← The Daily Beans
The Daily Beans
FISA Reform Leverage (feat. Sean Vitka)
01:05:24
Wednesday, June 10th, 2026 Today, Epstein's assistant for over 20 years Lesley Groff denied any knowledge of his crimes during her House Oversight Committee testimony; a U.S. Apache helicopter was shot down over the Gulf according to Trump; Republicans in the House have passed the $70B ICE funding bill; ICE has detained over 500 babies and toddlers under this administration; a new report out from the Government Accountability Office says the Camp East Montana ICE facility wasted millions and put detainees at risk; a Somali referee says his World Cup dreams have been dashed after the U.S. denied him entry; the Broadview Six grand jury transcripts have been released; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
Loading summary
Transcript210 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hello, Martin Sheen here. And it seems to me that no day of the week is without its endless barrage of bad news, even on Sunday. For God's sake, let's change that. What do you say? Together, let's make Sunday immune to bad news. Available now every Sunday, Season three of the Martin Sheen Podcast with yours truly, Martin Sheen has begun. Yeah, 10 brand new episodes are already underway. So join me, Martin sheen, for a 20 minute journey as I share my personal stories, a bit of poetry, and insightful reflections that will encourage you to take a deep breath and enjoy a relaxing moment. Of course, it's important to know and understand what's happening in the world. But I also believe there's nothing wrong with taking a step back to find strength and clarity. And Lord knows we need that now more than ever. A moment of thoughtfulness and calm may be rare these days, but it doesn't have to be. So what do you say? Say you want to take back your Sundays. So do I. And guess what? I've already done it with the Martin Sheen Podcast, season three. Available now. Don't mess with my Sunday. And thank you for listening.
- [01:13]
B
MSW Media. Jelly beans.
- [01:27]
C
Jelly beans. Jelly beans.
- [01:31]
D
Daily Beans.
- [01:36]
B
Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, June 10, 2026. Today, Jeffrey Epstein's assistant for over 20 years, Lisa Grof, denied any knowledge of his crimes during her House Oversight committee testimony. A U.S. apache helicopter was shot down over the Gulf, according to Donald Trump. Republicans in the House have passed the $70 billion ICE funding bill. ICE has detained over 500 babies and toddlers under this administration. A new report out from the Government Accountability Office says that Camp East Montana Ice facility wasted millions of dollars and put detainees at risk. A Somali referee says his World cup dreams have been dashed after the US Denied him entry into the country. And the Broadview Six grand jury transcripts have been released. I'm Alison Gill.
- [02:22]
C
And I'm Dana Goldberg.
- [02:27]
B
Hello. Happy Wednesday. It's the taint of the week.
- [02:29]
C
It is indeed. And don't worry, everyone, we're going forward and not going back.
- [02:34]
B
Yes, let's try our best to do that. Not a lot of good news today. We're going to have to do the good news at the end of the show, but I will be speaking to the executive director of Demand Progress. His name is Sean Vitka. He's going to join us today to discuss FISA Section 702 reform, and Dana. Oh, my God. They've released the Broadview Six grand jury transcripts. You remember Kat Abu Ghazale and Five other people were indicted and they've since dropped all the charges after the DOJ kept and hid grand jury transcripts from the judge. And then she found out about it and the DOJ was like, oops, we have. We'll just drop all the charges. Never mind. So just a couple of quick highlights. One of the grand jurors said, hey, do you have unlimited tries? Because this was like the second time they had brought them in after getting a no true bill the week before and they didn't tell anybody.
- [03:23]
C
Oh my God.
- [03:25]
B
One of the grand jurors pressed a prosecutor on whether there are any actual new facts on the second attempt, and the grand juror said, it's in the transcript. I heard this case last week and I thought it was a crock of shit then, and I still think it is.
- [03:39]
C
Wow, I would love to be in this jury room.
- [03:42]
B
Right? And then the prosecutor had to say, I have a mea culpa. I had conversations with two grand jurors outside the grand jury room, so I need to put that on the record. And then the DOJ redacted those parts when they sent the grand jury transcripts to the judge. So it's insane what went on in this grand jury room. We're going to go over it in more detail on the Unjustified podcast this weekend. So, yeah, all kinds of misconduct and I'm hoping we get some Rule 11 sanctions. I'm hoping that the government has to pay all these attorneys fees for the Broadview 6. It's horrible. It's horrible.
- [04:18]
C
Yeah.
- [04:19]
B
All right, we got a ton of news to get to. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up from Ms. Now, Leslie Grof, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime assistant, denied any knowledge of her former boss's crimes in her transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee Tuesday. The latest witness to testify in the panel's sprawling Epstein investigation, quote, I never saw anything improper. That's what she told members of the committee, according to a source familiar. Grof, who worked for Epstein for nearly 20 years until he was arrested in 2019 on sex trafficking charges, began her testimony to the Republican led committee about 10am Eastern. Rep. Stephen lynch of Massachusetts, a Democrat, told reporters during a break that Grof denied she and Epstein were close and that her characterization of their relationship was highly inconsistent. Quote, he was a registered sex offender and she arranged young women for massages with a registered sex offender. And I just question whether she can rightfully and truthfully maintained that she saw nothing improper in that, he said. Now, Grof Told lawmakers she was not aware that some of the women she arranged to massage Epstein were minors. According to lynch, quote, there are young women who say she knew and that she told her they were underage. And she maintains that she was not fully aware of that. That's what he said. Now, Grof also said she arranged phone calls between Epstein and Donald Trump. According to Lynch, Grof did not say what year those happened, but it was before Trump became president. Now, Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein in the 2000s, and he's not been charged or officially accused in court crimes related to Epstein. Grof's name appears, Dana, more than 160,000 times in the Epstein files. But she didn't see anything improper.
- [06:05]
C
Nope, nope, nope.
- [06:07]
B
She was one of the most present people in Epstein's orbit, arranging his meetings with prominent figures, setting up massages with him, with women. Now, Grof is the latest Epstein witness to appear before the panel as part of its investigation, with billionaire Bill Gates scheduled to testify before the committee on Wednesday. Like the other interviews, Grofs will be transcribed and made public at a later date.
- [06:28]
C
Okay, thanks so much, Allison. This is from cbs. An Apache helicopter that crashed into the sea on Monday was shot down by Iran while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. This is what President Trump has said on Tuesday. Uh huh. Vowing to, and I quote, respond to this attack. There were two pilots involved. Both are safe and uninjured. This is from Donald. Nevertheless, the United States must, if necessary, respond to this attack. Now, two U.S. officials tell CBS News initial reports indicate an Iranian drone apparently took down the Apache helicopter. One of the officials said it's not clear if the drone deliberately attacked or not. The two crew members, they were rescued by a sea drone in the first such operation ever carried out by the US Military. The surface drone rescued the soldiers and transported them to another location on the water, where they were then hoisted up to a helicopter for further transport. That's fucking fascinating. That's. According to U.S. officials. Now, they were both in stable condition, CENTCOM said in its Tuesday statement on Twitter, adding, the cause of the incident is under investigation. Now, according to the Associated Press, the US has already begun strikes against Iran in retaliation.
- [07:46]
B
Okay, I don't believe Centcom and I don't believe Donald Trump. Remember the other two pilots that were rescued in that.
- [07:54]
C
Oh, right, yeah, yeah.
- [07:55]
B
I've never heard from any of those pilots or anything.
- [07:58]
C
Oh, man, these false flags. I would not be surprised.
- [08:01]
B
I hate to do this, but, like, I just don't trust anything that this Government says, especially centcom, since he fired everybody. Remember, we've talked about Centcom replacing it, replacing the leadership at Centcom with a bunch of douchebags. So I don't know. I don't believe it. But we'll see what happens in the coming days with that story. All the corporate media outlets are like, ooh, this fragile ceasefire. It's like he's bombing Iran right now.
- [08:26]
C
It's more than fragile. It's broken.
- [08:28]
B
But Marco Rubio is like, these are defensive strikes.
- [08:32]
C
Mm.
- [08:33]
B
Okay. All right, buddy. Next up from the Associated Press, A bill to provide nearly $70 billion for immigration enforcement narrowly passed the on Tuesday. And it goes to Trump for signature. He's going to sign it tomorrow, fueling the administration's deportation agenda for the remainder of his time in the White House. Republicans used their majority to get the bill over the finish line, funding a pair of homeland Security agencies through the next three years, which were already funded through the next three years, by the way. The bill passed 214 to 212 over the objections of Democrats. And I just want to be clear here. Zero Democrats in the Senate and zero Democrats in the House voted to fund ice.
- [09:12]
C
Even Fetterman.
- [09:13]
B
Even Fetterman.
- [09:15]
C
Wow.
- [09:16]
B
So they held strong. They held their ground. They shut down dhs. They said, we're not funding ice, and they did it. And I think that's impressive.
- [09:25]
C
It is.
- [09:26]
B
Now the White House says the bill will provide 38 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 26 billion for Border Patrol, 5 billion to cover unforeseen costs. You know that just $5 billion is. Stuff could pop up. I have a $5 billion budget in my household budget for, you know, just, just in case, rainy day fund it. Front loads, routine annual funding, ensuring a virtually uninterrupted flow of money as the Trump administration seeks to deport some 1 million people per year. Mike Johnson needed near perfect attendance and unity on his side to complete weeks of action. The legislation got sidetracked over the billion dollar ballroom fund and the $1.8 billion slush fund to compensate as allies. But those proposals proved politically toxic, and they were all scrapped.
- [10:13]
C
Nice. All right, this next one is also from the Associated Press. Mismanagement at massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Texas created unsafe conditions that contributed to detainees deaths and sufferings even as millions of wasted tax dollars enrich contractors. That's according to federal report. I'm not surprised by any of this. The accountability office report documents serious problems at Camp East Montana. It's a sprawling tent facility at Fort Bliss in El Paso, where three detainees have died in little more than six months. Evidence in one of those deaths, a 55 year old Cuban migrant who died in January after being held down by guards was, and I quote, missing or destroyed. The report found ICE rushed to open the camp in August before construction was complete and failed to conduct required oversight to ensure detainees were held in sanitary conditions and received adequate medical care. That's according to the report, which happens every fucking time. Now, the GAO's findings echo past reporting by the Associated Press and other news outlets about dangerous conditions at Camp East Montana, which quickly became the nation's largest immigration detention facility. But the government report also details previous undisclosed incidents, including that a detainee escaped in October due to what ICE called the contractor's oversight failure. In January, security guard lost a loaded firearm inside the facility that was never recovered. Are you watching the show, Rooster?
- [11:48]
B
No, but I've heard.
- [11:49]
C
I've heard it's so good. And the police officer in it, he keeps misplacing his gun. It shows up in like a movie theater and the ice cream parlor. And this is what this feels like. Now, the contractor failed to administer skin tests to screen detainees for tuberculosis, relying on a questionnaire instead. Now, the inadequate screening.
- [12:07]
B
What does the questionnaire say? Do you have tuberculosis?
- [12:10]
C
Check this box. And can you imagine the language barrier? Oh, yeah.
- [12:14]
B
But still, even if it was in
- [12:16]
C
Spanish, oh my God. How are you gonna know that's true?
- [12:21]
B
Oh, my God.
- [12:22]
C
Yep, that is a good point. Now, the inadequate screening, by the way, allowed a detainee with tuberculosis to be housed with the general population and later suffered an outbreak. Shocking. Detainees held at the facility didn't receive comprehensive health assessments, which meant that those with chronic conditions received substandard care. A contractor cleaned the dormitories weekly rather than daily as required, resulting in unsanitary conditions. Some guards offered detainees cookies if they would clean their own rooms. Acquisition Logistics didn't reply to messages seeking comment on that. Not surprising. The GAO report says investigations into the jail January death of Caralgo Lunas Campos were undermined after, and I quote, evidence associated with the incident went missing or was destroyed.
- [13:15]
A
Wow.
- [13:15]
C
Yeah. It did not elaborate, by the way. Campos died after he was restrained by guards. And an autopsy, an outside autopsy report ruled that the death was a homicide due to asphyxia. The contractor at the facility did not provide use of force and death reports to ICE as required. That's according to the new report. Nothing is going by the book. Nothing. An investigation by ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility into the death is on hold, by the way, pending a criminal investigation. By who? The FB fucking I?
- [13:47]
B
Oh, Kash Patel is on.
- [13:49]
C
I'm sure he's gonna do great things for this. Follow the law, right?
- [13:54]
B
Ah. Is this like when Donald Trump's DOJ put the Manhattan investigation on hold? The state investigation on hold into the Stormy Daniel stuff? Must be just like that. Good Lord, that's horrifying. This is what the $70 billion is going to fund, by the way, this kind of mismanagement. And from Ms. Now, in their first years after birth, the human brain develops at a remarkable pace. Every second, more than a million new neural connections spring into being, shaping a person's physical and emotional health for the rest of their life. Since the Trump administration entered the White House last year, at least 500 babies and toddlers have spent some of that pivotal time in custody in U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. ISIS dramatically increased detentions of children aged 3 and under, holding 25 of them in custody on an average day between January 2025 and March of this year, according to a new analysis by the Marshall Project and Ms. NOW of records obtained by the Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers who collect and share federal immigration data. That number is 10 times higher than it was in the previous 12 months under former President Joe Biden. Back then, on an average day, fewer than three babies and toddlers were held at facilities across the country. One is too many.
- [15:17]
C
Kidding.
- [15:18]
B
ICE did not respond to requests for comment about the increase in detained young children. But in an emailed statement, an agency spokesperson said families with children receive appropriate food, water, and medical care. No, they don't. Did you. Did you have the baby fill out a tuberculosis questionnaire? No.
- [15:33]
C
Shit.
- [15:34]
B
In a separate statement, CoreCivic, that's the private company, the robber baron that operates the primary ICE facility used to detain families, echoed that its facilities were safe for infants and toddlers. Marsha Griffin, a pediatrics professor and co founder of the executive committee on the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Immigrant Child and Family Health. That's a heck of a title. But she called the period of infancy and toddlerhood, quote, probably the most harmful time of their lives to have them in detention. Jesus, quote, our immigration system is breaking children.
- [16:12]
C
Yeah, thanks so much, Alison. This next one is from the Times. A referee from Somalia said on Tuesday that the biggest dream of his professional life had been shattered after the American authorities denied him permission to enter the United States to participate in the World cup soccer tournament. The referee, Omar Abdul Kadir Artan, he's one of 52 selected for this summer's World cup in North America. He was one of seven African referees to be chosen for the tournament and would have been the first Somali to referee a World cup game. Speaking for the first time since he was denied entry into the United States, Mr. Arcan told the New York Times that officiating a World cup game would have been a symbol for all Somalis of what they could achieve in spite of their country's difficulties. He said, I'm very, very disappointed. This is what Mr. Artan said in telephone interview from Istanbul. That happens to be the city that he's been flown to. After he was refused entry, he said, I'm just simply a referee who's trying to live his dream, the biggest dream of my life, to come to the World Cup. Master Artan flew to Miami International Airport on Saturday, five days before the first game of the tournament on but was prevented from entering the United States by border officials who took him aside and questioned him in a small room overnight, he said. I had the right papers and everything. I had the right visa, that's what Mr. Artan said, adding that he had also showed documentation from FIFA, as well as photographs of his career over a decade as a professional referee. Border officials also checked online material detailing Mr. Arcan's career. He was named referee of the year in 2025 by the Confederation of African Football, which governs soccer in Africa. The immigration interview ended after 11 hours, Mr. Arton said, and he was then taken to a separate holding cell, where he was detained for several further hours before being put on a flight back to Istanbul. He said that officials didn't even give him a reason for refusing him entry.
- [18:17]
B
Man and of course DHS isn't saying anything.
- [18:23]
C
Of course not.
- [18:24]
B
But it's 100% because he's Somali. 100%. Just racism.
- [18:30]
C
Pieces of garbage.
- [18:31]
B
Just gutter trash.
- [18:33]
C
Administration racism.
- [18:35]
B
I don't know why anybody would come to the United States.
- [18:37]
C
I know. Honestly, I don't. Otherwise, I agree, I agree.
- [18:42]
B
I mean, I'm not saying this guy shouldn't have gone and lived his dream. It's just fucked up that he was turned away for no reason. No reason. All right, thanks for that. I'm sorry. I wish we had more good news today. We didn't. We're going to have to get to the good news after this interview that I'm going to do with Sean Vitka about FISA section 702 reauthorization. So stick around. We'll be right back. Hey, I buy almost everything from home now. Groceries, skin care, random household thing I suddenly decide I need at 10pm so honestly, why would I spend a Saturday driving around to look at blinds when three Day Blinds can bring the showroom to me? There's a better way to buy blinds, shades, shutters and drapery and it's three Day Blinds. They are the leading manufacturer of high quality custom window treatments in the U.S. and right now if you go to the number three three dayblinds.com dailybeans they're running a buy one get one 50% off deal. They send local, professionally trained design consultants with an average of more than 10 years of experience straight to your home. You get an expert guidance on your actual space plus a free no obligation quote the same day. So when I'm looking to make changes at my home, I don't want to have to guess what it's going to look like under weird store lighting and then regret it when I get it home. And I definitely don't want to measure wrong, drill into something important. Suddenly find myself neck deep in a surprise home repair project. 3 day blinds handles all of it. They design, measure and install so you can leave it to the pros. And honestly, blinds can completely pull a room together. I was looking at three three day blinds online and they have some really gorgeous options. I also love that in 2026 your blinds can also work with Alexa, so it's kind of an upgrade that makes your house feel a little smarter and a lot more finished. So right now you get quality window treatments that fit your budget. With three day blinds. Head to three dayblinds.com dailybeans for their buy one get one 50% off deal on custom blinds, shades, shutters and drapery for a free no charge, no obligation consultation. Just head to the number three three dayblinds.com dailybeans one last time. Buy one, get one 50% off when you head to 3D. A yblinds.com dailybeans you'll be glad you did.
- [20:49]
D
I'm Brian Caram and I've spent decades covering politics. Now I'm taking you behind the scenes, one interview at a time. Join us as each week Brian confronts the issues that matter, posing the questions you wish you could ask. No filter, no agenda, just the truth. We're not here for sound bites. We're here for substance. Join me, Brian Caram every week as we cut through the noise and get straight to it. This is just Ask the Question for curiosity will lead us to the facts. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, when you want answers, all you have to do is just ask the question.
- [21:35]
B
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. All right, so as you know, we've pointed out this week and last week, I remember reading a post on social media from Marcy Wheeler saying, hey, I think it would be a really good idea for Democrats in the Senate to use the reauthorization of FISA section 702, something that they have to keep extending. I think it's every year or maybe every two years. We'll find out here in a second in order to keep the program going. And it needs a 60 vote threshold to do that. So we talked about, hey, this would be a great thing that we could leverage to get Bill Pulte, who has zero intelligence experience, out as interim Director of National Intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard. But I think it's important that we understand what FISA Section 702 is and how, as leader Hakeem Jeffries has said, using it to keep Pulte out is the floor. There's more that we need to do. So. Joining us today is the executive director of an organization called Demand Progress. He leads advocacy and policy efforts focused on civil liberties, Democratic accountability, technology policy and surveillance reform, and also government transparency. He's got a long history of service. He served as policy counsel at the Sunlight foundation, advancing open government and transparency reforms. Earlier in his career, he held policy roles at Credo Action and Fight for the Future, working on campaigns related to Internet freedom, privacy, corporate accountability, and digital rights. Please welcome the executive Director of Demand Progress, Shawn Vitka. Hi, Sean. How are you?
- [23:10]
D
Hi, Alison. I'm well. Thank you very much for having me.
- [23:13]
B
I am so excited to talk to you because we've just been over here like, keep Pulte out, keep Pulte out. And maybe we can use the leverage of advancing FISA 702 and reauthorizing it, I think is the proper term. But without talking about really getting into the weeds about What FISA Section 702 is, the surveillance law, about surveilling people on foreign soil, how Americans can get swept up into that. And it's just got a ton of loopholes that bad actors I think can really exploit, particularly in this administration, an administration, by the way, who's. When I would talk about the Republican Party, really against section 702, when you want to surveil someone like Carter Page or the Trump administration campaigns dealing with Russia back in 2015, 2016, or I remember Lindsey Graham pitching a fit about being scooped up in Some sort of FISA warrant. When then Senator Kamala Harris was questioning him and he wanted to know if the FBI was listening to his conversations, he was really, really mad about it. But now they're all about it because they're in charge and they get to control it. And you put somebody like Bill Pulte in charge of it, that's extra bad. So let's still to open up this conversation by talking about what FISA section 702 does, and then we can talk about these giant holes that are in it that make us all vulnerable.
- [24:32]
D
Yeah. Thank you. So with Lindsey Graham, I just. I have to remind everybody about one of the most remarkable moments of his long crusade of advocating for warrantless surveillance of everybody in the United States, which was that he almost got paydays out of it. He was a huge advocate for making sure that anybody whose records were swept up during one of the investigations would be entitled to compensation from the federal government.
- [25:01]
B
Right. They wanted a million dollars each for phone toll records, which. Which you don't need FISA to get. But, like, still, he's very, very, very upset about these things.
- [25:12]
D
And each record, and it was in each record kind of a. It was just absurd. And Lindsey Graham has never been on the right side of surveillance once, including this time. But it was remarkable to see him step up and suddenly have an opinion in favor of, in his mind, civil liberties. In any event, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, or FISA, is a law firm from the late 1970s. It was designed to rein in what was, and unfortunately has started to return back to really terrifying misuse of the government's extraordinary surveillance abilities. And so FISA was originally enacted in the interest of creating protections for Americans, for people in the United States. And it served that role to some success for decades after 9 11. That was the law that the Patriot act changed most, and that subsequent laws would also change change notably. And for an audience and a show as detailed as you are, I feel like this might be useful to know. In parallel to all of these post 911 laws like the Patriot act, the Bush administration, even before any of them passed, immediately initiated a series of programmatic surveillance called Stellar Wind. And Stellar Wind ran for years. And it was a wildly unconstitutional, illegal surveillance program that just clearly had a profound domestic impact. It clearly was not authorized by fisa. It was not consistent with fisa, and it would take us many more years to find out that it was actually John Yoo, who is infamous for the torture memos, who had written a legal opinion at DOJ's Office of Legal counsel that concluded that to the extent that FISA restricts the executive branch's ability to spy domestically for national security purposes is that it would be unconstitutional. And this is just one in a very long line of very deep weeds. And I shouldn't start there, but I do think that kind of frame up helps people maybe see what the impulse, the appetite in the last 25 years has been for domestic surveillance. It really has, by law, changed in a way that makes it far more permissive, but also just there's a clear culture of. Of collect it all that was true then and unfortunately is still the impulse here.
- [27:36]
B
Yeah. And just to briefly kind of remind everybody, the way that we see this continue to play out in this administration, apart and separate from FISA and surveillance is the moniker national security, in that the Supreme Court said, you know, regarding the Alien Enemies act, for example, they're like, well, you got to take into account the big, huge deference we need to show the executive branch when and it comes to matters of national security. They've used national security to say we have to build this ballroom. They use national security. It's the go to article to excuse now for them to do anything they want. So you can kind of frame it that way in your mind as well.
- [28:17]
D
Absolutely. And 702 is actually the kind of end of the Stellar Wind story, at least as the public knows about it, which is not as much as we'd like to know, but toward the end of Stellar Wind, basically what was happening was whistleblowers were coming out. There was more and more reporting about how what the then Bush administration was doing amounted to a mass warrantless wiretap program, which again, was clearly illegal. So Congress stepped in and basically codified the most controversial part of that program, which was getting the communications of foreign targets, but that are held domestically, and that eventually, basically in 2008, the FISA Amendments act of 2008 passes through both chambers and at that moment was famous or infamous because it also provided legal immunity to all the telecommunications providers who had been unlawfully effectuating surveillance on their customers by giving the government the access to their communications. Now, 702 since then, since 2008, has gone through, through some amount of changes, but nothing has really changed the underlying way that it works. And because the targets are non US persons located overseas, usually the media will just summarize this. As foreigners, there is not a requirement that the government show probable cause. In fact, the government only goes to the FISA court more or less once a year to get what we Call certifications. And the FISA court in that proceeding again annually says the government may use 702 to conduct surveillance of this nature for these enumerated purposes, things like counterterrorism. And in securing that certification, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General open up the 702 toolbox. And what that looks like is going to, at this moment, an unknown number of communications providers and saying, under a secret gagged order directive from us, as enforced by the FISA court, you must secretly facilitate our surveillance of this unknown number of people and entities. It's in the hundreds of thousands, but each target could be multiple people. And then on top of that, there's an even longer list of what we call selectors. All of these are details that just help the government tell the companies what. What information to turn over and where it becomes a real problem. The reason Section 702 is so controversial is that people in the United States also talk to people overseas. People have family overseas, people have business, and a million other reasons to be communicating with people overseas. And the targets, though they must be foreigners, do not need to be accused of doing anything wrong. They just need to be a person who the government thinks may possess foreign intelligence information. And so. So the end result is that the government is collecting, at the very least, hundreds of millions of communications per year, international communications, without a warrant. And then what we call the backdoor search, they look specifically for Americans in
- [31:41]
B
that information to unmask what they call unmask them. Right.
- [31:46]
D
It's not even masked at that point, but yeah.
- [31:48]
B
And I remember at one point, if anybody remembers Donald Trump in Trump 1.0 saying, Obama spied on my campaign. They spied on me. Me. This was an authorized 7 FISO warrant on Carter Page. That's what he was complex after Carter Page had left his campaign. And so he really, really hated this thing when it had to do with him, when he was getting scooped up in it, or Mike Flynn, for example, was getting scooped up in it in the investigation into his contacts with the Russians that he lied about and pled guilty to twice. But, you know, the other thing that the right wing is saying now is that they need to loosen it up or something because they're worried about all the fact that all of the FISA judges are like liberal activist judges. But that is also not the case. I believe the FISA court only has a couple of judges appointed by Democratic presidents that sit on that FISA court that authorize these kinds of things.
- [32:46]
D
I believe that's correct. And on top of that the FISA court itself is a, you know, its membership changes over time. There is no, I mean, frankly, if there's a criticism to have the FISA court, it's that it is a rubber stamp on surveillance. It is not that it is, you know, a lefty institution. It was horrifyingly fine with the government's clearly unlawful read of the Patriot Act. That is how we ended up with a bulk telephone metadata dragnet for many years. And that that's what Snowden first leaked. The right side of this equation, the right of center side, the Republican side of this equation, is fascinating. We spend as much time on it as you could possibly want. There are certainly people making that argument. We have seen more of that. I suspect we will see more of that because it is in the Trump administration's interest. And that means it's also in John Thune, Tom Cotton and Speaker Johnson's interest. To the they claim that Democrats are holding 702 hostage, for instance. They are using inflammatory language to try to create this, to gin up the drama in so many words. They want to create political pressure and they therefore have grabbed onto, they've reached into the grab bag and pulled out leftist judges. But it is, to your point, beyond inapplicable here, and it's frankly not really the issue. But the reason it's worth spending a little bit of time dissecting the right of centers, because there are, there are really a strong handful of Republicans who have been on the right side of protecting privacy when it comes to any kind of surveillance. But in particular fisa, including for some of the reasons you just identified. And they are right now on the side of reform, and they have been for several months, even when it's been politically costly to them.
- [34:31]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, if you're going to wave the don't tread on me flag, you should probably not be for surveillance of Americans like unlimited warrantless wiretap. So we do have to take a quick break here, but when we get back, you can tell us about some of the reforms that we need to make to FISA section 702.
- [34:50]
E
It's no surprise that newsmakers try to manipulate the audience. They want you to believe that they are the one holding the line and they'll use any trick they can to get you there.
- [34:59]
B
But don't let them fool you.
- [35:00]
E
Get unspun. I'm Amanda Sturgill. I've been a reporter, and today I teach future reporters to cut the spin and think critically about what newsmakers say. My podcast unspun shows you how to know when you're being manipulated by the news, learn to spot the tricks and how to make up your own mind about what's true. So if you're tired of being fooled by the news, subscribe to UNSPUN today. Unspun because you deserve the truth.
- [35:29]
B
Hey, everybody, welcome back. I'm speaking with the executive director of Demand Progress, Sean Vitka. When I talk about Leader Jeffries saying that using this as leverage to get Pulte out is the floor, we should be talking about what other reforms need to be made to 702 in order to get to that 60 vote threshold. And what are some of the things that they're looking at that you're looking at that you're lobbying for?
- [35:52]
D
Absolutely. So, you know, and I do, I appreciate that Leader Jeffries was out there making that case. And I think his exact framing was, was removing Pulte is the beginning of the conversation. And I think that's about the right way to think of it. Just to name the real issue there, Pulte is just the current front line of an infinitely long set of henchmen. Right. And so Pulte can go. We could even have somebody who looks good tomorrow. But the underlying danger here is the power of the intelligence agencies of the FBI to be able to misuse this, this surveillance. And we should take it very seriously. But saving more on that for later. The key reforms here, what FISA reformers, or surveillance reformers generally have been fighting for for over a decade now, is to close what we call the backdoor search loophole. And so again, the government under 702 acquires hundreds of millions of communications every year. And on the other side of that, looks knowingly specifically for communications with and about people in the United States. This in turn gives them a tremendous amount of visibility. It amounts to a serious invasion of privacy. It violates our reasonable expectation of privacy. And at no point is the government going to a court to get approval to do this. And I will note that if this was their goal at the beginning, they wouldn't have been able to use 7002 for it. If they were trying to surveil the American side of that equation, they wouldn't be able to. Instead, the goal of 702 would be is to create this kind of fishing expedition where they can sift through any international conversations with people they have an interest in. Again, don't need to be terrorists. It could be anybody with foreign intelligence information. There is another. I mean, there's a long list of reforms, but there's another one that is equally high profile at this point, and it's what we call the data broker loophole. The data broker loophole is not. Well, really, the data broker loophole is not written into law. There is nothing allowing this explicitly. But the government, a proliferating number of agencies, have concluded that they may purchase information about people in the United States without any court order or warrant from data brokers. This is, you know, may not need to be said, but just to make sure it is. This is a staggering threat to everyone's privacy. It is a mass surveillance issue. The data that is sold about every person listening to this show, including in some cases because they went to some, you know, to Google to search for this show, for instance. That is the kind of information that is for sale here. And it. It represents a, you know, a way for the government to find out what people's political interests are, what kind of healthcare they might be seeking, what protests they go to. There's basically no facet of our lives that this does not directly relate to, and there are no rules of the road. And so reformers for over five years now have said, you know, the data broker loophole is a serious issue. It is a warrantless surveillance issue. We want to see a debate. We want to see a fair vote, which would be good to talk about the mechanical nature of how Congress is processing this. But in short, it seems like a very reasonable thing for people who care about privacy to say. Now is a pretty good time for us to vote on whether or not the government should be able to do this and on what terms.
- [39:16]
B
And how bipartisan is this? How much support do these kinds of reforms have, like just even those two major ones? And if we actually, in this Congress or in the next Congress, get a reform bill passed for Section 702, or FISA in general, how likely is Donald Trump to sign it?
- [39:34]
D
Good questions, starting with first, the bipartisanship. So one of my roles in the coalition includes helping count the votes, right? And what's remarkable about this is in Congress or. Yes, okay, from a strategic perspective, people, not a literal thumb and copy through votes perspective. The remarkable thing about this fight is that by all appearances, the reason congressional leadership will not allow the votes on the key reforms is because they think we will win them. So it's actually not that hard to find examples from the last 13 years or so where leadership caved a little bit and allowed us to get a vote, but it was clearly engineered for failure on the floor.
- [40:18]
B
The.
- [40:18]
D
The 2024 reauthorization fight had unfortunately, a fair amount of that. All of the math attached to that, which I'll spare you, is wildly different this time. And especially at this point in the fight, we are in uncharted waters in terms of the level or how far into this reform effort versus any other effort we've waged.
- [40:40]
B
Yeah. And I wonder if Congress bucking the administration on a few things, the War Powers Act, Ukraine aid, Russian sanctions, the 702 vote in the Senate. I wonder if that kind of also sort of creates a permission structure to go forward with something that's bipartisan as this.
- [40:58]
D
It's an excellent point. I think it very much does. I think it is, in fact critical for the medium term the health of this country, frankly.
- [41:10]
B
And maybe that's why striking wily iron is hot right now before the midterms and holding folks to the fire might be a better shot than after the elections for or say, well on top
- [41:21]
D
of that, the reauthorization. So we should dissect this bipartisan question a bit because short form for that is there are dozens of Republicans in the House and at least a dozen, I would guess, in the Senate who would vote to create more privacy protections, to require warrants in these contexts if we got the votes. Unfortunately, there are also a couple of Democrats who are, are frankly kind of structurally in position specifically to try to undermine reform. In any event, the ability for us to get a vote on the reforms themselves, that's the hard part. If we were on the floor, I mean, we can point to the vast majority of Democrats being on the right side of both of these issues and we can point to easily enough Republicans who would also vote for these reforms if we got the vote. There was a, the most recent vote in the Senate was a stunning loss for Thune and for the Trump administration. Not only did the Democrats hold, which is good, but seven Republicans voted against it as well. And I will note these are not Republican. These are not the Republicans who are out there saying, you know, talking about Bill Pulte being bad, even though, yes, to be clear, Bill Pulte is like literally, you know, is a veritable nightmare. But these are people who have historically been on the right side the of, of the backdoor search fix and on the data broker loop.
- [42:44]
B
Interesting.
- [42:44]
D
And then in the House, we've seen over 20 Republic. I mean there are many dozens of Republicans. A majority of the Republican caucus actually two years backed the backdoor search fix. It was almost 50, 50 on both sides. Technically a majority of the Republicans, technically a slight minority of the Democrats, notably under a Biden administration, who was urging them not to pass this reform. But this time, at least enough Democrats plus Republicans that would get over the finish line. Over 20 voted the right way. 20 Republicans, in fact, voted to bring down a rule on fisa, which was something that looks like war to leadership. It is considered an aggro move and stopped a bad FISA reauthorization from advancing on a midnight vote. By the way, this is the April math, which I think was kind of easy for folks to miss. It was a hurricane and it moved in and all these other things. But Speaker Johnson was desperate to try to force something through. He played a ton of dirty tricks, many more than what I'm about to name. But at 10:31pm on a Thursday night, I got a text from a staffer that said, speaker Johnson says the Freedom Caucus is folded. We're getting hauled back to the Capitol for a midnight vote. And so you're talking about many dozens of organizations who getting out of bed. You're talking about 1,000 staffers being hauled back to the Capitol, all designed to make possible this frankly, bullshit maneuver from Speaker Johnson on a vote that had been, we all knew was coming for literally years, but that suddenly at 10:31, we've got new text that nobody's seen, and everybody's got to vote on it by midnight. Now, this is all before Bill Pulte shows up in the picture. So the roller coaster here is pretty hard to overstate. But there are a lot of Republicans.
- [44:34]
B
So why can't we get a straight, straight vote in the House now? Is because he is. Because Johnson won't bring it to the floor because he's afraid it'll be defeated.
- [44:42]
D
Yeah.
- [44:43]
B
Or the reforms will go through. And if that's the case, I mean, what are they on 13 or 14 discharge petitions in this Congress so far to buck him? I mean, I think maybe we could easily see a discharge petition.
- [44:56]
D
I would certainly be interested in seeing discharge petition. So, yes to both of the things that you said. So the fundamental problem is Speaker Johnson in the House and Majority Leader Thune in the Senate. There is obviously already a lot of noise and attention, and it will increase over the course of the next week, it seems about the expiration of section 702. There's a longer version of this conversation, but the short form is that that expiration is illusory. It's not a real expiration, but we'll come back to that.
- [45:25]
B
I'm sure you get to keep doing it. A year later. Or something like that. Right?
- [45:29]
D
Precisely. The FISA court in March, per the New York Times, reauthorized 702 as we know it, day into March 2027. So this is like a false emergency with an incredible amount of bad faith crap coming from Speaker Johnson and John Thomas. It's a torrent. And unfortunately, there's a lot of media that take them at face value, but I'll put that to the side. What they want, nonetheless, is to use the deadline, real or fake, as a way to bully reformers out of demanding reforms. And again, these are reforms that we have all been fighting for for 13 years. They have both passed at least one chamber of Congress before. These are not, you know, fringe ideas. They're not even partisan ideas.
- [46:15]
B
No. Right, so. And nobody should be scared that it's going to expire next week if we don't reauthorize it immediately, because like you said, it's reauthorized until March of next year.
- [46:26]
D
And it is admittedly a bit more complicated, as since Bill Pulte for the Democrats. But for over six months, for six months, if not a decade, reformers have said, you can move this forward. Just give us the votes. Just give us a chance to vote. You don't even have to support it. Speaker Johnson, we promise you can whip against it like you always do. Just allow democracy to work at all. On this thing that is overwhelmingly popular, 76% of Americans think Congress should close the backdoor search loop loophole. 80% of Americans think that Congress should close the data broker loophole. And so there's this really. I actually think there's like a broader meta discussion as well about what a reflection this is of how and why Congress doesn't work and how the bad actors wield their power to stop things that are popular and bipartisan. And I think if we could get some of these actually demonstrably popular and bipartisan things into the center of the conversation nationally, I actually think that's a, like, a great answer for the polarization questions.
- [47:31]
A
Right.
- [47:31]
D
I think that's a great way for people to realize that there are a lot of shared values. There are people on the right with whom I work extremely closely who are more concerned about churches being surveilled. And then I have a lot of friends who are more concerned about mosques being surveilled. There is a profound amount of alignment here, but it's not that interesting. If I can just be blunt about it, more corporate media. There's an unfortunate amount of access dependency that exists, obviously, in kind of Any media ecosystem. And here you just have on top of that layer, it's congressional leadership, it's classified, it's the Trump administration, et cetera, et cetera. But we are seeing a different fight now than we have ever seen before at this point.
- [48:16]
B
Would Trump veto it if we even were able to pass something that reformed A couple of things.
- [48:25]
D
It would be historic if he did. I doubt it. I doubt it. There is no doubt that 702 provide some national security value. Reformers do not argue this point. There has always been a failure by the administration of either party over more than a decade to show real value from these backdoor search. These US Person queries is the technical term. But these backdoor searches. But the reformers, at the end of the day, both the left and the right are not trying to turn off 702 entirely. Again, that is a manufactured crisis from John Fuzzy and Mike Johnson and Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, I should say. Right.
- [49:02]
B
We just want to let national security go into the toilet if we don't, you know. Yeah. All that other propaganda that they try to use to scare up, you know,
- [49:11]
D
anything to prevent votes on warrants. I mean, it really just like there is no way around this at this point is. And I kind of have to call out Mark Warner on this, by the way. It is if he had backed warrants anytime in the last 10 years or maybe most importantly in the last four months, we'd have already had votes, this debate would have already been settled and we would have won or lost whether Warner supported him or not. But unfortunately, he and his House counterpart, Jim Himes, have. They view their job as enabling Speaker Johnson and John Thune, respectively, to get some reauthorization passed. Now, now, let's just take them at face value and say that's good faith. That's because they care about 702 and there's national security value, et cetera. But at this moment, all people who are pushing 702 reauthorization or bust are like, strategically omitting that. They have written off the possibility of allowing amendments and that has become noxious, frankly.
- [50:11]
B
Yeah, that's bizarre. Well, I really appreciate you getting into the weeds with us about this. Can you tell folks what they can do along the lines to support these reforms and support your organization?
- [50:23]
D
Yeah, absolutely. So one, this is one of those moments where contacting a member of Congress makes a big difference. We have a call line up. If folks are interested in making that call, it daisy chains you, you know, through both your senators and then your representative. It's 202-953-1892. Beyond that, if one of your members was one of the, you know, is one of the Democratic senators who's trying to advance a reauthorization without warrants, Mark Warner stands out at the moment. But there aren't that many of them, thankfully, OR There were 42 Democrats in the House who unfortunately backed the last Speaker Johnson package, which also had no real reforms in it. Those folks in particular need to hear from you. But all of the people in Congress, every member, every representative and senator, are going to have to vote on this again. And that is a profound amount of power for constituents to make their voice heard. And then in terms of demand progress, we rely heavily on our grassroots supporters, our affiliated activists who make these calls and also donate to the organization. So you can sign up for that list anywhere you want. And in the meantime, I think I would encourage people to pay close attention to this fight. There are fascinating parts, gears, mechanics of Congress in view on this one that you cannot find anywhere else. And part of that is because it's bipartisan. Part of that is because we are up against not just the administration, but also John Thune, also Speaker Johnson, and to some extent even the Democratic intelligence leaders. But at the end of the day, we need to get this sorted. And the package that's on the floor right now, or not literally on the floor, the package that congressional leadership is trying to push through has no warrant protections, is something that should be repugnant to all members, but especially Democrats and especially, but not exclusively while Pulte is getting there. Oh, and on top of that, would reauthorize this not for a year, but for three years. So we're talking about handing the keys away to Bill Pulte or whoever comes after him for the rest of the Trump administration. And Allison, I hate to take any more of your time, but if I could sneak in one detail here about this dni, you know, the danger of the position of dni, whether it's Pulte or whoever comes next, they can also declassify information. And I think when we play that out in our head about what somebody who is trying to weaponize mortgage applications against Trump's political enemies looks like, which is what Pulte did. And clearly something that in Trump's mind qualified him for this position, that in the hands of the Director of National Intelligence, whatever we might say about Tulsi Gabbard, that paints a very disturbing picture about how we could slip into the kind of outcomes or the kind of DYSTOPIA frankly, that should be keeping us off for the purposes of getting through this administration.
- [53:16]
B
Yeah. And when you take it a step further and think about how that could impact voters and voter rolls and things around the irs, dhs, all the data that Doge stole and isn't keeping on a fed ramp, you know, authorized place on the Internet, it's pretty devastating to think about, but yeah, everybody please call your reps. Also check out demandprogress.org to get more information on this. Call that number that Sean just gave you and they'll daisy chain you through your reps and senators to talk about this and the reforms and why they're necessary. And you can also follow Demand progress on social media. Pretty much whatever platform you're on, you can find them. So thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
- [53:58]
D
Thank you so much for having me.
- [53:59]
B
Thanks. Sean Vitka, everybody. DemandProgress.org, everybody stick around. We're gonna be right back with the good news.
- [54:06]
F
Hi, I'm Frances Calyer. And I'm Angela Vishal. And we're Frangela. You know what you need in your life? The Final Word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right. It is the final word on all things political and pop cultural, where we make real news, real funny, where we inspire you so you can resist. Subscribe and get a new episode of the Final Word podcast each week. It's the news we think you need to hear.
- [54:31]
C
That's right.
- [54:32]
F
We think you need to hear it. Okay.
- [54:34]
B
Yeah.
- [54:34]
F
It's what we say.
- [54:35]
B
So.
- [54:35]
F
That's right. And because all we do is give. Every Thursday you can listen to our hysterical podcast, Idiot of the week. We round up the stupid. Because you know what? Somebody has to.
- [54:45]
C
Okay.
- [54:46]
B
All we do is give. Everybody welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?
- [54:55]
C
Everyone.
- [54:56]
D
Then good news, everyone.
- [55:11]
C
Good news.
- [55:12]
B
Oh, we need your good news. Oh, but do we need your good news? Please send it all to us. Big, small, yesterday, 10 years ago. Anything that'll bring a smile to our face, send it to us. It can be a good news story. It can be a fun story you like to share with friends when you're hanging out. It can be a shout out to a loved one or a non profit or some great community activism. You're seeing a government program that's helped you or a loved one, a self shout out. We love those too. It can be a good trouble suggestion. All you gotta do to get your stuff submitted is attach a photo of really anything it can be your pet. It can be an adoptable pet, a random animal on the Internet, family photos, baby pictures, pictures of your favorite signs at the last Milk Kings rally, pictures of sunsets, what you're crocheting, knitting, quilting. Maybe you're making ceramics or paint. You know, it can be anything at all. You got chickens, I want to see them.
- [56:02]
C
You got chickens?
- [56:04]
B
Got chickens, I want to see them. You got goats? Send in your goats. Send it all to us dailybeanspod.com click on Contact. First up is your good trouble. Good Trouble today comes from Lita Pronoun. She and her hi Allison and Dana. Happy Pride. My good news is about my best friend of over 20 years coming out as trans publicly just a few days ago on the first. They have something of a YouTube presence, over 300,000 subscribers.
- [56:29]
C
Wow.
- [56:30]
B
And feel so grateful to the LGBTQ community that they're going to be running a 12 hour live stream supporting See Kawaguchi O' Connor initiative. That's a charity that helps relocate trans folks from red states to safe states and cities. So if you like Elden Ring or you just want to support a good cause, consider checking out Noah Caldwell Gervais's YouTube. We'll have a link in the show notes. It's a Stream. It's Saturday, June 13, 10am to 10pm Pacific Time. A bunch of popular YouTubers will be making great guest appearances to pop in and say hi high. The drive has been registered with YouTube and Koi, so any money donated will go right to Koi via YouTube. Noah commissioned a local artist to make an ad for it too. Oh, this is incredible. Nice lands between a FundRaiser stream benefiting Koi June 13, my pod pet tariff is my own cute little pup, bethy. She turned 11 and she's a spry old gal. We have infinite nicknames for including Barathe Zabornak, Stretchin Whitmer, or just Madame Governor and Squeaky from She's a Blank mix. Primarily.
- [57:41]
C
Dorothy is born Stretch and Whitmer, but
- [57:45]
B
with some super mud in there too. Thanks for doing what you're doing. Love you guys. I love the show. What do you see here? A little terrier? Sort of some sort of Chihuahua.
- [57:53]
C
Miniature pincher.
- [57:55]
B
Oh, yeah. What would you call a miniature pincher?
- [57:57]
C
Chihuahua Minh Wawa? Mini Wawa? Wouldn't it be a chin pin?
- [58:03]
B
A chin pin? Oh, unless you're talking about a chin, which is a different kind of true. Look, it's a Min pin Chihuahua mix.
- [58:11]
C
There you go. That's a cute dog.
- [58:14]
B
Stretching Whitmer. Oh, my God. Thank you for that.
- [58:23]
C
Oh, my God. I love our people. All right, next up from Anonymous pronoun, she and her hello beanies. To continue with the Axolotl theme, the Axolotl is on the Mexican. All of the money is pretty and in different sizes too, in order to accommodate the visually impaired. Oh, the coolest thing is that the money is animated, complete with sound, which viewed with an app from the bank of Mexico. My friend Cheryl and I made a video of the animated Axolotl which can be found here. We'll have a link in the show notes. My first video upload and I didn't know how to make it anonymous, so now everyone gets to see it. There are other videos online of other bills which can be found by searching for, for, and I quote, animated Mexican money. Mexico is cool in so many ways and we both love living in the land of the sane. Attach your photos of one side of the bills as well as close up of our star. Carry on and keep making good trouble. I didn't ever notice that the Axolotl was on the 50 peso bill.
- [59:23]
B
Oh, man, that's amazing.
- [59:26]
C
It's so cool. Look at all this.
- [59:28]
B
Look at all this money. Look at all this animated money.
- [59:33]
C
That's awesome.
- [59:34]
B
Oh, and there's a picture of the animation. This is so cool. I can't wait to go to this YouTube channel.
- [59:39]
C
This really is very neat.
- [59:40]
B
Augmented reality examples. Very cool. All right, next up, alliterated liberated Lilith. I've tried starting this letter five times and it keeps coming out weird. Okay, I've been a chef executive and sue for over 25 years. Love, love it and must admit I'm good. But I have two degrees, fine art and mathematics. And about eight more things I want to do before I die. I totally get this. The path not taken is what we call it in our friend group. And I think that's what they called it on Ted Lasso too. I'm burned out and feeling unsubstantial and tired of not doing more for others. So I immediately woke up last week, got all my transcripts, and enrolled for my paralegal course. I'm too old to be a lawyer, and maybe that's a good thing because I can see myself in contempt a lot. As a paralegal, I can go all caps behind closed doors. I just want to say thank you. We've never met, never spoken, and you have had no knowledge of me. But your story, show and community of listeners are a rare thing. The support for each other is truly felt and Appreciated to you and all the beanies listening. Thank you. Below is my fur baby Chuck, and my sister's puppy blank named Doo Doo.
- [60:54]
C
Oh, my God. Wait, are we doing the little one or Chuck?
- [60:58]
B
I think we're doing the little one.
- [61:01]
C
It's a tiny wiener dog.
- [61:02]
B
It's a tiny wiener dog. It's a. It's a small dick energy. It's a miniature dachshund.
- [61:13]
C
It is a tiny wiener dog. Oh, my goodness. I wonder if that bothers anyone when they hear us say tiny wiener over and over. Tiny wiener.
- [61:22]
B
Look at that.
- [61:22]
C
Tiny wiener dog.
- [61:23]
B
Amazing.
- [61:24]
C
Tiny wiener.
- [61:24]
B
Congratulations, Alliterated liberated Lilith.
- [61:27]
C
All right, MB Pronoun. She and her listened since the kitchen table days and can't start my day without you. I'm not from Washington state, but I'm pretty sure Skagit is a soft G. Oh, Skagit County. Skagit County. I'm including a pic of my neighbor's dog. Now, is that hard G or soft G?
- [61:47]
B
Shuga Suga.
- [61:49]
C
Suga, who we babysit for occasionally. She knows every business in our neighborhood that has treats and will not move past them until she gets her treat.
- [61:58]
B
Oh, my goodness.
- [61:59]
C
She's small, but solid and stubborn. Look at that face.
- [62:02]
B
Oh, what a sweet honey baby.
- [62:05]
C
I know.
- [62:06]
B
With the favorite stuffy M.B. thank you, Scad. Good to know. Next up, coffee, ketchup. Skagit is Skagit. Rhymes with gadget. All right, we've got two here. Thank you for all you do to help us make it through this perfect storm of new, dark and gilded ages. Never thought, growing up near Akron Canton, that so much of my adulthood would be subject to this much willful stupidity. For pet tax, our two crazy canines before and after the blank reached 150 pounds. Is that like a Great Dane or something? Something Akan. Yeah, I grew up in Talmage. So very cool. And.
- [62:45]
C
Oh. Oh, it's the before and after. That looks like a Saint Bernard.
- [62:49]
B
Okay, I see now. Yes, Saint Bernard.
- [62:51]
C
Oh, yeah. Look at this Saint Bernard puppy. I love fluffy dogs. Like fluffy puppies. Not all. Not all puppies are fluffy, But Saint Bernards are fluffy puppies.
- [62:58]
B
Oh.
- [62:59]
C
So very cute.
- [63:01]
B
And I'll grab the next one, too, from Mary. She and her I. I have a piece of kind of meta good news. About a month and a half ago, I heard a shout out from a woman to her wife who is a urogynecologist in a small town. The wife's name is Jen. Well, I live in a pretty small town, and that is the name of my urogynecologist oh. When I had my appointment last week, I asked her casually if she listened to the daily beans, and she did. And it was her.
- [63:27]
C
Oh, my God.
- [63:29]
B
Hell yeah. Mary, we had a really lovely moment meeting each other and connecting. I just thought you'd like to hear that two Leguminati have met in real time and time space. And because of you.
- [63:40]
C
That's awesome.
- [63:42]
B
Incredible. Two beans passing in the night.
- [63:47]
C
Very cool. All right, this is from Wendy Pronoun. She and her hello, ladies. I wanted to share some happy news of love and acceptance. I'm a proud Gen X mama of a queer kiddo who's currently 15. Her dad isn't the best guy and we're not in contact with him. I should have known the jig was up when at 8 years old, when she insisted on bringing all of her Legos back to my house, she refused to go back. After that, the kid got her closure. I've been with my partner for five years. We own a home. We're raising kids and dogs together. And as you can see in the pics, my girl finally has the dad she deserves. We feel. We feel truly lucky. Sorry. That was me trying not to cry.
- [64:29]
B
I figured.
- [64:30]
C
I figured that's what that noise was. I'm sorry, everybody. We feel. I got so mad. We feel truly lucky to have this man love us so loudly. Note his I love my queer kid pin and free dad hugs T shirt. Getting to connect with young people every year at Pride while offering words of encouragement and celebrating individual uniqueness is such an honor. I caught this moment Sunday celebrating with those we love, love, and it's everything. Oh, gosh.
- [65:00]
B
I know something in my eye.
- [65:05]
C
Wendy, chopping onions in here. Everything's fine. You're.
- [65:08]
B
I'm not crying. You're crying.
- [65:10]
C
That's right.
- [65:10]
B
Wendy. Thank you for that. How inspirational and amazing and wonderful. All right, next up from Sarah Pronoun. She and her hey Beans Queens. I have a really short one for today. My parents are celebrating 70 years. Years of marriage.
- [65:24]
C
Holy cow.
- [65:25]
B
This week, to celebrate, my spouse and I are taking them on what will be their 22nd cruise since retiring many years ago. I've attached a photo of them on their wedding day back in 1950.
- [65:38]
C
This is wild because your parents have to be at least 85 or 90 and they're going. You're taking them on another cruise. This is extraordinary.
- [65:48]
B
Amazing. Amazing. What's their secret? Sarah, send it in to us. Tell us their secret. Not just long, long relationships, but just being on the earth this long. I mean, that's Amazing. That's incredible.
- [66:00]
C
Healthy enough to go cruising?
- [66:02]
B
Yeah.
- [66:02]
C
All right, next up from anonymous pronoun. She and her moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma from California in the fall of 2025 to spread the blue wave. Happy to report that I've met many individuals of the LGBTQ community. I moved to be with my daughter, son in law and grandson born in January of 2026. I live on Route 66 and the mother Rhodes centennial celebration. I've attached a photo of Rosie in her showgirl era headpiece. Oh, my God. Oh, this dog in a showgirl feather.
- [66:35]
B
Her name was Lola. She was a showgirl. Yellow feathers in her hair and a dress go down to there. She would merengue and do the cha cha woo woo. So cool. Oh, I love our musical interludes, my friend. I do.
- [66:52]
C
They make me very happy. I think we often harmonize well together too, and it's pretty impressive not being in the same room and just trying to line this up over the microphones.
- [67:00]
B
We do. And we did a really good cold open on the Beans Talk a couple of days ago of the rainbow connection in Kermit the Frog's voice. We did.
- [67:11]
C
It's one of my talents. Did not know was also one of Allison's talents. And so we had a little frog off.
- [67:17]
B
We both at the same time realized
- [67:19]
C
we could do Kermit the Frog.
- [67:20]
B
And there we were and we sang. So check out Beans Talk if you haven't checked it out yet. And we're going to go record that now, and we'll be back in your ears tomorrow. Do you have any final thoughts?
- [67:31]
C
Oh, yes, I do. Beans. I need a favor. Leguminati. I've got a big thing going on tonight. If you're listening to this on Wednesday, it's one of the moments that could shift my career. And so if you light candles, if you have crystals, if you say prayers, if whatever you can do around 7pm Pacific time, time to 7 to 8. Just put out some really good energy my way, all right? That's all I ask. I appreciate you very much, but you
- [67:57]
B
can't tell us what it is.
- [67:58]
C
Cannot.
- [67:59]
B
All right. Good energy. 7pm Pacific, Wednesday night, June 10th.
- [68:03]
C
Thank you so much, everybody.
- [68:05]
B
Got it. All right. Everybody will be back in your ears tomorrow. Until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, and take care of your family.
- [68:14]
C
I've been ag and I'm indeed g.
- [68:16]
B
And them's the beans. The Daily Beans is written and executive produced by Allison Gill with Additional research and reporting by Dana Goldberg. Sound design and editing is by Desiree McFarlane with art and web design by Joelle Reader with Moxie Design Studios. Music for the Daily Beans is written and performed by they Might Be Giants and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information, please visit MSW Media. MSW Media.
- [68:50]
F
Hi, I'm Frances Collier. And I'm Angela V. Shelton. And we're Frangela. You know what you mean in your life the Final Word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right. It is the final word on all things political and pop cultural, where we make real news, real funny, where we inspire you so you can hashtag resources, subscribe and get a new episode of the Final Word podcast each week. It's the news we think you need to hear.
- [69:15]
C
That's right.
- [69:15]
F
We think you need to hear it. Okay.
- [69:18]
B
Yeah.
- [69:18]
F
It's what we say.
- [69:19]
B
So.
- [69:19]
D
That's right.
- [69:20]
F
And because all we do is give. Every Thursday, you can listen to our hysterical podcast, Idiot of the Week. We round up the stupid. Because you know what? Somebody has to.
- [69:29]
C
Okay?
- [69:30]
B
All we do is give.