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- [00:00]
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- [00:27]
Ari Weitzman
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Isaac Zahl
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Ari Weitzman
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- [00:57]
Isaac Zahl
Amazon Pharmacy presents painful thoughts.
- [01:02]
Camille Foster
20 more minutes to kill in the pharmacy before my prescription is ready. Maybe I'll grab some deeply discounted out of season Halloween candy. I never had a chocolate pumpkin with raisins before. Those were raisins, right?
- [01:18]
Isaac Zahl
Next time use Amazon Pharmacy. We deliver. And no, those were not raisins. Amazon Pharmacy healthcare just got less painful. Coming up, we talk about the breaking news of an ice shooting in Minnesota. Revisit the Venezuela story and what we think it means, that President Trump is having some tactical military successes. And then we talk about the January 6th anniversary. It is a very good, albeit a little bit frightening episode. Hope you guys enjoy. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the suspension of the rules podcast. We have not been here for a few weeks, fellas, and I had a big, I was going to do this like nice cheery, uplifting intro about how much I missed you guys and how I'm in beautiful West Texas and I'm record the podcast outside. And then about an hour or two before we were set to record, we got this news out of Minnesota that an ice agent has apparently shot. And as far as we can tell from the reports, again, this is a breaking news story. So I want to say carefully what I think we know, which is that the woman in question was shot and killed. There are reports coming out of Minnesota that this woman was some kind of legal observer. There was some Sort of ICE action happening. She was in her vehicle. There are many, many videos. I've seen at least three or four angles of the shooting of her sort of pulling out of a situation on the street where she was kind of surrounded by ICE agents. And one of them discharges his weapon several times. And then her car kind of goes off the side of the road and she crashes. And the reports are, is that she's been killed. This is, as far as I know, the first instance of an event like this happening, though. I mean, it's something I've said on this podcast, I think in the newsletter, that this was just bound to happen. I mean, you have mass ICE agents patrolling the streets, citizens getting increasingly disorderly, upset, angry, frustrated by their presence. These confrontations were, you know, happening already in kind of violent ways, though obviously not this violent. I think maybe to start, since we should probably, again, just stay in the lane with what we know. We're recording this at 4pm Eastern on Wednesday. The news of the shooting broke around lunchtime. And we've just been getting this trickle, trickle of news. I think maybe we can talk about the video that has come out. The, you know, ICE and the President are alleging that this woman was trying to run over ICE agents in her vehicle. What do you guys think that you saw? I, you know, I have my own opinion, but I'll maybe send it to you guys first because it feels like we need to start with this story here.
- [04:31]
Ari Weitzman
I think it makes sense to start by describing, like, for us, before we get into ICE and DHS's response to this, what we saw when we saw the video, because right now, the things that we know are the things that we can see with the video. And that can actually sometimes be misleading. So what I saw was it's a snowy street, daylight, broad daylight in Minnesota. And the videos I've seen start with one car speeding off as ICE agents on foot are approaching. Then you see another truck pull up to the scene after that first car leaves and some ICE agents get out of that vehicle. And they approach this second vehicle where the woman who was eventually shot was inside in the driver's seat. As they're approaching, I saw and heard one officer seem to gesture and say to the woman to drive away. And I saw another officer say to get out of the vehicle as he approached it from the side. At the same time, a third officer was engaged or appeared to be engaged with some sort of argument with another observer off to the side. And the two of them circled around the other side of the car. As the second officer is trying to open the door of the vehicle, the woman backs up, and she pulls her car to the side. And then she immediately tries to turn out to drive forward and away. At that time, that third officer, who is in a. Or seemed to be in an argument with another person, circled around. So he was in front of the car. So as the woman started to pull forward, he was just in the path of the car. And this is what makes it so hard, is the angles don't show if he was directly in front or just to the side. But the car starts to go towards him as it turns, and he pulls his weapon right as the car begins to accelerate or begins to pull forward. And then he shoots at the driver as she pulls out, the vehicle starts to cut. So it moves away from him. He steps to the side. He shoots again as she's pulling away. And then as the car is going past, he shoots a third time. The vehicle then moves, like, pretty quickly. It looks like she loses control, slams into another car. And then other people, observers. The observer that was in an argument with the ICE agent who shot the woman in the car starts to scream. Bystanders start to scream. She approaches the vehicle. ICE agents try to. Just. Chaos kind of starts to erupt. But that's. That's the scene that I saw. And I think a lot of the argument will be whether or not this woman was pulling forward, attempting to weaponize her vehicle, or whether she was trying to pull away. And it looks like there's a lot of things about it that are confusing.
- [07:07]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, I would say I. I think that is a really good description of what happened. And I think the details here matter. I think there's a very fundamental question of does it appear this woman was trying to run over and injure ICE agents? And the answer to me is very clearly no, based on the video that I watched. I mean, again, I don't know what she's saying, what they're saying. It's. You know, there's some audio, but there is an ICE agent to the front left of her car, and the front wheels of the car are very clearly turned to the right, and she is pulling out, admittedly trying to leave the scene where these law enforcement officers are telling her to get out of the car, but she is not weaponizing her vehicle, in my view. I. You know, I think the mayor of Minneapolis called that accountant bullshit, which, candidly, I'm. I tend to agree with based on watching a few of these videos. I mean, I think there's, you know, we are going to now get roped into the discussion about what you do when a police officer, law enforcement, tells you, get out of your car, and what this woman was doing there. And, you know, Representative Alon Omar described her as a legal observer, which is, you know, generally somebody, a lawyer, somebody with legal experience who observes law enforcement actions to make sure that the police or ICE or whoever are following the law when they're conducting these law enforcement actions and then can go testify in court. All those details aside, there is again, to me a very fundamental question of, like, were these officers lives in danger and was it necessary to pull out a weapon and fire into the front seat of this woman's car? And watching this video, I think it is. It is absurd to make that argument, in my view, based on seeing the video. And it's a tinderbox now. I mean, Minnesota is a total tinderbox. This is, you know, in the past, obviously we've had the George Floyd stuff that came out of Minnesota that drove this huge national conversation, but we've had the Somalian child care fraud stuff that we've been discussing in tangle on the podcast and the newsletter. Tim Wall's dropping out now. You know, the. The Minneapolis mayor saying, explicitly telling ICE to get the F out of Minneapolis. I mean, it is like incredibly, incredibly tense. And it's hard to imagine the situation getting better before it gets worse. I imagine we're about to see a lot of protests and. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Camille, I'd be curious. I cut you off before you started talking, but if you have an alternate view there or a different perspective on watching some of these videos, I found myself very definitively aligned with the account from some of the observers and the Minneapolis mayor rather than the ICE agents in the government who are sort of describing this woman like she was trying to kill ICE agents with her vehicle.
- [10:24]
Camille Foster
Yeah, I'm going to forego a lot of the caveats that I would typically offer in a circumstance like this and just presume, presume good faith. Everyone, you know me at least a little bit. I tend to agree with the description of the video and the characterization that you guys have already offered. I would say that the context matters a great deal here. And whether or not one is afraid may have something to do with some portion of the interaction that isn't on video that hasn't yet been detailed. Also important that ICE has had, as you just mentioned, Isaac, a number of controversial interactions with citizens in different contexts and non citizens. And in all of those cases, the Official account, at least in the immediate aftermath, tends to be one that is very beneficial to the federal government and the ICE agents themselves. So the fact that they've latched on to the narrative that is most likely to vindicate them is hardly surprising. And I don't think that we should put too much stock in that, because we'll just have to see where the facts actually shake out. My actual instinct here, though, is to talk about police shooting investigation, law enforcement shooting investigations, and how they ought to be conducted. And here, again, is another circumstance where you're going to see the government investigating the government, and whether or not you're going to get the kind of transparency that you need to actually give people the confidence that, hey, this has been seriously and thoughtfully adjudicated is the actual question that really, really matters here. That's what gets us to better policy decisions and actual information that will allow us to know whether or not we should have confidence here. And unfortunately, after all of these years, after so many different national scandals and controversies surrounding police involved shooting, law enforcement involved shooting, in this particular case, we still don't have a clear formal policy that makes it clear that you're going to get really trustworthy independent investigations. It is still the case that a lot of these agencies end up investigating themselves and vindicating themselves, and that whatever else has happened here is deeply, deeply problematic. And I really wish we'd be having a national conversation about that and perhaps will eventually get there. But that's the thing that's really at the forefront of my mind, apart from the fact that there's just another tragic loss of life. And I think. I don't know if you said it before we started recording or during the recording, but what we can anticipate for sure is that things are going to ratchet up. There will be protests. It's likely the administration will perhaps have some sort of muscular response here, even if they're under a great deal of scrutiny. And that's the thing that I find really frustrating about circumstances like this.
- [13:13]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, I think it was actually a combination. I mean, the thing that we were talking about right before we started recording was one of the segments that we wanted to do on the show today was about how the President has very quietly removed National Guard troops from places like Portland and Los Angeles. Part of that, I think, for sure, is because of the legal challenges. And also part of it, I think, is because they kind of ran out of stuff to do. I mean, I don't think these areas were, like, particularly active in a way that necessitated The National Guard being deployed, which was part of the criticism from the beginning. And so we, you know, I had this whole segment planned where we were going to revisit that and talk about, you know, how meaningful it was that these troops were coming back. And, you know, the different various Trump policies that have sort of been rolled out in a. I don't know whether it's executive action or it's a little like ham fisted or whatever. The thing that came to mind for me was. Elon Musk, email me your five points about what you've done. The OPM story, which was another. This big, splashy news thing that we talked about for days, and then a few months later, they just quietly stopped doing it. All the agencies ignored it. Nothing ever came of it. Trump deploying the National Guard troops with a big, splashy story. And there was like a week of maybe these confrontations, and then you just kind of didn't hear about it. And then one day you wake up and there's a headline like, the troops are coming home or being removed from these cities. They were home. Which is insane. The thing that I fear now is the posture the administration's taking. Clearly, immediately, is these ICE agents who are under threat.
- [14:58]
Ari Weitzman
This.
- [14:58]
Isaac Zahl
They were defending themselves. Now the protests are gonna come. What are the odds Trump deploys National Guard to Minnesota in the next couple weeks? I would say probably high. There will be protests, and he will respond by deploying the National Guard troops that we just sort of had this retraction of, which to me was kind of a relief. Yeah, that part of it worries me a great deal. And I think it's just, you know, it's the circular nature of how some of this conflict and these tensions go. They feed off each other. They need each other. And, you know, in the immediate term, I think the only real important conversation is the ICE agent who deployed his weapon, discharged his weapon, what kind of accountability he faces, what the story is that we can't see or hear or understand from the video, why this woman was there, what the exchanges were between them, what happened before she got in her car and tried to drive away. I mean, like you said, Camille, I do think that context will matter, and we'll get more details about it. But, yeah, for now, it is just a really dark, scary moment that I think is, again, tinderbox material. In a state where tensions have already been really high, and the Minnesota Minneapolis communities already been getting a lot of national attention. And there are Democratic progressive leaders from Representative Alon Omar to Jacob Frey, whatever. Who are you know, they, they're going to speak out and aggressively confront the Trump administration. And I think that is just a recipe for some, some really dangerous sort of civil confrontations with law enforcement. So, yeah, a lot more I'm sure we'll be saying about this. We have a newsletter that should be out by the time you guys hear this podcast and another podcast following up on this story, hopefully with some more details we get over the next 12 to 24 hours. Before this, before lunch today, the big story of the week was what's happening in Venezuela. We gave this some treatment in the newsletter last week, but we have not discussed it on the podcast yet. So because the three of us have not been together since right before Christmas, we have not had an opportunity to sort of talk about the capture of Nicolas Maduro, maybe the kidnapping. If you're Nicolas Maduro, as he described it in court, he has pled not guilty. We've had some developments since we discussed this. I think maybe the most interesting to me is that Maduro has somehow employed the same lawyer who defended Julian Assange against the federal government, which I do not think is good for the DOJ's prospects of putting him behind bars. My sort of, you know, hot take prediction, I guess, is that I would not at all be surprised if he's a free man in a few months. Based on the early days of this doj, the filings that they've had to correct, and the things they've been saying. They're cleaning up a bunch of public comments from Trump already. It seems like the case is getting messy very quickly, and there's a lot of opportunities for a good lawyer to take advantage of those vulnerabilities. And I think Nicolas Maduro has a very good lawyer. Maybe I'll start with you, Camille. You're as you, as you like to call them, your co conspirators at the Fifth Column, which is the other podcast where you spend some time, had an interesting interview with somebody sort of defending the operation and talking about why this was justified and maybe beneficial for the United States and for the Venezuelan people. And this was sort of a good outcome. I'd be curious to hear you talk a little bit about whether you were. I know you didn't conduct the interview, but you're one of your. Yeah, yeah. But curious to hear your thoughts about where, how you're viewing this. I guess I know Ari, because him and I have been kind of plugging away the last couple days at the newsletter coverage of this. But what's your view on sort of the administration's position and the justifications they've laid out for this covert military action. Because we can't. It's not a war. We can't call it that. It's not yet a protracted conflict, though it might be soon. But I guess, yeah, covert military action is probably the best language to use. I'd be curious how you're viewing some of this in the events of the last week or so.
- [20:02]
Camille Foster
Yeah, I mean, in the broadest sense, I think we have to say tbd, there's just so many unknown facts in the narrow cases. And we can kind of take this piece by piece with respect to the justification for this that's been offered. We've been told that it is a concern about narcotics trafficking specifically. But the things that have been at the forefront of most of the remarks that the administration has issued related to this actually have a heck of a lot more to do with economic issues, the energy in particular.
- [20:36]
Ari Weitzman
Oil.
- [20:37]
Camille Foster
Oil specifically. And that is kind of a strange justification, but it is very clearly the justification that really seems to be animating the administration and really seems to be at the forefront of President Trump's mind since this smash and grab operation took place. I'm not certain that I've seen anyone from the administration explicitly talk about the political prisoners that are being held in Venezuela. I've heard only explanations for why the opposition is in Venezuela. Ms. Machado, are not going to be installed or supported by the administration. And that is a bit disconcerting. And most of the other things that they've said have been about just how splendid the military operation was, the fact that we didn't have any casualties, that they got in really quickly, they got their guy and they brought him back to the United States. And in that respect, I think that the applause and the plaudits for the military in this particular case seems to be spot on. And quite frankly, the Trump administration has been able to have a fair amount of success and received, generally speaking, a lot of positive affirmations for various operations. In Iran and even in Nigeria, there aren't US Service persons being killed. They haven't kept boots on the ground, and had there be these kind of horrific spillover effects, at least in the short run. So that seems to be emboldening them, and that is where they would like to focus the attention. But the reality is that the most important aspect of an operation like this isn't what happens on the night of the raid. It's what happens in the months and years afterwards. And honestly, I don't see Tremendous reasons for great optimism. I see lots of uncertainty. And the specific thing that really stands out is the operation was in fact, so smooth, in part because Maduro just didn't seem to have a whole lot of domestic support. And Thor Halvorson, who you mentioned earlier was on the podcast, really spoke to that. I mean, the fact that the security detail were not Venezuelans, they were Cubans, and they were taken out completely, and the fact that you have American service people who can get in and get out so quickly, and we don't have any casualties, we do have some folks who are still in medical facilities receiving treatment, probably speaks to the fact that he didn't have that kind of support. So one of the things that I've been wondering about is, you know, you take off the head of the snake, you leave all of the rest of his governing apparatus in place, a military that really is in control of the country, that at this point still seems to be pretty unified. What have you really done? It seems that Maduro being there might have been an actual kind of vulnerability for Venezuela. And removing him in the way that they've done, is this going to be something that puts the US in the driver's seat and really lets them to dictate terms to the remainder of the regime? It's unclear. We did see today that there's been yet another tanker that's been seized. This one was carrying a Russian flag. And that's increased some of the tensions, at least again, in the short run with Russia, that I suspect will continue. But with respect to what Venezuela is actually going to do, whether or not this is going to be the beginning of a kind of flourishing of freedom in the region for this particular country, for this population that has for more than two decades now been in an oppressive dictatorial regime. I don't think that circumstance is necessarily going to change as a result of this operation, despite all of the really enthusiastic applause that you got from the administration early on. And that's probably where we need to focus our attention. I don't know that the administration is going to talk about that aspect of things, but it's certainly what we should be talking about.
- [24:44]
Ari Weitzman
I mean, is Maduro even going to be gone? Like, if we're talking about if the regime's going to be better or if Venezuela is going to improve, like, if the chances that Maduro's not convicted of something in the U.S. i honestly, honestly do not know what happens after that.
- [25:00]
Camille Foster
Like, I don't know that you can go back.
- [25:01]
Ari Weitzman
You're acquitted, we're Going to send you back.
- [25:04]
Camille Foster
Yeah, he could go back. I don't know that they would want him again. It just doesn't seem like he was particularly loved. And that's part of what complicates this, among many other things. Maybe say one other thing really quickly, the constitutionality of all of this, the legality is something I didn't get into at all. And I'm actually very curious to hear where you guys are on this, because initially I thought was, well, this seems kind of flagrantly unconstitutional. As time has gone on, however, as the reports have come out and I thought about it a little more, it's not as though this isn't without some precedent. A lot of conversation about Nicaragua has taken place over the course of the last couple of days, and there do seem to be some important similarities there. And at a minimum, even while I would prefer that there were a more narrow, restrictive interpretation of the Constitution that had been used over the course of the last couple of decades, the reality is that it's been pretty elastic and lots of presidents have taken unilateral actions like this, and it's at least defensive. There's a feasible constitutional argument that can be given to justify this, and I don't think that anyone is going to be able to challenge this on legal grounds. I don't think that'll be particularly helpful to Maduro. So even there, I'd say, yeah, they're probably on terra firma. Perhaps they shouldn't be. Maybe we should do something about that. But that seems unlikely, too.
- [26:36]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah. There was a piece written by Jack Goldsmith, who's an American legal scholar. He works at Harvard Law School. He writes extensively about American civil law and international law. I mean, he is an expert, somebody who's like, whose voice, I think should be taken really seriously on this issue. And Audrey Moorhead, one of our staff writers and editors, sent this piece out to the team before we covered the Venezuela story. And I read it, and it was, I think the best way to describe it is he made in a very begrudging fashion the case that these strikes were legal and within precedent that exists in American history. And he was despondent about that fact and wanted you to be despondent about it, which I think is actually maybe the most appropriate way to think about it. And I read the piece. It's a really good substack article. He writes a substack called Executive Functions, and the title of the piece was on the Legality of the Venezuela Invasion, which you can get go read the guy's Name is Jack Goldsmith again. And he goes back to this 1989 Panama invasion which we did to arrest Manuel Noriega under President George H.W. bush, and some of the kind of opinion that was put forward by then Assistant Attorney General Bill Barr, whose name might ring a bell. And this was back in 1989. And I guess maybe the thrust of it is that the FBI has the statutory authority to arrest extraterritorial targets, and that if the President wants to order the arrest of these people outside the United States, he has the lawful authority to do that. And then there's sort of this cascading thing that happens from there, which eventually gets to. In order to protect the agents, the law enforcement that have been deployed to conduct the arrest, it's legal to have the strikes. Now, again, the argument here is not that this is good or moral or just. It's that there is legal precedent for the action and that the President has, basically, by a dare, election of duty of Congress now the authority to go do something like this. And there's a separate section on how it fits in international law, which is a lot harder to square. But, you know, the thing I said in tangle was like, it's almost a. I mean, yes, it might be something where, you know, Trump's not gonna go to jail for kidnapping a foreign leader because he has a legal defense he can lay out in American court. But there is something about it that obviously feels a moral, illegal, unjustified. Like, we went to a foreign country and abducted their leader and extricated in the air. And we have charges, sure, like these drug charges, but, you know, the reverse. Like the. There's this very funny exercise that you can do to sort of stress test this idea to me, which I think is pretty obvious. Like, if Nicolas Maduro sent agents from Venezuela into the United States to arrest Donald Trump for murdering a bunch of boatmen who were off the coast of Venezuela with the strikes on alleged drug traffickers. And the Venezuelan navy came into a port in Washington, D.C. and abducted Trump and then left with him to bring him back to Venezuela on charges which we would obviously not find that to be something that was acceptable or very democratic or legal. So, like, I just have a hard time defending it. But, yeah, there is. From the American Western centric view, I think there is a legal justification based on this precedent. But it feels to me like something we should definitely not be doing to enforce domestic drug trafficking laws, which I guess is the story that the administration's telling. I mean, I have a hard time buying that.
- [31:08]
Ari Weitzman
I Also want to stress that this is a legal theory and this is something. And I'm not here to attack the credentials of Jack Goldsmith. I want to be actually specific about what he's doing in this piece, which is not to say, hey, I cracked the books and this is, there's nothing that says this is illegal. What he's saying is the government can draw an argument using precedent and present that argument in court. And he's actually not even opining whether or not it will win in court. So I do think that there's a very good chance. I mean, not a lawyer, I haven't been ingesting days and days worth of material about 1989 Supreme Court precedent. But chances don't seem extremely bright to me that a court will rule, yes, you can go in and arrest a foreign leader because we have, we've indicted him in this country and in order to do so, you have the right to self defense. And that self defense covers your ability to preemptively strike and bomb military depots or energy centers or relay stations and then kill guards on your way in. Like that's, that is a theory and it does seem really shady. So I not quite ready to throw up my hands and say, this is the system we have, we should change it. Obviously, Congress has been derelict in its duty. We should probably have clearer laws. But I don't know really that it's the system we have right now and when, I mean, it's going to be the trial of the year so far, years, pretty early, things happen very quickly, but it'll be something that we're all keeping a lot of attention on when the arguments do get presented in court, because that day is coming and it's coming soon. And the ramifications are going to be pretty immediate. The legality of these things are all what's on top of the top of my mind. And I think Camille is right to say we should be talking about what the long term success is going to be in these countries. We have a lot of threads to pull on with the patterns of Trump's actions abroad and the way that these, like the Nigeria strikes was successful. This was successful, but successful means what it means. This mission was accomplished. The narrow mission of we're going to bomb these targets, we're going to abduct Maduro, but what's going to happen with violence in Nigeria, what's going to happen with the stability of Venezuela, what's going to happen with Iran's nuclear programs? Like just because we did one thing with our military very competently does not mean that the broader situation is going to be fixed. And it doesn't even mean that we're going to look back at it and say, actually, we did it all by the book. We're still going to find more out as things get put under the microscope more.
- [33:50]
Camille Foster
There is another. Go ahead.
- [33:52]
Isaac Zahl
Go ahead.
- [33:54]
Camille Foster
There's another dimension of this that I have not talked about much in any of the context where I've been discussing this. I've seen a few people writing about this, but importantly, this has implications for the rest of America's kind of geopolitical notebook agenda. The fact is, of course, many of our allies are a bit uncomfortable with the way all of this has transpired. But interestingly, Venezuela had its allies as well. They've got Chinese and Russian assets that have been deployed into the region that were supposed to be helping to safeguard them to prevent something like this from happening. And none of that seems to have worked out in their favor either. The implications as well, with respect to a lot of the conversations with Greenland that have come up now seem to be directly related to the fact that the administration feels particularly emboldened whether or not the military will be involved in any of that. Obviously not unimportant either. So lots of different consequential aspects of this story that merit attention that warrant us taking a lot of time to really pay close attention to how things play out in the long run. And you know this. It's always interesting that for an administration and for a president who's so interested in promoting their bona fides as a peacemaker, that one of the things that he's seen willing to do in a number of different intervals now and with a high degree of confidence, is engage in these brief interventions, these kinetic actions, as the administration would probably prefer to have us describe them.
- [35:47]
Isaac Zahl
That word is really kinetic.
- [35:50]
Ari Weitzman
Having a moment?
- [35:52]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, it's having a moment. It's in right now. We'll be right back after this quick break. This new year, nothing hits home like home cooking. HelloFresh brings back the joy of the kitchen right to your home with recipes that feel good and taste delicious night after night. I've always been told that if you work with your mind, you need to rest with your hands. And that's why I love to unwind by cooking. I like bringing people together with meals that are simple and rewarding, even on a busy weeknight. And now, with over 100 mouthwatering recipes each week, from seasonal favorites to global dishes like moo shu pork, you can get bigger portions so nobody leaves the table hungry. All with your favorite hellofresh meals. Because when dinner tastes this good, nothing hits like home cooking. I know the value of hellofresh because I've used it and when it arrives at my door, it just simplifies the whole week. You can go to hellofresh.com tangle10fm to get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife at a $144.99 value on your third box. That offer is valid while supplies last. Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan.
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- [38:15]
Isaac Zahl
I okay, let me, let me present this question to you guys really quick because it's a, it's a great segue, Camille, to something I wanted to ask, which was there has to be some significance to the fact that the president has now intervened in these very dramatic and risky ways. In my estimation, risky with basically resounding success. And I want to say, first of all, I mean, I was very worried about the strikes in Iran on the nuclear facilities. I was very worried about the Pete Hegseth nomination. This week we're reviewing all of our takes from the year. I went back and read the things I wrote about him and a lot of it's held up, but he's responsible for the sort of tactical outcomes of the military's actions. If you had told me, hey, the Trump administration has decided they're going to go into Venezuela overnight and capture the president and extricate him and they're going to do this without any American soldiers dying. And I mean, I guess there's an. The death toll in Venezuela is still being worked out. I think I've heard as high as 80. I don't want to at all downplay that, especially because we don't know how many of them are combatants or civilians or whatever. But it was relatively quick in and out. Not relatively, it was quick in and out. There was no protracted conflict, exchange of fire or whatever. I would have been very skeptical of that as like an outcome that was realistic. We've had strikes in Syria and in Yemen that have not devolved into larger scale wars, conflicts, whatever. So to the degree that the administration has done things that I didn't want them to do, but done them as well as they probably could have if you asked me how it was going to go before they did them, to be fair and intellectually honest, I think I have to give them some sort of credit for that. My question is how dangerous is it that they are just getting more and more confident with things like Cuba, Colombia, China, Russia, Greenland. I mean, what are the implications of the president having such a sort of resounding success? And I'm doing air quotes as I say that because again, I'm not supportive of things they've done, but the way they've done them has clearly been successful. I guess I'm just, yeah, I mean the, I guess I'm just putting it out there like there must be some, them being really confident and having some swagger on like, oh, our military is really, really, really good at what it does and we can put the lights out in Caracas and go in there and steal the president in six hours. That seems like a little bit of a dangerous recipe to me. And I imagine we're going to see the ramifications of that pretty soon. I don't know. Does that worry either of you at all? Do you think that's a fair read on how the administration might be feeling? It seems to me like it's a fair prediction to think that we're going to see a lot more interventionist instincts sort of come to fruition because of the successes we've had versus the alternative, which is like if any of this stuff went south, you'd imagine they would back off. But I don't think that's going to happen now.
- [41:58]
Camille Foster
Yeah, I mean, at a minimum, like if I'm Russia and China Am I thinking a little bit more carefully about the things that I might want to do in different regions, even in support of allies of mine, am I willing to risk perhaps embarrassment sticking my neck out, insisting that, well, you know, these are ours, you keep, stay back, leave us alone, that sort of thing? Maybe, maybe so. So in that respect, I'm happy because I think in general, the United States is adversaries, keeping them at bay and on their toes, probably a very good thing. But this emboldening the Trump administration, making them more inclined to do things in places that might be a little bit more high risk. And I think you're right to say this was a risky operation. And if even one American service person is killed in an interaction like this, it completely changes the composition of the conversation that's happening the next day. If we lose a really expensive piece of equipment because of just even human error, that completely changes the composition of the conversation that we're having the next day. And the fact that they seem to be doing this in a really sophisticated way is, again, you're absolutely right. If there had been mistakes made, Pete Hegseth would be the person who was getting a tremendous amount of the blame. And given especially some of the other controversies he's been involved in, and the fact that the Department of War is operating in a really highly competent way in these other arenas is important and definitely gives me a little bit of consternation as someone who's just kind of observing these things, thinking about the implications, worried about potential unintended consequences, and even the possibility of going in and making a mistake someplace consequential is very important. I am very curious about the degree to which any of this really meaningfully has implications for Greenland. That's certainly been the framing here. There have been questions raised about it. But I don't know how seriously to take the conversations around military involvement in Greenland. And with respect to the President's long term ambition to secure Greenland for the United States, I think you should take.
- [44:16]
Ari Weitzman
Them kind of seriously at this point. I think we've been on the same page about that for the past year. But right now, I think a lot of countries, a lot of international pacs organizations are asking themselves what, what actually, actually are our red lines right now? Because Trump wanting to strike a nation in Africa where Russia's engaging in some infrastructure support and trying to do charm offensives, and an ally of theirs, a sort of OPEC plus nation in South America, testing the lines of what is the perimeter of your actual power? Where would you actually push back and seeing, okay, we actually don't want to get Tron into something over this. I think now the question is, what are we going to be willing to defend? I think obviously it would look very different if Trump said we're going to try to do a targeted strike in Taiwan. Like that is an absolute beyond the pale kind of thing that would not fly with China in any way. There are similar things where, what if the US Puts boots on the ground in Ukraine? I think that would be a red line for Russia. I am wondering something about NATO's red lines and Greenland though, because I do think Trump is trying to. I've had the same read. Seems like he wants to try to play all sides, like attack through all angles. Say we should have Greenland. Greenland's important to us, not important to Denmark. We want you to be free, but also ours. But also free. And we can be the protectors of Greenland. And it's important for our national interests, but also, I mean, we can just take it. And that's kind of true. And I think Greenland being actually Danish territory, Denmark, one of our longest, most cherished allies, us putting boots on the ground in like even a two hour operation to claim control of the capital of Greenland and say that we are extending our power to the entire island at that point would be something that I actually, at this point, if I'm asking NATO, they know that they like the United States is a key part of that or key ally of Denmark. Is Denmark going to say that's a red line for us? I am not sure. I'm really not. And I would think it ought to be. I think, you know, Denmark saying that. But I, I agree with kind of what Isaac's saying where we're seeing an emboldened Oval Office and successful in the narrow terms of how these strikes were carried out and what they did, a series of successful strikes. I don't know. Like that's something that you could actually say this is a reasonable possibility now and we need to talk about it in stern, sober terms.
- [47:06]
Isaac Zahl
I'll add too. I mean, maybe one of my bigger zags from some of the things that I've given some of the context of how I've talked about the interventionist stuff from the administration and I realized kind of in some ways, like I'm sort of, I kind of got some America first bones in my body. I don't, I'm not sure if Trump does, but I do. And I'm, I just, like, I'm generally very skeptical of just like resource attention, whatever in anything outside the boundaries of the United States. But the Greenland thing I think Trump is actually right about, which is if China or Russia have a meaningful foothold there, that is really, really dangerous for us, for the Western world, genuinely. And I'm not typically like xenophobic, were red scare, whatever, but I buy that, what the administration's selling on that. And I'm, you know, I don't want boots on the ground in Greenland, but if Trump were to pressure, help influence the Greenland independence movement. And then, you know, Ari, you shared this awesome political article today about. It was like four, four steps to how Trump could take Greenland. And it was like, support the influence campaign, Support the independence campaign. Make an offer to purchase Greenland they can't refuse. I can't remember the third one exactly, but it was kind of get Europe on board by leveraging Ukraine. Ukraine and giving security guarantees to Ukraine as part of the deal to get Europe on board. And then if none of that works out, just like send a few hundred soldiers there and we'll have it by.
- [49:04]
Ari Weitzman
9Pm yeah, three helicopters. Right.
- [49:06]
Camille Foster
You'd also destroy NATO in the process.
- [49:09]
Isaac Zahl
Probably.
- [49:10]
Ari Weitzman
But like, I'm not sure if that would actually. Yeah, like it's. We're through the looking glass, man. Would we destroy NATO in the process?
- [49:18]
Camille Foster
It's just that if, if the justification is at all, we want to make certain that we can put a check on the ability of our foreign adversaries to do bad in the world by invading. Undermining NATO. Yeah, undermining NATO by invading an ally seems exactly contrary to that. Aspir. I do agree with you though, Isaac. In the main, there is a coherent, articulable perspective about what it means to defend the US's sphere of influence. And I get how even saying that aloud sounds a bit like kind of Putin's philosophy with respect to Ukraine. I don't mean it in that way. I'm not suggesting that. I'm just saying it's a coherent philosophy. That you do not want the Russians kind of setting up missile defense systems in Venezuela, in Iceland, that would be bad. Or Greenland. Excuse me. It's easy to confuse the two, but they are very different places.
- [50:18]
Ari Weitzman
I've been watching the Mighty Ducks to help you out.
- [50:23]
Camille Foster
But what is the actual practical possibility that the United States could launch any sort of military operation that would further this ambition to do something in Greenland? There are no strikes that could be conducted. There is no smash and grab opportunity here that would actually be beneficial. I just don't get it. And I especially don't get And I think this is the biggest problem with the President's aspirations here. They are an ally, a close, trusted ally. Why not just build another base? Why not just reinforce the base that you have there? It is almost certainly the case that if you wanted to do those things, you could. And if you wanted to unilaterally offer things to the people of Greenland, that that brought them closer to the United States. Like, hey, if you're a citizen of Greenland, you're pretty much almost a citizen of the United States. We could offer them all of the things. You could achieve all of that without alienating your allies. And there's not even a part that's just so bizarre.
- [51:25]
Ari Weitzman
Seems like since they are an ally, like, what are we actually worried that Russia is going to try to attack Greenland? Because they're. They're a territory of Denmark, which is a NATO country which has a mutual defense pact. So, like, what are we even talking about?
- [51:38]
Camille Foster
I think it's. I think it's mostly about projecting power into the Arctic, though. I think that's the issue.
- [51:42]
Ari Weitzman
Sure. Right. But at the same time, like, all the things that you said, like, it's a. It's a member of NATO already. We can. There are other ways to strengthen the relationship. And at the end of the day, the thing that gives me the most solace of, like, I don't think this is going to happen is I just think. I think Trump would be afraid of having his FIFA World Peace Prize rescinded if he did that. He's already wearing the Med slap in the face.
- [52:06]
Camille Foster
He's sleeping in that medal, Ari. They can't take it back. What are they going to do, a smash and grab operation to get it back? FIFA has no army.
- [52:14]
Isaac Zahl
I sort of feel like we could just flatten France and really bring NATO and the world together and just unify the North Atlantic Treaty. I don't know. You're saying something, Camille. That makes total sense to me. How do we strike Greenland? How do we. Like, yeah. What you're saying is totally rational and sensible. And then I'm like, maybe you just don't have the same imagination that Stephen Miller does.
- [52:43]
Camille Foster
That's probably true. That Donald Trump does the sexual matador Stephen Miller.
- [52:49]
Isaac Zahl
I thought. I thought that some things were insane. Like, I thought it was kind of ridiculous to. Even though I predicted it, I also thought it was a little presumptuous to think that we would just go in and steal Nicolas Maduro in the middle of the night, but we did it. And arrest. Yeah, We'll be right Back after this quick break.
- [53:20]
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- [53:55]
Camille Foster
Did I talk too much? Can't I just let it go?
- [54:04]
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- [54:35]
Isaac Zahl
We are recording this on January 7th, but we did just blow past a special anniversary in our nation's history. I don't know how long we're going to have to do this memorialized January 6th. Will this be a September 11th, never forget type thing? Or we're going to remember it for 10 years and then kind of forget once Trump is out of the picture? I don't really know. Uh, but we feel still in the bubble of we should talk about and acknowledge it and, and we haven't in any capacity entangle. And so I wanted to use our last little segment here today to chat a bit about January 6th. And I think to start, I'm just gonna read an excerpt of a piece that was published just a few days after, after January 6, 2021. And it goes like this. So this is how it ends. With Republicans divided, powerless and hiding inside a bunker in the Capitol building. With Washington, D.C. on lockdown with improvised explosive devices hidden across the nation's Capitol. With Trump's most ardent supporters hanging a noose outside the Capitol building. With an Air Force veteran dead, a bullet through her chest fired by a Capitol police officer inside the Capitol building. With Mitt Romney being accosted in airports for refusing to support the president's lies. With Trump's mob of supporters clashing with police, smashing news cameras and hanging Trump flags in the House chamber. It ends with an Arizona GOP chairwoman insisting the moment be seized to steal an election. With the president turning on his own vice president, telling millions he is betraying him and Then refusing to allow Pence's chief of staff into the White House. With violence in the streets, with a more divided nation than when he entered office. With tens of millions of people in unemployment, a pandemic that has cost almost 400,000 lives. Still raging, with nearly 4,000 people dead yesterday alone, with sitting Republicans calling for Trump to be removed from office, and with the president locked out of his own Twitter account, this is the end of Trump. End quote. The idiot who wrote that piece was named Isaac Salt. Published just shortly after January 6th. Maybe one of my worst aged. Well, I don't know. Some of that I obviously still stand by, but I mean, there's a lot.
- [56:55]
Camille Foster
Of factually accurate stuff in there, not just in fairness, definitely pretty much all of it. Except the last bit.
- [57:02]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, except the last bit. It is. I mean, I, as a little bit of a retrospective, went back and read some of our stuff from Tangled, the things I was posting on Twitter and, and a ton of stuff came up in my feed this week from all the administrate, all the people who are working for the Trump administration now, like Marco Rubio, live tweeting about the attacks on the Capitol and just, you know, how disgusting it was and how ashamed the President should be and now is.
- [57:32]
Camille Foster
Like he didn't know they were heroes.
- [57:35]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, it's confounding. I'm not really sure what to make of it. I definitely did not expect to be here six years, five years later, but we are. Trump's back in office. He's in power. The events of that day have now been rewritten and contested in a million different ways. The White House has put up this new, rather insane, in my view, retrospective on what happened, just full of misleading descriptions of what Mike Pence could have done and who is at fault and why the Capitol riots happened. I saw a tweet from Representative Mike Collins, who is, I'll just say, I'll read just the first sentence of the tweet. On this day in history, in 2021, thousands of peaceful grandmothers and others gathered in Washington D.C. to take a self guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. capitol building. It's a troll, clearly. I mean, he's intentionally trying to evoke something in us and it's working. I got annoyed when I read it. I guess open ended question is just how, how are you guys feeling about or thinking about this day? Is this something worth really talking about or ruminating on? I have a hard time reading the piece I wrote and letting all of it go. But in another sense, much of the country has moved on. And it seems like we've forgiven and forgotten in a lot of ways. Yeah, it's a little bit surreal, I suppose, to be here.
- [59:27]
Ari Weitzman
It feels like we're just in the middle of a narrative war and we know that that is the thing that Trump is incredibly good at. So we saw what happened on January 6th. I think the phrase that's doing the most work in retrospect is peacefully and orderly when Trump attaches it to let's march on the Capitol and peacefully and don't do violence, but let's march on the Capitol. And we saw what happened and we knew weeks in advance there was disruption or sorry disputes about the election results that were coming from Trump and Trump's campaign and false electors and sparked a lot of investigations which were then scuttled and after they weren't conducted in time for us to be able to get results from them. And at this point, without those investigations showing us the results of them, the narrative that Trump's selling is nothing really happened on this day. And yet we had this immense overreaction in this lawfare prosecution. And that's the story. And Nancy Pelosi's in action with the police is the story, even though that there's nothing to react to. But the reasons for what happened are entirely outside of what Donald Trump was doing. And the mountain has been made out of the molehill at this point. That is where we are in the story is usually trying to agree on what happened. And I think that is going to change the closer we get to January 6, 2028, because at that point we're going to be asking are we going to have a peaceful transfer of power this time? And that's the thing that's on my mind right now. I know earlier I said we have to be really sober minded now about discussing Greenland. And then we sort of had a laugh fest about it because all we can do is sort of react with humor when we aren't sure how to process something. But right now, I want to say I remember January 6th. I know we all do. And I think we all experienced and read pieces and read statements at the time and understood what we're seeing was an effort to try to not accept the results of the election. And that now is a thing that's being muddied. But a thing I'm worried about is are we going to see the same thing in 2028? I've not really been talking about that before. I know, Isaac, we've brought that up a couple times I said I'm not as much worried about it because in 2028, Donald Trump won't be the nominee. I still think that even with the things like the trolls coming out of the White House. But I'm, you know, every, every right now it's the fifth year anniversary, which is why we're talking about it and we're talking about it retrospectively. But the thing that's on my mind is just looking forward and thinking about what's going to happen the next time we have a presidential transfer of power. And I'm not feeling super great about it.
- [62:30]
Camille Foster
Yeah. I'll just start by saying January 6th is also my mom's birthday. So. Yeah, see, so there are other things that happened on January 6th. At some point, we perhaps won't have that at the forefront of our minds anymore as the, I mean, that being the unfortunate unpleasantness and can think about other things. But I'm happy birthday, Mom. So that's the first thing. Second, I'm with you guys. I think it is very difficult hearing you, Isaac, read that accounting of where things stood on that day and to not kind of be transported back to that time. Like, there's a sense in which I, I think about it a lot. We've talked about that period of time very, very frequently, even on this podcast, in the past year or so, because it sets the stage for so much of the, it's essential for understanding so much of what's taking place now necessarily transformed our politics and the political landscape. And it definitely has implications for the future. That's it. I don't think most Americans have a really clear, at the forefront of their mind, appreciation for just how insane that moment felt. And for me, January 6th, as I've probably mentioned here before, and perhaps won't mention nearly as much on forthcoming anniversaries. It's hard for me to look at January 6th without thinking about the eight or nine months that preceded it, the autonomous zones that were erected, the nights and weeks and months long protests, the federal buildings under siege. I don't think qualifies our concern about January 6 and the misconduct of the Trump administration at that point and even in their kind of misrecollections of it now, anything to talk about that in the context of the weeks and weeks and weeks of political unrest and political violence that took place that was perhaps emanating from the other side's quote, unquote. I think there was a kind of madness that took hold of the country. And in a very real sense, January 6th was kind of a crescendo related to all of that. There are certainly some personal accountability on the part of the president that at the time I have said and have continued to maintain that I thought it was politically disqualifying. It is astonishing to me that he managed to come back from that. But that is actually something I've been thinking about a lot more than I anticipated. How is it that he managed to come back from that? What does that really say about us? Is that Americans completely discounting the importance of what took place? Is it just a matter of having a binary choice to make on election Day and realizing that you're not particularly excited about the alternative? It seems important that you had a pretty a much more meaningfully diverse coalition of Americans voting in support of Republican candidate than we've seen in a very long time. And this is the guy who it was. It's all very, very strange and I'm not sure how to make peace with it because it's something that still bothers me. You mentioned the January 6 website and one detail that hadn't really occurred to me, but it just is at the forefront of my mind now. And this isn't particularly serious, but when you load the webpage up, there's this JavaScript that makes it shake.
- [66:12]
Ari Weitzman
It shakes like an earthman.
- [66:13]
Isaac Zahl
It just shakes.
- [66:15]
Camille Foster
There's something about that kind of cartoonish, like ridiculous touch from Again, this is the White House website. Someone put this together. It was approved. This was something that you have to imagine. Just in the same way there's this walk of fame now at the White House where the president himself authored a number of the little captions underneath these images. He probably has his fingerprints over all of this stuff. You mentioned the narrative war that's taking place place, Ari, and how good he is at it. He's good at it. Not even so much because he's so sophisticated an operator. He's relentless. He's kind of shameless in a lot of these. In these contexts. And that is a strategy that has, for better or worse, it has gotten some results. And the question at the forefront of my mind now is what does that mean for the polity going forward? Who is going to try to replicate his success using similar means, perhaps trying to attain similar ends? I know a lot of people were hoping that we would return to a kind of normal. I think that is a mistake. You don't just return to it. Something has to happen to change the incentives in our politics. And I think it matters that Gavin Newsom, the man who seems to be at the forefront of the kind of left wing response at the moment. He seems to be the guy. He's kind of the only person anyone is really talking about for the Democratic nomination at this point. And that could change. But he's using Trumpian tactics against Trump. What does that mean? Does that have implications? Is it a mistake to worry about norms and decorum in our politics now? It's not something that I was necessarily as worried about as some other people, but perhaps I was mistaken in that regard. I think there's something about the coarsening of our politics and the lack of sophistication on the part of a lot of our elected officials that has me more uncomfortable than I was before. So I don't know.
- [68:21]
Ari Weitzman
There you have it, Isaac. We don't care.
- [68:25]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, I mean, no, it's really well said. I think I sit in sort of an interesting spot where in Trump's first term, I would say the first three years until the pandemic hit, I was kind of one of these people who was not never Trump. I was never a never Trump Republican or something or just resist Democrat with him. I was intrigued by a lot of what he was doing and I was sort of Trump curious almost. And I wanted some of what he was putting forward to kind of succeed. And to this day, I mean, anybody who reads Tango or listens to it, I mean, they get. Our listeners and readers on the left and in the center get pissed at me all the time because I side with sometimes I think he's just, I think his kind of outsidery disruption view is right in some instances, for whatever reason. I don't know if it's. I'm like a statist and I haven't realized it yet, but the January 6th stuff just offends my sensibilities in a way that like nothing else he did. And to me, like, I think it's because it was the most egregious dereliction of duty of anything that he did. I think it was the biggest stain, the worst thing he ever did. But it's. Yeah, like he refused to acknowledge the legitimate results of an election and then ended America's streak of peaceful transfers of power. That is always what it will be to me. And I think anything else is like any other framing for it is kind of a distortion of reality. And I get caught up in the day to day. And he's been reelected. We had a whole Biden presidency which upset me in all different kinds of ways. And then he's come back and now he's president and it's like, I don't think about that every day, but the anniversary arrives and I'm. And I realized, like, it is something that, to me, is just unforgivable. Like, it should be the first sentence in any biography or recap of what he did in office. In my view, it's just like no other president has rejected the Democratic results of an election in our country's history in that manner, to that degree, in such a way that actually evoked a really violent event. And I blame him for it. I think he was at fault. And I think any sort of rewriting of that, where he is not at the center of the months of refusal to acknowledge the results leading up to the events. You know, yes, he called for his supporters to be peaceful in their protests, but then he also told them to march down to the Capitol and make their voices heard. And it was not unclear to anybody what was happening. And he did not intervene in a timely manner. He did not do anything to turn the temperature down. All the reporting we have from the people who are in the room with him suggests that he actually felt invigorated by it, and he enjoyed watching the spectacle of it. I mean, it's gross. It's sick. It's a stain on his legacy, in my view, that can't be wiped out. So that's where my feelings are. And I think in a lot of ways, I've just never really forgiven him for it. And it still maybe subconsciously informs some of the views that I have about him and his time in office. I don't know if this is. I don't think it's coming up on the podcast right now, if the audios. But just like I am out in West Texas and there are fighter jets just blasting past and my son screaming in the background, these. There's an Air Force base not far from here, but, yeah, America. Fuck yeah, baby. Anyway. All right, well, go ahead. Yeah, please.
- [72:32]
Camille Foster
Well, just quickly. I am going to continue to be relentlessly fair in my assessment of our politics. I've always tried, perhaps I've gone too far in it actually, to try and imagine the best case argument for the people on the left and the people on the right. That's certainly true for the president of the United States, where for a very long time it felt like there was a kind of hysteria within the media ecosystem that Trump kind of animated. And again, not without good reason. There was cause to be concerned, but it seemed to manifest itself in ways that I thought were deeply unhealthy. And I think the Media is actually doing a much better job now in its response to things where it's being severe and critical in constructive ways. And that wasn't always the case. But I find that my response, especially like reading the website, like their retelling and recasting of events, has actually made me much more resentful of the president and his conduct and just the kind of awfulness of the things that he's like, perpetrated on the polity than I was before. Like, I'm more resentful because of the kind of strident attempt to recast history. I did Abby Phillips show last night, and at some point in the show, she was recounting the contemporaneous tweets or text messages between Donald Trump Jr. And one of the high ranking officials. And he is insisting his father needs to condemn this now, that if he doesn't do something now, issue some sort of statement because it was a really protracted period where all he had done was tweet something. He didn't go on television right away and say, hey, go home. The fact that his son, who is still one of his most dedicated supporters, was in private insisting that this is an awful thing. He's watching all of this and he was mortified by shouldn't be forgotten. Marco Rubio's comments the following day. Shouldn't be forgotten. We should keep that at the forefront of our mind. That colors a great deal or at least reveals a great deal about who the president is and what his priorities are. And yeah, he's got three more years in office and I hope perhaps he'll find some religion on these things. But I don't suspect he's likely to change in that regard. And it is kind of insane that one does have to continue to have some suspicion about what's likely to happen when his term is up and quite frankly the term after that. Because you don't just recover your sensibilities after something like that happens. It stays with you.
- [75:21]
Ari Weitzman
A FIFA transfer of power prize.
- [75:28]
Camille Foster
That is not a bad idea, Ari.
- [75:30]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, it's not a bad idea. All right, well, we've been at it for a little over an hour, so we should probably start to wrap here. I think it's been a few weeks since I've seen you guys, so everybody should have a grievance. I mean, surely something has happened to one of you in the last few weeks to warrant some complaining. So, John, why don't you play the music and we'll get into it.
- [75:59]
Raj or Noah (Ad Hosts)
The airing of grievances.
- [76:05]
Isaac Zahl
Between you and me. I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. Any volunteers to I got something today? All right.
- [76:13]
Camille Foster
I got something.
- [76:14]
Isaac Zahl
I don't believe you.
- [76:15]
Camille Foster
I do. I really do. Isn't that even a thing?
- [76:17]
Isaac Zahl
I try to do this without ending it on a positive note.
- [76:21]
Camille Foster
I will start on a positive note, which was. It was the holidays. It was wonderful to spend time with my family. My kids were around. I was in one place in one time zone for almost three weeks. It was great. All of that said, my kids get a lot of time off school and I love them. I want to spend time with them. I want to hang out, but my God. And I love our school, but they had Monday off too. Why are there so many holidays? Why is the holidays so protracted? Why not like during that period between Christmas and New Year, you know, there are a couple of days where they should probably go to school. Like, this should probably be school. Because mom and dad actually need a little bit of a break. Like, we need some time. And it can't be the case that during the holidays when you're supposed to be home relaxing with your family, your kids.
- [77:14]
Isaac Zahl
Your family's there.
- [77:15]
Camille Foster
Well, no. Your kids demanding things. Look, the teachers get the entire summer off, okay? All I'm saying is, like, why not a couple of those days between Christmas and New Year's? Teach them something. Teach them something. Get them out of the house. Because it's a little bit much. That's all I'm saying. I don't know that this policy is going to work, but at some point it's just. It's too much. Spring break is right around the corner. I don't think that's fair to parents. That's all I'm going to say.
- [77:47]
Isaac Zahl
I love it. That's a real genuine grievance from Camille Foster.
- [77:51]
Camille Foster
Take my children.
- [77:53]
Isaac Zahl
I wish that the holiday time I got to spend with my family included just a little bit less of my family.
- [78:00]
Camille Foster
No, just the kids.
- [78:03]
Ari Weitzman
Just take the family that can drive cars.
- [78:05]
Camille Foster
I'll pick them up at 4:30. I promise I will.
- [78:08]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah, I like that. All right, I'll go. Ari, you can bring us home. My events this week is rather simple. It is. I have no idea why I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and not rural West Texas. Everything about my life is basically better here, except I'm not with my friends in Philadelphia, and I'm pretty sure I could convince some of them to move down here. I have literally spent the last. When I was 18 years old, I went to the University of Pittsburgh. I left the suburbs, and went to the University of Pittsburgh, which is a city, a school in the city of Pittsburgh. And then I lived in Jerusalem, and then I lived in New York, and now I live in Philly. And it's been another half my life, 16, 18 years, and I've just only lived in the city. And I'm sitting here this week, down here at this property, at a house that I own in West Texas, and I wake up every morning and I make a little campfire outside, and my son just plays for two hours straight with a cutoff gallon of water filled with rocks and mud and just crawls around outside and gets dirty and needs no attention and no toys. I watch the sunset. It's quiet, the air is fresh. And I'm just like, why did I just live in the city for 16, 15 years? So my grievance this week is that I think I've made a huge mistake. I've wasted about a sixth of my life living in urban America, and I do not have any good reason why. And then today, I learned how to drive a backhoe and started plowing my own driveway, which is the most fun thing I've ever done. Just huge machinery. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. Just crushing, plowing over plants and dead brush and making a proper driveway for my home. And. And, yeah, I think I'm in. I think I'm never going to take this flannel shirt off and never come home. And life's good here. So I don't know. That's. Yeah, I. I'm dreading going back to the city, not Philadelphia. Nothing against Philly, just dreading going back to a city next week. And I can't shake the feeling, fellas. So that's my.
- [80:34]
Camille Foster
Make a strong case.
- [80:35]
Ari Weitzman
You make everything, though. I know that you love your secret, like, speakeasy memberships and your. And having your being a local at some places that you frequent. You, like going to Winter League and having a network of friends nearby and being able to get on the train and go to New York in an hour, having all of your favorite bands come near you and tour near you, sporting events near you. Get on the train, go to somewhere, the middle. Well, I'm just saying. I know.
- [81:06]
Isaac Zahl
It's strange.
- [81:11]
Ari Weitzman
Though. The rural lifestyle has a lot of positives to offer. There's a grocery store, there's a gas station five minutes down the road from me that has a pump from the 1980s, and you have to go in and tell them how much you filled up for because they don't have a way of knowing. And this gas station, you can request different actual kinds of wine you want them to carry, and they'll just buy it and then you can, you know, you get everything you really want. So I don't get to see the Penguins three times a year and I can't drive 10 minutes and watch the Steelers. Like, those are things that I lose. But I. I'm with you. I'm with you, man. Say hi to the coyotes for me.
- [81:49]
Camille Foster
I will.
- [81:50]
Isaac Zahl
They've been yapping all week, man. Good dogs. All right, go ahead.
- [81:54]
Ari Weitzman
Speaking of good dogs, I want to thank the listeners who wrote in the dozens of you I've tried to reply to, all of you. I'm sorry if I've missed anybody who were giving feedback and thoughts about whether or not I should get Callie the ACL surgery. My dog Callie, an 11 year old Australian shepherd, we did get the ACL surgery. She's doing great. She's doing auspiciously great. She's doing too well. We are concerned about how well she's doing. She does not think that she's injured. After a day of her being home, she wanted to do all of her normal activities. The sedatives are working in a way that if you squint, you can notice. But she still really wants to be on her routines. The dog is healthy and she's good to the point where we wish that she were just a little bit sadder because it would be easier for us. I want to give my gratitude and thanks to the late, great Mac Miller, because his album Circles is the only thing that calms my dog down. I don't know why, but she loves it. I've really gotten my grievance out, which is just the. That the dog is robust and she. I guess that's kind of a chameleon thing. It's good. If there's one thing that's really to complain about, it's that the. The sedatives, when they do work, they relax her and they relax all of her muscles to the point where it's been three out of eight days. We've woken up to surprise poops that have surprised all three of us and have had to, like, take a nap. But, like, you deal with it, whatever it's in.
- [83:20]
Camille Foster
Well, yeah, because you can't be mad at the dog. And under those.
- [83:24]
Ari Weitzman
No, she's, like, surprised. She's like, what is that? I'm sorry. She's, like, embarrassed.
- [83:30]
Isaac Zahl
I hate when that happens.
- [83:31]
Ari Weitzman
Okay, buddy.
- [83:31]
Isaac Zahl
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, it's good to share this space with you again, fellas. Some dark days here, but nice to laugh and enjoy some time together. I will see you both soon, I hope, in person or here. And for those of you listening again, just a reminder, because the news is moving quick, that we are recording this on Wednesday afternoon. So if some new stuff comes out about this Venezuela story or this killing in Minnesota, there's a decent chance that we were not privy to it when we recorded it. But we're doing our best to stick to what we know, and we're glad to be back here. Refresh ready for 2026. So I'll see you guys next week. And to our dear listeners, we're very, very glad to be back here and happy to be sharing some time with you, too. So that's all for now, I guess. Yeah, miss you all. All right, later.
- [84:30]
Ari Weitzman
Bye.
- [84:31]
Isaac Zahl
Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Zahl, and our executive producer is John Lowell. Today's 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 Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Knuth, and Bailey Soule. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@retangle.com.
- [85:07]
Momentous Brand Representative
Foreign.
- [85:14]
Raj or Noah (Ad Hosts)
Hey, it's Raj and Noah. And we're back with a new season of Am I Doing It Wrong? The show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
- [85:22]
Isaac Zahl
Because we're still doing a lot of stuff wrong.
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Raj or Noah (Ad Hosts)
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Isaac Zahl
Dreaming, we'll be talking to experts in their fields who are definitely doing things right. So the rest of us can be a bit wiser and a lot better equipped to handle whatever life throws at us.
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Raj or Noah (Ad Hosts)
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- [85:49]
Isaac Zahl
And for the first time ever, we're going to have full video episodes on YouTube. Because as long as there are things to get wrong, we're going to be.
- [85:56]
Camille Foster
Right here to help you do them better.
- [85:58]
Isaac Zahl
Love y'.
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Ari Weitzman
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- [86:30]
Camille Foster
Meet Lisa hey there. Lisa runs an online boutique specializing in sustainable fashion.
- [86:36]
Ari Weitzman
With Acast, she found a whole new.
- [86:38]
Camille Foster
Way to reach eco conscious shoppers.
- [86:40]
Raj or Noah (Ad Hosts)
Yep, I recorded a quick ad targeted listeners interested in fashion and sustainability using Acast's audience attributes targeting feature and set my budget. Before I knew it, people all over were hearing about my shop.
- [86:52]
Ari Weitzman
Now that's a smart way to grow your business.
- [86:54]
Camille Foster
Hey Lisa, what's trending right now?
- [86:56]
Raj or Noah (Ad Hosts)
Shopping sustainably and my sales, of course.
- [86:58]
Camille Foster
Start reaching your ideal audience through podcast ads with Acast. Visit Go acast.
- [87:04]
Ari Weitzman
Com advertise to get started.