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- [00:00]
Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. JBL Tour Pro3 earbuds are for those who don't conform to the standard. Yeah, I mean if you want to get into some touchscreen technology, how about the smart charging case Clear sound. These are not standard things. You're only gonna get them with the JBL Tour Pro 3, baby. And I love the sound of JBL when it goes. These earbuds are packed with innovation because you can't stand out by following others. Touchscreen smart charging case for one touc instant EQ customization, true adaptive noise canceling and the one of a kind audio transmitter which can plug and play with everything from game consoles to in flight entertainment. What more could you want? First doesn't follow.
- [00:44]
Ed Helms
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- [01:40]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We might be a little tight today because I think there's a bonus pod coming tonight, so keep an eye on your feed for a second entry will be maybe a little more prudent than this morning's entry. We'll see how it goes. But I'm excited to welcome to this show. Formerly at the Bulwark, she's now a writer and editor at Protect Democracy. Their subtack is if youf Can Keep It. It's all caps. Amanda Carpenter. What's up, girl? Happy Thanksgiving.
- [02:08]
Amanda Carpenter
Hey, good morning, Tim. You have been killing it lately. I am so. I'm just so happy to see all the Bulwark success. And this, the second interview. Sounds pretty juicy. What's going on?
- [02:20]
Tim Miller
Okay, well, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. Keep an eye on the feed. Yeah. You know, we miss you. It's good to see you. It's been a minute. You're doing the Lord's work. It's like right there in the name Protect Democracy. It's kind of an important, important job. So I'm happy you're doing that. But we do miss you. I want to do big picture because, like, I think since the last time we talked, obviously the, you know, Project 2025 has rolled down the tracks further, but they've also had some spokes in their tires a little bit. I was on with your boss, Ian Bassett, on Nicole last week, and Ian, for people who don't know him, like me, is a little dour. You know, he's a little bit of a rain cloud at times. And he was like, he was sounding optimistic, it kind of felt like, about our trajectory. So I'm just wondering what you think kind of biggest picture in the. Just from the democracy perspective. And we'll get into the other stuff, like what kind of where we are right now, what the threats are, what may be some positive developments have been.
- [03:15]
Amanda Carpenter
You know, we get this question a lot, and in my head, I always have this kind of, like, scorecard of where we are on the matrix of all the categories, like when it comes to military deployments and pardons and quashing dissent and campaigns against the press and weaponizing the Department of Justice. So, like, that's always into account. There's never, like, yes, it's going great, or we're at this part on the map kind of answer. But I, I think the biggest reason for optimism at this particular point in time is that Donald Trump's policies are incredibly unpopular. I mean, his job approval rating right now is at 36%. And the key to defeating authoritarian, you know, these populous policies is to make them unpopular so that they are unable to entrench themselves and their faction in power. And we did have successful elections. So, you know, this is real reason to have, you know, faith in the future that's ahead. And one thing that I spend a lot of time thinking about is sort of what you mentioned. They had a plan for year one of Trump 2.0. That was Project 2025. You know, they had it written for every department they were going to oust these people, they got everything they wanted for the most part, and it's not turning out well for them. And I don't think they have a plan for year two. And so it is my hope and dream that year two is the year that accountability starts. And I think we're starting to see it. You know, it's December 2025 right now. We are finally starting to see some oversight happen and things like these insane boat strikes that are happening in the Caribbean. You know, we knew what kind of person Pete Hegseth was going to be. We see, saw what they were doing with the whole Department of War branding and we want to loosen the terms of engagement. And now we're seeing that play out and there is real bipartisan interest in exercising some oversight for the first time. And so I am particularly, I don't want to say happy, but I feel good about that because I think the single biggest threat to our democracy comes to these military deployments, Whether it comes to these strikes in foreign waters, whether it comes to agents in the streets of our cities, when it comes to ice, the National Guard. And stopping these unlawful deployments and types of military and federal action is absolutely essential when it comes to election protection and the future of our democracy. So if we make that unpopular and we can of oversight and we can stop it in the courts and stop it in the streets, I feel a lot better.
- [05:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah. For those who are podcast only folks, Mark Hertling, who's more formally joined the Bulwark, has been so good on all this, like the democracy threats for military deployment. And just so you can check out his work at the website and YouTube and I'll get him back on the pod soon. It's like, basically true, right, that the best fight against the authoritarian threat is making their populous policies unpopular. I mean, there have been examples where unpopularity has not worked in stopping authoritarian. But I do think that in America, we have a lot more checks than some of these other countries where, you know, driving his numbers down is the best thing that can be done. And the funny thing is about the whole project 2025 is back in 2024, during the campaign, there was like, one thing that Trump and all of us who opposed him did seem to agree on, which is that Project 2025 isn't popular. Like, he knew it wasn't going to be popular. We knew it wasn't going to be possible.
- [06:38]
Amanda Carpenter
He tried to disown it, then he did it.
- [06:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, he tried to disown it. And so it is strange, kind of, that they have that, like, he had the survival instinct during the campaign to know they had to distance himself from the toxic elements of it. And then this year he just kind of ran headlong into all of the most unpopular elements of it, whether it be the Doge stuff or, you know, you can you kind of go down the line.
- [07:01]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I think we should. I mean, Doge needs to be more purely branded as the spectacular failure that it was. Maximum chaos, no savings, you did all the damage. You ousted all these people. You did the schedule F and you didn't save money. I mean, you killed life, saving programs. I mean, maximum damage for maximum nothing. I mean, I think Elon Musk will also try to make some kind of comeback when it comes to political influence in the future. I don't think he's going away forever, but I do think we should do a better job explaining how much damage that caused for absolutely no payoff.
- [07:43]
Tim Miller
Right, guys? I'm not a big wallet purchaser. I probably had, I don't know, three wallets my entire adult life. And I had a little while where I had a Costanza wallet going. Then I decided to keep nothing in my wallet. You know, I've just, I've been all over the map. And when we got this new sponsor, Ridge, I have to admit, I'm just going to admit right off I was a little skeptical. It's a little different than my other wallets. It's sleek, it has a little bit of heft to it. It's a little more masculine than I self identify as. It turns out, my skepticism was unwarranted. And now you can join me and you can say hello to Ridge 2.0, the most refined version of the Ridge wallet. Everything's better on 2.0. It's 10% lighter. They found the perfect balance between sturdiness and. It's unlike the boxing category. It's like a featherweight. Strong and sturdy, but also featherish. They made it more modular with improved cat straps, money clips, and the airtag attachment. In case you're a loser. I'm also a loser of things. So you can ensure that you're going to find your wallet if you leave it on the table at the bar. For one example, that definitely didn't happen to me. It's got over 50 colors and styles to choose from. You can even get a wallet that features every NFL, MLB or college team. We can now wear our Tiger stuff proudly now that Brian Kelly's gone and we got Lane Kiffin. Plus, all Ridge wallets have a new industry leading built for life warranty. For a limited time, Ridge is having their huge holiday sale. Head to R I d g e.com to get up to 47% off your order. This is by far the biggest discount they've given all year. That's ridge.com for up to 47% off your order during their biggest sale of the year. After your purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. You mentioned Venezuela. That's kind of the biggest latest news of the week since we taped yesterday. The White House changed their tune A little bit on this double tap strike, which is kind of a bloodless way to describe this thing, which is just like, you know, a follow up bomb to make sure we killed the people that were in the sea.
- [09:49]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. Because the first bomb was okay.
- [09:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
- [09:52]
Amanda Carpenter
That's how I feel about it. The first tap you get like a free. A free tap.
- [09:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Bonus tap. Yeah. Anyway, for folks who are just kind of locking back in after the holidays. So basically over the weekend, you know, there's the Washington Post story saying that Pete Hegseth had ordered that everybody be killed in the first boat strike in the Caribbean. And the first bomb hit the boat, two people survived. Then they sent in a second one that killed two people in the seat. That was the Washington Post reporting over the weekend. The Department of Defense spokesperson called that reporting lies. He said that the reporters were enemies of the people, said that it wasn't true. Yesterday the White House changed their tune on that. They're saying that it was Navy Admiral Mitch Bradley and not Hegseth. So maybe that's their little how they're trying to slice this that directed this so called double tap strike. Hegseth sent a tweet about this. Let's make one thing crystal clear. Admiral Mitch Bradley's American hero, a true professional. I stand by him and the combat decisions he made on the September 2nd mission and all other since America is fortunate to have such men. When we say the Department of War says we have the back of our warriors, we mean it. If you kind of dissect that sentence, Brit Hume, not exactly a big critic of the administration. He writes, this is how to point the finger at someone while pretending to support him. Right. It's like, it's like, okay, I support him, but he did it. So anyway, that is where we stand in quite a turnabout from where they were. On some level, is there some positive that they feel like they have to rationalize this? I don't know. What do you make of all this?
- [11:17]
Amanda Carpenter
I think there can be positive. And now there's a lot more attention and scrutiny over what the hell we're doing with Venezuela. I mean, to me, like the he said, he said who's responsible in the chain of command. That is extremely important. I do believe we will find out all the details because there is certainly documentation for this. I mean, this just doesn't happen in the ether.
- [11:38]
Tim Miller
Well, probably not legal documentation since we got rid of all the jags.
- [11:41]
Amanda Carpenter
Oh, yeah, well, yeah, but like that also speaks to like this was always the plan. So what are we doing. Why is Pete Hegseth overseeing any kind of strikes on drug boats down here? I mean, the official story from the White House, you know, over the past four months that has been building and simmering, I think, in the background with not enough attention, is that we are supposedly taking all this action against these narco terrorists, which obviously drugs are a problem, but are we at war with narco terrorists? They are designating these terrorist organizations, and they're all doing it unilaterally with no oversight from Congress, no buy in, no anything whatsoever. And the real story here is that Donald Trump wants regime change in Venezuela. I mean, it's not just the drug straits. We have a huge military presence building in the waters down there to intimidate Maduro to try to get him to step down. Because I think Donald Trump has talked about how, you know, he wants another nation state where we can send deportees and have oil and mineral deals, and that would be a huge win for the administration. But along the way, I guess we're apparently just putting all these military forces in the water and striking drug boats. If they're drug boats. I haven't seen any evidence of that. Surely they would be able to compile that as a means of intimidating Maduro. I mean, is that what's really going on here? And if that's true, Congress should be involved, right?
- [13:06]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, they're starting to. I guess this is like the Grandpa Trump side of it to me. It's like, why does he want a regime change in Venezuela? We've talked about this on a lot of shows, but I still don't really understand it because you. And maybe it's related to the deportees that you said there, because I was just listening to your explanation. It's like, well, okay, so that is the one thing that he's limited by. And it's not like Donald Trump has shown that he feels icky about doing deals with dictators, and he could just do an oil and millennials deal with Maduro. Supposedly, they talk to each other. Maduro has reportedly said that he would. Trump has had no issue with that, with any. Why is Maduro different than, you know, the Middle Eastern dictators he's doing deals with or the fact that he wanted to be buddies with Kim Jong Un or she or Putin. Maduro is not, like, meaningfully different from any of them. To me, the strange thing is that it almost feels like he's being dragged into this by Marco. I don't know how else to understand what's happening. And I Think Pete Hexa just likes doing bombings.
- [14:07]
Amanda Carpenter
I think that's a plausible explanation. But, you know, we're sort of reaching. It could be this, it could be that. What are we doing down there? Like, we can guess, but it's not our job to guess. If Donald Trump wants. He has the world's largest aircraft carrier station in the waters down there.
- [14:24]
Tim Miller
Why?
- [14:26]
Amanda Carpenter
Why are we doing any of this? And to me, it's outrageous that Congress. I mean, there has been interest from Congress in having some kind of oversight in doing war powers legislation to stop Donald Trump from doing unauthorized actions. I should give some credit, like Tim Kaine has been pushing it. The Senate Democrats have all been united on this and getting support from Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski. They pushed this resolution, I believe, twice failed because Republicans wouldn't support it and are gonna re up it again in light of this new information, which is extremely important. I think this is a huge winning issue. Important for protecting the interests of our military, our country, our stability, all kinds of things. But what Pete Hetth is doing, it's an important part of the story that's making people pay attention. Because if this is just some kind of intimidation campaign and Trump said, blow up the boats, Pete Hegseth took the order, kill them all. And I'm just speculating here, and we're just blowing people out of the water to intimidate Maduro. That seems pretty bad.
- [15:27]
Tim Miller
It also seems pretty bad to call the reporters that are reporting this the enemy of the people, and then admitting three days later that, like, they were right.
- [15:34]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, basically, Absolutely. But just like, in terms of a baseline of, like, how this should go, when we were blowing up terrorist cells, I remember typically the Bush administration would say, you know, we launched this attack, it was these terrorists. We had this evidence on them. This is why we launched the strike. We're getting none of that when it comes to these narco terrorists. And I don't even, like, I don't have a reason to believe that label because we don't know who these people are. And previously, when members of Congress have asked for briefings on this, Rand Paula said, we don't get briefings. I was looking into what Democratic lawmakers were saying in October, and they were essentially saying they won't give us information because they don't think they're worth interrogating. The people that we don't kill, we just let them go. So to me, that tells me they're not really terrorists. If we just let them go and we're blowing up boats for effect, and performative reasons, which is really what this looks like to me at first blush.
- [16:26]
Tim Miller
And we know they've been wrong before about taking action against Venezuelans with the ones that they sent to El Salvador that they misidentified as gang members. So it's like there's no reason to believe that they're right now, the holiday season can be pretty stressful. How's it the holiday season already? I don't know. But if you're like me, you're traveling, you're working your ass off, you also have got to purchase presents, especially if you have kids. And you've got to purchase extra presents. We're not going to say why. And so when you need to slow down at night and actually relax but not have a hangover the next day, you can turn to Sol's out of Office Gummies. It's the perfect balance of CBD and THC that helps me and my husband and other people in my life find calm and peace of mind. Sol's wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. They specialize in delicious hemp derived THC and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of Office Gummies were designed to prove a mild relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. And if you like their out of Office Gummies, go to what I actually prefer, which is the out of Office beverage. A refreshing, alcohol free alternative that's perfect for winding down on the couch or socializing with friends or spacing out for a little while if that's something that you need in your life. So take advantage of Sol's Black Friday to Cyber Monday deal right now. For a limited time, get 40% off your entire order. Go to getsol.com and use the code the bulwark. That's getsoeoul.com, promo code. TheBullWerk for 40% off. Don't miss their best deal of the year right? Now you mentioned Rand. He's been pretty good on this. He's been over on Fox talking about it, which I like is your old Tea Party buddy. The wacko birds.
- [18:12]
Amanda Carpenter
You know, you gotta keep the libertarians around sometimes. They're the only conscience the Republican Party has. And so Tom Massie, Rand Paul. I am never gonna let them go and write them off.
- [18:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah, they're pretending as if we're at war. Rand said they wanna just blow people up. That's not how this works. I appreciate that point of view for Rand. And like it's funny watching him on Fox. Fox hosts are struggling to deal with his very clear. There's a lot of garbled rationale for this, and Rand Paul's is very simple. It's like, we're not at war. If you want to go to war with these guys, let's vote on it. Let's go to war. There is a contrary view, though, from former Fox host Megyn Kelly, and she was on with Mark Halperin.
- [18:50]
Amanda Carpenter
Oh, did he talk about Epstein and sexual harassment?
- [18:53]
Tim Miller
I don't know. I didn't watch the whole segment. But I did hear this clip from Megyn Kelly talking about her, I think, unconventional view of what she would like to see with regarding to the bombings in the Caribbean.
- [19:06]
Megyn Kelly
So I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they're on the boat or in the water, but I'd really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so that they lose a limb and bleed out a little. Like, I'm really having a difficult time ginning up sympathy for these guys who 10 seconds earlier almost got taken out by the initial bomb, but because they managed to get ejected a little too soon, had to be taken out in the water. I realize legally it may make a difference, but truly, Mark, this is a tough case to really gin up the sympathies of the American people.
- [19:44]
Tim Miller
This is sick when she says, I'm having trouble finding sympathies for these guys. As you just mentioned, we don't know who these guys are. How can you have sympathy or not have sympathy for them? We don't know who they are. It is so depraved to have these torture fantasies about essentially anonymous Venezuelans that in like, the most generous view to the administration are drug traffickers, which is, again, not a great job. But it's like we do torture in this country. We torture drug dealers now. Is that what Megyn Kelly's new policy is going to be? We're going to go down to, you know, the park and find somebody selling drugs and we're going to blow off their arm and watch them bleed out. That's what you want for free country?
- [20:23]
Amanda Carpenter
Who says something like that? I mean, even your worst enemies, the worst criminal, you want to watch them suffer and bleed out and make it last a long time and lose limbs. I don't even know how those words come to someone's mind. And like, this is a person who knows how to use her words. She's a professional. Lots of years On Fox, lots of years. NBC got paid tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars over the course of career for how she knows how to speak words. And now, which again, I don't understand, like, why you aren't just like spending time with your kids, enjoying life. But she wants to sit. No shade to podcasting, but she wants to sit in her little home talking to Mark Halperin and talk to Mark Halperin. And these are her pure and true thoughts that no producer is telling her to say. There's no Audrey Ailes manipulating her to wear the skimpy shirt and say the crazy things now.
- [21:24]
Tim Miller
It's really sick. It also is in the context of she really got on the moral high ground, moral high horse around the Charlie Kirk assassination, which I had a deep emotional reaction to. But after that Charlie Kirk thing, rightly, we here at the Bulwark and her and others were praising Erica Kirk, who gives this speech that's like, we should turn the other cheek and that's the Christian way to do it. And so I'm just listening to you react. And it's like, if you are going to have a kind of revenge fantasy where you want somebody to be tortured and suffered, like you would think it'd be about the person that murdered your husband in cold blood. But she didn't like she, she modeled a different view. Megyn Kelly praised that. And now here's Megyn Kelly being like, it's not even a person. I know. It's not even like this person killed my family member and I want to see them tormented. You can at least understand that.
- [22:10]
Amanda Carpenter
We don't even know their names. We don't even know they might be.
- [22:13]
Tim Miller
People being human trafficked. They might not even be drug dealers.
- [22:16]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, this point has been made. She'll support the guy who is pardoning the ex Honduran president who trafficked 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.
- [22:27]
Tim Miller
Get therapy, Megan, is what I would say. I think this is a call for therapy. It's interesting this whole Venezuelan vote illegal order conversation happens in the days following this big controversy over Democratic senators and members of Congress putting out a video where they encourage soldiers to not follow illegal orders.
- [22:49]
Amanda Carpenter
May have known something in hindsight.
- [22:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah, exactly. You almost wonder if they're briefed on this or otherwise. It was just pretty, in a macabre sense, in a dark sense. Kind of fortuitous timing for just the political argument. But they were out there doing this. Trump says it's treason. The Democratics, particularly Mark Kelly kind of leading the way has been out there continuing to speak on this. Trump leaded yesterday, Mark Kelly and the group of unpatriotic politicians were wrong to do what they did. I hope people looking at them are not duped into thinking that it's okay to openly and freely get others to disobey the President of the United States. Actually, openly and freely disobeying the President of the United States is a pretty fundamental American value. Yeah, yeah, I guess we're not, you know, it's not China. You don't get, you don't get jailed for putting up a Winnie the Pooh picture of the president. Like the president wants you to do something illegal, you can disobey them. That's, that's how a free country works. But anyway, curious your thoughts on Kelly and the whole discussion.
- [23:41]
Amanda Carpenter
Well, yeah, I mean, again, this has been an issue that's been simmering for a long time. Why are we hitting these boats in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela? Like, what are we actually doing? The double tap killing has brought it to the forefront, obviously, because it's so outrageous and in your face and because of the incredible Washington Post reporting. Much credit to them and other people that are following up on it, outlets like the Wall Street Journal, cnn, et cetera. But when it comes to speaking out against it, obviously the White House was worried about this. And what these Democratic lawmakers with military experience said set them off so much. So, I mean, we have to really revisit what the White House is saying about them, accusing them of treason, sedition, talking about hanging them. And then Mark Kelly was threatened with a Pentagon investigation. I mean, think about this. He is a retired member of the military, expressing his free speech rights as a duly elected senator, protecting his constituents, his veterans, conducting oversight duties completely within his rights. And now he has the Pentagon investigating him, supposedly. And the FBI is making inquiries into all the lawmakers. I mean, this is really over the top, insane authoritarian behavior. And I just want to give a lot of credit to these lawmakers. I know some people sort of disagree, are crippled with the video, but they're not hiding, they're not backing down. Mark Kelly has answered it with interview after interview. He did a press conference yesterday. And I think he's a great spokesperson on this because of his background, because the integrity that he has. And it's just really important to force this issue. What the hell are we doing down there? This is completely, completely within congressional oversight wheelhouse. We should have a discussion about war powers. We should have a discussion about reining in Pete Tegseth who fundamentally disagrees with the law when it comes to the rules of engagement. That is his view. But if he exercises that view, and.
- [25:48]
Tim Miller
It'S been his view, I mean, he's.
- [25:50]
Amanda Carpenter
Been a pro, which, like, why did we confirm him? I don't know. But now we're seeing what this looks like. He disagrees with the law, and now he's acting accordingly. So now we better do something, because we're putting members of the military in terrible, impossible, unlawful positions.
- [26:06]
Tim Miller
He basically had a long history of defending war criminals, siding with war criminals, criticizing JAG officers.
- [26:11]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. It's arguably how he got famous on Fox and got Donald Trump's attention. That huge campaign that he did to advocate for Eddie Gallagher, who is the Navy SEAL who stabbed and killed an ISIS teenager in the neck, which we can talk about. That stuff happens, but then took photos of it, and they wanted to drum him out of the military. And here, Pete Hegseth comes to this guy's rescue, tries to rehab him as a kind of war hero, you know, against what the military justice system said when they kept saying, like, this is unsafe. We don't do this. It's against the rules of engagement. It hurts our own soldiers. When you have unhinged actors like this within the change of command. And we took that advocate and we made him the head of the Department of War, and these are the consequences. And I say Department of War, I don't believe that. But that's what they're running to call it, and they're acting like it.
- [27:02]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it was kind of with an eye roll. It was like, Department of War. I rolled.
- [27:05]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. Just making sure. Eye rolled.
- [27:07]
Tim Miller
Just one pundit accountability note for myself. My overarching advice to Democrats has continued to be just try shit. Just attack him, criticize him, go after him, try different things, try different tactics. You don't know what's going to hit. And that is correct advice. And I went against my own correct advice on this because I kept seeing these guys on Fox when I was watching it. It did feel like kind of they were losing the argument on Fox just before this recent batch of, you know, reporting. But they win about the Caribbean.
- [27:35]
Ed Helms
Yeah.
- [27:35]
Tim Miller
And I was kind of saying, like, God, there's so many things you go on Fox to hit Trump on right now. Maybe this isn't the best one. Little egg on my face on that one. Because it turns out, I think, just as we've said of seeing the news develop, it shows the kind of the overarching advice of whatever it is you're passionate about. You think you have a strong argument about go and take it to the American people. And some of the stuff's going to work, some of it's not. In this case, I think the table's really turning.
- [27:59]
Ed Helms
Amazon five Star Theater presents real customer reviews performed by Ed Helms. Tonight's tactical jacket. I was living a simple life. Didn't get out much. Then I bought this jacket and everything changed. Women came flocking to me from lands domestic and foreign. I bought a motorcycle, started hanging out with drug dealers, but like rich ones. And we flew helicopters. I ended up taking down a communist regime with a band of rebels. On the 245 day sailboat voyage home, I was attacked by a shark. I knew it was the jacket was after I tossed it. Giving up the jacket in exchange for my life. I'm alive today, but jacketless. We'll buy this jacket again soon. 5 stars Amazon Customer 69 thank you for listening to Amazon 5 Star Theater. Looking for unforgettable gifts this holiday season? Like a jacket that becomes your whole personality? Shop the perfect gift this holiday on Amazon.
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Rocket Money Representative
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- [30:22]
Tim Miller
I want to ask you about ice. I've got ice coming down to New Orleans. I just landed back here. Cbp. I should say ice was kind of the shorthand for what the Immigration actions were for a while, and then this kind of weird thing happened where Tom Homan ended up being, like, the moderate in the regime. And so then the Customs and Border Patrol started to become kind of more of the aggressive enforcement operation. But anyhow, you guys at Protect Democracy, working with other advocates and other legal advocates, you have a bunch of lawyers on your team, did a bunch of work in Illinois. And so I'm just wondering kind of what the after action was on that, what the lessons are, what we should be thinking about as they move on to other places.
- [30:58]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I think there's a lot of important lessons that we can draw in particular out of Chicago. And I think this is one of the most successful areas where collective action, which is like, such kind of like a progressive phase that I'm still not comfortable using, actually worked.
- [31:15]
Tim Miller
We're libs now, Amanda. I've already went through.
- [31:17]
Amanda Carpenter
You are. I heard that discussion.
- [31:19]
Tim Miller
I went to go through that last week. Just embrace it. We're libs now. We do collective action. We have safe spaces. So we do the whole thing. We've embraced all of it.
- [31:27]
Matt Rogers
Okay?
- [31:27]
Tim Miller
Just accept it.
- [31:29]
Amanda Carpenter
But the lesson there is that there was a broad based coalition literally in the streets. You had members of the media, you had members of the faith community, you had, you know, regular activists who were there in solidarity 24 7, keeping tabs on the situation. And the reason we were able to take legal action and represent people, you know, like that pastor who was hit in the head with the rubber bullets, which is so, you know, just insane to see happen, was because we had people in the streets actually collecting the evidence. Right. That is absolutely the first line of defense. And so you can't go to court, you can't win, you can't get injunctions unless you have people there watching, standing their ground and recording and ready to take it into court and win when you don't know that you're going to do that. And as a result of that action, there's still, like, pending appeal. But Vino, like, cut loose and ran. He got out of the city. A lot of threats happening from him, a lot of big shows of force, all the media attention, and then he's out of there. And so a couple things that we're looking at that we think absolutely can be replicated. And, Tim, I do sort of hate to tell you this, I do think the biggest threats coming, not only for ICE action now, but in the future when it comes to elections, are going to be blue cities in red states.
- [32:46]
Tim Miller
No Definitely, yeah.
- [32:48]
Amanda Carpenter
Everybody should be aware of that. It's going to be blue cities and red states of electoral significance. And so if the troops are coming to your streets, there's a few things that I think everybody should wrap their heads around doing. Number one, you got to start pre bunking the federal justifications. If they say, we're coming in here to stop crime, you need to have the statistics, you need to have the mayors, you need to have the governors showing as much as you can. Like, this is what we've done to stop crime. This is what we're doing. And most importantly, we don't want your federal help. Like, this is where it really gets invited in. When you have one mayor say, well, actually, we do want the resources in Washington D.C. i think the mayors really tripped up on that and they realized too late they were making an invitation that they shouldn't have. And so, you know, pre bunk the federal justifications, force the issue in saying, we don't want your help, but then immediately have people in the streets, a broad based coalition, you know, all kinds of strange bedfellows. We need everybody. Nobody is your enemy or your adversary. And if you are fighting against this kind of action and start documenting all the federal abuses that you see, your cameras are your best friends. I mean, God bless you. See all these, you know, people swarming agents, you know, they're standing their ground. They're not being aggressive, but they have their cameras. They've got like grandma's on scooters and all the silver hairs. We make hair. We make fun of the retired people. I think in a very negative way. They have time to do this. God bless them. Thank you retirees for coming out and doing this. I have no hate, I have no shame on you, because you are the ones that have times to do it. You could be safe and warm in your home watching cable tv. No, you're not out there. This is awesome.
- [34:31]
Tim Miller
I could be doing mahjong.
- [34:32]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah.
- [34:32]
Tim Miller
Thank you.
- [34:33]
Amanda Carpenter
So that's amazing. And then, you know, the most important thing is while you're doing all this, absolutely keep it peaceful. I mean, the things that people are doing in Portland with the costumes, it's just absolutely brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The way that they took a sense of humor about it. I mean, it was also had a protective quality because, you know, you can't really be documented with photo ID if you're wearing a big frog costume. If you happen to be worried about that, maybe you are, maybe you aren't. But most importantly, that had an element of keeping things peaceful. It's different when people are running around in frog costumes versus, you know, black masks. And so I think those are some things that can absolutely be replicated in place like New Orleans and anywhere.
- [35:11]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm already seeing the text chains get started and people sending me, what's your costume? I don't know that I'm gonna be cosplaying. But you know, nobody does costumes better than New Orleans. So I don't. You know, you'll have to get.
- [35:24]
Amanda Carpenter
Okay, you guys are gonna have fun ones.
- [35:26]
Tim Miller
I think there'll be some creativity, you know, a lot of paper mache.
- [35:29]
Amanda Carpenter
Anyway, you'll have actually good protest music.
- [35:32]
Tim Miller
Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. No.
- [35:34]
Ed Helms
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- [36:58]
Rocket Money Representative
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- [37:59]
Tim Miller
You went to college in Indiana, right? Ball State, Indiana. Right.
- [38:02]
Amanda Carpenter
I did.
- [38:02]
Tim Miller
Isn't that in Indiana?
- [38:03]
Amanda Carpenter
It is. Very good. Muncie, also known as Funcy.
- [38:06]
Tim Miller
What's the nickname? The Redhawks.
- [38:08]
Amanda Carpenter
They're the Cardinals. I mean Cardinals. That's a red bird.
- [38:11]
Tim Miller
That was really close. It was in my head somewhere. Very good. Okay, so we've got the Cardinals. There's not really that much connection to this, but I just like to shout out all state grads in Indiana. There's really kind of a dark story happening that's like right down the wheelhouse of what you guys are doing that protect democracy. And that is this redistricting fight has gotten, I think, uglier than anywhere. And it's like over one seat in the grand scheme of things. It's much smaller than the Texas and California redistricting or even Virginia for that matter. For the big picture impact. The advance was pushing for it. Some rumors, I think that Pence behind the scenes was pushing the other way, telling the Indiana legislatures to stand their ground, shout out respect to some Indiana Republican legislators who have stood their ground on this and said, no, we're not going to redistricting just because Daddy Trump tells us the administration has continued to push on this. The governor's continued to push on this, and now we are seeing just very real threats to these legislators. We had 11 were targeted with threats or swatting attacks in the past few days. And you can see the dark place where we might be headed.
- [39:12]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I mean, I do think these kind of threats do get disproportionately hot in red areas where legislators are expected to do the president's bidding. So it is kind of surprised. And constituents get angrier at them than normal. And you say that without knowing exactly where the threats are coming from. But what was sort of. I've been tracking this. Sort of surprising to me, and I was kind of wondering about is one of the legislatures said, I'm not going to vote for redistricting based on the comments that Trump said about disabled people because I have a disabled daughter. Like, he's taking the right position, but those things don't go together.
- [39:56]
Tim Miller
Can we just give a guy a pat? I'll take it.
- [39:59]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. No, no, yeah, I'll take it.
- [40:01]
Tim Miller
I'M like parched, I'm in the desert. I'm looking for somebody just to say no to him that has a Republican behind their name.
- [40:07]
Amanda Carpenter
But it's always interesting to see where the breaking points are for people in the presence faction because it remains important to a lot of those people that they not betray the president on a policy that is perceived as maga. And it sometimes has to be about something else. And that's just something I'm always trying to dig into and understand anything just.
- [40:34]
Tim Miller
From the protective democracy standpoint on just thinking ahead to the midterms and these kind of threats and what impact it could have on elections.
- [40:43]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I mean, I am sort of like hyper focused on the role of the military and other federal agents when it comes to National Guard, Marines, dhs, ice, et cetera. Because Donald Trump is predisposed to make claims about elections being stolen, rigged, et cetera, anytime he loses. But if he has the military on his side, those threats become exponentially harder to surmount. And so to me, it remains absolutely essential that we break that link so that the military doesn't become politicized and personalized to carry out his political goals. I mean, and so I should tell you. So we have this campaign, educational awareness campaign going on right now called not the Mission. You can check it out@notthemission.org we started running billboards and trucks with billboards all through Washington, D.C. when the guard there was first deployed. And what this campaign is aimed at is people who support the military, love the military, are patriotic, but don't want to see them unnecessarily used. This is not their mission to go pick up trash in the streets of D.C. we respect them. We love them. This should not be how they use. And so I am also sort of extra wound up about this because I'm out in West Virginia. The National Guard member who is in the hospital right now, Andrew Wolf, is from Inwood. That was like the same little town our main babysitter is from that took care of our children. I'm going to be there in Inwood on Sunday to run an annual Christmas 5K. That's before a wonderful community parade that, you know, I've done for years now and our whole family goes to. And I fully expect to see all the red ribbons in support of Andrew. But, you know, you can talk about like, should he have been there? Well, it just do you have respect for how these troops are deployed? This is also gets like to the broader question of what is the mission of these troops when it comes to the drug boat strikes. How are we using these men and women and are we respecting their service? I don't think we are. The president is not. When we give these kind of orders willy nilly that are incompatible with the law, it hurts them. And so I just, I hope he's going to be okay. This isn't the point of the. Not the missionary.
- [43:09]
Tim Miller
It doesn't seem like he's coming around.
- [43:10]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, but the other woman was lost. So we do have more billboards coming aimed in Baltimore at the Army Navy game coming up next week. And so this will continue. And I just think it's a really, really important message that when you misuse the troops, it escalates tension unnecessarily. It compromises troop readiness and performance and it just endangers troops unnecessarily.
- [43:32]
Tim Miller
I love that I'm always arguing. I talked to Wes Moore about this a while ago now talking about kind of taking back patriotism from these guys on the other side. And it's not the National Guard troops fault that they were sent on these terrible missions.
- [43:47]
Amanda Carpenter
They signed up to help.
- [43:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's interesting when you think about combating. It's not really authoritarianism, but this is like right wing populism. I was talking to. There's a. There's a gay millennial handsome president in the Netherlands now. Oh, that's insane, Tim. Tell me about that. Obviously I've been paying a lot of attention to that. And one of the things that he used, one of the tools that he used was like being very pro Dutch. And their campaign had a lot of Dutch flags and Dutch themes and we're taking that back. And I think that A, it is the right thing to do. It is not their mission. And I think I'm glad you guys are doing this. But B, I just think it's a political matter. It is smart and wise to try to take that kind of argument back away from these guys. I said president, that's Prime Minister. I'm so America focused, you know, I'm such a fucking Yankee. Rob Jetton is the Prime Minister. He's handsome. His boyfriend, or his husband rather, is handsome. So Google him. You know, it's a great effort. I appreciate that you're doing that. And you got the 5k this weekend. How you feeling about that? Anything else you want to leave us with?
- [44:49]
Amanda Carpenter
I'm feeling good. It's my first run since I did the JFK 50 mile race for the third time three years in a row. I think I'm taking a break next year. Though. So three for theory, and then we'll see if I want to come back and get the whole two. If you run it five times, you're in the 250 mile club and you get a sweatshirt.
- [45:09]
Tim Miller
Okay. You know, hopefully it's a cozy sweatshirt.
- [45:13]
Amanda Carpenter
I think it's a very plain gray one.
- [45:15]
Tim Miller
You've earned that sweatshirt. Amanda Carpenter. I appreciate you. I miss doing this. We'll be doing it again soon. All right. Have a great holidays. Hug those kitties, okay?
- [45:23]
Amanda Carpenter
Will do.
- [45:24]
Tim Miller
All right. Everybody else will be back here. Maybe tonight, actually. So keep an eye on the feed. We'll see y' all then. Peace.
- [45:30]
Poet or Narrator
I remember the first time I drove through Indiana Watching fences in the distance fade away Once there was a glass girl I knew there and she was.
- [45:46]
Amanda Carpenter
Pretty.
- [45:48]
Poet or Narrator
We kept in touch until we just went our own ways I remember the first time I drove through Indiana Waving goodbye to the towns and we drove through far away I know they're deep inside a city Rushing back and forth Wanting only to get home.
- [46:19]
Tim Miller
Once.
- [46:19]
Poet or Narrator
I was there in a dream Meeting.
- [46:23]
Tim Miller
People.
- [46:25]
Poet or Narrator
Without names and without faces they.
- [46:29]
Ed Helms
Live.
- [46:32]
Poet or Narrator
I remember the first time I drove to I remember the first time I drove through Indiana. I remember the first time I drove through Nia Watching semis hauling grain to.
- [47:06]
Tim Miller
The west.
- [47:09]
Poet or Narrator
They'Re going to make it all the way to Colorado where the mountains touch the sky the rivers bend I remember the first time I drove through Indiana Thinking to myself how big this land really is Amber waves of green from a highway who lives in that house so far away? I remember the first time I drove through Indiana Watching fences in the distance fade away I remember the first time I drove through Indiana I remember the first time I drove through Indiana.
- [48:25]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [48:34]
Rocket Money Representative
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Rocket Money Representative
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Rocket Money Representative
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- [50:28]
Rocket Money Representative
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