Sam Stein and Adrian Carrasquillo: We Are in a Simulation

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast: Episode Summary

Title: Sam Stein and Adrian Carrasquillo: We Are in a Simulation
Release Date: January 23, 2025
Hosts: Tim Miller, Sam Stein, Adrian Carrasquillo
Guests: Adrian Carrasquillo

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Introduction

In this episode of The Bulwark Podcast, host Tim Miller engages in a dynamic discussion with managing editor Sam Stein and guest Adrian Carrasquillo. The conversation delves into the aftermath of President Trump's recent executive orders, covering a spectrum of topics including DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) initiatives, immigration reforms, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) hiring freeze, and the evolving landscape of AI leadership involving figures like Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

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Donald Trump's Comments on January 6th Pardons

The episode opens with an analysis of Donald Trump's recent remarks during his appearance with Sean Hannity regarding the January 6th pardons.

• Trump’s Trivialization of Police Injuries:
  At [01:57], Trump downplays the severity of injuries sustained by police during the January 6th events, stating, "Some of those people with the police. True. But they were very minor incidents."

• Sam Stein’s Critique:
  Sam Stein criticizes Trump for "trivializing the trauma experienced by officers," noting, "officers... committed suicide after what happened. It was an incredible trauma, physical and emotional." ([02:37])

• Hannity's Role:
  Stein points out Sean Hannity's conflicted stance, observing, "Hannity's more interesting here, but not because he was mocking CNN's audience... he's like, well, you know, they don't really have the right to like storm the Capitol, right?" ([03:59])

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DEI Executive Order: Ending Diversity Initiatives

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on Trump's executive order aimed at dismantling DEI programs within the federal government and private contractors.

• Overview of the Executive Order:
  Tim Miller reads an excerpt from a government email sent to federal employees urging them to report any hidden DEI or "wokeness" initiatives ([15:06]).

• Impact on Agencies and Contractors:
  Sam Stein explains, "the Alien Enemies Act has been on the books since 1798... there are concerns that US Citizens could get caught up if you're Venezuelan and the gang that they're going after is Venezuelan." ([46:34])

• Workplace Environment Concerns:
  Stein expresses unease over the directive for employees to "snitch" on colleagues, questioning the ethical and professional implications ([17:20]).

• Potential Backlash:
  Discussion highlights the creation of a "cottage industry" focused on removing DEI language from corporate materials, potentially fostering a toxic work environment ([21:37]).

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Border Security and National Emergency Declaration

The hosts delve into Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border, outlining the legal and operational implications.

• Deployment of Troops:
  Adrian Carrasquillo details the mobilization of 1,500 troops to the border, with potential increases up to 10,000 ([44:16]).

• Legal Vulnerabilities:
  Concerns are raised about the President's broad authority to declare emergencies, potentially leading to misuse of power ([45:46]).

• Impact on Migrants:
  Discussion covers the harsh realities migrants face, including the suspension of refugee resettlement and the cancellation of flights for Afghan refugees ([46:37]).

• Local Enforcement Pressures:
  Tim Miller and Carrasquillo discuss how states may feel compelled to enforce immigration laws more aggressively, leading to potential human rights violations ([52:55]).

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NIH Hiring Freeze and Scientific Research Halt

The executive order includes a hiring freeze for the National Institutes of Health, severely impacting scientific research.

• Operational Shutdown:
  Sam Stein explains that the hiring freeze halts all external communications and grant applications, effectively freezing federal scientific research ([22:07]).

• Long-term Consequences:
  Concerns are voiced about a potential "brain drain," where young scientists may leave the U.S. due to funding uncertainties ([25:06]).

• Economic and Health Impacts:
  The freeze could delay critical research on diseases like pediatric cancer and Alzheimer’s, as well as delay alerts on outbreaks such as bird flu ([23:33]).

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Sam Altman vs. Elon Musk: AI Leadership Conflict

A heated exchange unfolds between two tech titans, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, highlighting tensions within the AI community.

• Conflict Overview:
  Tim Miller recounts Trump's announcement about OpenAI contributing $500 million to national AI projects, which Elon Musk dismisses as "bullshit" ([35:57]).

• Altman's Response:
  Sam Stein shares a tweet from Altman expressing regret over previously underestimating Trump, stating, "Watching @POTUS, Trump more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him." ([35:58])

• Implications for AI Development:
  The hosts speculate on the future of AI leadership and governance, pondering whether emotional instability among leaders like Altman and Musk could derail critical AI advancements ([39:12]).

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Scorecard: Immediate Impacts of Executive Orders

Tim Miller provides a "scorecard" summarizing the tangible effects of the executive orders within the first few days.

• Economic Indicators:

  • Egg Prices: "Skyrocketing egg prices due to halted bird flu alerts."
  • Job Losses: "Substantial job losses, including cases like a nurse losing her VA job ([28:47])."

• Social and Security Issues:

  • Gun Purchases: "Criminals purchasing more guns, citing increased availability."

• Government Functionality:

  • Operational Halts: "NIH and other agencies face significant operational disruptions."

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Guest Segment: Adrian Carrasquillo on Immigration Policies

Adrian Carrasquillo joins the podcast to provide an in-depth analysis of the new immigration executive orders and their broader implications.

• Transformation of Immigration Systems:
  Carrasquillo emphasizes that the executive orders are not mere rhetoric but constitute a tangible assault on the immigration system, aiming to dismantle legal immigration processes and asylum provisions ([42:23]).

• Legal and Social Consequences:
  Discussion highlights the potential for increased litigation, as states empowered to sue the federal government could exploit new legal loopholes to challenge immigration enforcement ([50:39]).

• Impact on Migrant Families and Communities:
  Carrasquillo describes the human cost, including family separations and the erosion of sanctuary protections, exacerbating fears among immigrant communities ([43:42]).

• Democratic Response and Strategic Battles:
  The conversation turns to how Democrats might strategically oppose specific executive orders, such as the attempt to revoke birthright citizenship, leveraging constitutional arguments ([56:15]).

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with reflections on the rapid implementation of Trump's executive orders and their immediate impacts on various facets of American society. The hosts underscore the importance of monitoring these developments closely, as their long-term implications could reshape the political and social landscape of the United States.

• Final Thoughts by Tim Miller:
  Tim expresses concern over the government's shifting policies, particularly regarding immigration and scientific research, and emphasizes the need for informed and vigilant citizenry.

• Closing Remarks:
  Adrian Carrasquillo is thanked for his insights, and listeners are encouraged to follow their YouTube channel for additional content and updates on ongoing political developments.

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Notable Quotes

• Donald Trump on January 6th Incidents:
  "Some of those people with the police. True. But they were very minor incidents." ([01:57])

• Sam Stein on Trump's Trivialization:
  "It's all self-serving. It's all designed to rewrite history." ([02:37])

• Sam Stein on DEI Snitching:
  "It's tough... It's fraught... It doesn't create a very healthy workplace environment." ([17:20])

• Adrian Carrasquillo on Immigration Executive Orders:
  "This really is an assault on the immigration system. They are breaking down a lot of pieces of it." ([42:23])

• Sam Altman on Observing Trump:
  "Watching @POTUS, Trump more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him." ([35:58])

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Key Takeaways

• Executive Orders Under Scrutiny:
  The episode critically examines Trump's executive orders, highlighting their immediate disruptive effects on government operations, immigration policies, and societal norms.

• DEI Initiatives Targeted:
  The dismantling of DEI programs raises concerns about workplace culture, discrimination, and the broader implications for diversity within government and private sectors.

• Immigration Reform with Heavy Costs:
  Aggressive immigration policies, including troop deployments and austerity measures, pose significant human, legal, and economic challenges.

• AI Leadership in Turmoil:
  The feud between Sam Altman and Elon Musk underscores the volatile intersection of technology leadership and political influence, with potential ramifications for AI development.

• Democratic Strategies Emerging:
  Democrats are strategizing to counteract the executive orders by focusing on constitutional protections and leveraging legal channels to challenge overreaches.

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For listeners seeking a comprehensive understanding of the current political upheavals and their far-reaching consequences, this episode offers a detailed and insightful exploration of key issues shaping the nation’s trajectory.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Today we have a two part episode that wades into the splash radius from Monday's executive order. Bukanki covering dei, NIH hiring freezes and immigration. And first up, the right man for that job. It's managing editor at the Bulwark. You may have seen our two man comedy routine on YouTube and we're bringing it to the audio podcast. It's my newish work husband, Sam Stein. How you doing, Sam?

[Sam Stein]

Oh, man.

[Pemco Mutual]

Wow.

[Sam Stein]

I didn't realize we had hit that point in our relationship.

[Tim Miller]

We hit it yesterday when we were bickering. It was not a compliment. To call you my work husband means that there's a love and bicker relationship that we are building.

[Sam Stein]

I feel touched.

[Tim Miller]

Good.

[Sam Stein]

An honor to be second type Mike Johnson. Not physically touched. Emotionally touched.

[Tim Miller]

Well, we have a lot of pressure today because I'm here at 30 Rock in the hotel California that I can never leave since I can't go home to snowy New Orleans until they figure out how to de ice the Runway. We have Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley sitting over my shoulder here. And so they will be keeping an eye on out for us.

[Sam Stein]

That's like us. They're like us.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Are you Brian or Jane? I guess I'm, I guess I gotta be Jane.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I love Jane, though. She was kind of a, she's kind of an icon. All right, of course, let's get to business. We're gonna start, unfortunately with Donald Trump. I gave all of you listeners a 72 hour respite from his voice, but the respite is over. Here he is last night with Sean Hannity on what he thought about the January 6th pardons.

[Donald Trump]

Some of those people with the police. True. But they were very minor incidents. Okay. You know, they get built up by that couple of fake guys that are on CNN all the time. Nobody watches. They were very minor incidents.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, my favorite part of that was Sean Hannity got mad that he was watching cnn.

[Sam Stein]

Yes. Nobody watches them.

[Tim Miller]

Very minor injuries. You know, it's, it's like too trite at this point to do the like. Imagine if Barack Obama talked about the very minor injuries that cops suffered at the hands Of a, you know, I don't know, violent mob of Black Panthers or something. But the New Black Panther Party.

[Sam Stein]

That's an old, that's an old one. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Will there be any punishment for this? This is just whatever at this point.

[Sam Stein]

To me it's, it's, we're at this point where it's like, I'm not like surprised he said this stuff. You know, I don't, I, I even think he probably believes some of it. He's like convinced himself of it, of not minor injuries. I mean, officers, you know, committed suicide after what happened. It was an incredible trauma, physical and emotional. We talked to one who was talking about seven straight hours of just being bombarded worse than anything he had dealt with when he was serving overseas. And it's like to trivialize that, of course is outrageous. But then at the same time it's just, that's Trump, right? Like, it's all self serving. It's all designed to rewrite history. You know, they say to the victor go the spoils and you get to write the history. And I think that's what he's doing here. And Hannity's kind of funny. Haney's. I think Haney's more interesting here, but not because he was mocking CNN's audience. But there's another part where they were talking about, I think Trump was like, you know, they were just there to protest the vote and they have the right to protest the vote. And Hannity kind of sheepishly realizes that this is ridiculous to say something like that. He's like, well, you know, they don't really have the right to like storm the Capitol, right? It's like, yeah, it's just gotta be like, whoa. I think he took it too far.

[Tim Miller]

So, yeah, I mean, our man Sergeant Canal sent you, right? He texted you.

[Sam Stein]

Sergeant Canal sent me pictures. And you look at his feet and his hands and they're, you know, battered, they're inflamed, they're bruised, they're stitched up. You know, he's had pictures where the arrow, the red arrow is pointing at him. Yeah, Imagine going through that for seven straight hours where you just have wave after wave of people coming at you with, you know, projectiles and flag poles and, you know, beams and, and they're just throwing them at you and you're just like in what he called combat for seven straight hours and to be like, oh, well, you know, just minor stuff that Jake Tapper is all, you know, trying to take advantage of and make into a sob story, it's like Come on, dude.

[Tim Miller]

A piece of. Did something. Trump's ever been punched or punched anybody? I guess he was in wwe.

[Sam Stein]

That's not real, obviously, but, you know, who cares? Like, who gives a shit if he's been punched or not? Even if you've never been punched. Yeah, but even if you've never been punched during a fight, like, it doesn't take much to realize that that's not, you know, what happened on January 6th is bullshit, and you should never have that happen. It's not minor.

[Tim Miller]

I guess there was some ear injury.

[Sam Stein]

He's been shot. Let's be clear about that. He has been shot. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I'm just saying. I just compare it to what Sergeant Cannell went through. It was a graze. He also had some issues with President Biden, and you'll be surprised that his revenge against President Biden is not going to be governing. Well, let's listen.

[Donald Trump]

He pardoned everybody, but he didn't pardon himself. And remember this, those people that he pardoned are now mandated because they got a pardon to testify and they can't take the Fifth. Should Congress investigate that? I think we'll let Congress decide. Would you want the Attorney General to investigate it? You know, I was always against that with presidents. And Hillary Clinton. I could have had Hillary Clinton, a big number done on her.

[Tim Miller]

Have you changed your mind?

[Donald Trump]

I didn't want to. Well, I went through four years of hell by this scum that we had to deal with. I went through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and I won. But I did it the hard way. It's really hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through it. Also, it is very hard to say that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Remember, like, two minutes ago when Pam Bondi was going through a confirmation hearing over in the Senate and people were like, pam, what are you gonna do if the president directs you to do something inappropriately? That's a hypothetical. Donald Trump would never do that.

[Sam Stein]

Would never do.

[Tim Miller]

Here he is on FOX two days later saying, yeah, I think that the Attorney General should look into former President Biden. Apparently.

[Sam Stein]

Apparently. You know, it's ironic because it was his lawyers who successfully argued to the Supreme Court that you get broad immunity while acting as president from these types of things. So I think Biden probably will be in the clear. They also didn't try to impeach Biden. James Comer did. Didn't really work out. But look, you know what I mean? Again, I try to distinguish between what's real and what's not. And I'm trying to, like, be true to the idea that we should react to what's real and what's not. Obviously this is not yet real, but it could be real and it would look ridiculous, just as Joe Biden's pardons look ridiculous in terms of the spending money that he had to spend on legal fees. Yes, he did. Trump did have to spend a lot on legal fees. He also basically raised a lot of that money from donors and then he like sold some cryptocurrency and made, you.

[Tim Miller]

Know, 20 times that the MAGA Americans paid.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Mega Americans paid his legal fees.

[Pemco Mutual]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Regular. The forgotten man that was not invited to the inauguration, they all gave to.

[Sam Stein]

The pack who then covered the legal fees. So, you know, he didn't really spend that much money. And then of course, he made like 30 billion or whatever the it is on meme coins. And, you know, maybe that's what Biden should do, honestly. Or any of these, like, people who are going to be in Dragnet, like launch some shitty meme coins to raise some cash for the lawyers.

[Tim Miller]

Like, I don't think that anybody's going to buy Joe Biden's meme coin.

[Sam Stein]

A Biden meme coin.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know, maybe. Maybe a couple blue MAGA influencers. Is Jojo for jurors from jurors still on the Biden train. I don't know. I don't think that that's going to be a very good selling meme coin back to the drawing board on Biden fundraising ideas for his, for his legal fees.

[Sam Stein]

Wait, what a time. Let's not get, let's not go back to drawing board. Let's think of some other idea. Biden should sell guitars or Bibles.

[Tim Miller]

I think that he's have to outsource this to somebody else. I don't know that there's a huge groundswell of people wanting to throw him cash right now because of the presidential immunity. You are correct that probably not a lot here and because the fact that Biden didn't break any laws. So, you know, I don't think that he should be quaking in his night shoes in Rehoboth Beach.

[Sam Stein]

But the, also the idea that this hasn't been investigated before. I mean, he's going to talk about what the business dealings that Hunter had in Ukraine and China. It's like this has been, you know, subject of an immense amount of scrutiny. I mean, Trump basically tried to, you know, get Zelensky to look into it by withholding aid. Right. Like, this is all this stuff has been litigated. So are we just going to do this for the next four years? Probably, probably.

[Tim Miller]

But here's what worries me though is Trump specifically mentions that Biden gave preemptive pardons to people and that that and he kind of implies that lets them off the hook. Right. In this answer. There's a longer answer that he goes deeper into this and Hannity eventually tries to interrupt and say, my producers want me to talk about Trump's like, I don't care about that. I'm going to keep ranting about this like literally. But Biden's probably fine. It seems that Trump was not focused on the preemptive pardons. There's another category of people, though. You know, I think about like the Cassidy Hutchinson's of the world, people that were in there that testified to the January 6th committee who were not included in the preemptive pardons.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Who there is personal animus towards. This sounded like a man that wanted other people to go through hell. I guess this is my point. This sounded like a man who wanted other people to go through the supposed hell that he went through. And I find it hard to believe that they won't put a couple people through hell listening to that answer.

[Sam Stein]

Yes to that question. I agree. And I don't think it's just Trump who feels this way. I think anyone who was brought in before the January 6 committee, aides to Trump, lower level staffers who were subpoenaed, whose records were accessed, you talk to them and I have, they feel like they were subject to a politically or oriented prosecution and that they didn't deserve to have all their records, all their time, all their legal fees taken over by the committee. And so they want to exact a bit of revenge. And I think yesterday, the big news yesterday wasn't whatever Trump said to Hannity, it was Mike Johnson basically giving, you know, the go ahead for this new select committee to investigate what preceded January 6th and what came after January 6th, which is basically just Barry Lad is going to basically take, you know, Cassidy Hutchinson, anyone else who was invol in the January 6th committee and testify before it, make the come up, make them give records, make them sit for testimony, make them come to hearings and that that's a real burden, It's a real stress. And it costs money. You have to, you can't just do it. You can't just be like, oh, okay, I'm going to go through. You hire a lawyer to prepare for that stuff. It costs money and it's tit for tat. It is. Right.

[Tim Miller]

And they're going to try to find ways that they supposedly perjured themselves, like look for anything to, to go after them for. And I think that's something that I'm. It's very alarming. Anyway, so we'll continue to monitor that one. I want to play one more bit from Trump. This was him talking about California. There is this even among some quasi normal people in the anti anti world. There's this sense like Trump really did have some points about that. He was on this with the fires, with the raking and the water coming down from the north.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Honestly, not even MAGA people. There have been people that are like, you got to hand it to Trump on this one. I don't think you have to hand it to Trump on this one. He kind of expanded on what he wants to do with regards to the fires in this interview. Let's listen.

[Donald Trump]

I don't think we should give California anything until they let water flow down into there from the north to the south. This is a political thing. I don't know what it is. You know, they talk about the delta smelt. It's a little tiny fish like this. I went out, they say it's an endangered species. Well, how is it endangered? No wonder it's in danger. It's not getting any water. How do you. If you have a fish and you're stopping the water, isn't that going to hurt the fish?

[Tim Miller]

I'm glad we can use the R word again. We had Elizabeth Weil on this podcast. There are definitely things that California did with forest management that was wrong. Like this is not the issue. Like water coming from the north to the south, the smelt, not having enough water like this is. This is not, not the issue.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, but you should, you should be honest, Tim, that you are a big fan of the delta smelt and you're incredibly biased in this.

[Tim Miller]

I do want to protect the smelts. I do want to protect.

[Sam Stein]

Don't shut up about the smelt. Your favorite fish. No, it's madness.

[Tim Miller]

But this is insane though. Again, he's threatening and you got into a little, a little tiff with some people about this. About when you. With regards.

[Sam Stein]

I love this one because after, after the fire started breaking, I was very clear that this was going to be a huge tragedy in a multi billion dollar catastrophe that would require the federal government to help out. I had the audacity. I mean, I'm so stupid. I had the audacity to note that Trump has been in the past reluctant to give California aid because he believes it's a blue state that voted against him and they don't deserve it. And people were like, oh, how dare, how dare you point that out in this moment. You know, he, that that's ridiculous. And now here we are where he's refusing to give California aid unless they do some weird water policy that he thinks would have potentially prevented this. It's absurd, obviously, because one, we don't condition aid, never have. This would be new policy. And it's easy to see how this can get into a bad place fairly quickly for a lot of red states down the road. Two, anyone who you talk to said the issue is not the fact that water is not flowing more from the north to the south. It's a combination of climate issues and the inability to, like, you know, stop a massive expanding fire when there's 80 mile per hour winds.

[Tim Miller]

Even if he was right, it is insane to go on Fox News and say we're not going to give them aid.

[Sam Stein]

Yes, they can manage fires better. But when you have 80 to 100 mile per hour winds in completely dry conditions, a manageable fire quickly becomes an unmanageable fire. And nothing that California could have done at that point. There's nothing they could have done at that point. And so, you know, then the choice becomes, do you want to give them the help they need to recover or not? And it seems like he doesn't.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And nor the speaker of the House also. So I think this is going to be something that is going to end up becoming a massive fight that we're going to be monitoring. There were 200 executive orders and so I kind of getting to the splooge of all of it has been sort of challenging over the course of the few days. But like, we're starting to, you know, we're starting to clean it up and kind of get a clearer picture here. So I want to walk through a couple of them. There is a DEI executive order like ending DEI across the government. And an email went out from Russ Votes omb.

[Sam Stein]

He's not confirmed.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe the, the nominated director of the OMB had some influence on this. I can't say for sure that. Thank you for clarifying that. Sa so this email went out to federal government employees asking them to snitch on anyone doing secret DEI or ciffer wokeness. I want to read from this email a little bit. Dear agency employees, we're taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices. I guess it's like LGBTQ plus, they keep adding new letters, but they're ending all DEIA related contracts in accordance to the executive order. The email extends these programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars and resulted in shameful discrimination. We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language. If you are aware of a change in any contract description or personnel Position description since November 5th to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies, please report all facts and circumstances to DEIA truthpm.gov within 10 days. That is fucking insane. That is an insane email to send.

[Sam Stein]

They want people snitching. What can you say? It's like very evidence. First of all, the A is accessibility. I know that because I just looked it up trying to find the USDA's page on this and then I clicked it and lo and behold, I got a 403 error code because they've taken down all DEIA content and yeah, they want people to snitch. I guess I've been a little bit surprised, maybe I shouldn't have been, at how like, monomaniacally focused they are on DEI stuff. I mean, it is like they are like passionately trying to rid every semblance of this from the government. It's probably like the most consistent thing that I've noticed over the past two or three days that they've been in office is they just really want to, like, go hard on dei.

[Tim Miller]

I'd like to know a little bit more about what's the coded dei. Like, what's. What is a diversity word that does not quite use the name of affinity groups, I guess. I don't know. I kind of have a rant about this DEI thing, if you'll indulge me, Sam.

[Sam Stein]

But hold on, let's stay with that. Like, if you heard your colleagues say something like, you know, let's include Johnny on at the lunch. Is that worth snitching? Do you get in trouble? Use the word include?

[Tim Miller]

I don't know.

[Sam Stein]

It's like, it's tough.

[Tim Miller]

I got it.

[Sam Stein]

I want more guidance.

[Tim Miller]

It's like we're looking for diverse perspectives. Like we're looking for a different Watch out. Like, you know what I mean? Or if the job description lists very different types of attributes that you're looking for and some of those attributes code towards various races. I don't know. It seems very fraught to say the least as far as the snitching is concerned. And I don't think it probably creates a very healthy workplace environment. And we have a great workplace environment. At the bulwarks. So I know how that goes. And it's not by telling your colleagues to snitch on each other if they get a little too woke. But here's my DEI thing. On three podcasts this week, I've done a throat clearing about how I find a lot of DEI pamphlets and resolutions and trainings dumb. And I do. And Robin Diangelo's book was really stupid. That said, though, the pendulum has swung so far to me, and it is like wild to think that we're at a point now in 2025 where it's like the government should not have any interest in making sure that people from different diverse perspectives are involved in these jobs because we've already ended racism. And to have the representatives of that government be like a group where the inside circle has more white South African males than non white women. The Republic Senate majority leaders, race included, I think four people named John.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, a lot of Johns.

[Tim Miller]

Four white guys named John. Right. And behind Trump, they had all the richest people in the world. Gotta shout out, Sundar was there. Besides that, it was all white guys. Sundar is also a man. I think he's still identifying as male. So, you know, I should also say, while some of the trainings are dumb, it does feel like we still have a little bit of work that we can do. And it's probably not too harmful to have a couple of positions in government where they're trying to say, hey, you know, I don't know, maybe in law enforcement we should have more people from marginalized communities. Maybe in this. Right? I mean, like, yeah, it seems on its face like that the Trump people would be the representatives of we have ended racism is a little galling, I guess.

[Sam Stein]

Of course. I mean, their point is that it's all about merit and it's all about merit.

[Tim Miller]

That's why we got to put a drunk weekend Fox and friend host in charge of the military. Merit only. This is a merit based show. Speaking of merit, imagine if I want to get to Tulsi in a second. But like, imagine if Tulsi had never been red pilled and she just, you know, stayed as kind of like a lefty Bernie type in Congress and did a lot of msnbc. And then, you know, Bernie got elected and made her secretary of defense. Like, the DEI conversation around her would be insane. You know, like there is. How could this person get this job? They're so unqualified. How could you put a Hawaiian woman in there just because she has the spirit of aloha like it is crazy that the stupidest Americans could put together an organization full of mostly South African and like D rate white men and be like, we've solved this. We've solved this.

[Sam Stein]

We're in a post racial society. It's even worse than that because how.

[Tim Miller]

Could it be worse?

[Sam Stein]

Well, because you said it was just government, but the actual executive order, if you read it, is they told contractors, private companies that like, you can't do DEI anymore. It's like, you know, if you contract with the government, you not and you have DEI in your pamphlets or on your website, you're in trouble. So it's like the government is like enforcing this vision on private companies too.

[Tim Miller]

This is the first actual job creation idea I've seen from the administration. Because Deloitte has so much DEI material on their website, they're going to have to hire in a full team of technique of technical experts to come in to scrub everything like that. They are creating some new works.

[Sam Stein]

Hold on. There's a good story there. And maybe it's replaced by AI, but like, there's got to be some engineer somewhere who profile is like, all right, I got this new tool that I'm.

[Tim Miller]

Going to plug in.

[Sam Stein]

It's going to do a thorough scrub of our company's website. You know, any word diversity is off, we're going to replace it. Like, what's the synonym? Yeah, there's got to be. There's definitely a new cottage industry of people who are like, consulting people about how to just not look like you're, you know, celebrating diversity.

[Tim Miller]

It was also a no pride flag initiative.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, only one flag. Only one flag. This is what we voted for.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I guess three flags. There's the thin blue line, there's the Trump flag, Confederacy. Any MAGA flag, American flag, of course, no other flag. All right, we have some other serious business on these.

[Sam Stein]

This is serious.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, no, this was all serious. I mean, the flag jokes maybe were not that serious. We had another executive order. I've received a couple of emails from listeners flagging the shrapnel from the EO regarding the National Institute of Health. Trump issued an executive order that stopped all external communications. Nih, which might seem like. What is that? Is that just press releases? Well, here are a couple of things. One is something called study sections, which are the official proceedings to review new grant applications for funding. This effectively holds up all research that the US Government does. Pediatric cancer, Alzheimer's, anything. Because you have to have external communications with whatever doctors and experts to kind of review what types of Grants for new research should be done. So we've basically had a freeze on all scientific research in the federal government, which is great. It also includes alerts about things like bird flu. Right. This is why your egg prices are going up, because there's another avian flu outbreak. But right now the government can't put out alerts about various areas where we've seen outbreak. Is that that big a deal? Yeah. What could go wrong?

[Sam Stein]

You know, I'd rather not know if my, you know, eggs are like gonna kill me. Just eat them. Take a chance.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe it's like a kind of a word of mouth thing.

[Sam Stein]

Hey, don't eat the eggs. Just don't eat those eggs.

[Tim Miller]

We're going back to the before times, you know, where you just to hear rumors through secret channels. We could have like an underground bird flu railroad going for an underground egg exchange.

[Sam Stein]

These eggs are fine. Don't worry about these eggs.

[Tim Miller]

I also think that, and this is, I guess 90 days, whatever. She could say, okay, well, whatever. But RFK, your boy, we've got his nomination. Next Wednesday we'll be live streaming that on the Bullork YouTube so everybody can check that out. But he has said that he wanted to end all research being done by the federal government across. I don't have the quote in front.

[Sam Stein]

Of me, but he wanted to end it on infectious diseases.

[Tim Miller]

All infectious disease?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, he wanted to look at like, you know, chronic diseases and things like that, but like, I mean, in the totality. And I've done a bit of prior reporting in this world because I kind of like obsessed over it for a little while many years ago. But look, the NIH is the premier scientific research institution in the world. It's $40 billion budget. It's done immeasurable good and produced incredible breakthroughs across a host of different fields. It is the gold standard. And various presidents over the years have lauded the work it's done. George W. Bush was a huge NIH guy. Obama, big Biden, he was, you know, he wanted to do the whole brain cancer Mouchant.

[Tim Miller]

How'd that turn out?

[Sam Stein]

Well, they made real progress, honestly. But obviously they need, they need to do more. I anticipate that this is a momentary issue here, but I think the larger issue here is what we should focus on, which is they're going to create a climate, whether it's this, whether it's RFK coming on board, whether it's DOGE looking for serious budget cuts, in which the young scientists in our country, who, many of whom are here looking for a pathway to just stay here. They will look elsewhere. They'll just look elsewhere because there's too much uncertainty. And in scientific biomedical research, you need certainty. You need five to ten year funding windows. You need to know that the government's going to be there to communicate with you and not change course. You need to know the government's not going to pull your grants because Elon by, you know, read something on, you know, from Cat Turd 2 about like some like shrimp on treadmills and, and they're like, oh, let's pull it. You know, like, you need certainty. And so my, my hunch is that we're just gonna see what is in essence, a huge brain drain. And people who would normally stay here and, and produce studies through the academic system, through the universities are just going to look to, you know, South Korea to China, to Canada, to Israel, to other places where they will say, hey, cool, come on. We will take your work, we will take your expertise and we will build off of the breakthroughs that you produce and we'll get screwed for that.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I just, I think that's probably going to be good news for MAGA because they're like, look, we're going to get rid of all these smarties and like, those jobs going to open up jobs for like the turning point USA campus chairman at lsu. Like, they might now get to go work at nih.

[Sam Stein]

I know you're being a little tongue in cheek, but like, yeah, I actually think they might think that. And also, like, the other thing is, like, announcement from the White House two days ago where Larry Ellison was like, talking about, you know, AI is going to like, you know, produce these like, amazing MNRA RNA vaccines that are personalized and can cure your cancer. It's like, wait a second, I thought MAGA was like, super opposed to vaccines, but maybe AI will just solve all these issues and make the NIH totally obsolete. Let's hope, right?

[Tim Miller]

I'm optimistic about AI in medical spaces. I'm pretty pessimistic about the American government's health research regime going forward. So we'll see how all that turns out, right? We don't do schadenfreude here, obviously, when people experience the consequences of their vote. But we do want to inform when things happen. One of the other EOs I want to flag is there's just a cross government hiring freeze. This is again, who knows whether Russ Vogt actually wrote this eo? He hasn't been confirmed yet to run the omb, but it's certainly in line with his Mission to cut down the government and to, you know, not bring in subject matter experts, to only bring in political hacks and to, you know, get rid of people through attrition. So there's been across the board hiring phrase with a few carve out exceptions, national security, border security. Of course, this is already affecting people. There was a tweet I saw from a guy named John Basham. Attention, please. Help. @ POTUS, Trump, and @ Senator Ted Cruz. My wife is a nurse and was recently hired by the va. Our home is packed up. We have a new home. We spent thousands to move our family to Waco. Following Trump's hiring freeze, EO VA rescinded her job offer. My wife is in tears and inconsolable. My family is devastated. That is unfortunate. It's a pretty devastating story. I should note that John Basham has on his feed that he's a very big MAGA supporter. So there you go.

[Sam Stein]

That happens, man. It. It's all fun and games until it actually happens. And you're seeing already reports Virginia issues at the VA because they can't bring in new people to help. You're gonna obviously see, we just talked about it with the nih. You're going to just see it across the board. Except for the border. We're going to surge at the border and we'll have that. This is the thing, the government actually does stuff. And people always are talking about how stupid the government is and wasteful, but that's because they don't know that the government's doing stuff that they don't recognize. And so when your eggs have, you know, deadly viruses or salmonella, and suddenly you can't eat those, you know, omelets that you love because they don't have health inspectors. Like, yeah, that's because the government does stuff. And it's going to be a rude awakening for a lot of folks.

[Tim Miller]

So, yeah, so we're only three days in and who knows how the policies will shake out? But just as a quick scorecard, how.

[Sam Stein]

Are you feeling, by the way? Three days in three days. How are you?

[Tim Miller]

Actually, I'm feeling better than I was on Monday. I was in a really dark place on Monday, kind of contemplating my life choices in a very serious way.

[Sam Stein]

The tone of your YouTubes were bleak. Bleak.

[Tim Miller]

I was doing a personal inventory of the worst days in my life and trying to figure out where it fit.

[Sam Stein]

Where was it?

[Tim Miller]

Top 10? Just even doing that. Just even doing that kind of inventory is not really a great sign.

[Sam Stein]

It doesn't sound healthy, Tim. Geez.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it was good, though. Yeah, it was. It was useful for me to kind of process. I do want to do a scorecard, though, for the final three days because we've got skyrocketing egg prices. You know, who knows, maybe temporary. We've had quite a few people, it seems like, lose their job because of the executive order. So we have some substantive job losses. We don't have any EOs really seeming like that focus on economic gains. We've had some crypto. Some gains in crypto. So if you're investing in crypto, you're looking good other than that. More guns. I guess more criminals have purchased guns. We had. The shaman said that he was excited that he could go buy guns. So we've released cop beaters. We have criminals purchasing more guns. We have higher egg prices. We have MAGA Americans that wanted to work for the VA losing their job. That's our scorecard so far. We'll see how it turns out. We'll continue to monitor. We mentioned the Director of National Intelligence from Aloha who is sitting next to the CEO of a Chinese spy app at the inauguration, which seems a little bit. Maybe it was kind of keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer type situation, but I don't think so. Semaphore is reporting Tulsi Gabbard's bid to become Trump's Director of National Intelligence is on shaky ground. Republican lawmakers raising private concerns. Trump now urging her. She has to get more aggressive. Republicans are hesitant about her past statements that some have read as too warm towards Vladimir Putin. You don't say. And former Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad. The disappointing part of this report from our friends at Semaphore was that the Gabbard confirmation was set in contrast to Cash Patel, who apparently has been impressing Republican senators with his children's books about the insurrection. I don't know. Any thoughts on that? We got Cash and RFK are set for next Wednesday hearings. I don't know if we have a date for Tulsa yet, but any thoughts on the remaining numbers?

[Sam Stein]

Tulsi's date uncertain so far. And yes, I have a lot of thoughts because this is the subject of today's press pass I wrote with Per Cone. So I was at a briefing with a. What I. We have to refer to as a GOP member of Congress. Those are the conditions of the briefing last week on Friday, and the member went through the list of or there was pressed on the list of the controversial nominees. And, you know, it's like RFK Jr. And he was like, well, you know, should be fine, because we got a lot of pro lifers who are going to be surrounding him. So I think he's gonna be fun. Cash would tell. He's like, well, you know, he said some problematic things in the past, but he'll be fine because everyone thinks he's, you know, he'll get beyond that. And then they were like, Tulsi. And he was like, she's got work to do. And I. That sort of, like, really jumped out at me. Like, it was totally different tone and demeanor with respect to Tulsi can compared to the other two. You know, the issues are plentiful, right? It's like, it's not just Bashar al Assad and Putin and all that stuff. I mean, I was like, well, I got to figure out, like, what's in the record book. So I went through, like, the archives of her of her House website and looked at, like, the foreign policy section. I mean, she's an outfit for this Republican Congress, even though they are totally remade by Trump. But she was very, you know, she was critical of any aid to Saudi Arabia after the Khashoggi assassination. She has encouraged the pardons of Snowden. She's encouraged the pardon of Assange. She's somewhat supportive of the BDS movement. She's been somewhat critical of Israel for how it's treated the Palestinians. Things that, like, think, you know, not every Republican member of Congress is on board with. You combine that with the fact that, like, you know, she was very recently Democrat. And honestly, someone mentioned this to me, that she's a woman. I think that's not a great recipe for. I did talk to one very plugged in GOP lobbyist about this, and they made the point that I think is valid, which is they think she'll get through. Because the establishment type Republican senators know that John Thune would be in real trouble with Trump if she didn't get through. And so they want to throw Thune a bone and keep him in his place, because they can't. Thune's about as good as it gets.

[Tim Miller]

You got to have somebody like John Thune in there. You want to know that you have somebody you can trust that as a backbone who, when he was asked about the Capitol Police to protect him getting mauled by supporters being pardoned, you know, he said, well, sometimes shit happens essentially with the Senate majority. So it's important you have him in there because he will respect the interests of the establishment. The other thing that jumped out at me when you sent a Memo about that briefing with the GOP lawmaker was that there still remains kind of a delusion among certain types of GOP lawmakers. Let's say that Donald Trump isn't really gonna do anything that he says.

[Sam Stein]

That was the gist. You got that from the movie. He's like, ah, it's gonna be all right.

[Tim Miller]

Just like all of the challenging things, like, what about the mass deportation? What about the, like, well, you know, on that thing. And it's like, on the other stuff, the tax cuts are going to happen. So anyway, I was intrigued that that delusion still persists. All right, I have to get you on the final topic, which is Sam Altman versus Elon Musk. There was an announcement. Trump put out an announcement. Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Sam Altman runs OpenAI. People don't know. There's a long personal rivalry. I don't know, probably related to some microdosing party they were at in Silicon Valley at some point. I actually don't know the backstory on why Sam and Elon don't like each other, but Sam said that OpenAI was going to be contributing 500 million to investing in the country for some AI project. Elon replies to the announcement with bullshit.

[Sam Stein]

Shocking.

[Tim Miller]

It's like, bullshit, not going to happen. And so, okay, so he's undermining Trump's own rollout on this. And then they're becoming.

[Sam Stein]

I've never seen anything like that happen, ever. It was incredible. A senior official at the government, and he's a government official at this point, being like that the President made yesterday is just bullshit. What the fuck? It's insane.

[Tim Miller]

We'll see how long that lasts with Elon and Trump. But I was actually more interested by Altman's response. So Altman's getting just. Just skewered on X by all of the MAGA people. Yeah, he's getting going back through all his old never Trumper tweets. He was. He was a J.D. vance, Tim Miller type, you know, back in 2016. You know, I'm the only one still standing. So Sam sends this TW that I have to read to you. Watching @POTUS, Trump more carefully recently has really changed my perspective on him. I wish I had done more of my own thinking. I definitely fell in the NPC trap. I'm not going to agree with him on everything, but I think it'll be incredible for the country. This is the man running the largest AI operation. This is the person we're entrusting our AI future to, somebody who is either so stupid or so gullible or so sh. That he was like, you know, I just had to watch Donald Trump a little more closely before I. And I real like he was criticizing him through 2022. It's like, what has he seen in the last year? And then that he's using this like online. Like if you don't know what an NPC is, like a mega like poster Reddit poster thing where they make fun of people who just go along with the conventional wisdom on everything. And they say that like you're like a non player character in a video game. Like who talks like this. Like Sam Altman is tweeting. Like he is a median intelligent, like never Trumper turned mega Internet personality. And just this whole suck up routine is pretty scary.

[Sam Stein]

Another tweet that he sent today, which I thought, which just had me laughing and this was obviously directed towards Elon, was just one more mean tweet. And then maybe you'll love yourself. Like, these guys are like out here in the open, just, just embracing these like weird psychodramas and the fragility of their collective egos is remarkable. I mean, you are worth so much money, you have been asked to have so much responsibility for like literally the future of society and you're out there being like tweeting at each other and being like, you know, stop being mean and, and oh, I was so stupid and I should have known more about Trump and done my research. It's just like, go to work. Go build your AI. Like get off the Twitter and do work like everyone else, okay? Like they tweet more than me. And my job is to tweet somewhat and follow this stuff. Like, what the hell, go do work and stop doing this. And if you have problems with Elon, call him up. We don't need to see this whole thing play out over X. I'm tired of it.

[Tim Miller]

I can't believe these emotionally stunted video game boys are running our future. But it also makes me think we are in a simulation though, because it probably is an emotionally stunted video game boy like Sam Altman that is like laughing at us in the sky right now. Because like, how could this be real?

[Sam Stein]

I mean, it's possible, it's possible that we're in Westworld type thing, but it's like at some point you just, you gotta like, you gotta like think to yourself, how do these people. And maybe, maybe that's the way that, that I thought about this philosophically. Like, do you have to be built like this in order to Be this successful? Like, do you have to be this online and this strivey and this emotionally insecure to, like, build this type of wealth? Or, or, or is it working the other way where you become the successful and you feel constantly on edge and hurt and that you have to, like, lash out at all your critics in weird, cryptic posts. Like, Elon was on this morning making, like, totally bananas in not really particularly funny Nazi jokes. It's like, dude, go do Doge, go do rockets. Like, do anything other than tweet, we don't need this anymore.

[Tim Miller]

Or maybe get deported. I don't know. Could be part of our new immigration regime. We're having some new stricter rules, so we might have to review your documentation. Sam Stein, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. We can discuss existential matters about the existence of our society on another day. Everybody follow us on YouTube if you haven't. Me and Sam do funny little bits from time to time.

[Sam Stein]

Can't wait for the RFK hearing.

[Tim Miller]

We will be live for that. Up next, our newest bulwarker, Adrian Carrasquillo. All right, and we're back with the newest bull worker. He's the author of our new newsletter. Huddled Mass is going to be covering the Trump deportation regime or whatever emerges from that. He's reported on politics and Latino issues for over a decade, including at Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Politico and the Guardian. It's Adrian Carrasquillo. Welcome to the pod man.

[Pemco Mutual]

Tim, thanks so much for having me.

[Tim Miller]

I was ranting with Sarah and JVL on the next level yesterday about how, you know, sometimes in our biz and the political commentary biz, there is a tendency to, like, after you learn what happened about something, the next question is, like, will this matter? Like, will people care about this? And I am going to try very hard to resist that temptation, at least over the next year, because who the fuck knows is partly the answer. And there's not another election for, you know, 22 months. I mean, not another broad national election. And so, you know, immigration is one example of this where I think that people are going to fall into a trap of, well, Donald Trump had a mandate on immigration and people like this, so whatever. And I think that is just totally the wrong way to look at this. And, like, the implications of what happens in this area, I think are about as great as in anywhere besides maybe the federal government stuff we just talked about with Sam, but I don't know. So I want to go with you. I want to break through all of the executive Orders one at a time with you. But the broadest picture, like, what is your sense for, you know, kind of the mood about how much of this is saber rattling, how much is going to be real and the extent of the impact.

[Pemco Mutual]

I think that we wrote even before Trump became president, that there were multiple parts here. There is a PR campaign, there is a. Like, we're putting a new coat of paint on the deportations that were happening before ICE released the report in the end of December. At Joe Biden's last ICE report, basically, they got 81,000 criminals last year. So the United States was already getting criminals. You get to put a new coat of paint, you get to have the bully pulpit, and you get to say, oh, my God, look, Tom Homan saying, we're getting so many criminals. So that's one part. These executive orders that we're gonna talk about, they really do look to transform immigration in America, you know, to the extent that Trump can do it. Yes, laws need to be passed by Congress, but the first Trump administration already sort of took a hatchet to the trunk of, like, legal immigration asylum and things like that. So now they are just continuing, and now they understand the levers of government better. So this really is an assault on the immigration system. They are breaking down a lot of pieces of it, which we'll get into at the border. And so, no, it really is a new day. And they have put in a lot of things that are going to cause strife, not just for people who've come here, but, you know, there's directives that they can now go into schools and hospitals and churches. So this is going to be very challenging, and it's going to be very difficult for a lot of people.

[Tim Miller]

People, let's talk to the EOs. I think the one that we've gotten to since Monday on this POD is the Birthright Citizenship Executive Order, which is just preposterous on its face. I did a reading of the 14th Amendment, I think I believe on Tuesday's pod, it's about as clear as you can get as far as the sum you want changed. You're gonna have to change the Constitution. We'll see if our wise and noble Supreme Court agrees with the plain letter of the law, I guess, over the next couple months. But outside of birthright citizenship, let's tick through what some of the other EOs have been.

[Pemco Mutual]

Yeah, so he declared a national emergency at the border, which unlocks for him the ability to bring troops. He says the Secretary of Defense is going to send troops. So already it's 1500 troops that are headed to the border with the likelihood that they could go up as high as 10,000 troops. You know, we could break that down if you wanted to. The fact that three days ago the New York Times had a story about how basically the border was quiet at the end of Biden's term, but they've declared an invasion, and they say that we're sending troops to the border, so we're sending troops to the border. Part of that is the military sealing the border and putting more barriers around the border. So that's the first couple.

[Tim Miller]

On the emergency side, what was the pretense for the emergency? Because he did this the last term. But the pretense was Covid.

[Pemco Mutual]

You're right. You're right. And you bring up a great point, which is that, you know, in the past, they were using pretenses. There's this disease, so no one can come. It's just explicit. Now he's calling it an invasion. This is the same language that Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton used in Texas, which a lot of people felt inspired the shooter in El Paso at the Walmart who said, you know, there's an invasion, so I'm driving 10 hours to kill Mexicans and Latinos. I mean, so it's fully US Policy that there's an invasion at the border right now. And that's where the national emergency.

[Tim Miller]

So what do the groups you talk to on this one? I mean, is there legal vulnerability here, or is there a sense that, like, the president has a wide berth to kind of declare emergencies at their whim?

[Pemco Mutual]

Yeah, look, I mean, I think from. From the national emergency, the invasion and what. What that could unlock legally to things like. Which we'll get into using the Alien Enemies act to go after cartels and gangs that are. He is now designated terrorist organizations. These are laws that have been on the books. The Alien Enemies act has been on the books since 1798, which says that another country is doing an armed invasion of our country. And so, yeah, there's concerns that US Citizens could get caught up if you're Venezuelan and the gang that they're going after is Venezuelan. So, yeah, there are so many of those concerns. I think the groups, when I first talked to them, were sort of shell shocked. They knew this was coming. But you're sifting through even the legal groups and then are trying to figure out which they're gonna go after first.

[Tim Miller]

So the emergency at the bo. Birthright citizenship. What else?

[Pemco Mutual]

Yeah, one of them is just the military, like, sealing the borders and putting up barriers and things like that. Designating criminal cartels as global terrorists. That's part of it. They're also suspending refugee resettlement for four months until such time as further entry of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States. So that doesn't look like that's going to come back anytime soon. I know they were canceling flights of people from Afghanistan. 1660, the people from Afghanistan, their flights were cleared. They were on the way. As people say, no one gets more vetting than refugees. You know, it can take sometimes take years. And he's just sort of unilaterally canceling these flights. Those are a couple of the other ones.

[Tim Miller]

The Afghan refugee thing is so sick. And imagine being one of these people. Like the work to get out of the country, the horror there. To go to another country, you know, to be waiting to come to have your flight ready, it's just like. It's a total nightmare. Is your sense on the refugee things that they're going to reduce that number to zero refugees?

[Pemco Mutual]

I think that's the sense. They said that they want to revisit that in 90 days and see if it's in the best interest of the US and that just seems like they're clearly going to say that it's not in the best interest of the U.S. yeah, great.

[Tim Miller]

Huddled Mass is a good. It's a good name for the newsletter. You can see it's kind of right on the nose there. What about in the interior? Has there been any. Did any of the EOs affect people that are here on visas or, you know, anything such as that?

[Pemco Mutual]

Some of the people who were here legally, they are. They are causing sort of headaches for them. One of the things that I found really interesting was on. I don't know if you. If you know about the CVP1 app. Was this app that people always talk about law and order and coming into the border orderly in an orderly fashion. And that's something that the Biden administration created where they said, we're going to have this app. You sign up. If you come in without using this app, you're. You're done. You're. But if you use this app, you can sign up for an appointment. And this great Washington Post reporter, she had video of migrants crying because their appointments were being canceled. And so this is. This is a piece where people say, wait, you're the law and order president. People say, get in line and do it the right way. And this was people getting in line and doing it the right way. This is where you Know, I say it's sort of an assault from all these different parts because there's so many pieces here when it comes to the order.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that video was actually what I was referencing at the, at the top when I was talking about on the next level, something I was like, I don't know if this will matter to swing voters in the midterms and I don't really care. Like, it was just as a horrific, you know, just human anecdote. I will put the link in the, in the show notes if people missed it of just somebody that had waited, had decided that they're going to go do this the right way. They were three hours away from their appointment, they shut down the app and just totally brutal. I want to talk about one other thing before we get into kind of what's next and implications. In addition to the executive orders we had the Lake and Riley Act. Lake and Riley was the young woman that was killed by an undocumented immigrant became kind of a flashpoint during the campaign. And a lot of Democrats worked with Republicans on this in part, I think, because on the face of was kind of pitched in a sort of common sense way, which is like criminal illegal migrants, you know, should be punished or deported or what, you know, like it was just if you commit a crime in addition to being in the country illegally, that person should not be given leniency. But the act, like, had a bunch of other stuff in it, as is often the case. They stuffed these things through. One of the unintended consequences I saw was that that was like this litigiousness, like it makes it easier to sue on immigration grounds if you're in the states. And Steve Bannon was pushing like, now red state governors are going to be able to sue the feds if they feel like they're being forced to take H1B visas or immigrants that are here in various legal ways. So talk to us about like, what exactly the elements are of that bill and what the implications.

[Pemco Mutual]

So fascinating because I think there was something about doing it at the beginning of the year where it did seem a little bit like this sort of the groups in the advocacy world were caught a little flat footed. There's been a lot of reporting. People felt that, you know, maybe some of the Democrats hadn't read the bill. I mean, you know, to your point, state attorney general can sue if they feel the federal government's not doing something biting correctly on immigration. Federal government is the one that runs immigration. So now you're empowering the Ken Paxtons of the world to find issue with anything and to, to launch all these lawsuits. On top of that, I think that there is so much in the political space, you mentioned the word criminal and people say, oh no, absolutely, criminals should be out. You know, Americans and politicians. But this is as simple as somebody shoplifting now can be detained, can, can have their due process rights taken away. ICE has already said this is going to cost billions and they're focused on criminals and now they're going to get shoplifters or they're going to get people with non violent, smaller crimes. So, so it's not surprising that Republicans push this. It is more surprising that a lot of Democrats went along with it and that there's parts in there that really seem to be sort of undercover and emerged after advocacy. And everyone stepped up and said, wait, what are you doing? How are you voting for this?

[Tim Miller]

You mentioned that Ken Paxton, Attorney General in Texas, the ability to sue the feds. One thing I think a lot of commentators are missing about what is coming in the immigration regime is that it is going to push a lot of power down to states and jurisdictions, let them loose to do enforcement as aggressively as they want. Right. And I think that while it might be the strategic idea of the Trump poobahs, like we're going to do raids in Chicago and in blue states to make blue, blue politicians look bad, all these red state governors and constitutional sheriffs and attorney generals are going to feel political pressure to butch up, up and like, demonstrate that they're tough on illegal immigration too, and that they're going to have crackdowns in their states. And I just, I think about that in Louisiana, I think that there's going to be a lot of issues happening in local jurisdictions that people haven't really kind of wrapped their head around yet. I don't know what you think about that.

[Pemco Mutual]

I think before Trump became president, we saw it from readers, we saw it from people who were Trump supporters, etc. Said it's not gonna be this bad, stop fear mongering. Like, this is not what's gonna happen. We don't believe that he's gonna do all this stuff. Well, a lot of these things are happening, right? And in December, for example, a Missouri legislator said, let's do thousand dollar bounties on undocumented immigrants. You turn in immigrants, you get a thousand bucks each, you know, and so people hear that and they're like, oh, come on, that's not gonna pass. This is crazy. To your point, like, Democrats have really lost the enforcement battle. Like, that's a little preview of my next newsletter. So. So a Democrat was telling me, you want alligators with lasers on their heads. At this point, Democrats are sort of giving up on the enforcement piece, which again, only has Republicans licking their lips saying, how much further can we go in these states? And so, yeah, it's going to be. I don't think people are prepared for what exactly is gonna happen here.

[Tim Miller]

The Democrats do have to be strategic here, right? I don't have to be strategic on this podcast, I can talk about whatever the fuck I want, but the Democrats have to be kind of like, pick their battles. What is Winn. What is going to be politically salient? What doesn't make them look like they're on the side of violent criminal migrants or whatever. You're saying that they're kind of just going to let the Republicans have what they want. As far as border enforcement is concerned, where are they starting to look to actually try to pick fights and limit the scope of this?

[Pemco Mutual]

A source yesterday was telling me that, you know, the law and order piece is an area where they can say, like, wait, Trump said he was gonna come in and bring law and order. He's canceling things like the CBP1 app that actually bring some order to this process. You know, what's going on with birthright citizenship is very much an area that is fertile ground for Democrats where you can say, this is not right. This is in the US Constitution. The executive can't edit the Constitution like it's a Wikipedia page. This is not happening. So those are some areas where they can fight back. I was thinking of this frame of sort of like, where enforcement. They're giving up so much on enforcement. It's like, yeah, you can have a border wal all but. But leave immigrants in the interior the fuck alone, you know, And I think that there's going to be fights on. You're trying to tear apart families. You're trying to go after small businesses. ICE used to. There used to be migrants, immigrants who would be able to claim, let's say, sanctuary in a church. Right? And why are they able to do that? ICE is not going to a church to drag you out. Well, now, there was a directive literally under the COVID of night the other day that DHS is. Is now there's a memo where basically, basically you can go into churches, you can go into hospitals, you can go into schools. And they told ICE to use common sense. So, you know, I had a great legal source telling me that ICE offices are like police precincts. They're very individual they very kind of do their own thing. And so they. They very famously don't listen to memos and directives, by the way. So this is one where now they can just do what they want. And if somebody maybe heads into a church, maybe they can go in and drag them out. Right. There's a lot of fear around schools and things like that. So I think that's the slippery slope for Republicans in the Trump administration. Are you doing things like this, which I think will play into the Democrats hands? You're right. They can't oppose Trump on everything. But this is an area that I think it could be problematic for Republicans.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, the Christian party, it's like, yeah, we're gonna start going into churches to deport people. It's just kind of. That is right out of the New Testament. If you just sort of read between the line lines is exactly what Jesus was advocating for. One last thing on enforcement, and this is going to be me editorializing. I'm wondering if you have any reporting on this from what happens on the Hill. I'm worried a little bit to your point that Democrats, in their rush to want to seem tough on border security and to concede Republicans on border security that they are going to bail Republicans out of a couple of budget pickles, you know, because they don't want to be seen as blocking immigration enforcement. You know, you can already see this on the Hill. There's some conversations happening where Republicans might cut a deal, want to cut a deal where they can, like, increase the debt limit and keep the government open in exchange for, you know, border security. I just think it would be a massive mistake for the Democrats to go along with that, and I'm worried that they are. So I don't know if you've had any conversations with folks in the Hill or advocacy groups and how they're kind of thinking about the coming budget fight.

[Pemco Mutual]

It's a great question because I did see that reporting yesterday as well, that they're considering some, like, huge deal on all these fronts. I did talk to a senior Democrat yesterday, though, who said we're not gonna be bailing them out anymore. If Republicans can't govern, Democrats shouldn't come in to help them out with all the problems that they're having with their own side. So I do think that that's one piece that's interesting and something to watch. I don't know for sure. I know people are talking about this big deal, but there's definitely Democrats who don't want to do that.

[Tim Miller]

All right, thanks so much newest Bulwarker. Excited to have you on board. Adrian Carrasquillo will continue to be talking, unfortunately, because I think there'll be a lot of news on this front. So look forward to having you back soon. And we'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the Bulwark Podcast with our buddy David French. See you all then.

[Pedro]

Pedro lives out of the Wilshire hotel He looks out a window without glass the walls are made of cardboard Newspaper's on his feet and his father beats him because he's too tired to beg he's got nine brothers and sisters they're brought up on their knees it's hard to run but a coat hanger beats you on the thighs Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man but that's a slim chance he's gone to the boulevard he's gonna end up on the dirty boulevard he's going out to the dirty boulevard he's going down to the dirty boulevard this room costs $2,000 a month. You can believe it, man, it's true. Somewhere a landlord's laughing till he wets his pants no one dreams of being a d doctor or a lawyer, anything they dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard. Give me your hungry, you're tired, you're poor. I'll piss on them. That's what the statue of bigotry says. Your poor huddled masses let's club them to death, get it over with and just dump them on the boulevard.

[Tim Miller]

Get.

[Pedro]

Em out on the dirty boulevard Go and out to the dirty boulevard they're going down on the dirty boulevard Going out.

[Tim Miller]

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.