B (3:08)

Wonderful, wonderful.

A (3:09)

Yeah. So we're going to talk to him today. You get to, you'll hear the second half tomorrow, first half today. And you can also catch it@molarseyroad.com all right, everybody, since we have so much news to get to, let's start with some quick hits.

B (3:19)

And to make a long story short, too late.

A (3:21)

First up, this lightning round, Mike Johnson. Johnson is being a dick about swearing in Arizona's new congresswoman, Adelita Grijalva. Her presence in Congress would put pressure on Republicans amid the ongoing government funding fight. But she's also expected to be the majority making signature on the highly watched discharge petition resolution that would force Donald Trump's administration to release the Epstein files. Now, they'd rather shut down the government, I think, Dana, than release the files. They absolutely would because they can keep the government open with, without a single Democratic vote because, you know, they can change the rules on cloture in the Senate. They have the majority and you only need a simple majority to change the rules. So if they really, really want to keep the government open, they can do it without us. And so if they don't just know that they didn't want to keep the government open in the first place, probably because they don't want to release these files and they want to shut down the courts anyway. This, you know, they usually swear people in Mike Johnson even before you get the official results from the election. That's been the normal way of doing it for quite a long time. But he wants to wait until October 14th when the official results come in from Arizona. But you can't delay the inevitable. They have 8,500 more pages from the Epstein estate.

B (4:34)

Unbelievable.

A (4:36)

And they've released six of those pages so far. And they're going to keep continuing to release as time goes by. And he's not going to be able to stop it just by this alone.

B (4:45)

No, he won't. And what a petty, petty thing to do, by the way. And those six documents that you're talking about within that 8,500 they actually released, they show that Epstein had meetings with Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, was scheduled to travel to Epstein Island. Prince Andrew's also listed. We already know that. There's a whole, there's a whole Netflix show about that. By the way, it is listed in the documents as a passenger on Epstein's plane. So.

A (5:10)

Yeah, so.

B (5:11)

And I don't care what party, we don't care what party they belong to. Anyone that is guilty of hurting young girls in any way, shape or form.

A (5:21)

Lock them up or covering up for it.

B (5:23)

Yes. Or trafficking or being people that turned the other way, a blind eye to all this help. I don't care if you worked at a bank and did these transactions. Every single person involved in this needs to go down.

A (5:36)

Yeah. And you know, by Trump saying, oh, yeah, we were totally friends, but I got rid of him because he's such a bad person back in 2000. 2000 and whatever.

B (5:43)

Yeah.

A (5:43)

You know, and then we'll have Elon Musk, I'm sure saying, oh, so, you know, I, just because I was on a plane doesn't mean I did anything wrong. You knew about what he was doing, Both of you. Yes, both of you. And you didn't do anything. You didn't say anything. And now it's, you know, you're supporting your. I can't anyway. Next up from Politico, President Donald Trump on Saturday falsely accused the FBI of. Of fomenting the January 6, 2021 insurrection, a sharp escalation of his attacks on the Bureau and his effort to downplay the violence of the mob of his supporters and what they inflicted that day. Trump on social media said the FBI secretly placed 274 agents into the crowd of rioters who stormed the Capitol to disrupt the certification of Biden's victory, which of course is all bullshit. Andy and I are going to cover this in depth on the next Unjustified. But those 274 FBI agents were there to. To stop people from murdering cops.

B (6:42)

Yeah. And hanging the Vice President of the United States. I hope they sue. I really do hope they sue. This ha. There has to be a case here.

A (6:49)

I don't know.

B (6:51)

This is from the Associated Press. The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling because they're all for racism. Apparently right now in the FBI, they are firing agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapol officers. Three people familiar with the matter. That's what they said on Friday. The Bureau last spring had reassigned the agents for kneeling, but has since fired them. This is what people have said, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personal matters with the Associated Press. The number of FBI employees, by the way, terminated, it wasn't immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20.

A (7:30)

Now, this is a lawsuit because that's First Amendment protected speech, unless they were on duty in their FBI windbreakers.

B (7:38)

And I seriously doubt that kneeling during.

A (7:41)

A protest, like, holding a sign saying, I represent the FBI, you know, like, yeah, that's First Amendment protect. That's an ACLU type case. And so I hope that they also sue for wrongful termination there. And Andy and I are going to go in depth on that as well. Plus, we're going to cover the firing of Beckwith for Michelle Beckwith. For 15 years, she oversaw some of the toughest federal prosecutions in California. She went after transnational terrorists, sex traffickers and the Aryan Brotherhood. And she became the Acting U.S. attorney in sacrament this year when her boss, the Biden appointee, stepped down in January. But her career crumbled in July. And that's what she said after she issued a warning to Gregory Bovino. That's the face of Trump's immigration crackdown in California. You know that macho maga dickhead.

B (8:31)

Yep, yep.

A (8:31)

The one that's always wearing his vest. We're going to get rid of the trash. That's the guy, by the way, who lied in court that got that other guy acquitted for attacking an ICE officer, because the ICE Officer act, that's the same fucking guy. They flew him out from Chicago where he was terrorizing the neighborhoods to LA on your tax dollars to have him testify in a misdemeanor trial, by the way. And he lost the jury, acquitted, and he lied to the court. That's that fucking dickhead. So she issued a warning to him and then she was fired. The dismissal of Beckwith appeared to be an early example of how Trump has fired top federal prosecutors who did not help carry out his political agenda. And again, Andy and I are going to go over that in more detail, the next Unjustified podcast.

B (9:21)

All right, and we've got one from NBC. The Department of Justice has issued a subpoena for records related to travel history of Fani Willis, because she is next on their target list. And this is, as we know, the Georgia District attorney who charged Trump in an election interference case in 2023 when he needed. Those 11,000 VOT sources all told this to the Department of Justice on their actions, and it's confirmed by NBC. Alison, you and Harry are probably gonna go over this, I would imagine, on cleanup on aisle 45 podcast next week.

A (9:50)

Yes, yes. This would. Yeah, just in a couple days. Yeah.

B (9:52)

Okay, fantastic. I can't wait to hear more about this. But, man, oh, man. Everybody, Everybody.

A (9:59)

Yeah, he's actually gone after Lisa Monaco, too. He put out a tweet. And some friends of mine who uncovered some dishy stuff going on over at the DHS website are actually deleting documents and possibly fabricating evidence against former DHG Lisa Monaco. So we'll keep an eye on that story. I know I just mentioned it real quick. I'll probably. In, like, two weeks when this all goes down. I'll probably be like, when did I mention that it was.

B (10:24)

Yep.

A (10:25)

Monday, September 29th. And so, yeah, we're definitely going to cover that Fani Willis stuff. Harry and I on a. On cleanup. And we're also going to cover Rudy Giuliani settling Dominion's lawsuit against him for defamation surrounding the 2020 election. All right, Rudy was also just ordered to pay his lawyer, Costello, $1.6 million. Costello was the guy who testified during the Stormy Daniels trial and was a complete dick, and everybody hated him.

B (10:52)

Oh, boy.

A (10:53)

Remember, he was, like, there to try to discredit Michael Cohen's testimony, but he got up and rolled his eyes, and the judge was like, dude, shut up or I'm gonna strike your whole testimony. That guy, that's Rudy's lawyer. He owes him $1.6 million. So that's fun. And we're going to cover that, too. All right, we have more news to get to, but we have to take a quick break. Everybody, stick around. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. All right, everybody, welcome back. It's time for the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up, from the Associated Press. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he's going to send troops to Portland, quote, authorizing full force if necessary, unquote, to handle domestic terrorists as he expands his deployments to more American cities. He made the announcement on social media writing that he was directing the Department of Defense, which he called the Department of War, to, quote, provide all necessary troops to protect war ravaged Portland.

B (11:54)

Whatever.

A (11:55)

Now, when I first read that, I just. I read I saw war ravaged Poland because Portland just doesn't make sense in my brain, right? And so. But that's not right. And I looked and I'm like, portland, Portland. Portland, Oregon. Portland, Oregon. Like, I couldn't. You know, it was. It was so nonsensical that it took me a minute. Now, Trump said the decision was necessary to protect ICE facilities which he alleges are under attack, under siege by antifa and other domestic terrorists. It's not. The White House did not immediately respond to request. Portland's mayor, Democrat Keith Wilson, said there's no need for troops here. Quote, our nation has a long memory of acts of oppression, and the president will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it himself. He said that's exactly it. That's exactly what he's doing. I'm glad the mayor came out and said that. Ahead of all this, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell says the Department of Defense would provide information and updates when available. Quote, we stand ready to mobilize the US Military personnel in support of Department of Homeland Security operations in Portland at the president's direction. That is an unlawful order, sir. But Governor Tina Kotak, a Democrat, she says there's no national security threat here in Portland. Now, I think this is related to the flag officer meeting somehow tomorrow in Quantico. The Post reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered, you know, hundreds of generals to travel, but apparently a little more information. He wants to make a short speech on military standards and the warrior ethos, just like we talked about. That's according to multiple people familiar. Now, Hegseth's orders, which were sent earlier this week to senior generals and admirals worldwide, require anyone in a command position with the rank of one star general, rear admiral or above, as well as their senior enlisted leaders, to be at Marine Corps University at Quantico in Virginia on Tuesday. Exceptions will be granted only on a rare basis with approval from top military officials. And news is just coming down now. Apparently Trump didn't know about this and just found out, and now he wants to go.

B (14:00)

Yeah. And this is what I see happening just very quickly. Like, we're in a situation where Kegseth and Trump are doing stuff that's unconstitutional and, you know, putting people in danger, sending out classified information, but everyone's licking their ass. Oh, it's okay. It's okay. We're gonna protect you. Yeah. They're so smart. You're so smart. This is a great meeting. You're so smart. Your hair looks amazing. You're doing wonderful, Mr. President. And they're giving them this false sense of ego and that they're fucking rocking it. And then Trump's going to places like the United nations and spewing bullshit, and these word leaders are looking at him like he's an absolute idiot. The same thing's going to happen with Kegseth. He's going to walk into that room thinking he can talk to them. Like he's talking to whoever these yes men are for him, and they're going to look at him like, you're a fucking drunk idiot.

A (14:42)

I just.

B (14:43)

They are giving them this weird, false sense of, like, inflated ego that they're taking out into the world. And it's embarrassing, right?

A (14:50)

Yeah. Like, you think it's. It's like a friend of mine who's a comedian knew this CEO guy who thought he was funny. And he would tell the CEO, rich, super rich billionaire, would tell his jokes and everybody around him, all of his yes men, would laugh at his jokes. But then when he got out into regular actual people scenarios and told his jokes, everyone's like, that's not funny.

B (15:11)

Exactly.

A (15:11)

And he was like, no, these are funny. Everybody laughs at my jokes. They're like, no, you're just. My friend, Tambor told him. He's like, no, you're just really rich. And nobody. Everybody's afraid to tell you that you chose.

B (15:21)

That's exactly it.

A (15:22)

And that's what's happening because Trump's going out telling all this to the people. Your countries are going to hell. Your borders. Billions of people poor again. It's God's hand.

B (15:32)

Redo the UN I was going to get you tile and now you're walking on travesty or whatever the he called it, because it wasn't travertine. Anyway. All right, we're going to keep on moving because this story is also bananas. The superintendent of Iowa's largest school district has been arrested by the federal immigration authorities. Des Moines Public School confirmed Friday afternoon that Superintendent Dr. Ian Roberts was detained by ICE. At the time, DMPS said it had not confirmed any information as to why Roberts is even being detained. He's being held at the Woodbury County Jail. That's according to the records from ICE. Shortly before 3pm Friday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that ICE agents had taken Roberts into custody during a targeted enforcement operation. That's what they're calling it. These targeted enforcement operations are just basically a wide net. Let's see who we get. According to dhs, ICE officers approached Roberts and his vehicle and Roberts sped away, later abandoning his vehicle near a wooded area. Well, this led to an extensive search of the area in and around Ewing Trace Mobile Home park in Des Moines, south side. Federal agents and law enforcement were in the area of the mobile home park for several hours. DHS called, requested mutual aid support from the Iowa State Patrol, which helped assist in locating Roberts. DHS says that Roberts was in possession of a loaded handgun and $3,000,000 in cash and a fixed blade hunting knife. This really is a crazy story. And this is wild. Yeah. The suspect was arrested in possession of a loaded weapon in a vehicle provided by Des Moines Public Schools after fleeing federal enforcement. This is from ICE, ERO St. Paul Field Office Director, Sam Olsen. Okay. So Sam went on to say, this should be a wake up call for our communities to the great work that our officers are doing every day to remove public safety threats. How this illegal alien, their words, not ours, was hired without work authorization. A final order of removal and prior weapons charges beyond comprehension and should alarm the parents of that school district. The district says Roberts underwent a comprehensive background check by Baker Eubanks before taking over in 2023. During the hiring process, Roberts made the board aware of a firearms charge related to a hunting rifle and provided, and I quote, sufficient context and explanation to move forward. They were okay with it. Roberts was licensed by the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners. That's according to the district. However, the district says it's not. It didn't have any knowledge that an immigration judge issued a final order of removal to Roberts in May of 2024, which ICE claimed in a news release. Okay. The district also says it has a policy against weapons in school grounds or any school related activities. DHS officials claim a gun was found in Robert's vehicle, a vehicle that was provided him by the district. Now, the board will have a special session Saturday to discuss the matter in a close session. So this is a crazy story. We're going to see what happens. You know, we're going to keep you apprised by all of this.

A (18:36)

Yeah. And a lot of this might have to do with the election of another person in the state. And I, you know, I. I just can't take what DHS and ICE says at face value.

B (18:47)

No.

A (18:48)

Or the FBI for that matter. But, yeah, especially ice. They've lied to court faces, to juries, to judges. So I'm gonna wait and see what kind of actual evidence they have. So. All right. This is from Wired. This is a supremely fucked up story. In the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing, the Republican policy apparatus went immediately to work. The Heritage foundation, which published Project 2025 and its spinoff, the Oversight Project, issued a call for the FBI to designate, quote, transgender ideology inspired violent extremism, or tive, as a domestic terrorism threat category. It doesn't exist. No. Now the push comes as Trump just signed an executive order that seeks to mobilize federal law enforcement against vaguely Defined domestic terror networks like Antifa. Now the Heritage foundation, an oversight project document which defines transgender ideology. So here's it. Here's the definition of what transgender idea I've been asking here. It is a belief that wholly or partially rejects fundamental science about human sex being biologically determined before birth, binary and immutable.

B (20:01)

That whole statement is bullshit.

A (20:07)

So transgender ideology is if you. If you are cool with people being who they are. Yeah.

B (20:14)

And believe in science and that there are not two gender. Well, gender is a social construct. But there's not even two designated sexes.

A (20:21)

What's next? Are we going to get arrested for having spherical globe ideology?

B (20:27)

I can't. This is so awful. Our trans community. I am so sorry they picked you as a scapegoat. It must be exhausting. We are doing everything we can to fight back against this.

A (20:38)

It gets worse. It gets worse. So that's what they define it as. And they say it's grounds. That grounds its policy recommendations as a starting claim. Quote, experts estimate. This is their claim. Experts estimate 50% of all major non gang related school shootings since 2015 have involved or likely involved transgender ideology.

B (20:58)

Oh my God. That's not true. It's been like four in. I don't know, thousands.

A (21:03)

Oh, I'll. We'll get to it. Yeah, we'll get to it here. Because when Wired asked for the data behind this claim in the oversight project, the oversight project didn't respond. And the Heritage foundation pointed to a tweet from one of its vice presidents, Roger Severino, claiming that 50% of major non gang school shootings since 2015 involve transgender shooter or trans related motives. That's the. They just. Here's our proof. It's a tweet from this guy. Severino also lays out what appears to be his entire data set. Eight shootings, four of which he claims involve a trans identifying shooter and or likely a trans ideology related motivation.

B (21:41)

So he took eight shootings. Eight. Because there's only been four trans identifying shootings. He took eight shootings and said 50% of them. Didn't even take into account all the thousands of other shootings. I just. It makes my blood boil.

A (21:56)

Oh yeah, he just changed the denominator.

B (21:59)

Yeah.

A (22:00)

It's the same way that they're saying that ICE assaults have gone up 417%. It's because there were eight over a four year period and now there's 26 over the next four year period. Right. But in this case he's just. Instead of taking the actual number of school shootings he's just decided that there's been only eight.

B (22:23)

Yeah.

A (22:24)

And in his world of eight, four of them, the four are motivated by people. Trans ideology. The data obviously tell a different story. Since 2015, at least four dozen shootings have taken place on school grounds. That's according to data from the K to 12 school shooting database, which is really fucking sucks that we have to have a K through 12 school shooting database, which has tracked every incident involving a gun on school grounds since 1966. Only three perpetrators in the database, the 2019 shooter at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado and the Covenant School shooter in Nashville in 2023, among them, have been credibly identified in public reporting as transgender or undergoing gender affirming care. Nashville police concluded the shooter there was not motivated by a clear political or ideological agenda, but prioritized notoriety and infamy. In Colorado, investigators say of the shooters, a transgender boy cited bullying, long standing mental health struggles as motivations. In an August shooting, a 23 year old individual opened fire outside the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. The shooter had legally changed their name and written about conflict over gender identity, but there's no public evidence that they consistently identified as transgender, making classification uncertain. Police say the attack was fueled by hostility toward Jews, Christians and minorities, along with a quest for notoriety. Prosecutors added the animus was sweeping, saying the shooter, quote, expressed hate towards almost every group imaginable. The K12 database, the most comprehensive of its kind, does not include gender Data for about 12.5% of school shooters since 2015, which only makes it more difficult to draw firm conclusions about broader patterns. Other mass school shootings, including Parkland in 2018 and Uvalde in 2022, were carried out by young men with histories of grievance, misogyny or violent ideation. None were tied to transgender ideology. The larger pattern, researchers say, points in the opposite direction. This is what you're talking about. Dana White. Supremacist, anti government misogynist beliefs account for the lion's share of ideologically motivated gun violence. Targeting transgender ideology as a terrorism category, they warn, confuses identity with ideology. It risks licensing violence against anyone who defies gender norms, and it shifts attention away from the real drivers of schoolyard violence. Quote, there are no legitimate studies that suggest that a majority of school shootings since 2015 involve transgender people. That's Rachel Carroll Rivas and R.G. cravens of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. Quote, trans people are far more likely to be victimized by gun violence than to perpetrate it. There have been 74 total active shooter incidents since 2015. Of those, three of the perpetrators have identified as transgender, according to Reedman's data. Data collected by the Gun Violence Archive shows there were 5,748 mass shootings at any location in the US between January 1, 2013 and September 15, 2025. Of those 5,748, five of the shooters identified as transgender people, non binary or having undergone gender affirming care. Dana, that's less than.087%.

B (25:45)

Yes, it is. Not even 1%.

A (25:48)

In other words, Heritage's 50% claim is not just unsupported, it's misleading by design. It's arbitrary in scope and unscientific at its core. Heritage reaches its 50% figure by shrinking the universe of school shootings to a hand picked few. Severino first rules out incidents rooted in crime, personal disputes or workplace grievances. He then defines major school shootings as those he says are intended to send a public message. Applying those filters, Heritage crops down the decades worth of incidents into fewer than 10 cases, a sample small enough that even a few shooters with one or two shared traits can be made to look like half. Broader databases, which count school shootings by more consistent criteria, show dozens of incidents each year and make it clear that Heritage's figures rest on a frame built to exaggerate, not measure. To reflect a narrative, not reality.

B (26:43)

Thanks so much, Allison. And I'm telling you, the more we can dispel these lies publicly. If you feel safe doing it, doing it. Now is the time to speak out in support for our trans community with the fervor that we did for Jimmy Kimmel. And I'm not kidding. Now is the time. I do have some better news from the independent, newly created YouTube accounts for the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and far right commentator Nick Fuentes. They were both taken down hours after their creation, despite anticipation that the platform would begin reinstating banned accounts. I know we're bringing back heads. Way too fucked up. And I quote, the censorship war is still in what it looks like. This is Brianna Morello of Jones's Infowars network said in a video on Thursday. They're trying to stop Infowars. They're trying to stop Alex Jones. He shouldn't even fucking have Infowars anymore. It should be owned by all of the parents of the Sandy Hook victims. And he says sounds a little ridiculous. This is Fuentes. That's what he wrote on Twitter. Can't we just have free speech? Go fuck yourself, man. I've been banned since February 2020 when I was 21 years old. Many on the right, by the way, speech.

A (27:53)

It's the free speech bullshit. The government. When the government infringes, like Brandon Carr, the FCC chair, that is a violation of your First Amendment rights. When YouTube, a private company, says nah bro, you can't be a Nazi on that is their free speech. Yes to stop doing it now.

B (28:11)

Many on the right have been expecting a flood of reinstated accounts in the coming days. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, he shared a letter earlier this week from YouTube's parent company where Alphabet said it would give creators who were banned for repeat violations of COVID 19 and elections related content policies that are no longer in effect the chance to rejoin. That's very specific. Fuentes and Alex Jones are far out of those categories. Jordan, appearing to overstate the extent of the company's commitments, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday the change would offer all creators previously kicked off YouTube due to political speech violations to return to the platform. That wasn't true, YouTube wrote on Twitter on Thursday. The reinstatement effort hadn't begun yet. They said we terminated these channels as it's still against our rules for previously terminated users to start new channels. That's according to the company. The pilot program for terminations that many people have been referencing this week isn't available yet. Jim Jordan and will be a limited. They didn't say that limited pilot program to start. We'll have more on how the program's going to work, who is eligible and how creators can access it soon. Jones and Fuentes may not be eligible to rejoin under the program even when it does get going.

A (29:25)

No, because like sure, you can go ahead and talk about COVID bullshit now. You can go ahead and talk about the 2020 election now you still can' do the other stuff that you say.

B (29:36)

No. Jones was taken off of YouTube prior to the pandemic, by the way, in 2018 because he violated the the hate speech and child endangerment rules to YouTube. And Fuentes, by the way, was banned in 2020 also for hate speech. Nothing to do with COVID 19.

A (29:53)

Yeah. And by the way, Jim Jordan, it was Fuentes who was calling for the for people to go after put an army together and go after Charlie Kirk. So it's weird to me that I'm not allowed to say I quote Charlie Kirk directly after his death. Otherwise I'm doing a hate speech. Right, but you want the head of the groipers who literally put an army together to go after Charlie Kirk to be back on YouTube. Yeah, but Jimmy Kimmel can't stay on the air because. Okay, you know what? I should know better than to look for logic.

B (30:28)

You'll never have it.

A (30:29)

I'll never have it.

B (30:30)

You'll never have it.

A (30:31)

All right, everybody, your good trouble is gonna be first up in the good news, and after this break, you'll hear the first half of the Simon Rosenberg interview from the Hopium Chronicles. So stick around. We'll be right back. Oh, hey, we're live.

B (30:43)

Hi, everybody.

A (30:44)

My name is. We never know when it's gonna, like, go live, so we're always kind of in the middle of a conversation when this happens, but. Welcome to mullershireroute.com and welcome to Simon Rosenberg, who writes for the Hopium Chronicles, who. Whenever I need a jolt of facts and reality about some of the good things that are happening and the wins that we are seeing, I always share widely his writings and his musings and some of the things that he covers, and so I'm really, really excited. I don't think we've ever done an interview.

C (31:15)

No. And listen, you know, I view we were talking earlier that you're, like, one of my Internet friends, right. That during the course of this journey we've been on over the last 10 years, I have probably reposted hundreds or thousands of things that you've written or tweeted or blue sky or whatever. So it's just great to be here with you. Not really in person, but at least in the same feed. And so it's just great to hang out. So thank you for the invitation, Allison.

A (31:44)

Yeah. And, like, right back at you, because I know that. I know what it's like to want to highlight wins that we've seen over the last decade and how once you do that, you can sometimes be overwhelmed with negative messaging. I. At one point, I'm one of the most blocked people on social media because people can't stand my. Somebody once put it as a How I command an army of flying hope monkeys that I send out into the. Into the. Into the Internet, the media sphere. And somebody actually, somebody who listens to the daily beans, actually made me a cross stitch of me and my flying. I thought I'd share that.

C (32:42)

That's pretty amazing. By the way, I get things from my audience. I'm not. I have a. This drawing of my dog Tug, who recently passed away, but he. You know, that came from my audience, but I haven't gotten anything about hope monkeys, you know, so maybe. Maybe someday there's hope for me. Too.

A (32:59)

Well, there has to be a reason you named your TikTok the Hopium Chronicles, right?

C (33:03)

Yeah. So let me. Let me just talk, since you've asked, and I haven't talked about this in a while. One of my sort of big insights of having, you know, I've been working full time in Democratic politics for over 30 years. I started my career as a TV producer and writer. So I grew up on the media side of the business, and I've always been sort of in the comms side of politics, is that I came to believe during the course of Trumpism that one of his central strategies and MAGA central strategies was to pump negative sentiment into our discourse every day and to make us feel bad about our country, our leaders, our institutions, each other, everything, right? Our economy, the American mission. And that we needed at a strategy level to respond to that negative sentiment by putting positive sentiment into the world, that it was actually not something we're doing because we just wanted to feel better, but because that negative sentiment was a precursor for Trump to push his radical politics. Because if everything is broken and the country's horrible and everything is terrible, and you hear him say this all the time, right? Everything is terrible. He got up at the UN this week and told every country in the world their countries are horrible, right? This is his. This is a precursor for him to then have radical solutions like ending American democracy and installing himself as a dictator if everything is broken and terrible. So we have to. When he talks down America, we need to talk it up. And. And this is not to make me feel better. This is how one of the essential tactics I think we have to deploy to beat him over time, because his representation. And the person who really first turned me on to this was Anne Applebaum. And Ann Applebaum in 2016, wrote a column or I saw her on TV. I don't remember talking about how Trump's speech at the Republican convention sounded as if it could have been written by Moscow, that all of the indictments, there was nothing uplifting about America. It was all the terrible things that we had done. And she was so shocked by it because it was such an UN American speech. And it was the beginning of me really starting to think about discourse, of us taking greater responsibility of managing our discourse, and that how specifically. And then she's since written about how the new strategy of authoritarians is not to tell you how good their countries are, but to tell you how bad yours is as a matter of strategy, to create, again, this kind of sense that we need something radically different than what we had. So I think Hopium is in part. And it really came about through Nate Silver in 2022, a week before the election, when I was saying that I thought the election was going to go better for us and there was going to be no red wave. He accused me of smoking Hopium and misleading the Democratic Party. And so when I founded my substacking community a few months later, I used that as a way of acknowledging that part of the project was to reject the bullshit and to reject the corruption of our information space and to be far more purposeful about lifting America up and lifting each other up than tearing us down as. As part of my central undertaking. And so that's the. I haven't really talked about this in a long time, but. But it, It's. That's part of the. Behind it. And so what I do every day, I write seven days a week, is that I try to stay very focused on not dwelling on all the terrible things that are happening. But what do we do to make it more likely that we can mitigate the damage and win back power? And that's what we're focused on in the Hopium community.

A (36:57)

Ah, Nate Silver. Yeah. He and I got into a little bit of a tussle when I pointed out that the Wall Street Journal poll, that many corporate media conglomerates and FiveThirtyEight, his podcast, were relying on about what the United States voters thought about Joe Biden and his age. That Wall Street Journal poll kicked off the push to get Biden out of the race. I noted that the pollster that did that poll is Fabrizio Lee, run by Tony Fabrizio. And if you'd like to go search, do a word search for Fabrizio in the Mueller report. You'll find that he comes up quite often in the Mueller Report.

B (37:52)

He.

A (37:52)

And so when I pointed that out, a lot of people, including Steve Kornacki and Nate Silver and Whoever hosts a FiveThirtyEight politics podcast, I can't remember their names. It's not. Nate Silver himself called me out and said that I was ignoring reality. And again, smoking Hopium and not. First of all, I didn't reach out for comment at all.

C (38:17)

No, that's not the style.

A (38:20)

They just. They just dragged me on their. On their podcast.

C (38:24)

Yeah. Yeah.

B (38:25)

So that's my run in.

C (38:27)

Yeah. No, look, I think. I think that what there has been, you know, the fact that President Trump's pollster is, while he's working for Trump, does a poll that is considered to be independent is part of the Corruption of the, of the whole information space around polling. Right? I mean, what happened with the red wave in 2022 and why everyone got the election wrong was that independent polling showed the race close, but The Republicans dropped 50 of these very right wing polls that were far more Republican than the independent polling. And those got put into the polling averages and the polling averages then moved to the right. And so if you were just following the polling averages, you saw red waves. If you disaggregated those polls from the polling averages, the independent polls, you showed a close, competitive election. And so I had the audacity to dismiss 50 polls. That the way the system works, Right? Is that what Nate Silver was telling us at the time is that hey, even if these are Republican funded polls, you throw everything into the blender and it all comes out okay. But garbage in, garbage out, right? Like, you know, this was an attempt to game the polling averages. The same thing happened in 2024 instead of 50 polls, at 150 polls in 2024. And so like every other part of the information space that we live in now, polling and early vote data are contested spaces by the right where they use illicit tactics to gain advantage. I mean, this shouldn't be a big surprise. I mean, once you try to overturn the American government in 2021 and you know, throwing 50 right wing polls into the polling averages is like, you know, miniature golf compared to what Trump had done in 2021. Right. And so, but the polling industrial complex defends itself because so many people make money off of interpreting this stuff. And so of course the poll averages can't be gamed and of course this isn't some kind of illicit plot. And Simon, you sound like a paranoid, you know, leftist and you know, you're not, not living in reality. And we even had it just happen this week. Let me just go through this, right, so in New Jersey, there have been, in Mikey Cheryl's race, there have been six public polls taken in the last few weeks. She's up by an average of 8 points in those polls. The data is very consistent. It hasn't, doesn't. It's all the same kind of basic data. She's up in the high 40s, he's in the low 40s. And then yesterday a poll dropped from Emerson, which used to be an independent pollster, but which is now on the right wing polling gravy train that showed the race dead even. So instead of being up 8, and then the story was Mikey Sheryl struggling and falling and Citarelli is gaining and then I went and looked at it this morning and the poll was paid for by nexstar. Right, I know. And the people who are the anti Jimmy Kimmel, pro Trump, you know, media organization and the data. And it was implausible. It was just implausible. But because it gets amplified by the right, all those other polls. And yesterday there was another poll released by a right wing pollster that had the race plus seven for Sheryl. So this is an example of them gaming the information environment that we live in. Right. To make us weak and make them strong, which is the whole Trump thing. Right. Trump in my view, has this kind of one prism that he sees politics which is that he's strong, we're weak, he's winning, we're losing. You know, he's successful, we're failures, he's a hero, we're villains. And so part of what we have to do is we have to flip that on him and we have to make him weak and us strong and we have to make him a loser and us winners and him a failure and us successful and him a villain and us heroes. Right? The way I and Hopium I call him, you know, not a strong man, but a big blubbery baby man, you know, is this line that we use. And, and so part of this is, is understanding the way they do politics and getting ahead of it and trying to anticipate it. So it's a long about story saying that this, all the Hopium thing came about as somebody who had been doing press and media in national politics, grew up as a journalist, that I felt something had changed in the information space where when Republicans spoke, they were more credible and when we spoke our stuff was more dismissed. That when they, their strengths were being overestimated and ours underestimated. And this is different than what it was six years ago, eight years ago, 10 years ago. There's been a change. And some of this is just the loudness and effectiveness of the right wing noise machine, just putting tremendous downward pressure on the legacy media every day. And in 2022, basically they bullied their way into this red wave narrative which was false and everybody fell for it. And that's why I shut down the organization I was running at the time called NDN, which I had started 27 years ago. It's like a private think tank for the Democratic Party. And I moved my work to substack because I wanted to reach more people and use this new media myself. Not to talk about it, but do it myself. Right. And so I founded Hopium with the idea being that we were in an increasingly adversarial information space and that we needed to be more purposeful about challenging it. And that's what I try to do seven days a week.

A (44:04)

Yeah. And we thank you for it. And you know, you're right. This is part of the propaganda. It's part of the authoritarian playbook to make everything miserable and say I alone can fix it. And then to come out with all of these right wing polls is also part of the propaganda. Like I think Pete Buttigieg put it really well when he said, Donald Trump wants you to think he's way more popular than he is. And he doesn't want you to know that you have way more power, as much power as you do. And that's part of it since the beginning, since he lied about the inaugural crowd size lies about the landslide election that was won by a point and a half a mandate. Landslide. So that he can move forward with all of this. And the polling stuff was right there in front of our eyes in the Stormy Daniels case when they put up that crucial piece of evidence that showed pay Stormy Daniels 160,000 and pay what a lot of people didn't notice was a payout to a group called Redfinch for $50,000 that Donald Trump okayed. And only a couple of us were talking about the fact that that was a poll rigging payment. And I thought that that was, you know, kind of a story, but nobody seemed to really want to run with it.

C (45:23)

Well, because it was early. Right. It's before we all came to kind of understand, you know, I have friends who polled in the third world and these kinds of fake polls are much more common outside of the, you know, the Anglophone countries. Right. Where and you know, where people dump fake polls and then they use them to influence the coverage of races. And so that's. Come here. That's part of our system now. We have to be wise about it. But I will say, I mean, going back to what you said earlier is that Trump's, the Trump's drop in polling this year has been staggering. And it is. I still, as somebody who's been studying polling for over 30 years, I'm still amazed how far he's fallen, given their information superiority over us. Right.

A (46:11)

Yeah. Thinking that it's probably worse than it's being presented for him.

C (46:15)

Right. And it, and it is, it is, it's comprehensive. It's across the board. By some measures, he's now more unpopular than he was eight years ago. And remember, he got you know, he got. And why that matters is that he only got 46% of the vote eight years ago. He got 50 this time. So the fact that he's underneath where he was eight years ago means that he's fallen much further. You know, he's fallen and by huge double digits of young people and Hispanics and moderates and independents and people making less than $50,000 a year. And on the thing that is the number one issue in the country, which is affordability and prices, he's down minus 30, minus 35. And so structurally, he's in deep shit, right? The country has rejected him. And what's important, Alison, getting back to the way that you were talking about this earlier, is that part of his impotency, right? Because you know, of all the things that Donald Trump would never want to be as impotent, right, and to have the sense of his powers ebbing is that they've been unable to stop this decline. And that what happened is this decline began in June when Elon spent three days attacking him on Twitter, breaking into the right wing MAGA bubble, emasculating Trump. You know, which is really what that was about. Trump was emasculated, right, by Elon Musk. He even raised the issue of him getting replaced by J.D. vance. And Trump has been steadily dropping since then. And what happened is within 48 hours of Elon finishing his three day attack on Trump, we had LA happen, the invasion of LA, right? So Trump has tried all these spectacular things to regain his, his manliness and his power and his strength. He's bombed Iran, he's passed the big ugly bill, he's invaded two cities, right? He's fired people, he's now indicted Comey. And all of this, I think, is being driven to some degree by this psychological need that he has to feel powerful when he isn't feeling powerful and his powers are ebbing. I think he is in significant cognitive and physical decline. I think this is no longer. I think it's not even really an open question anymore. And so he's responding to that, unfortunately for all of us. I mean, the way I lined, I use this today at Hopium, is that like, we're all battered wives, that he came home from having like one of the worst weeks and he beat us all up by putting tariffs on us and going after Comey and escalating his attacks on his opposition and that, you know, he takes out his, you know, his disappointments on all of us and on the country and, and because he is not governing for us or with us, but against us now. Right. He, his, his administration is in opposition to the American people and the American way of life. His economic strategy has hurt us. He's attacking our healthcare system. He's dismantling the best biomedical research, you know, ecosystem in the world. You know, you go through all that, he's made us a laughingstock around the world. He's put tariffs on countries all over the world which are alienating consumers and governments in ways that are going to have generational impact, multi generational impact on our standing in the world. He's like a wrecking ball in American society and our country. And the thing is, the American people are figuring this out, and that's where he's in trouble. Right. Is that people have come to realize, I think, two things in polling in the last few weeks. One is they know he's doing incredible harm, harm to the economy and their own lives. But the other thing that has really spiked in polling, Allison, and you'll appreciate this, is questions around threat to democracy. Those were very secondary questions two months ago, three months ago. They now have moved way up in polling just in the last two weeks. Since the Charlie Kirk, the aftermath, their escalation after the Charlie Kirk. Kirk. The tragic killing of Charlie Kirk, there's been a huge spike in concern around threats to democracy, as there should be. And I think this is going to push. This is part of what pushed Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer to be more aggressive in confronting Trump. Right. Because they realized that the American people wanted them to do it, and it gave them permit permission to do it. And, you know, I'm really proud of them. I mean, I think we're in the fight now that many of us wanted to have with Trump. And it took us a while and probably a lot later than many of us wouldn't have wanted, but we're here now, and we need to go win it.

A (50:49)

I'll be on board with you after I see what happens with the continuing resolution, because I didn't agree with what happened with it last time, but there is movement, right, when we use our collective voice. We took, for example, Gavin Newsom, from hosting Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast and throwing the trans community under the bus to stopping all of that, standing up, putting on the boxing gloves, lacing them up, getting in the ring and fighting with Prop 50. And by the way, the amazing woman running his social media account is pretty fantastic, too. So, also, I think you're right. I think Jeffries and Schumer are hearing the people say, stand up, fight for us. Go to bat for us. Even if you lose that, we just want to see you get in the fight. You know, you, you, you lose it 100% of the shots you don't take, right? Y everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news?

B (51:49)

Everyone. Then good or near good news.

A (52:06)

And if you have any little bit of good news that you'd like to share with us so that we can all sort of live vicariously through your tiny little bit of good news and microdose some hope here in these dark fascist times, please overwhelm us with your good news. Even if it's old good news. Even if, like it's pre pandemic good news, send it to us because we would love to read about it. You can also send a shout out to a loved one, kid, parent, spouse, partner, small business in your area that you think could use a boost or. Or a nonprofit whose work you love. A self shout out. We love self shout outs. Shout out to a government program that's helped you or a loved one. We would love to hear about that. And all you got to do to get your good news read on the air is pay your pod pet tariff, which means show us a picture of your pet. If you have a shelter pup and you want us to guess the breeds, we can try. We're not very good, but it's fun anyway. If you don't have a pet, send an adoptable pet in your area. If you don't have that, really just grab an animal photo off the Internet. That will work for your pod pet tariff. Or I'll take bird watching photos, which is, you know, either a bird or you and your family and friends flipping the bird to Trump or Musk. And then of course. And it could be their buildings too. It does. Or a Tesla thing. It doesn't have to be to their faces. I know it's hard to get an audience with either one of those douchebags right now. And then, of course, any photos of what you're making or creating. If you're crocheting, painting, knitting, something to pass the time between now and 2029. We would love to see that too. Send it all to us dailybeanspod.com click on Contact. Our first submission is our good trouble for the and our good trouble comes from Tucker Pronouns he and him. Having found myself to be the only news junkie at my job, I bet this happens to a lot of people. Dana.

B (53:44)

I bet it does too.

A (53:45)

Or somebody like I'll be out just in about, and somebody will be like, hey, have you heard about the thing? And I'll be like, well, actually, yes. And I go on for like 30 minutes. And they're like, okay, no, I was really just making small talk, you weird lady. So I imagine this happens to a lot of folks.

C (54:00)

But.

A (54:00)

But Tucker says I'm frequently confronted with a situation where if I attempt to point out that we now have a fascist government, people look at me like I have three heads. I think I've hit upon a solution, though, that will not only help my co workers grasp what's going on, but will also prevent management from getting any independent thought alarms from me. I'm going to subscribe to the Dead Tree version of the Onion and everybody what he means by the dead Tree version? The Onion actually puts out a paper, a physical paper, it being America's finest news source. And leave issues in the break room at work. Since it's a humor publication, folks will be more inclined to pick it up and look at it than they would if it were a traditional newspaper. And I don't have to worry about losing my job for leaving political materials around. For my pet tax. Here's a pic of my bestest buddy all snug in a blanket. I'm sure you remember him. He's Professor Fuzznuts Jr. Yes, and he's the kind of cat that knows just how adorably cute he is and uses it to get away with just whatever he wants. Tucker, Me too. I know I do that. But seriously, what a cute, adorable kitten. And I love this good trouble. If you're in an office, subscribe to the Dead Tree Onion and leave it around.

B (55:13)

Why not do it? All right, this next one's from Jay and I love this submission pronouns he and him. Hello beans Queens. After listening to Friday's show, I thought you and the rest of your listeners might enjoy this YouTube video that shows you how to make a tinfoil hat. That there's going to be a link in the show notes if you missed that episode. Allison and I, we keep going down conspiracy theories and we definitely need a tinfoil hat on some days.

A (55:36)

Yep.

B (55:36)

Yep. For my pot pet tariff, I'm attaching a picture of our 16 year old kitty, Amelia inside our stereo.

A (55:43)

Cat Amelia.

B (55:44)

I know.

A (55:44)

Are we releasing the Amelia files? The Amelia Earhart files?

B (55:48)

I know. Give me a break. And turned young. I can't. With them. I can't. And her younger sister Quinn, who is now almost 14. When they were just a tad younger cats, they were Both obsessed with the Cabinet for several years. Such weirdos. Keep doing the good work you're doing as it helps keep us informed without losing our minds.

A (56:08)

Yeah, My friend was like, wrong files. The Amelia Earhart files. Another friend was like, unless Amelia Earhart crashed on Epstein Island, I don't give a shit.

B (56:20)

That is hilarious.

A (56:22)

That was a great joke. Look at this beautiful kitty. Hi, Amelia, though. So great. And look at the other guy. So perfect. That's some old stereo equipment. Nice. All right, next up from Linda. Oh, another tinfoil hat pronoun. She and her. On Friday, A.G. and Dana talked about having a tinfoil emoji. Well, I don't have one of those, but I do have to share as pod pet tax. My sweet girl, Ruby. I came home from work and walked in on her watching Fox News with this shiny new accessory. Good girl, Ruby. Oh, look at this tinfoil hat. I love how all tin like the. The Aristotle. Perfect form of the tinfoil hat is that point that comes down the front and the funnel tip at the top.

B (57:06)

I which exactly what this is. It's amazing.

A (57:09)

Yeah, that's like what I envision when I envision a tinfoil hat. I wonder who came up with that first. Where is that from? If anybody knows the origin of the most common shape of tinfoil hat, I would love to know it.

B (57:23)

All right, this next one's from an anonymous person pronoun. She and her hi beans Queens. I've been listening for a few years now. Keeps me sane. Ish. Thank you. I'd like to give a shout out to a friend of mine in Portland, a city that a certain orange tinted someone describes as the hell on earth, who put an amazing collection of photographs into a book called Resist. His name is Kevin Ray. He's a great photographer. The book's proceeds, they're going to help support Cairo, which is C A I R O Academy, an African immigrant and refug center in Portland, Oregon, as it rebuilds its children's playground after recent devastating arson. Hate crime. Maybe that's who they need to be arresting the people, lighting fires to things like this. That was my input, not the person writing a review of this. And I quote, more than just a photography collection. It's a testament to the power of ordinary people fighting for justice and a reminder of the beauty that can emerge even in moments of unrest. And you can learn more about this. We're gonna have a link in the show notes. I can't wait to check this out because I love photography. For my pot pit tax, I give you Bella My Siamese rescue kitty as she silently judges me while daring me to give her some food as she can walk away from it. She is a diva. The silly furball showing his belly is Mr. Ziggy Stardust. Oh, my God, that's hysterical. Mr. Ziggy Stardust, adopted four months after Bella so she wouldn't be lonely. She hates him. He's an energetic kitten who loves snuggle time. Total goofball. They are both completely spoiled.

A (58:56)

Oh, my God, these cats. So she's the diva and he's the clown. Look at him. Yeah. Oh, my God, that's so funny. That book looks amazing. I'm definitely going to check that out. Really? Truly incredible, right?

B (59:07)

I know.

A (59:08)

What a cool thing to do. Take just, you know, get a cool camera, take some pictures at rallies and put a book together. I love that idea. I love that idea. All right, thank you for that. Next up, Melissa pronouns, she and her. Oh, my God, this dog. Good morning, ladies of the beans. Friends, I'd like to give a shout out to John Fugelsang's hair. My only exposure to the brilliant Mr. Fuglesang is through the Daily Beans. So I only knew his voice. I don't know if I'm the only one who hears it, but in my brain, he shares a remarkably similar speech cadence with Alan Alda. Yes, he does. He does. And I always pictured him as a dashing Hawkeye Pierce with bright eyes and thick, luscious hair. I paused the beans on Friday morning to pop over to YouTube and watch his interview on the Daily Show. And I gotta say, the locks did not disappoint. For my pipette tariff, I give you Piper. She's a rescue. I don't know for sure what she is, but according to the dog breed poster at the vets, I think she's at least mostly Norfolk terrier. Whatever she is, she's my little snuggle gremlin and gives me someone to talk to besides myself so I don't feel like I'm losing my mind. Thank you for bringing us the news with humor, compassion, and swearing. Melissa, I'm glad you got to see John Fugelsang's hair. Look at this baby.

B (60:21)

This is amazing. That dog is supes cute. Oh, my gosh.

A (60:24)

What a weird, cool dog.

B (60:26)

I know.

A (60:27)

I love unique dogs. Thank you for sending that in.

B (60:30)

All right, anonymous woman, no pronouns given. Hi, Ag. Thanks for the sanity and friendship you bring. Also, Dana, your last night, Thursday the 25th. Corrections made me think of this. A husband and a wife were driving through Louisiana as they approached Nachitoches. I know that I got corrected on that last time. I'm going to try it as Natchitoches. See if anyone says back. They started arguing about the pronunciation of the town. They argued back and forth. Then they stopped for lunch at the counter. The husband asked the blonde waitress, before we order, could you please settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are? Very slowly, she leaned over the counter and said, burger King. It's one of my favorite jokes. P.S. nachitoches. Otherwise, Nakatish. Wow. Hold on. Natchitish.

A (61:19)

Natchitoch.

B (61:22)

Wow. Both of us. Natchitish or dish? Natchitish. Natchitish. Although many people have their own versions of the same. I feel like a whole syllable disappeared, but, yeah, the same. Enjoy. Take care, Podtax. Here's one scene from the lake, from one of the bridges. So nakatote, I guess.

A (61:42)

Natchitoch.

B (61:43)

Okay, okay. I can understand now that I'm saying it.

A (61:46)

So the T and the C and the E, H and the S and the other T are silent.

B (61:52)

Yeah. There you go. Thanks, Allison. That actually made me feel less crazy. I appreciate that.

A (61:59)

Amazing. That's a beautiful photo, though. Yeah, a lovely area. All right, everybody, thank you so much for sending in your good news. Please send it all to us, all of your good news. We would love to see it. See pictures of your pets, maybe random animals on the Internet. We would love to have you share everything with us, maybe even if it's just what you think of, maybe John Feegle saying, sounding like Alan Alda and having amazing hair. Whatever it is, send it to us dailybeanspod.com, click on Contact. Do you have any final thoughts today, my friend?

B (62:26)

No, I do not.

A (62:27)

All right, everybody, please check out the latest Unjustified listen to Andy McCabe speaking out for the first time since the Comey indictment. You can hear it on our MSW Media podcast, but you can also watch it on YouTube over at the Midas Touch Network. I really appreciate you, you know, given Andy a chance to tell his side of the story for once. So we'll be back in your ears tomorrow, everyone. 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. I've been ag.

B (62:56)

I've been dg.

A (62:56)

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 Joel Reeder with Moxie Design Studio 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 mswmedia. Com MSW Media.