving the big picture, which is that in the last decade in the United States, unsheltered homelessness has gone up 60%. Today, 23 of 10,000 people in America are homeless on any given night, an estimated 770,000 people. So, you know, about as many people as live in like kind of mid size, mid major, almost big cities in America, a lot of people. And in Utah, they are thinking about a kind of new approach that I think has been embraced mostly by people on the right, by a lot of conservatives, certainly appears to be getting the enthusiastic endorsement of President Trump. And the idea in, I guess, a quick summarized breakdown, is that they have found a piece of property sort of on the outskirts of Salt Lake City where they want to build a facility to house the city's homeless people and offer things like mental health services and addiction services. It's sort of being framed by the people who are proposing it as this really, I would say, human, thoughtful approach that will be rehabilitative and hopefully end with people finding work and getting on their own two feet and landing somewhere else. The catch, if there's a catch, I guess, and in this case, I think maybe the kind of hook that's sort of causing a lot of debate, is that it appears, the way people are talking about it, that the commitment to this facility for many of the homeless in Salt Lake City is not going to be voluntary. They are going. One of the people who's behind the facility basically described the proposal as having police who he used a euphemism for the police, which I'll have to find in this article. It wasn't. Oh, God, it was like, I can't find it. It'll come to me. But it was like relocation officers or something like that. And the idea was to have these police go to places where there are encampments in Salt Lake City and effectively tell the people there, you can go to jail or court, or we can take you to this facility where you can get some help and we'll get you on your feet. And once they're in the facility, it's not entirely clear, you know, whether they can come and go on their own free will. And what that looks like. Critics are kind of talking about it like it's this inhumane concentration camp, while people who are supportive of it are saying, you know, what's actually inhumane is leaving these homeless people on the street to, you know, effectively live in squalor and if they have addiction or mental health issues, not get help and basically kill themselves slowly. Which candidly, is what happens in a lot of situations. So I'm curious. I guess I'll start with like a broad. I've got tons of questions about this proposal and some of the issues that come up for me and thoughts about it. But I'm interested maybe just to start to hear from both of you kind of what you thought reading the article, like what sorts of stuff came to mind for you and if this felt like a program that you would generally be supportive of or if there was like immediately some red flags where you're just like, no, no, no, no, not this. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [26:21]
Ari Weitzman
Hey, it's Marc Maron from WTF here.
- [26:23]
Isaac Saul
To let you know that this podcast.
- [26:25]
Ari Weitzman
Is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
- [26:27]
Isaac Saul
And I'm sure the reason you're listening.
- [26:29]
Ari Weitzman
To this podcast right now is because you chose it well. Choose progressives. Name your price tool and you could.
- [26:35]
Isaac Saul
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- [26:38]
Ari Weitzman
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- [26:52]
Isaac Saul
Not available in all states.
- [27:03]
Camille Foster
I was a little over the map thinking about this and responding to it because the questions that we. So starting with the ambiguity, which I think remains the headline, I think anything that we say is going to circle back to the idea that this is still a proposal and we don't have answers to the key questions in this yet. So how are these relocation officers or whoever are going to be ascertaining the people who need to be in this facility? How are they making that assert like that determination, how are they being transported there and do they have the ability to leave? Those are going to be not details but salient characteristics of this plan. And I know that when the state was asked about that by this, by the Times, they said that the reporter was worrying about details and this was something, a granular detail to be worked out and they were really considering this blue sky approach that they were excited about. Those are obviously going to be key. So starting with that, the things that concern me are clearly like there's an image that's bad about this, that it's like this facility remotely away from somewhere, from anywhere other than, like, ranchers that are nearby who aren't really thrilled about this, you know, understandably. But the. The image looks bad. It's a security facility with, like, fencing, and it doesn't look like it's a place that screams rehabilitation center. We're here to help. Come escape and find a answer to your malady. It screams. This is akin to a prison. The thing that is interesting about it is if I were to describe exactly this. Exactly this proposal with a question, One of the questions answered, the question being, is it voluntary to leave? And the answer is, like, if you don't have a clinical diagnosis and you don't have a judge order telling you to be here, it's voluntary. You can come in and come out if that's the answer. And I described exactly this plan, and it happened to be in a building in a downtown city in the middle of Salt Lake City. I don't think anybody would blink twice. The fact that it is in a remote area kind of outside the city feels different, but I don't know how much that should matter. We talk about how we have a lot of land, that it's strange when you look at the map of the country, how huge it is, and we struggle with homelessness. And it feels somewhat reasonable to say if we have these facilities where the only way to fix homelessness is with shelter, so let's build a shelter in the space where there's space, and then allow people to go in and access it. That sounds pretty reasonable, but again, it circles back to what I started with. What is the voluntary nature of this for the people who are sent to the facility? We don't know.
- [30:05]
Isaac Saul
Just really quick, before Camille says something, I will say that according to Randy Shumway, the chairman of the group of the political appointees and business figures that are advising on this campus plan, they believe that nearly two thirds of the 1300 homeless people potentially sent to the site could be there for involuntary treatment. So they're expecting, like, a pretty large chunk of the people to be there for involuntary treatment. And the way that they. Yeah, the euphemism that I was remembering from the article was asked how people would enter the facility. Schuman said law enforcement rescue teams would identify homeless people in the city and offer them a choice. We can take you to court and you can go to jail. We don't want to do that. We have to. Resource. Yeah, resource Rich alternative. Come to this campus with us. Basically.
- [31:00]
Camille Foster
But I mean, even there, like, that doesn't provide many answers to me because it's saying, how many people do we expect we could be sending to this facility? And it doesn't say for how long and whether or not they'd be able to leave. Like, that is an important detail.
- [31:18]
Ari Weitzman
Yeah, I don't know, Isaac, if you mentioned the title of the story, it's in Utah. Trump's Vision for Homelessness Begins to Take Shape in the New York Times. It's got a couple of bylines there, if I remember. I don't know, maybe it was not more than two. But anyways, I think reading the story, I had a bunch of different reactions. I mean, one, there was some language in the story that I ended up highlighting, which seemed as though it was supposed to be. You should kind of take offense at this. Like, look at the way they're accusing homeless people of turning great cities into, quote, unsanitary nightmares. I've found the renewed effort to kind of police language around homelessness, to talk about it in perhaps a more sanitized way, somewhat frustrating. And it is perhaps frustrating because this is such a genuinely complicated, awful thing. And I know that it is imperative that we kind of center human dignity and empathy here. And I think it's very valuable to establish that people who find themselves in these situations, generally speaking, it is not a consequence of just they've made poor decisions financially. Most of these people are struggling with mental health issues or addiction. It's really hard to find your way out of circumstances like that by yourself. And some of them have alienated their families, perhaps don't have families. It's just an extraordinarily difficult and complicated problem. So I'm all for leading with humanity in these discussions and trying to talk about things in a careful way. But I do worry that some of the efforts to sanitize these conversations and to kind of make them safer, so to speak, come at the expense of acknowledging that the status quo is absolutely terrible. I mean, we have this kind of practiced indifference where we step over homeless people. If you live in a place like San Francisco who are getting high on the street, you kind of walk around them, they're muttering to themselves, and you try to avoid them. I've lived in New York for many, many years. I am there almost weekly. I actually ride the train pretty regularly now, unfortunately. Cause sometimes coming in from jfk, it's the only way to get into the city. I know, I know just man of the people. But, you know, you see people who are suffering Mental health in clear mental health crisis and also on the street. And it's sad, but also sometimes they are dangerous, clearly, sometimes it does inspire fear. And there have been pretty high profile incidents of citizens getting into either being assaulted by or I think it was Daniel Penny was his name in New York on that subway where he got into it with Michael Jackson impersonator who was homeless, who did have a history of mental health challenges and someone died. And I think it is imperative to just acknowledge that the status quo isn't so great, that the range of options includes indifference and incarceration. And now this kind of involuntary detention, which is not new, but is something that Americans kind of drifted away from. We closed a lot of our mental health facilities and we've just been either ignoring or incarcerating homeless people in this country for a while. So looking for novel approaches here is a good and valuable thing to do. I think the challenge with a program like this, however, is it's going to require lots and lots of resources. Some of those resources are going to come from federal grants that are already being given out that are going to nonprofit organizations that are kind of distributed and all over the place. And the goal here seems to be to kind of centralize the programming in a way and to perhaps even centralize the mechanisms for determining the kind of appropriateness and efficacy of particular kind of treatment regimens. And I don't know that that's necessarily a good idea either. And when I see some of the other things in the story, there was one quote about we're not measuring success and whether or not the number of people that get housed like we measure success and whether or not people are kind of having their dignity restored. And there's other kind of quasi religious language that makes me slightly uncomfortable, not merely because of the separation of church and state, but because I'm not certain that the state ought to be the person or the institution that we're looking to. To give people dign.
- [35:57]
Camille Foster
Yeah, I agree with that.
- [35:58]
Ari Weitzman
And I do think that there are a lot of these local, smaller programs that have actually had pretty remarkable success and could do with more funding. And I'd be very concerned about a program like this kind of happening in a dramatic, sweeping way and having the bright lights shined on it and not paying special attention to the existing programs that are perhaps more local, more effective, that might actually be displaced by making a move to this. So that I think obviously everything else that's already been said about involuntary detention and the concerns that come along with that, I agree. Wholeheartedly it's a very difficult challenge. Most of us are familiar with One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, although it's a bit dated now, so maybe you guys haven't seen it. That's what I think of when I think of sanitariums, these Asylums. Asylums. But at the same time, it's clear that we do need radical new approaches. Some of those things will be state run and state funded. But I suppose the most important thing, in addition to actually getting these programs up and running and funding them in a careful way, is just actually having some transparency. And it's totally appropriate to ask questions about how these programs will actually work. And I don't think hiding behind the fact that you're kind of early is a great reason for not being prepared to answer, at least attempt to answer sensible questions about what happens if someone's in this facility and they're caught drinking, like, what do you do with them then? Are you just kind of kicking them back out of the program again? Does it extend the period of their kind of involuntary detention in these camps that you're setting up near the airport? It just. It could be very terrible. And at the same time, the conditions people are living in are also quite terrible already. And it's just the problem is distributed and it's making neighborhoods and communities worse off. I feel like I'm just kind of tossing out a deluge of awful things that don't really stack up to a sensible solution and perhaps just complicate the picture, but maybe that's useful.
- [38:22]
Camille Foster
I want to give you the room to respond here, Isaac, but very briefly to say that I think it could be helpful to have a framework here of like criticisms to the response or the way that this is being pitched versus criticism to the idea. Because things like not being prepared to answer questions, us still having questions of the plan, not being able to provide them, as well as the statement that this is not going to be measured. This plan to reduce homelessness, its success will not be measured by whether or not it reduces homelessness. Like, that's pretty silly. But that's like also separate from the criticisms that we're talking about with the idea. So like, there's two buckets there that maybe that helps to provide some structure to your deluge.
- [39:05]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, to start, I would say I'm working from a position where the people involved in this have a genuine interest in doing right by the homeless. I think the people behind the plan are well intentioned and I think the opponents to the Plan are well intentioned. And I'm like, functioning from that baseline. I mean, I'm reading, you know, like, the guy, the, this, this guy, Shumway. Shumway. I'm not sure how to say his name. Who's like the head of this consort consortium of people who are involved in this campus. I mean, he's like, you know, they're trying to build a system towards the pathway to human thriving. Allowing people to remain on the streets originates from the purest intentions and may be the most inhumane thing we could possibly do. He talks about how this is, you know, like, success is not permanent housing. Success is human dignity. We're in the business of lives, humans and souls. We can't brick and mortar our way out of this. You know, like, this is somebody who cares deeply about this issue. This is not some, like, guy who's just trying to clear out all the homeless people in Salt Lake City and lock them in a concentration camp. I'm sorry, unless he's like the best PR person of all time, I don't buy that. Um, so, yeah, I, I, I'm like, coming from that point.
- [40:31]
Ari Weitzman
They do make a little room in the piece to, to, to mention that he has a firm that promotes some software, builds software that he may in fact be licensing back to the agency so that they can actually keep track of homeless people, something like that.
- [40:46]
Camille Foster
Which, like, kind of just proves that he's interested in the problem. Or I mean, you could say, like, it shows that he's like a conniving, pernicious person who has some shell game set up. But it did sound pretty convincing that it was like a nonprofit that he doesn't see.
- [40:59]
Isaac Saul
I think, yeah, he was like, pretty had a very direct statement in response to the Times of just like, nobody makes money off that. It's a nonprofit funded by philanthropic donors. I mean, that's like, yeah, I don't know. That's. That to me felt like classic New York Times bias in their reporting being injected into the piece. It's just like, yeah, I sort of scoffed at that when I saw it. So I guess working from that principle, I mean, I would say one, I think on the face of it, the plan, the broad strokes of the plan are actually something I'd really like to see attempted. I sort of said this about the Zoram Mandani stuff when we talked about him and New York, where I was like, I don't live in New York City anymore and they're not taking my tax dollars and I probably wouldn't vote for him because I think a lot of his policies are fantasy. And I'm not going to vote for fucking Curtis Lewis or Andrew Cuomo either. And I'd be in a really big bind if I was in New York right now. But from sitting where I am, like, I'm hoping that Mamdani actually gets elected, because I'd be curious to see if he can stand up a free childcare program in New York. Like, let's see what progressives can do when they have power. I'm, like, curious about it and it wouldn't affect me, so I'm just can watch it as a, you know, as a commentator and analyst and pundit. Like, you know, I don't think he's gonna, like, burn the city into ruin. I think he's gonna try and do some good stuff and probably will fail a bunch. I see this. There's like a little bit more weight because it's like you're talking about potentially taking away people's freedom. But also it is like, it is a new approach, or one at least that's like, we haven't attempted in the kind of 21st century context where, like, I think we do have a better understanding of how to rehabilitate people. And we, you know, there is more sort of progressive societal embrace of, like, we have to care for the homeless than maybe there was 40, 50, 100 years ago when they're like the insane asylums and stuff. Like, what does involuntary commitment look like? Today is probably a lot different than what it looked like 50 years ago, especially with so many people watching. And I'm almost curious just to see, like, what this group could do and if they can actually, like, yeah, have some results. I'll say, like, speaking from personal experience, I've known. I've had personal relationships with three people in my life who have been homeless at one time or another. Two of the three, I think, definitively had some sort of mental health crisis of some kind. Mental health issues. One of them, I think, just had really remarkable bad luck. I would say, like, all three of them, by the way, or zero of the three of them are actually currently homeless, which is awesome. But I would say, like, for the two that had the mental health stuff, what literally got them off the streets after years of being on the streets was being forced into treatment. And, like, that's my personal experience. It's what I witnessed. It was like being a part of a group of family or friends who are trying to get this person help and they refuse. And there's literally nothing you can do. Unless somebody like that threatens someone else's life or their own life if they don't do that. And even in that scenario, you're just, yeah, even then the best thing you can do is you get them committed to some hospital for 48 hours and then they get released and that's it. And like I saw that happen over and over again. And like, you know, what if somebody had, like I can see so clearly this person is in crisis. Like if somebody had come to me and said, like, hey, we can take this person who you love and involuntarily commit them, like I would have done that because I. It was so obvious to me that that would have helped them. And eventually we got there because they did the requisite things to be forced into treatment and it got better. But like, you know, it's. I think there's something there. Like I just do. I'm sorry. And like, I think there's. It's not, you know, outside of my personal anecdotes, I think like there's a lot of evidence for this. And like, you know, Camille, you're talking about people you see on the street. It's like you can tell like this person is not in a state of mind to go get themselves help. They're never going to do that. You know, I remember reading about the moms in San Francisco in the Bay Area who were really opposed to safe injection sites. Like the parents of the addicts living on the street who organized protests against safe injection sites. Cuz they're like, I want you to put my kid in jail because he's a heroin addict. And if you just like facilitate his drug use and try and usher him into some treatment center, he's never gonna get sober. Whether they're right or wrong or whatever, like they're the closest people possible who have the absolute best intentions and like, just like get them off the street is number one. I reported on this place called the DOE Fund that would house formerly incarcerated people. They would come out of prison and they would come straight to the DOE Fund. It exists in New York City and I think Philadelphia now too. And the program was basically like, you get drug tested while you live here and we give you a job straight off the street, straight out of prison, those two things. And if you fail a drug test, you're out. And if you don't show up for work, you're out. And if you hit those two things, you can stay here and live here for X amount of time and we'll cover your housing, whatever and your meals, and you save up all that money you earned, and then you transition from prison to the real world. And they had, like, unbelievable success reducing recidivism by just giving people jobs, housing, and making sure they were clean. Like, these programs can work. So I don't know, I would say, like, I have, like, a broadly positive posture towards this, if only because everything else just seems so broken. Like, Camille said it just like, of course, the last thing I'll say is like, you know, then I say all this and then it's like this facility opens and there's one story of one person who's like, trapped inside the facility and can't get out, even though they're of sound mind and they like, sending distress signals out to the public to come help me. I'm locked in here. It's a prison. And then, like, it's like, oh, this was a terrible idea. You know, you're putting so much faith in the facility and the resources to be good people and have good programs and whatever, which is risky and scary. So, you know, it's a lot of power to wield.
- [48:11]
Ari Weitzman
Yeah, Transparency and accountability just have to be the watchwords with a program like this. And I agree pretty violently with almost everything you said there, Isaac. In my own experience with family members who've been in mental health crisis, people I've known who've been homeless, I've had a similar, very. It's been very similar to what you described. And in some cases where I was very, very close to the situation, it was like the person who's calling the police. And I'm also the person who's interacting with the police later on when they're trying to prosecute them and keep them in jail. And I'm encouraging them, like, maybe mental health, some sort of diversion program would be better. No program existed. There was not really an option to do anything apart from put this person in jail for, you know, a not insignificant period of time. But then they get out and the same cycle kind of repeats itself because there just aren't enough resources. And we've got a large, close knit family. And it was challenging for us and has been challenging for us. And I can only imagine how difficult it is for lots of other people. So, I mean, interestingly, what I think it highlights is that addressing homelessness isn't merely a matter of the people who are currently on the street and their unique challenges. It's also a matter of keeping people off the street to begin with who are on the peripheries of society, who are struggling with mental health. That has to be as much a part of the conversation as anything else.
- [49:42]
Camille Foster
I think the thing to add, because there's this important point here about voluntary or involuntary assistance, I think that's very close to the central issue at hand. And I think I've seen those cases, too. I know people, an extended family, who have responded to drug issues only when they are forced to get treatment. The key aspect of that is the. The person who's making those judgments. Lots of. It's not a new thing. Lots of jurisdictions have set up drug courts specifically for that problem. So a judge who is trained in these matters can make determinations that are somewhat informed, impartial, but also relies on the compassion of that person's family. And that's still the central issue, because the question that Isaac's thinking of this idea of the person who's stuck in the system, who's been swooped up through a process that we don't know yet by metrics that we aren't sure of, and been adjudicated by people who we have not been introduced to, how many of those people are there going to be and what are these processes going to look like? Because if it's something that is going to start with a lot of good intentions and end up being a wide dragnet that catches a lot of people up in it and then isn't transparent, to your point, Camille, and we don't understand what that process looks like, and it ends up getting a lot of people in a position where they're worse off and their autonomy is being restricted in ways that are not going to allow for better outcomes when they're out, and to say nothing of whether or not their autonomy should be restricted in the first place, people who may not be struggling, if that ends up being a lot of people, then this plan's terrible. It doesn't work. But if it ends up being something where there's transparency, we see this happens. There's going to be cases where we are adjudicating people who are sent to a facility to deal with their drug problems in, like, a rehab facility that's sheltered and then gets them back to a position where they can be more mentally stable and prepared, then that could work. The issue is whether or not, like, what that process is going to look like. And the last thing I think that I want to say, it's a little unrelated, but it's still the same topic, is that this concept of remoteness, the reason why I think I kind of dismissed it earlier when I was Starting, and it seemed like you guys nodded. It wasn't something where there's a lot of disagreement, so we moved on. But I think that it's still salient here because in a lot of rehab facilities or halfway houses or places where people are going to be offered shelter while they deal with treatment, they get the ability to work a job, and then they're able to transport themselves to that job. Somewhere that's two miles from the nearest bus stop that you have to walk to on roads that don't have sidewalks doesn't really lend itself to a position where you can seek gainful employment easily. So to the extent that the remoteness matters at all, it's what is the plan for the temporariness of this solution? And is it going to be something that allows people who find help to transition in a way that's smooth, or is it going to be, okay, good, we took you off the street. Seems like you're sober six months later, Good luck, because that seems like an important aspect of it, too.
- [53:11]
Isaac Saul
I actually had the opposite reaction to the remoteness, and I'm glad that you brought it back up because I kind of thought it was good. Honestly. I mean, I. First of all, like, I'm looking at the pictures and it looks just like a beautiful place to be. And I have this. And maybe this is like a little Pollyannish, but just like this, you know, like this vision of, like, it is. It's like, good for somebody in this kind of situation and just be like, separated from the craziness and taken out of the environment that they were in, where they were. You know, if we're presuming they're sick or have some issues, like the, you know, somebody in the actual article, one of the homeless people they interviewed said something to this effect of like, you can't get clean when you're spending your time where you got dirty, basically. Like, how are you supposed to do that? And like, I think there was a. I think there is a. There's something positive about that, like a fresh environment and putting them there that I think could have an effect that maybe on net is good. I hadn't thought about the idea of, okay, but if these people are in a functional state, how are they going.
- [54:32]
Ari Weitzman
To get to work?
- [54:32]
Isaac Saul
What happens when they're put. That's a good question. I mean, I presume if somebody's employed or wants to be employed or whatever, then there's just this added cost to the program in order to get them around, which is a big deal. Yeah, Shuttle or Maybe they're allowed to have a car when they're there, you know, or whatever. I mean, I don't know exactly what that looks like. It doesn't feel insurmountable to me. And I think, you know, especially if you're dealing with people who are there who are homeless thanks to like an addiction issue. I mean, I think there's an even stronger case for like creating more friction between them and obtaining drugs. Like if it's a 30 yard walk from their shelter in downtown Manhattan, you know, versus like an hour long drive or something that requires permission to leave the facility and then you have to come back. Like, I don't, like, you know, I don't know if that's a bad thing, honestly. So I was sort of compelled a little bit by the idea that this was like a shelter that wasn't in downtown city and was actually in this like beautiful landscape, a little on the edge of town, whatever.
- [55:50]
Camille Foster
Well, I think that's clear here is it's kind of a mixed goal of a rehabilitation facility and a homelessness solution. And those things aren't quite addressed the same problem because if it's a solution to homelessness, then it would have to be permanent. Like we'd have to say, okay, this is where you're going to live now. Which feels bizarre. There's a theory, you know, I don't ascribe to it because I think it's wrong. Maybe that's kind of self explanatory, but that there's a theory that homelessness is driven by people, not by like a lack of being able to access shelter, but people being unable to apply for a tenantship and be able to hold rent. And thus the root issues behavioral. And we have to have structures to address behavioral issues. And under that theory, then this is functioning as a temporary rehabilitation center. And in that regard, let's treat it on those terms. Just for the sake of good faith argument here. I want to ask you about something, Isaac, that I know is somewhat related to your background and maybe is like a little too close to home. So let me know if that's the case. But I know that a number of people from your high school, like had that pipeline where people who needed rehabilitation went to Florida and then sought treatment there, and then they return. And I never really understood the return process. And I just wanted to ask like anecdotally, if you're comfortable talking about what happened with people who went to Florida to kind of go away from where they got dirty, to get clean. They came back.
- [57:31]
Isaac Saul
What was that. Yeah. I mean, and the background here is basically just that. I grew up, obviously, in Bucks County. I talk about that all the time on the show. But my high school was hit harder by the opioid epidemic than pretty much anywhere in America. Like, there were national news articles about where I grew up, in part because the town I grew up in is right across from Trenton, New Jersey, which was like, a hub for, like, heroin and now fentanyl distribution and like, Percocet and opioids of all kinds. So, like, my era of high school students, the kids that I grew up with, it's better now, but, like, we were ravaged. I mean, I. You know, there were a thousand. I went to a huge high school, a thousand kids in a grade. But, like, you know, in the first decade that I was out of school, I knew of, like, 20 people from my class who died of an overdose. Like, we were obliterated and like, a hundred more who are, you know, lifelong addicts and sober now, so. Or, like, still in treatment. So, yeah, to Ari's point, what many of them did. And, like, I've, you know, probably three or four friends at least, who left the area to go get treatment in Florida. I don't really know the background of why Florida is such a popular spot. I think there's just, like, a cottage industry of treatment centers down there. And I presume part of the advantage is, like, it's nice weather and it's a, you know, whatever. Maybe you're near the beach, I don't know. Or maybe there's some laws that are friendly towards the stuff in Florida. To answer your question, like, very few of them actually come back and stay for extended period of time. In fact, the friends that I know who are sober and have stayed sober, almost all of them have gone to live somewhere else or they come back for seasonally or something. And they talk a lot about it being hard to be back in the environment where they were when they were using. It's just, you know, and maybe that is informing my perspective here a little bit. I mean, I honestly hadn't even thought of that or connected those dots, but, like, yeah, I think it's hard for people to just, like, be back in their old haunts and be surrounded by their old friends and whatever who they used to do this kind of thing with. So, you know, I'm thinking in my head of, like, a few friends like that, and I'm actually having a hard time thinking of any of them who are sober right now who are living in the town that we grew up in, like, I think most of the ones who are consistently getting treatment and staying sober have left and stayed out. And that could just be a coincidence. Like, a lot of people leave home and don't come back for all kinds. Like, you know, 85% of my friends, probably from high school, don't live in our hometown anymore. That, like, I'm in regular touch with. But yeah, it's a real. I think it's a real thing. Like, you know, the, the way like the drinkers always say it is like they're going somewhere to dry out is how they would talk about it. Like, you know, like, I'm. I'm going down the Florida to dry out for a bit. Like, that's like an expression I've heard my friends use, you know, which is just like they're just going to get new environment and get sober. Um, so, yeah, I think the reentry can be really tough. And I, I'm. I'd be curious what like, the experts say about that. I mean, this is, again, like, I'm not a therapist or addiction expert or whatever. The authority that I speak with is all personal experience. But it does seem to me at least like a change of environment is positive for people in a lot of scenarios. So maybe you just strengthened my argument accidentally.
- [61:34]
Camille Foster
And maybe I didn't. Like, the thing that I'm puzzling over here is, like, the idea that homelessness, like, there's two different theories of the root causes here. I mentioned earlier the one that I oppose, but I didn't describe, the one that I support, which is that it is with, like, few inputs added to it. It's an equation that can be measured mostly by availability of shelter versus number of people. And for the most part, that tells us what we need to know. And if we want to talk about how to give effective treatment to people who are struggling with addiction or mental health issues, then change of location sounds like something that's part of that formula. But if we want to talk about solving homelessness under the perspective that I have, under my theory that, like, I've been pretty convinced of, you just have to have more shelter. And we can probably do both at the same time. You can have facilities that offer people rehabilitation services, time, produce more shelters. Like, that's something that a lot of places are struggling to do. So it's not just the snap and it's done kind of thing. But, you know, maybe part of that equation is rehabilitate. Then people can ask you, hey, you had a lot of trouble in salt Lake City. Is this something where, you know, two weeks in, do you want to try to. We can link you up with somebody who can help you in a different state if that's something that could be helpful for you. But there's smaller communities that are looking to attract people to, to move there. It does not have to be these big urban environments that are struggling to build. And I don't want to, like, I definitely don't. I'm trying not to like, say, yeah, all we have to do is pick these people up and ship them somewhere else. Like, that's inhumane and it doesn't really feel like it works or like feels, it feels bad. But there's a basis in that equation that also reflects something that's true, which is that homelessness is an issue in these big cities and there's a lot of available housing. Not a lot, but enough in other towns. Most recently, before moving to Vermont, lived in Pittsburgh. Both of those places, other than Burlington and Vermont, both of those places have room. Vermont for a long time was offering people like stipends to move to Vermont because like, they want to try to like, the population's aging and they want more workforce and there's lots of space. In Pittsburgh, the housing market's really healthy even now. Like it's gotten not as available as it was in the 2010s and even before that, but it's still one of those mid market cities where there's opportunity. And I think still, like, maybe the issue is like making sure people know about those opportunities and having the ability to go to where the housing is. But I guess, like, you know, I'm offering more confusion. It sounds like none of us really have this stance or like, yes, good, yes, bad, but just there's something here that works, but there's aspects of it that we're uncomfortable with. And that's like the thing for me just ends up being it doesn't sound like a solution to homelessness. It sounds like a solution to a different problem. And it's something that if we're talking about that problem, then in theory it's something I could support. But for homelessness, I think there's more to the equation.
- [65:00]
Ari Weitzman
Yeah, I think more to the equation is kind of precisely the right closing note that you actually need a much more comprehensive approach and it touches on a bunch of different policy areas. Certainly the lack of availability of affordable housing is a central issue, just clearly, and that has to be part of it. The one thing I did want to say briefly, just because we've talked about safe injection sites and mostly in the kind of pejorative context almost in a way, it's certainly in the article. The suggestion is that, you know, well intentioned but among the worst possible things. And I do think that adulterated from my understanding, and I've talked to people like Carl Hart about this and done some reporting on this in the past, is that just adulterated drug supplies, on account of their being illegal, are going to be far more dangerous. And that safe injection sites and more specifically, making testing available broadly and widely so that people can know whether or not the drugs that they have, which they plan to consume are adulterated. That is actually enormously helpful for knocking down rates of overdoses, for ensuring that the drugs are less harmful, and for ensuring that people aren't mixing those drugs with other things that might be harmful to them as well. And drug policy here again is just another area where a completely separate matter, but clearly related to the homelessness epidemic and certainly getting people out of homelessness. It's one thing to lose your home because you couldn't afford one. Once you're on the street, the likelihood that you might fall victim to addiction or something like that is going to increase pretty substantially. And the difficulty of now trying to get back on your feet while also fighting addiction is. I mean, it just makes your circumstance incredibly difficult. And just thinking about the approach to this issue in a more holistic way is very valuable. And the entire thing can seem incredibly daunting. But certainly people have found their way through it. I think there's a lot of good evidence with respect to the kinds of programs that work. I think the biggest challenge is that you can't. It's hard to scale a lot of those programs. What makes them work is great. People who are on the ground who are filled with these almost inexhaustible reservoirs of compassion doing really, really difficult work with people in urgent circumstances and you just can't prestidigitate more of them into existence. That is perhaps among the harder things involved with all, like using the WordPress to digitate.
- [67:55]
Camille Foster
So nice. That's a T word there, Camille. Very appreciated.
- [67:59]
Ari Weitzman
Well, you know, it's better than Mag.
- [68:05]
Isaac Saul
Foreign. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [68:16]
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- [68:53]
Isaac Saul
All right, as I was hoping we would be spending a lot of time on this, we've got a few minutes left. I had a couple other things I wanted to chat about. One of them was the response to my piece last week. But it occurs to me that Audrey's gonna be publishing her own response and we're gonna highlight some commentary about that tomorrow. And both on the podcast here, Audrey's gonna do a read down of it and then I'm sure we'll have some reader comments appended to the piece of and that'll give us plenty to chew on for next week. So there is a story Ari will tell you. I've been obsessing over that I demanded to be part of the show today, which is an under the radar story that we put in the newsletter and since maybe we can just spend 10 minutes on it before we get out of here. But it's the story of the United States effort to arrest Nicolas Maduro, which, I mean, there's. I'm curious to hear just thoughts generally about the premise of, like, us doing this. I certainly have reservations, but the story that the Associated Press publish is remarkable. I mean, it is like spy thriller, movie, novel stuff where there is a US Agent who gets a tip that a few of Nicolas Maduro's planes were getting serviced, I think maybe in the Dominican Republic. And so they send these agents there and the agents go and interview the pilots. And they know that the last pilot they're gonna interview is someone who regularly flies Nicolas Maduro around. And they kind of ease into the conversation and then they start asking questions about Maduro and he starts panicking and shaking and realizing that they're there for some reason. And this one agent develops this relationship with this guy and basically has this texting relationship with him where over the span starting during the Biden administration up until this August, is trying to convince this pilot to take Nicolas Maduro and fly him to a place like Puerto Rico against his will the next time they're in a plane together so US Authorities can arrest him. And the AP has the text messages that they've corroborated. Trump is saying openly that the CIA is trying to overthrow Maduro. I mean, they're just like admitting the thing which we historically never do. And then we have all the boat stuff happening off the coast of Venezuela but this is like an end the Pacific. Yeah, this is a wild story to me. Like the Biden and Trump administration both, you know, I mean, Ari and I like the deep. You want to talk about deep state? How about like a continuum of spy agents who are working over a pilot in Venezuela to allow us to arrest Nicolas Maduro. And like there's no hiccup in the effort. It's just like it started under Biden and it bled into the Trump administration and there was no like, hey, maybe we should back off that plan, that insane like Hollywood plan we concocted to get a pilot, you know where they're like low key bribing him. They're telling him he's going to be rich. Not low key. They're directly bribing him saying, we're going to give you money and make you rich and you'll be a hero and maybe you'll get.
- [72:25]
Camille Foster
Sending him the text to the. Or a link to the reward that's like, hey, 50,000.
- [72:30]
Isaac Saul
Just remember 50 million, dude, 50 million.
- [72:35]
Camille Foster
My fault. I meant 50,000. Thousand.
- [72:39]
Isaac Saul
I don't know, this story blew my, like, for whatever reason, this story just like blew my top off. Like we're actually doing this kind of stuff. I mean, I know we do it, but like, I can't believe it's just this. Something like this rudimentary, like one pilot. We just gotta work this one guy over and then we're overthrowing the entire government of Venezuela. Anyway, I'd be curious what you guys think about this. Is this something that is. Should we be doing this? Is this justifiable? Does this plan feel to you like, oh, so crazy? Like a fox? It just might work. I could have seen this plan working. I mean, if I'm that pilot, he took the agent's phone number. You guys have to read, if you're listening to this, you have to read the Associated Press story. It's really worth the time. But he takes their phone number, so he's clearly considering it, right? The headline of the story is US sought to lure Nicolas Maduro's pilot into betraying the Venezuelan leader. I don't know, good use of spy time and money or bad use of spy time and money?
- [73:55]
Camille Foster
I think it's important to underline that this started in 2024 under the Biden administration. As you said like five times. I just want to say it again, like, this is a like multi administration push from one of those shady spy agencies that comprise the sort of less muscular but more sinister arm of the American government. And it Is one of those things that when you hear about as a US citizen, or I should say what I hear about it, my feelings are it's like 80% Jesus, we are the baddies. Like we are just reaching our tendrils into other governments and trying to snatch up their leaders and bring them back. And the other 20% of me is like, he wasn't elected fairly. He is this government to good thing that somebody's exerting influence like this instead of letting him get away with the things that he's doing. And then, you know, like it's, it's this invasion of sovereign power. But like the idea of we are one relationship. Like if this agent was able to just like push this pilot a little bit more, persuade him, and if he knew his love language a little bit more, we could have maybe had Maduro arrested in this country. It. I don't try to wax poetic too much, but there was, I had a reaction in my head like right away when you said there's this one pilot. This is kind of crazy that the CIA operation can hinge on something so small and minute. There's this line and an Andrew Bird song that I remember thinking about a lot during the pandemic, which is tenuous at best, is how he felt when pressed about the rest of it, the world. That is to underscore that the institutions that undergird our global systems are so tenuous and that they can crumble in ways that we don't anticipate. Like some virus escapes in Wuhan and then we have a global pandemic. For years. If this text messaging had gone the other way. We're talking about regime change in Venezuela and that I think like as a global citizen, it sucks, but you have to kind of get somewhat comfortable with the sense that things can change like that really quickly. Like Trump was also, let's remember, a half centimeter away from being assassinated. Like we live on a razor's edge all the time. History can change on a razor's edge all the time. And that's just like the way that I think about these major events. It's not really a way of saying, yes, good idea, no, bad idea. I'll refer you back to my other comment. 80% bad idea, 20%. Well, you know, maybe beats war.
- [76:55]
Ari Weitzman
It beats war, yeah. The part of it that I'm, I'm wrestling with many dimensions of it generally dispositionally a non interventionist, although I don't really like to frame my views in negative ways. More affirmative if possible. But the reason why I have that disposition is just because of all of the unintended consequences of actions like this. The part that I'm wrestling with here, and interestingly, I think there's a thread between this and the last topic we were discussing, because accountability is really important. Transparency is perhaps a little less practical in the main, since you are dealing with these. I think you used the word shady, Ari, when you were talking about the intelligence community. And I wonder if shadowy isn't better, but maybe you actually mean shady better. Perhaps you mean shady because they can do some very shady things at times as well. But you really need that accountability and transparency. And at the same time, Trump's bellicosity around these kinds of issues, the fact that he's openly talking about this and even the reporting that I saw on it initially suggested to me that they want to broadcast the Venezuelans. Hey, we're doing all the things, we're blowing up the boats. We are doing everything we can to kind of subvert your authority. We're coming for you. It's time to surrender. You know, it feels odd, kind of like today, I mean, the President of the United States is meeting with Xi and before the meeting they're signing papers and he's making it clear to the Pentagon he wants them to resume nuclear testing. There's something about it that is like, clearly very theatrical, over the top. It seems almost amateurish. And at the same time, there's something about it that also, you understand where the President stands on this, you understand the disposition of the administration. And to the extent they're doing other things in a clandestine way, they're doing some of this very much openly. The provocations are clear and they're evident and it's there for everyone to see. And it makes it easier to criticize it, both for the media broadly, but also for other policymakers to openly criticize the stated policy of the administration. So that's the dimension of this that I'm perhaps most wrestling with as I think about this story. These kind of Jason Bourne esque adventures. It's probably better that we know things about this.
- [79:34]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, I mean, it's like sort of where my mind went initially was I'm so deluded by my, like, Western American privilege that I'm like any that, like anything occurs to me other than this is terrible and like, this is insane that we're doing this. Like, you know, at first the hypothetical was, you know, imagine Donald Trump's pilot gets bribed to land Air Force One in, like, Taiwan. And then, you know, China comes over and Arrests him and just like puts him in. Like, that's. I would like, enlist, you know, like, that's the kind of thing that would. I would go crazy like that. Like that. It's like such a. So you. I sort of start there. Like, oh, my God, this is like so bananas. And like, what are we even talking about? But then I'm like, okay, what if Donald Trump was like, actually an authoritarian leader and we didn't have free elections here and he was like, you know, suppressing all political dissent, like, doing the things Maduro's doing, and everything was shit. The country was terrible and you couldn't afford anything. We had terrible inflation, whatever. And then China did that. Would I be like, eh, I don't. Like maybe. Maybe less. Like, less of like, I'm gonna. You know. And that is maybe a little closer to the reality. But it's like, what if China's only motivation to do it is they want our oil and natural resources and they don't care at all about what I American think? Then it's like, then it's bad again. And that's also the reality. So I don't know, it's like, I'm like, I sort of went in these circles of. I'm pretty sure it's really bad, but if you try and contextualize it in the totally full way, it maybe gets like a tiny, slightly bit more justifiable. But I think the real story is like, we tried to. I mean, we're trying to abduct another country's president so we can arrest him, which feels not good to me.
- [81:46]
Camille Foster
Yeah, maybe that's all we have to say is like, that we probably should not do that. It does seem bad.
- [81:51]
Isaac Saul
Yeah.
- [81:52]
Camille Foster
It's not great.
- [81:53]
Isaac Saul
America spreading democracy to the global South. This is how it's done.
- [82:00]
Camille Foster
Bringing the. Bringing our enemies to justice, not the other way around.
- [82:04]
Ari Weitzman
But wouldn't that actually be. To the extent that what actually follows in the wake of his arrest is an actual democratic election? Like that would be.
- [82:16]
Isaac Saul
I mean, I genuinely authentically, if that were to happen. But then it's like, are we administering the election? And is that democracy? Like, then no again, then now bad once more. More. It's. Yeah, it doesn't. It just feels. I think the instinct that it feels not right is the right instinct. And it's easy to kind of justify or talk yourself into. But like. And maybe this is sort of the. I mean, I thought this was like the Trump. It's clearly not the Trump policy, but I thought it was just like this isn't our problem. So, like, we're not getting involved. Clearly, he doesn't think that. He very much views this as our problem. No, that's not. America first in parentheses. Except for Venezuela. Then we care.
- [83:07]
Camille Foster
Well, America first. Even in Venezuela, we're going to be first for everyone, though.
- [83:12]
Ari Weitzman
Well, yeah, I mean, this is our sphere of influence. The Trump administration does very much have that perspective, that we've neglected it for too long, that the refugee crises we've dealt with in the past are a function of our not actually paying attention enough attention to this. It's a perspective.
- [83:31]
Camille Foster
But starting in 2024, this is a CIA priority. It's not like a Trump administration priority.
- [83:39]
Ari Weitzman
Agreed, agreed, agreed. And a CIA priority still set by the administration. I don't think the Biden administration was unawares of the fact that this was all transpiring. I was actually just trying to build a bridge with respect to Trump's broader perspective, or at least inclination away from interventionism and the fact that there are places where he is clearly willing to do things. And interestingly, I mean, this is also just the contrast in approaches to foreign policy between Rubio and the vice President of the United States. And I do wonder what J.D. vance actually makes of these incursions into the South. Personally, I don't know that we would actually get his authentic view of things now, but this kind of stuff has, like, Rubio's fingerprints all over it.
- [84:31]
Camille Foster
Well, I think Vance would have an opinion if it were Europe.
- [84:35]
Isaac Saul
Yeah.
- [84:36]
Camille Foster
I think he's just like. That's his sphere of having an opinion. If it's Europe, they messed up. If it's anywhere else, whatever.
- [84:44]
Ari Weitzman
Yeah, but he's not disagreeing with the president in public at any time soon, that's for sure.
- [84:49]
Isaac Saul
Zero chance.
- [84:49]
Camille Foster
Not on this.
- [84:50]
Ari Weitzman
Yeah.
- [84:51]
Isaac Saul
All right, cool. We've been at it for about an hour and a half, so I think it's time to play the music and get into our grievances for the week.
- [85:01]
Ari Weitzman
The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your.
- [85:08]
Camille Foster
Country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal.
- [85:12]
Isaac Saul
I have a silly one. I could start. I'll go. Go.
- [85:17]
Camille Foster
Sure.
- [85:18]
Isaac Saul
All right. My green. This is. I know this doesn't sound important, but it has a bigger impact on my life than you might expect. I'm a sock guy. Just fundamentally, I think I will spend. I'll pay the premium for a nice pair of socks. And if I have, like, a. Oh, okay.
- [85:42]
Camille Foster
I thought she meant you wear socks.
- [85:44]
Isaac Saul
Like, I'll like. I'll buy, like, High end socks. I think it's. If you're out there, like, just like skip a cappuccino, skip the Starbucks for a week and buy yourself like a set of three pairs of really nice socks and get back.
- [86:03]
Ari Weitzman
You got to name some brands here. Isaac, I want to know.
- [86:06]
Isaac Saul
Strideline is my go to the most comfortable sock on planet Earth. I think you can sponsor us if you'd like. Strideline, the grievances is just the sponsor call out section. Strideline can sponsor us anyway. One of the things Strideline does, and this is relevant actually for my grievance, so thank you for bringing that up, Camille, is they have the left and right, like an L and an R on the socks, and they're fitted for your left and right foot. So I have like tons of these Strideline socks at home. And something remarkable has been happening over time, which is that like, I am just consistently losing the left sock of sets. And I, I'm. Yeah, I'm trending. Right? That's just how I. And then last night something happened which like, I, I made documentation of just so I could talk about on the show today, which is I was doing the laundry with my wife. We're just like folding, talking, catching about the day and I, you know, the game is like, you find the left sock, you find the right sock, same length, same color. Cause we have a bunch of different sets, fold them up together, throw em in our little sock basket, and I get done making all the pairs and there's no more pairs to make. And there's 14 socks on my bed of different length, color and all the same brand. And all 14 of them are right footed socks. And I literally looked at my wife and I just said, are you fucking with me? Like, are you? And she was like, you're literally a psycho. I can't believe you're talking to me like that. And I'm just like, are you hiding all the. Like, is this a joke? Is this like a. Like, is this a. Like a. Like it'd be a good practical joke if you were doing it. She's like, no, I have to wear the socks too. Like, I also want them to be in sets.
- [88:05]
Ari Weitzman
Wait, she's taking.
- [88:07]
Isaac Saul
I just don't. I. My susp. Yeah, we share. We wear some of the same socks. And my suspicion was just maybe she was. I'm like, this is mathematically. I mean, Ari, you failed out of a stats major. Like, what's one half?
- [88:21]
Camille Foster
I dropped out of a stat PhD. Thank you.
- [88:24]
Isaac Saul
All right, you. You dropped out of a stats PhD like 1/2 times, 1/2, 14 times in a row. That's like the odds of that are. I don't know if that's the equation, but it's. Something doesn't work here. The probabilities seem of.
- [88:38]
Ari Weitzman
So you want him to confirm that.
- [88:39]
Isaac Saul
Your wife is stealing your socks? Something's up and I don't know what it is, but I'm walking around with two lefty socks on or no, two righty socks on and it sucks. It's just like I paid the premium to have these like right left socks that are comfortable and the toe just feels a little bit weird and the inseam's not quite the way it should be because I've got all right footed socks and I have no idea where the lefty socks are and it's driving me absolutely insane. And that's my grievance for the week.
- [89:12]
Camille Foster
Well, now I'm distracted about equation up.
- [89:18]
Ari Weitzman
I'm just going to consult ChatGPT, find out which sock left or right is most likely to go missing and why.
- [89:25]
Isaac Saul
That's a good.
- [89:26]
Ari Weitzman
I'm sure it will give you a definitive answer.
- [89:32]
Camille Foster
All right, Fun. I guess there is something that I think is potentially supernatural about socks. I had a theory. It was like. No, it's very straightforward. There's two places that your socks go and they're missing. One, it's either in the part of the washing machine that has the ridges on it that spins around in the drum, they get stuck there and they come out later and then you find them later. Or two, they're in fitted sheets, that's where they go. Or I guess the third is you wear them out and then you forget that you threw them out and you do that when you're not paying attention. But there's something. There's something there. I think it's gremlins. I think it's something. I don't know what alternative dimensions, but like, I do sort of buy that there's something.
- [90:17]
Isaac Saul
The odds of flipping a coin and getting tails 14 times in a row is 1 over 16,000, which is basically pretty much what I'm experiencing.
- [90:27]
Camille Foster
It's a little different than that.
- [90:29]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, it's true, maybe a little, but.
- [90:33]
Camille Foster
Okay, well, I'm. I'm like writing the equation in so I can get you an exact answer here. So you had 14 pairs? Totally. Or you have more pairs?
- [90:42]
Isaac Saul
I have more pairs, which complicates the equation quite a bit. This probably isn't worth your time.
- [90:48]
Camille Foster
Not by much. How many pairs of socks?
- [90:53]
Isaac Saul
I say I've got 1125. I've got 11 sets. And then like, then just 14. Right. Socks. Which, in case it's not clear, is driving me insane. Totally ruining my life.
- [91:08]
Camille Foster
Yeah. And now totally without any qualifier. I agree. I'll work on this in the background. Camille, you go next. So that by the time I grievance, I'll have this solved.
- [91:23]
Ari Weitzman
I don't even know that I have anything this week. I mean, I'm nothing. Nothing new. Like I. The biggest pain point in my life is my travel schedule and the commutes back and forth to the airport. It's just painful and it hasn't gotten any better. And that is just weep for me. That's all. That's it. Weep for me. I'm not getting enough first class upgrades.
- [91:46]
Isaac Saul
You drove down to our event from Northern Hollywood. You got stuck in traffic for two hours. Then that was a terrible experience for you. Then you did a whole road trip home with your wife and children. Nothing happened in that road trip where you thought, God, I'd love a safe space to complain about the last five minutes.
- [92:05]
Ari Weitzman
Actually, no, the drive back was wonderful. I was in traffic for maybe 20 minutes. I think we left LA at 4 o' clock in the morning on the nose. And I got back to Marin around 11am that's really good time. With two small kids, we stopped to eat once. It's electric, so we had to charge too. That's really, really good time. The challenge is I left LA at 4 o' clock in the morning. I got back home at around 11am and by 11pm that night I was on a flight from Marin to New York.
- [92:39]
Isaac Saul
That's brilliant.
- [92:40]
Ari Weitzman
So from S.F. to New York. So that is the actual pain point. That's the difficulty. Everything was on time. It's just that I had to be there for all of it.
- [92:51]
Isaac Saul
A clean week for Camille. All right, man. I mean, I have 12. I come into every episode with 12 grievances and I have to decide which one I want to elevate. We have totally different dispositions. I don't know how you go a whole week without having something, a clear pain point in your life that you'd like to complain about. Maybe it's all the mindfulness that you practice.
- [93:12]
Ari Weitzman
It is the mindfulness stuff really like my mantra. This is the way things are right now. We try not to complain. I mean, again, I could complain about the operations of particular airlines, but that wouldn't even be interesting. That wouldn't be fun. Well, see, now I'm gonna do it. But I Don't understand why all the displays are off.
- [93:30]
Isaac Saul
By the time I knew I could get them, they should be off. They should be off.
- [93:35]
Ari Weitzman
And at night, honestly, like, you're coming through the cabin to give me coffee.
- [93:39]
Isaac Saul
And all sorts of stuff. Let it out.
- [93:40]
Ari Weitzman
It's one o' clock in the morning. Don't turn the lights on. Don't turn the lights on. Why would you do that?
- [93:45]
Isaac Saul
Great complaint.
- [93:48]
Camille Foster
So depends on when you land. There is a policy like airlines will turn the lights on on planes when it's like within, depending on the length of flight, like within an hour of landing. And then try to open the windows so passengers can acclimate because those are the times when statistically you're most likely to experience some sor. Of disturbance. Not like a crash, but something like an emergency landing. And to raise the odds of people surviving those kinds of experiences, they want them to be able to acclimate to being in an environment where they should be awake. And that's why they do that.
- [94:23]
Ari Weitzman
In my experience, there is no rhyme or reason to this. Different airlines. I've taken so many red eyes recently. Different. Same airline, different crew. And the lights will come on or they won't come on at different times. It's just. It's very strange. Like that first pass through with the cart. Does the light really need to come back on for that? Most. A lot of these people are sleeping. We do not want to be disturbed. And still it's on. So I don't know. I mean, the real solution to all of this is I just need more first class upgrades.
- [94:57]
Isaac Saul
I was just gonna.
- [94:58]
Ari Weitzman
If I got those, it's much easier because there, it's clear. It's easier to signal that I don't.
- [95:02]
Isaac Saul
I have an even better solution, which is if we should. If Tango ever gets sold, we should just use the money to start our own airline. All premium, first class, everything.
- [95:14]
Ari Weitzman
Yes.
- [95:14]
Isaac Saul
If you. If you're buying a ticket on that, it's like everybody's in first class. The whole thing's a first class experience. All up to Camille's standards of. I think I might have just invented a private jet, but I don't know. It sounds good. It's like a close to being something. Yeah. Sometimes it's almost a good business idea.
- [95:38]
Camille Foster
Before I go real quick, based on what I think are correct calculations, Isaac, the chances of you losing 14 socks that are either all right or all left are 0.00077%.
- [95:51]
Isaac Saul
Sounds unbelievably. Sounds almost as if there is some foul play.
- [95:58]
Camille Foster
Almost Impossibly low. Or it's gremlins. I think it's gremlins. But I guess my grievance is that it's tick season in Vermont, not stick season. I guess with apologies to Noah Khan, maybe both, but tick season's far worse. So we went on a walk with some friends last weekend. The weekend before last, they had. Their family were visiting and they brought their dog with them who was like this like really adventurous 5 year old dog like around then, just athletic and young. And we had our 11 year old, like, I'm just here to go for a walk dog with us. And it was really cute to watch their dog bounding in and out of the trees as we're going on this big walk. They ended up getting lost. And what the dog did, he got lost. And it took a while for us to be able to relocate him. And we're going like into the woods and trying to search for him and eventually we're able to get him. But when I came home that day, I had three ticks on me. Having to like crash through the woods looking for this animal, which was like somewhat fun to do, but that equals the amount of ticks that I've had on me throughout my entire life. And it was just from that day. And since then, I found three more in addition to the ones that were coming off the dog. And I think it's official that now ticks are supplanting mosquitoes in the pantheon of creatures that I dislike. I think ticks are number one now. I have such a revulsion to them. Very early as a dog owner, when I found a tick on my dog, I would have this urge to torture it. Like, nobody sucks the life off of a mom.
- [97:45]
Isaac Saul
Psychotic.
- [97:47]
Camille Foster
You parasite. It felt psych. Well, ticks are psychotic. Ticks are psychotic. They require a psychotic response. They just latch on. They drink your blood and in exchange they give you disease. That's not a great deal. I would go as far as to say that's probably the worst. Like the most evil creature on the planet is a tick.
- [98:06]
Isaac Saul
I.
- [98:07]
Camille Foster
And they live here. They're all around us.
- [98:09]
Isaac Saul
I love this grievance.
- [98:11]
Ari Weitzman
It's probably something, something like a tick.
- [98:13]
Isaac Saul
I'm similarly repulsed by them. Also, I met somebody recently who got bit by a tick and then became allergic to meat, which.
- [98:25]
Camille Foster
Allergic to meat.
- [98:26]
Isaac Saul
That's happening a lot now. Star tick.
- [98:28]
Camille Foster
It's happening enough.
- [98:29]
Isaac Saul
It's called like Alpha Gale or something.
- [98:31]
Camille Foster
That's a New England tick.
- [98:33]
Isaac Saul
Terrifying. Like you get bit by a tick and then he was Just telling me like, yeah, I can't. If I eat meat of any kind, I get super duper sick. And the doctors told me there's like nothing to do. I just have to wait for like 10 years for this illness to pass from a tick. Which there's like hundreds of thousands of people in America who have experienced this. So tics are terrifying. Great grievance.
- [98:58]
Camille Foster
Yeah. And I think so. Katie, my wife, like went to Cape Cod somewhat around the time that you did and said that Alpha Gal, that like disease born in ticks that makes you allergic to meat is spreading enough in that region that there are restaurants popping up that are like. Or restaurants that are. There have the warning like, hey, if you have this, we have diets for you, you can eat here. And it's like becoming common enough that people have to. There's marketplaces to serve that demographic now. And it is terrifying.
- [99:36]
Ari Weitzman
I mean, it's terrifying. It's also fascinating though, like the evolutionary implications of something like that. That some tick borne disease could affect an entire species at some point and alter their diets in like a fundamental way. That's fascinating.
- [99:53]
Camille Foster
You might be missing the main point, which is fuck ticks. Like, just say that.
- [99:59]
Ari Weitzman
No, I'm not missing the main point.
- [100:01]
Camille Foster
I was distracted for a moment by some intellectual fancy.
- [100:06]
Ari Weitzman
No, but it is interesting. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard's wonderful, amazing book that everyone should read. There's this thing, and it's very early in the book about water bug that like sucks the life out of these frogs. Like it punctures the frog. It's a giant water bug and it essentially turns their insides into liquid and slurps every. Slurps them dry. And there's this whole aside in there where she references the Quran and talks about, talks about God and asks like, did God make this thing in jest? Like, what if not in jest? Like, what on earth was God up to here? Like, this monstrosity is absolutely terrible. And yeah, I think ticks and giant water bugs that turn your insides into jelly and then slurp them out. Like it's very odd to know that you share a planet with them. What's worse is to imagine that many of these creatures were actually much bigger at different points in the past. The ticks, the spiders, the water bugs. And that's terrifying.
- [101:12]
Isaac Saul
That is terrifying.
- [101:14]
Camille Foster
Oh, yikes. Yeah. And I'm looking at the Lone Star tick now that spreads Alpha Gal and it does look distinctive. So I feel like it would be somewhat easier to acknowledge not what I found, and I don't think that I've seen those around here. So fingers crossed, all the wood is knocked. Knock on wood yourself, Camille, because I'll refer you to my earlier comments.
- [101:36]
Ari Weitzman
They are evil.
- [101:37]
Camille Foster
And fuck Terrace.
- [101:38]
Isaac Saul
All right, that's enough TikTok on that helpful note. All right, Gentlemen.
- [101:43]
Camille Foster
Oh, wow. Yeah, you sound like a baron already. Isaac.
- [101:47]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, that's enough. That's enough of that.
- [101:49]
Camille Foster
That was funny. All right, enough TikTok for you.
- [101:52]
Isaac Saul
I'll see you guys soon. I know.
- [101:55]
Ari Weitzman
All right, bye.
- [101:56]
Camille Foster
See ya.
- [101:58]
Isaac Saul
Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Mull. Today's Episode this episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman, with senior editor Will K. Back and associate editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead Bailey Saul Lindsey Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.
- [102:39]
Ari Weitzman
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.