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The Daily Beans
Refried Beans | National Embarrassment (feat. Evan Sutton; Jon Cryer) | 3/26/2025
00:58:43
Wednesday, March 26th, 2025 One of the Venezuelan men deported to CECOT in El Salvador was a legal refugee; Trump has signed an executive order that will upend voter registration; members of Congress react to the Signal chat Yemeni war plans leak; a judge has enjoined Kari Lake from shuttering Radio Free Europe; American Oversight is suing members of the Signal chat for violations of the Federal Records Act; and Allison and Dana deliver your Good News.
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- [00:00]
Allison Gill
History is messy. It's weird, wild, and anything but boring. Rainy Day Rabbit Holes is a history podcast about unhinged stories that make you
- [00:09]
Dana Goldberg
stop and ask, wait, is this real life?
- [00:11]
Allison Gill
From crazy disasters and tasty scandals to enlightening and surprising, heartwarming tales, we explore the moments where people behave badly and sometimes beautifully. We've got naughty politicians, cultural chaos, and a deep love for the Pacific Northwest, including Bigfoot. It's thoughtful, irreverent, occasionally serious, and always entertaining. Let's fall down the rabbit hole. MSW Media. MSW Media. Hey, everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two, or three years ago, so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro.
- [01:07]
Jon Cryer
Refried beans.
- [01:08]
Evan Sutton
I like refried beans.
- [01:09]
Jon Cryer
That's why I want to try fried
- [01:10]
Allison Gill
beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're wasting time. Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Wednesday, March 26, 2025. Today, one of the Venezuelan men deported to sicot in El Salvador was a legal refugee. Trump has signed an executive order that will upend voter registration. Members of Congress are reacting to the Signal Chat. Yemeni war plans leak. A judge has enjoined Carrie Lake from shuttering Radio Free Europe, and American oversight is suing members of the Signal Chat for violations of the Federal Records Act. I'm Allison Gill.
- [01:58]
Dana Goldberg
And I'm Dana Goldberg. It is the taint of the week, and this is a horrible transition. I lost my dad 17 years ago today, and so I'm just sending a little shout out to my pop. I believe he's still looking over me, so I miss him. I keep him with me in my work, and I got half a sense of humor, so he thought he was the funniest guy in the room. My mom doesn't know how funny she is, so I feel like hopefully I'm a good balance of that.
- [02:25]
Allison Gill
I think you are, and I'm sure he is very proud of everything that you're doing.
- [02:29]
Dana Goldberg
Thank you, darling.
- [02:30]
Allison Gill
For today's good trouble, I'll be joined by Evan Sutton. He's a volunteer helping organize the nationwide Tesla takedown protests this March 29th, so that's cool. And then after that, I'm gonna be speaking with Jon Cryer about a new limited series podcast he's producing called the man who Calculated Death. It's a really fascinating limited series that's out from behind the paywall today. And so you can check that out again. It's called the man who Calculated Death. And Jon Cryer is one of my favorite people the world.
- [02:55]
Dana Goldberg
He's really wonderful. I mean, I'm a big fan of his art, you know, obviously his acting. But you know him off, off, off camera. And I know him obviously from his social media feeds. But he's, he's just a men, he's a good guy.
- [03:07]
Allison Gill
He really is. Also, Carrie Lake lost again today in court.
- [03:11]
Jon Cryer
Good.
- [03:12]
Allison Gill
She, I think she's the most losing person in court in the history of courts.
- [03:16]
Dana Goldberg
Second to Trump.
- [03:17]
Allison Gill
Yeah, Right. A federal judge has temporarily blocked her and Trump from moving to defund Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
- [03:24]
Dana Goldberg
Well, that is Good news. And U.S. district Judge and Judge Royce Lamberth found that the administration and Lake, who oversees U.S. agency for Global Media, that's the USAGM, which funds the radio station in Voice of America, which is voa. Well, they likely violated the law by attempting to terminate RFERL's funding and granted its request for a temporary restraining order. So lots of winning. So much winning.
- [03:51]
Allison Gill
Yes, indeed. And Judge Lamberth wrote, and I think he's a Trump appointee, he wrote in his decision that for 75 years, the government has specifically supported Radio Free Europe as a vehicle for providing, quote, trustworthy, locally relevant news to audiences subject to communist propaganda, unquote. Ah. So very interesting indeed. All right, we have a lot of news to get to everybody. Let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right. First up from the Hill, national security leaders use of signal to discuss plans for airstrikes in Yemen made for a contentious hearing Tuesday as Senate Intelligence Democrats excoriated the Trump administration and Trump administration officials for their carelessness. And chat participants denied discussing classified information. The Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe both denied sharing any classified material through the chat to which the Atlantic Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg had been inadvertently added. Now, it was an unusual twist for the Senate Intelligence Committee's annual worldwide threats hearing, which is designed to review the wide range of threats facing the United States. Now it's the United States
- [05:01]
Dana Goldberg
that is
- [05:01]
Allison Gill
one of the wide ranging threats. And while Republicans stuck to traditional topics, Democrats grilled the leaders over the group chat and questioned how any war plans wouldn't be considered classified.
- [05:13]
Dana Goldberg
It seems like a fair question. Yeah.
- [05:15]
Allison Gill
Hi. And at one point, Ratcliffe said no, he didn't agree with Senator John Ossoff's characterization of the matter as a huge mistake, prompting outrage from Democrats, quote, the unwillingness of the Individuals on this panel who were on the chat to even apologize or acknowledge what a colossal screw up this is speaks volumes. That's Senator Mark Warner, top Democrat on the panel. Warner, in a post on Twitter as the hearing began, called upon National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who was the one who added Goldberg to the group chat, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who shared war plans with the group, to resign over the apparent security breach. I'm glad there's a lot of Democrats now calling for their resignation. Good leader Hakeem Jeffries. The Trump administration has been vocal about its general plans to prosecute those who leak classified information. But President Trump has stood by Waltz and Hegseth so far. And during the several days that Goldberg observed the chat, he saw top Trump administration officials discussing sensitive plans about targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, including, quote, precise information about weapons packages, targets and timing, as well as the name of a CIA officer. Now, despite the nature of the conversations, both Gabbard and Ratcliffe repeatedly asserted the signal group chat did not contain classified information. Quote, senator, I'll reiterate, there was no classified material that was shared. That's what Gabbard said during a heated exchange with Senator Warner. Ratcliffe said the same in another line of questioning, saying, quote, I haven't participated in any signal group messaging that relates to any classified information at all.
- [06:45]
Dana Goldberg
That seems like a weird admission.
- [06:47]
Allison Gill
Yeah.
- [06:49]
Dana Goldberg
There's nothing we didn't know we didn't do. No, there haven't been others. None of them? No.
- [06:54]
Allison Gill
Never had sex with my wife's sister. What are you talking about?
- [06:56]
Dana Goldberg
Talking about. Jeez.
- [06:58]
Allison Gill
Still, he didn't. I just, you know, things that you admit that you.
- [07:02]
Dana Goldberg
You don't know. He didn't, but keep going.
- [07:03]
Allison Gill
It's true. It's very true. Still later in the hearing, Ratcliffe said discussions ahead of a decision to carry out a military action would need to be done through systems for discussing classified information. Quote, pre decisional strike deliberation should be conducted through classified channels. That's what this was. Ratcliffe. Multiple Democrats in the panel expressed disbelief that such discussions wouldn't include classified information and called for the two to share the contents of the messages. Quote, so if there's nothing classified, share it with the committee. You can't have it both ways. That's what Warner said, accusing Gabbard of bobbing and weaving and trying to filibuster your answer. Warner also noted Gabbard recently posted on social media about the administration's plans to prosecute those who leak national security information. Gabbard responded that, quote, there's a difference between inadvertent release versus careless and sloppy malicious leaks of classified information. Is that just sound like she's admitting that? It was.
- [07:57]
Dana Goldberg
Sure sounds like it. Yep. There's a difference because yet we leak classified information. It just is how we leaked it.
- [08:03]
Allison Gill
This is inadvertent release of not classified. Right.
- [08:08]
Dana Goldberg
Because none of that happened on this call. That's text, text change.
- [08:11]
Allison Gill
But the Espionage act, as we know because of the classified documents case, can be used to prosecute both intentional and unintentional sharing or retention of national defense information, a category that does not require such information to be classified. Warner set the tone for the Democrats from the start of the hearing, criticizing Trump officials for everything from the carelessness of including a journalist to flouting security protocols by using Signal to discuss a high stakes operation to the risks posed to service members had the details been intercepted by a foreign government. Quote, there's plenty of declassified information that shows that our adversaries, China and Russia are trying to break into encrypted systems. That's what Warner said, accusing the Trump administration of careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information. That is not a one off or a first time error. Quote, if this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer that had this kind of behavior, they'd be fired, he said. I actually, quote, tweeted him and, or quote, blue skyed him and said actually they'd be arrested, sir. Senator Michael Bennett called it disrespectful to rank and file intel officers, Quote, this sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. It's an embarrassment. Do better. You need to do better. Ossoff also criticized Gabbard and Ratcliffe while expressing dissatisfaction with some of their answers, implying that there will be consequences if they were being dishonest. Quote, this is utterly unprofessional. There's been no apology, there's been no recognition of the gravity of this error. And by the way, we will get the full transcript of this chain and your testimony will be measured carefully against its content.
- [09:46]
Dana Goldberg
I loved that moment, by the way.
- [09:47]
Allison Gill
So did I. Got a little chills now. At the start of the hearing, Gabbard declined to say whether she was in the TG referenced in the screenshots in the group chat posted in the Atlantic story, though Ratcliffe acknowledged he was in the group. Later in the hearing, Gabbard also said she was overseas during the time the group chat discussions were underway, but declined to say whether she participated in using her personal phone. Both Gabbard and Ratcliffe also at various turns, sidestepped questions about classification procedures, noting the role of the Department of Defense in classifying war plans. The Secretary of Defense, quote, is the original classification authority for DoD in deciding what would be classified information. That's what Ratcliffe said. No, that's not true. At another point, when Gabbard said she would defer to the Defense Department, she was chastised by Senator Angus King. Quote, you're the head of the intelligence community. You're supposed to know about classifications, he said. Ratcliffe also defended his use of the app, even though the CIA has warned staff that about the vulnerabilities of encrypted messaging platforms such as Signal. And some, including Ben Wittes at Lawfare, believe that because Gabbard and Ratcliffe insist that there's no classified material, that Jeffrey Goldberg should just release the Signal chat to the public. But others, like Asha Rangappa, remind us that the Espionage act doesn't prevent the release of classified information, just ndi national defense information. And releasing it could actually subject Goldberg to prosecution under the Espionage act, though the release is really the fault of the administration for including Goldberg in the chat to begin with.
- [11:18]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, I was listening to an interview with Trump, and he was like, well, I guess it was pretty boring because Goldberg went off the chat pretty quickly, so he must have been bored with it and then, of course, disparaged him and the publication and blah, blah, blah. But there's a related story here. This one's from HuffPost. A public watchdog group sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a slew of other Trump administration officials Tuesday after that journalist revealed he was inadvertently added to a text chain discussing US War plans. The lawsuit, brought by the watchdog group American Oversight, and first reported by HuffPost, request that a federal judge formally declare that Hegseth and other officials on the chat violated their duty to uphold laws around the preservation of official communications. Those laws are outlined in the Federal Records Act. And according to lawyers for American Oversight, if agency heads refuse to recover or protect their communications, the national archivist should ask the attorney General to step in. That's fucking terrifying, though, because AG's bambonding.
- [12:17]
Allison Gill
Yeah.
- [12:17]
Dana Goldberg
On Monday, the Atlantic's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, as we talked about, report that National Security Adviser Michael Walz inadvertently added him to that Signal Group chat with more than a dozen Trump administration officials and aides, including Vice President J.D. vance. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Adviser Steven Miller, and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. CIA Director John Radcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that he was also in that signal chat. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would not admit whether she was a participant, though Goldberg reported she was. Instead, she said the matter was, quote, still under review. What the fuck? And how mad do you think Elon Musk is that he wasn't part of this chat group? He's like, you guys have a chat group? As American oversight lawyers pointed out in their lawsuit Tuesday, Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States, and as such, quote, is aware of the violations that allegedly occurred. He's also, quote, responsible for initiating an investigation through, as I said, the Attorney General for the Recovery of Records or other redress. This is from the lawsuit. What. What are the beans that this shit? We lost the record. The text messages or they were erased? We don't know.
- [13:34]
Allison Gill
Yeah, well, Goldberg has them.
- [13:37]
Dana Goldberg
I sure hope. I hope he's already printed them out. By the way, Goldberg's article only shared a portion of the messages he received over two days because he's a good journalist and wasn't about to commit a fucking federal crime. Most of the texts were procedural and policy talk wrote. But that changed on March 15. The longtime journalist at Hegseth began to post war plans and discuss targets, weapons, other tactics, like attack sequencing for a US Strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Do you have any idea how much danger that puts our military in? Have this been someone else on the text chain?
- [14:09]
Allison Gill
Yeah, especially if you're, you know, Tulsi Gabbard, Putin's best buddy, wandering around in a signal chat with your private phone in a foreign land. No biggie. A week after the, you know, the NSA said, don't use signal susceptible to Russian attacks.
- [14:25]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, okay, let's use signal. The specific details, by the way, of the strike plans on March 15, they were excluded from Goldberg's report because he felt, like I said, that the information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, can conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East. Hegseth has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and denied that war plans, classified information were shared with reporter. However, the text chain, according to Goldberg, appears to undercut that. Now, at one point before the attack in Yemen, Hegseth proclaimed to Goldberg and other members in the chat that they were, quote, currently clean on opsec shorthand for operational security. American Oversight Executive Director Kioma Chukwo said the Atlantic report was deeply troubling on several levels. For one, it was reported that Wahls set up a feature to automatically delete some of the texts in the group chain. Now they were reportedly set to vanish after one week and in some instances four weeks. The auto delete feature, it's a commonly used function on Signal, but it's not a default. A user has to turn it on. The Federal Records act also specifically imposes a duty on agency heads to, quote, make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documents, documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures and essential transactions of the agency. This is all in the lawsuit. That means whether conversations on Signal were classified or not. Like Allison just said, there must be records management system in place and one that retains those records for up to two years as the National Archives and Records Administration requires. Just a week ago, the Pentagon issued a warning to all Defense Department employees about Signal, specifically saying that a, quote, vulnerability has been identified in the app. It just seems like a fucking setup that this has already been maybe broken into and that adding the journalists, now we at least know how fucking sloppy they are over there. Now NPR reported that Pentagon memo warned, quote, that Russian professional hacking groups are employing the, quote, linked devices features to spy on encrypted conversations. In that same alert issued on March 18, the Pentagon highlighted that while third party messaging apps like Signal are, quote, permitted by policy for unclassified accountability recall exercises, they are not approved to process or store non public unclassified information. And war plans are definitely non public, even if they're classified or unclassified. And we learned today that one of the members in the Signal chat was in Russia while they were communicating. Jesus fuck.
- [17:11]
Allison Gill
Yeah, yeah. And, and Donald Trump has put, by the way, put Mike Waltz in charge of investigating this, the guy who inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat.
- [17:21]
Dana Goldberg
I hope Goldberg has printed out everything because it's going to disappear.
- [17:24]
Allison Gill
I hope he's got a good lawyer to tell him what to do. I, if I would be handing all this stuff over to, you know, the Dems on the intel committees in Congress,
- [17:32]
Dana Goldberg
I would also get him protection because this is a little bit scary.
- [17:36]
Allison Gill
Yeah, totally. And next up, just as we suspected from the Miami Herald, Em and his girlfriend fled persecution in their native Venezuela in 2021 and dreamed of making a new life in the U.S. the young couple spent two years in Colombia before applying for refugee status in 2023 to come to the United States. Struggling to survive in Colombia they worked tirelessly in informal jobs, selling food on the streets, making deliveries to make ends meet. On January 8, they were finally granted the coveted refugee status. Em, 29, and his girlfriend Daniella Palma, who's 30, finally arrived in the United States, flying into Houston. Upon arrival, an immigration officer asked the young man the question that changed his life in moments. Do you have any tattoos? He had already been asked that by US Authorities in Colombia as part of an extensive background check, and he now gave the same answer. He lifted his shirt and pants and showed the immigration officer a tattoos on his chest, legs and arms, a crown, a soccer ball and a palm tree. At that point, it no longer mattered that he had no criminal record and that he had been granted refugee status with full legal rights to enter the United States. Immigration officials decided the tattoos were evidence enough to suspect he might be a member of Trenda Aragua, a prison born Venezuelan gang whose members have earned a reputation in Latin America as fearless and ruthless. Em, whom the Miami Herald is not identifying by his full name, for his safety in case he's forced to return to Venezuela, was detained. His girlfriend, threatened with detention for months herself, agreed to be deported back to Colombia. Em spent the next couple of months in three different immigration detention centers in Texas. On March 15, the Trump administration deported him, along with 200 other Venezuelans to El Salvador, where they were promptly imprisoned in a maximum security facility with a troubling history of violating human rights. EM Is not the only Venezuelan granted refugee status in the US who was deported to El Salvador, the Herald has learned. Another man who was detained longer than Em shared the same fate. However, his family has chosen to remain anonymous to avoid jeopardizing his safety. You can read the entire story by heading to the Miami Herald and subscribing. It's a really great resource.
- [19:47]
Dana Goldberg
Thanks so much, Alison. This last one's from the Guardian. Donald Trump has signed a far reaching executive order that promises to fundamentally disrupt American voter registration processes, introducing measures so restrictive that could, in effect, disenfranchise millions of citizens if enacted. Described by Will Scharf, the White House staff secretary, on Tuesday as, quote, the farthest reaching executive action taken in the nation's history. The order represents the latest in a long list of assaults against immigration, but also on current voting systems. The sweeping order amends the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship in order to vote. It demands documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport to be eligible to vote in federal elections, empowers federal agencies to cut funding to states deemed, quote, non compliant and instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute what the White House paints as, quote, election crimes. The measure also seeks to block states from accepting mail in ballots after election Day, which is going to disenfranchise the fucking military and a lot of expats that are overseas, that are still voting and that are American citizens, regardless of when they're mailed in. By the way, many of the provisions in the order are likely to be quickly challenged, of course, and are legally suspect. The US Constitution explicitly gives states and Congress the authority to set the rules for election and does not authorize the President to do so. Quote, the short answer is that this executive order, like all too many that we've seen before, it's lawless and asserts all sorts of executive authority he most likely assuredly does not have. That's Danielle Lang, a voting rights lawyer at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center. Republicans have long sought to add a citizenship to the federal forum and been stymied by the courts. In a 7, 2 decision in 2013, for example, the US Supreme Court said that Arizona could not require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The power to set the requirements on the federal form is left to the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission. Courts have also blocked efforts to short circuit efforts to add the question. The order tracks with the controversial bill in Congress, Safeguard American Voter Eligibility. They're calling it the SAVE act, which would require Americans to prove citizenship in person, a requirement that could immediately eliminate mail in and online voter registration across 42 states as well as D.C. and Guam. Despite Trump's claims of widespread election fraud, federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting. We all know this. With penalties include. And so do the fucking Republicans, by the way. With penalties included, up to five years in prison. Current election systems already use multiple federal databases to verify voter eligibility, including citizenship data from the Department of Homeland Security. There's already ways to check this. A day after the 2024 elections, the cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is they're calling cisa, the director, Jen Easterly, the agency in charge of overseeing election security in the United States. She said, and I quote, our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free and fair elections for the American people. Importantly, we have no evidence of any malicious activity that has a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.
- [23:05]
Allison Gill
Well, thank you for that. This is going to be. I bet there's already a lawsuit on this because he can't do this. I know he thinks he Can. And we'll see what the Supreme Court has to say about it. But you're right. It's not necessary. Non citizens can't vote. But this is about preventing citizens from voting.
- [23:26]
Dana Goldberg
Absolutely it is.
- [23:27]
Allison Gill
That's what this is. All right, everybody, we have some good trouble, but we have to take a quick break, so stick around. We'll be right back after these messages.
- [23:36]
Jon Cryer
We'll be right back.
- [23:39]
Allison Gill
Hi, I'm Frances Collier. And I'm Angela V. Shelton. And we're Frangela. You know what you need in your life? The Final Word podcast. Yes, you do. That's right.
- [23:49]
Dana Goldberg
It is the final word on all
- [23:51]
Allison Gill
things political and pop cultural, where we make real news, real funny, where we inspire you so you can hashtag, resist, subscribe, and get a new episode of the Final Word podcast each week.
- [24:02]
Dana Goldberg
It's the news we think you need to hear. That's right. We think you need to hear it.
- [24:07]
Allison Gill
Okay.
- [24:07]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah. It's what we say.
- [24:08]
Jon Cryer
So.
- [24:09]
Allison Gill
That's right.
- [24:09]
Dana Goldberg
And because all we do is give.
- [24:11]
Allison Gill
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. Okay?
- [24:20]
Dana Goldberg
All we do is give.
- [24:27]
Allison Gill
Everybody. Welcome back. Let's get into some good trouble.
- [24:29]
Dana Goldberg
What are you guys doing?
- [24:33]
Allison Gill
Hey, everybody. I'm happy to be joined today by a national volunteer with the Tesla Takedown. Please welcome Evan Sutton. Hi, Evan. How are you?
- [24:40]
Evan Sutton
Hey, good morning. Wonderful to be here with you.
- [24:42]
Allison Gill
I'm so glad that you're here, because we have a massive Tesla Takedown event coming up at the end of this week. But first, can you tell me, what is Tesla Takedown?
- [24:53]
Evan Sutton
Yeah, absolutely. So Tesla Takedown is a decentralized national movement to hit Elon Musk where it hurts, which is in his wallet. His wealth is built on Tesla stock. It's really his only source of liquid capital. All of his other money is tied up in private companies that he can't borrow against. And the way that Elon gets money when he wants to do something like, say, drop $277 million into a presidential election is he borrows against the value of those Tesla shares. And when the stock goes down, it forces him to do things like recapitalize all those loans. And, of course, it also just hurts him. And so we don't like the coup. I think we all agree on that. If any of your listeners disagree, then you might be listening to the wrong show. And so our goal is simple. It's drive down the share or the value of Tesla shares until it gets to A point where Elon has to really reconsider whether he wants to be mucking around in government.
- [25:49]
Allison Gill
Now we're going to talk about this big day of action. Actual rallies at locations at Tesla dealerships and Tesla locations. But there are other ways, right, that you guys are working to take down the stock and to hurt Elon's wallet, just through general, like boycotts and things like that. Right.
- [26:08]
Evan Sutton
So there are a ton of different boycott movements going on right now. Tesla Takedown is really focused on these rallies outside of Tesla dealerships, at Tesla Supercharger stations, anywhere that there's Tesla visible. We've got folks who are out there setting up events in their communities with the real focus on Tesla. There are certainly tons of movements, the 50501 movement, the economic boycott movement, that are focusing on both other parts of Elon's empire and kind of the broader maga cinematic universe. But for now at least, our focus with Tesla Takedown is really very tightly tied to Tesla itself.
- [26:46]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah.
- [26:46]
Allison Gill
And I think this is a really effective way to protest, to hit the streets. Right. To sort of focus it at Tesla, at Elon Musk. Because we also, like you said, there are other movements out there. 50501 I know on April 5th there's a huge hands off nationwide movement. But let's talk about what you guys are planning for March 29, because I know that you and a lot of volunteers have been working around the clock to pull this off.
- [27:10]
Evan Sutton
Yeah, absolutely. So we have just seen such tremendous growth since this first launched. I got involved just organizing local protests in my community here in Seattle and then sort of found my way onto the national volunteer team. And we've just seen week over week over week growth. And when they did that infomercial on the White House lawn for Tesla and then started threatening outrageous and unconstitutional legal challenges to our protests, we saw even more energy. And so we said, let's call for a national day of action. So this Saturday, March 29, all over the country and around the world, we set a really big goal of 500 protests globally. Goal of hitting every Tesla showroom in the United States. And it's not just limited to Tesla showrooms. Lots of folks don't live near a showroom, but there's a Supercharger in almost any community. So if you live in one of the half dozen states, mostly kind of the upper plains and mountain states that don't have a Tesla showroom, or if you live in a state where the showrooms are far away from you, there's probably A supercharger station nearby that you could set up a protest at.
- [28:16]
Allison Gill
Awesome. And so far this is. I've seen a lot of this working and I mean, I think there's two waves here. Just people not liking Elon and the Tesla Takedown movement kind of meeting and giving each other like this synergy and these boosts. Because we saw, I think in February, trade ins for Tesla were up 300% year over year. The stock is down. And so I think we're kind of well on our way to really kind of tanking this stock and making, like you said, where he cares about being hurt, which is his wallet making a difference there. Are you noticing that?
- [28:52]
Evan Sutton
Absolutely. We're seeing anecdotal and statistical data all over the place. I just spoke to a reporter here in Seattle who had the registration data for the Seattle region for February and said that Tesla registrations were down 29% compared to last February in San Diego County. I just saw data that Tesla registrations were down 35% year over year in the month of February. And just a reminder, we didn't really start this until the middle of February. So these protests have been growing, getting bigger. We've had more than 4,000 press hits around the country in the last five weeks, which is an insane number for anybody who doesn't work in media. That's sort of beyond anything I've ever worked on before. And I think we're going to see these quarterly numbers come out in about a week here from Tesla. And my guess is that folks are going to be pretty excited about the impact that we're having.
- [29:44]
Allison Gill
Excellent. Yeah, I just saw you a big, like, chunk of the Rachel Maddow show last night was dedicated to the Tesla Takedown. We were, we were back to back, actually, because I, I hosted the Darrell Issa Empty Chair town hall, which she talked about right after she talked about Tesla Takedown. Talk about the philosophy like you guys are peaceful protest movement. Am I correct?
- [30:05]
Evan Sutton
Yeah, 100%. This is one of those classic straw men arguments that the right loves to make. You know, anytime that there's a peaceful protest movement that's working, they say, oh, those people are violent. You know, they called the civil rights movement violent. They called Occupy Wall street violent. They called the women's marches violent. There have been a handful of incidents of property destruction or vandalism, but not a single one of them has been tied to our protests. In fact, the only substantiated incident of violence at more than 500 Tesla takedown protests around the country over the last five weeks was in West Palm beach when a Maga Wacko drove his car into a crowd of protesters this last weekend. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. But the only people committing violence, destruction of property, vandalism are Trump's people. We are 100% against that. We are not interested in scratching up a couple of cars. We're interested in destroying hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth for Elon Mus.
- [31:06]
Allison Gill
Well put. I think, you know, when we saw that in the Black Lives Matter protests too, we saw boogaloo boys and 3 percenters being arrested for breaking windows and vandalizing. And it was never us, but it's always been the way right outside agitators or paid, you know, liberal Marxists, whatever they like to say. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is in Wisconsin handing out 100 bills for you to sign a petition. But it's, you know, every accusation is a confession, right?
- [31:39]
Evan Sutton
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of us would love to be getting those Soros checks that we've been told were coming, you know, by Fox News for the last 20 years. I've probably got a couple million dollars in back checks from Soros if those are real.
- [31:55]
Allison Gill
I'm still waiting for my Soros checks. I, I haven't. There was a time when I thought I found the place to pick them up, but it was just the DNC in Washington D.C. and they did, they didn't have them for me either.
- [32:06]
Evan Sutton
Dang.
- [32:06]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah.
- [32:07]
Allison Gill
Anyway, thank you for coming on and thanks for talking about this. Is there anything else you want anybody to know about what's coming up on March 29th and on into the future? Because we will have a link in our show notes where people can get information about, you know, to see if there's a Tesla Takedown rally on March 29th close to you and if there's not, how to organize one. Right.
- [32:25]
Evan Sutton
Yeah. So the number one thing that I would love for your listeners to know is that so far nearly half of the people who have stepped up to organize these protests tell us that they have never organized something before. These protests are self building. People are frustrated. I'll tell you the first one that I organized, I have organized before, but I put it on the map using the tool@teslatakedown.com I invited about 20 of my friends. Five of my friends showed up and 95 strangers and a bunch of those strangers are now my friends. We're planning events every weekend together. We've got the entire Puget Sound region covered every weekend. But it's not hard to do if you have the drive and you want to do something and there's a Tesla showroom or a Tesla supercharger station near you. All you got to do is put the event on our map, make a couple of signs, invite a few friends, and I promise you, some people that you never met before are going to show up who just want to do something.
- [33:19]
Allison Gill
That's amazing. Thank you so much for coming on today. This is, by the way, our Good Trouble segment for what are we March 26th already? Oh my gosh. So it's just three days from now and that's your good trouble. Go and look for a Tesla takedown protest near you. Tell everybody that the beans says hi when you get there. And if there isn't an event near you, plan one. It's very, very easy to do. And all that information will be at the link in the show notes. Evan, thank you so much for coming on today.
- [33:48]
Evan Sutton
Thanks so much for having me. We're really excited to be here.
- [33:51]
Allison Gill
Everybody. Stick around. We'll be right back with Jon Cryer.
- [33:55]
Jon Cryer
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.
- [34:45]
Allison Gill
Hey everybody. Welcome back. I'm super excited today to talk to a friend I haven't spoken to since like pre Covid days back in the old Mueller she wrote days. You know him from Two and a Half Men. Myself and our listeners probably know him also as Ducky Dale from Pretty in Pink and Maxwell Hauser from Hiding Out. A very, very good film. If you haven't seen it. It's a little weird cause it's kind of old, but I still love it. It's got a place in my heart. And you know, he also narrated a great podcast series a while back called Lawyers, Guns and Money, which I know a lot of you listen to. And now he is a producer for a limited series podcast called the man who Calculated Death and he's here to talk to us about it because it's just won an award. Please welcome Jon Cryer.
- [35:31]
Jon Cryer
Hello, Alison. So nice to Talk to you again. And oh my gosh, you should know. By the way, I just finished recording an interview for the Blu Ray release of Hiding out on dvd. It is finally getting a Blu Ray release for all the cinephiles who are like, you know what? That needs A high end Blu Ray release. But I'm so glad it had a place in your heart.
- [35:58]
Allison Gill
It does, it does. Maxwell Hauser.
- [36:03]
Jon Cryer
Yup.
- [36:03]
Allison Gill
Just super brilliant. Very smooth.
- [36:05]
Jon Cryer
Thank you.
- [36:06]
Allison Gill
Smoothly played. But let's talk about this project because it's won an award, it's getting nominated for awards. I want to talk a little bit about the writer, the narrator, and then let's get into what the story is about. Okay.
- [36:19]
Jon Cryer
Well, the whole thing came up because Suzanne Rico is a woman who used to be a CBS anchor in Los Angeles, and she and my wife used to work together. My wife was also a CBS anchor. She was also the weather lady. My wife, for a little while, she knows nothing about forecasting the weather, but she had a great time doing it. At any rate, Suzanne had me over to a dinner party one night. Lisa and I were there, and she knew I was a huge fan of the history of the space race. And so she kind of offhandedly mentioned that. She said, oh, well, you know, my grandpa actually worked on the space race for a while. And I said, oh, wow, that's amazing. And. And she said, yeah, yeah, and before that he worked for Hitler. But anyway. And she was like, why don't you want anything to drink? You want a cocktail maybe? And it turns out Suzanne had very recently been sort of forced to look into her family history in a much more deep way because her mother had passed away. And on her deathbed, her mother literally said, I wrote a memoir about growing up in Nazi Germany and. And I can't finish it because I'm not long for this world. Can you finish it for me? And Suzanne just was like, oh, my God. You know, this is this huge weight that's been put on her. But she, she went into it and she, she had always heard that her grandfather was a scientist and an inventor. But what she didn't know that was that he was one of Hitler's most important inventors, that he had in fact invented the V1 Vengeance weapon, which was the precursor to the cruise missile, and terrorized London for quite a while at the end of World War II. And so she had to go. So the reason that she had recently come into this information was she had had to basically investigate her whole family's ancestry at this point because of the memoir. And at one point my wife, whom my wife and I are both podcast maniacs, she heard that Suzanne had actually recorded most of these interviews that she had done in her research. And my wife said, this is gonna be an amazing podcast. And so Suzanne for the last six years made the man who Calculated death. And oh, the craziest thing was there was always this family mystery because her grandfather, the inventor, his wife died very mysteriously and violently right before the end of the war. And it had always been this family sort of lore that the British, that it was revenge, the British were getting revenge for the vengeance weapon being unleashed on London and that they were behind her death. And Suzanne actually researched it and she actually solves this 80 year old family mystery. And it's absolutely an astonishing piece of work. And that's why actually that she just won the Gracie, just this morning, just found out that she won a Gracie Award for best writing of a podcast, which that's given by the alliance of Women in Media. And it's an amazing story because she and her sister did all the research. And it's really the female members of the family sort of who are willing to look into this really dark chapter in their family's history. And incredibly brave thing for her to do.
- [39:43]
Allison Gill
Yeah, seriously dark, uncomfortable. And the courage it takes to dig into that and bring the story to light. And I'm assuming that's what caught your interest as well, and why you wanted to produce this particular series.
- [39:54]
Jon Cryer
Yeah, my wife Lisa and I produced it over the years just because we also felt it's an amazing story of a family that had no particular bigotry, had no particular animosity towards other countries or anything, how they had to survive as their country fell into authoritarianism and the awful sort of choices they had to make, and how much complicity you have to deal with when you are helping one of the darkest regimes that has ever existed on the planet Earth. So this was an incredibly courageous journey she went on. And. And you know, that story of this family survival is unfortunately incredibly timely right now.
- [40:46]
Allison Gill
Right, that's what I was going to ask. There's gotta be a lot of parallels. You know, we stand around and tell ourselves if you ever wondered how, you know, Nazi Germany was able to take over in such short order and convince so many people to either participate or turn a blind eye. You're living through that right now here in the United States. And so what sort of parallels did you notice that came to the surface?
- [41:09]
Jon Cryer
Well, that it's incremental. That even though Hitler was able to seize pretty much all the levers of the state in 53 days. It still didn't feel like that was what was happening to the general members of the population. They didn't see the changes. And at first, he asked for tiny little changes. Like, first, he insisted that every year on his birthday, people put red candles in their window and light them on April 20, his birthday. And this actually, you know, it seems like a very small thing to ask. It's not a big deal if you do it or if you don't, but it is a big deal. You know, it was a tiny gesture, but everybody who didn't have a red candle in their window went on a list. And that's where they started when they had to find people who won't do it. And again, he made it easy to compromise your values. Like Robert Lesser, Suzanne's grandfather, who was this great genius inventor. He'd actually been a famous pilot in the sort of Wild west era of pilots, when it was Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart and all these amazing people. He had been a celebrity in Germany, so he had resources and he was an aircraft designer. But they made it like they made joining the Nazi party like an afterthought almost, because he had to file the forms to get work at this one particular design house. And they said, well, it's easier if you join, you know, and it was like, well, you know, what are the dues? Nothing. Okay, great, you know, and suddenly he's a Nazi, you know, and, you know, Hitler didn't start out being Hitler, you know, in fact, actually, it's interesting because back when I was still on Twitter, I did a thread about how Trump is not Hitler in many respects. But since I did that thread, he referred to his political opponents as vermin. He said that immigrants were poisoning the blood. The big thing I said made him not Hitler was that he didn't have the concept of Lebensraum. He didn't want living space for Americans. He wasn't going to conquer other countries. But since then, since he's elected, all of a sudden he's like, oh, we're going to invade Greenland and Panama and we're going to force Canada to be a 51st state. So I don't. You know, his racism has always been couched in a way that Hitler never felt the need to couch his racism. But Trump is, unfortunately, an incredibly dangerous, dangerous figure.
- [43:57]
Allison Gill
Yeah. And it's the incremental part that scares me.
- [44:00]
Dana Goldberg
Right?
- [44:00]
Allison Gill
Because dystopian autocracies, whether they're real or fictional always start with these tiny steps. I remember when I very first, years ago started watching A Handmaid's Tale and she comes home and has to have her husband sign off on her birth control prescription. And they were like, huh, that's weird. Shrug on with your day.
- [44:18]
Jon Cryer
Exactly.
- [44:19]
Allison Gill
And it's those tiny little steps that can snowball into where we are now. And that's why I think this is such a timely story to tell. Like you said, so many more things have come out in this particular regime that are matching other regimes.
- [44:37]
Jon Cryer
You know, I have obviously been very vocal on social media about Trump, cuz I grew up in New York City and he was just an idiot, you know, he was just. He was basically a harmless fraud, you know, and that's what I was kind of hoping he was, you know, and unfortunately, Covid showed us how harmful he could be in a position of power. And then obviously, you know, this new version of him is deeply frightening.
- [45:06]
Allison Gill
Yeah, it is. And so now you've been nominated. This podcast, I'm sorry, has been nominated for best Indie Podcast by Ambies.
- [45:13]
Jon Cryer
The Ambies, which is from the Podcast Academy, which sounds very August and serious, but it's great. Obviously podcasts are. There's a million of them. And again, I'm an addict, so I listen to a lot of them. And mostly, like I said, I'm just incredibly happy that Suzanne has put so much work into this. It's been six years of her life and it's been emotionally wrenching. I mean, she had to face, as I said, some of her family's complicity in some of the horror of the Nazis. And it's been devastating to her. But she's also made incredible friendships and it's a very. The podcast is nine episodes and it's an incredibly emotional experience. Oh, and it just came out from behind the paywall, which is nice. It was on the Wondery Paywall. It was an exclusive to Wondery, but now podcast one has it, so you can listen to it for free, which is nice.
- [46:20]
Allison Gill
Excellent. That's amazing. I'm so glad that you were able to come on today and talk to me about this. I'm assuming that throughout the episodes, because I'm just getting. I'm just firing it up now on your recommendation that she's dealing kind of with the emotional and mental impact of this as the show goes on.
- [46:42]
Jon Cryer
Well, yes, and as I said, it was devastating to her personally, but she has this mixture because these people are members of her family. She has still her tantas, who were 11 years old at the time, and they're obviously blameless, but they have incredible memories and were an incredible resource for her. But they've lived through this. They've seen this happen before. And so she had always had some amount of almost admiration for her grandfather because he was a genius. He absolutely was a genius. And obviously the United States had enough admiration for him to secretly smuggle him to the United States to work on our space program after the war was over. So he had just an enormous intellect. So you have that admiration, but you also know what it was in the service of. And she doesn't shrink away from that.
- [47:42]
Allison Gill
Oh, amazing. Well, it's out behind the paywall. Out from behind the paywall. It's called the man who Calculated Death. We're gonna include the promo trailer at the end of this episode. So stick around after the closing credits, after the good news, and you can hear the trailer. And I recommend everybody go take a listen. It's also 10 best of 2024 for crime writers on podcast. Featured podcast on Apple top 10 history podcast of the month from Good Pods. I mean, it's getting all kinds of incredible praise. I'm so excited about listening to this, and I can't wait to talk about it as it goes on with the people who listen to the Daily Beans. So thanks for coming on. It's really good to see you, my friend.
- [48:19]
Jon Cryer
Oh, such a pleasure. Such a pleasure. And, you know, I hope you're taking time to do things you enjoy and find happiness, because every day is a little bit scary, you know, and we're all figuring this out in our way. I'm just trying to make art and, you know, do the best stuff I can do. But, you know, just so you know, what you post and what you talk about is so valuable to people, and I am really, really grateful for it.
- [48:50]
Allison Gill
Thank you.
- [48:50]
Jon Cryer
You know, it has. Who you interact with has really helped me build up a community on social media that has been great and kept me sane. So thank you.
- [49:04]
Allison Gill
Oh, thank you so much. I only ask for one thing in return that you produce and host maybe some more in Hollywood. A prom for the anniversary of Pretty in Pink that I can go to.
- [49:18]
Jon Cryer
We have to do it and we all. And Everybody has to wear 80s stuff. Yeah.
- [49:22]
Allison Gill
I already got Curtis Armstrong to promise to take me to a better off dead party.
- [49:25]
Jon Cryer
Oh, that's awesome. That's a great idea.
- [49:27]
Allison Gill
So now I'm. Now I'm just. I'm. I'm. I'm not. I'm cashing in all my I'm cashing in all my favors and we gotta
- [49:33]
Jon Cryer
have like OMD play it, you know?
- [49:37]
Allison Gill
Yeah, our Daft Punk, you know, it's cool. Okay.
- [49:40]
Jon Cryer
Yes, absolutely. Double bill. Why not? Why not?
- [49:44]
Allison Gill
Man, it's so good to talk to you. I really appreciate it. Again, everybody go find it. It's incredible. It's called the man who Calculated Death. And I hope we have you back on soon.
- [49:52]
Jon Cryer
That would be great.
- [49:53]
Allison Gill
Everybody, stick around. We'll be right back with the good news. Everybody, welcome back. It's time for the good news. Who likes good news, everyone? Then good news, everyone. And if you have any good news confessions, corrections. You want to play any animal guessing games like what the mutt? What the hell's in that shell? Opine on the bovine? What the heck? Wine? Find the cat. What's the model of your axolotl? Send anything into us that you want or shout outs that you have to a loved one or yourself or a small business in your area or your small business. And of course, shout outs to government programs from Social Security and Medicare all the way to the PACT act and great VA health care, maybe WIC, Section 8, snap, anything like that at all. Student debt relief. We love those stories. Send it to us. And all you got to do to get your story right on the air is pay your POD pet tax. Just submit a photo of your pet and if you don't have a pet, you can send us an adoptable pet in your area. We'll see if we can find him a forever home. We got a pretty good track record with that. If you don't have that any animal photo, just grab an otter photo. We love otters and frogs, for example, secretary birds. And speaking of birds, we're also accepting bird watching photos for the foreseeable future. That's either a photo of a bird or you and your family and friends flipping off Trump properties and Tesla properties. Or actually any Elon property if you want. All right, first up. Oh, by the way, the way you get that in is to go to dailybeanspot.com and click on contact. First up from Julie Pronoun. She and her Greetings Laguma gals. I just wanted to pass along a theory from Regen Futurist on treads as to who JG might be to the geniuses on the Houthi War Signal chat. Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg was added as JG to the Signal group chat. The JG Mike Waltz meant to add was most likely Jameson Greer, U.S. trade rep at the Cabinet, who often attends National Security Council meetings, trade policy and national security are often interconnected. Strikes in Yemen can impact global shipping routes, especially Red Sea Suez Canal, critical for global trade. Beyond security, the geopolitical and economic fallout of bombing makes this fuck up even worse.
- [52:00]
Dana Goldberg
Ah, that's a very Julia's smartest shit I know. Right.
- [52:04]
Allison Gill
Now for pet tax. This is a photo of the late, great Hogan. I thought it'd be fun for you to guess his breeds. Thanks for all you do to keep us sane. I think since Pete Buttigieg said fucked up in regard to the signal chat. Yeah, he's now a prime candidate for news with swearing.
- [52:19]
Dana Goldberg
This looks like a St. Bernard mastiff. That dog looks huge. I'm assuming it's not standing in the deep end of the pool.
- [52:28]
Allison Gill
Yeah, that would be funny, right?
- [52:29]
Dana Goldberg
Could you imagine?
- [52:30]
Allison Gill
Or maybe he's something that we didn't think of, like a Pyrenees and a Rottweiler. Let's see.
- [52:35]
Dana Goldberg
Maybe Pyrenees.
- [52:36]
Allison Gill
I think you're right with the mastiff. You got it. Saint Bernard mastiff.
- [52:38]
Dana Goldberg
Stop it.
- [52:39]
Allison Gill
And the biggest cuddlebug ever. He never swam, but he loves standing in pools and puddles and rivers.
- [52:46]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, my God, he's cute. He's big. Aw, what a baby. Thank you for this submission and for teaching us. We love to learn. This one's from anonymous pronoun. She and her hey Beans Queens. I listen pretty much every day. Keep up the great work. Just thought you would like to know that a cat who has both the markings of tortoiseshell, tortie for short, and a tabby is called a torby tort. Is it torby?
- [53:07]
Allison Gill
Torby, A torby or a torby. I think those are just two different ways to say ah.
- [53:11]
Dana Goldberg
Got it. I was like that. See, listen, I don't even know a Torby. Got it. So a tortie and a tabby. It's a torby. Okay, well, House of Black Magic and its partnering Rescue Binks Home for Black Cats is focused on saving black cats. We also take in any dark colored cats, dark gray torties, tuxedos, and of course, if a black cat has different colored cats or different colored mama has black babies, we take all of them. Here's a picture of my Quinn, who, as you can see, has a ringed tail, a sign of some tabby markings, which technically makes her a torby. She is also the most talkative cat on the planet and even talks in her sleep. Oh, my God, how cute.
- [53:54]
Allison Gill
What a beauty.
- [53:55]
Dana Goldberg
She's really cute.
- [53:56]
Allison Gill
She is. Little Torbi with her ringtail.
- [53:59]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah.
- [54:00]
Allison Gill
Thank you for that Torbi. I knew that. I just forgot so many things I used to know.
- [54:06]
Dana Goldberg
There's still so many things in there.
- [54:07]
Allison Gill
Trust me, they're just. They're floating away like otters that don't hold hands. Next up, from Mia Pronoun. She and her. Hi. I saw a post about this on Facebook and had to share. There's a British company that makes T shirts that have pictures of our present leadership in America with the caption Turd Reich. It must. It made me burst out in a belly laugh. And I thought it would be wonderful as a short phrase you could use to replace having the rancid taste of sewage in your mouth from uttering their vile names for Podpet Dax, I present Pura belliotta Lux. You've seen her before when I sent in pictures of my three feline overlord and overladies. I got her when she was maybe a day hold. Oh. Her mother died in childbirth. I've been trying to trap her to get her fixed, but apparently didn't succeed in time. She was one of my outside cats that I feed. There's a lot of time to look up Latin when you have to feed a neonate kitten every two hours. Her name is Pure Beautiful Life. I am her mama. She hasn't known another. Yes. I've told her she's adopted, but I'm not sure she actually believes me. I pity the fool who breaks into my house meaning to harm me because she's my guard cat. She's about 20 pounds. Holy of cat ninja. And don't even think about touching the remote. The first picture is as a small baby snuggling with her Eeyore and in. And her in command of the remote. Oh, my God.
- [55:31]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, my gosh, she's cute. Okay. And now she's like, don't change the channel.
- [55:36]
Allison Gill
She said, oh, my gosh, she's huge. She's gigantic. And she's got her shoulder up on the arm. On the arm of the couch, sitting like I do in the queen's seat. Oh, that's amazing.
- [55:50]
Dana Goldberg
I think as a gift to you, you should take the next one, and I'll take the last one.
- [55:54]
Allison Gill
Okay. Oh, Y. From Tom. Pronouns he and him. Monday evening, I was listening to you, and you mentioned red pandas. Well, that was my pet tax on a previously unread submission. So here's that. P.S. dana, your recent pictures you posted were gorgeous.
- [56:08]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, Tom, thank you. I have some new headshots taken, so I put them on Instagram. If you're not following me there you can see my new pictures.
- [56:15]
Allison Gill
Oh, is that the one with the white jacket?
- [56:18]
Dana Goldberg
Yeah, white jacket. Also, my. There might be a picture with a blazer with no shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [56:27]
Allison Gill
Those lovely.
- [56:29]
Dana Goldberg
Oh, this is me. Because I gave you that one. This one's from Anonymous. No pronouns given. I live near D.C. so there's a lot of federal employees and contractors hurting in our area right now. The kids in my church put together chaos survival kits to let our feds know we love them. It's very corny, but helps bring a smile to our friends. I don't think it's corny. I think this is fantastic for my pod pet tags. Here's my best companion, lady, who is always up for anything as long as I'm there with her. Looking forward to April 5, but ladies staying home, of course.
- [56:59]
Allison Gill
Well, I'm looking at lady. I feel like she's got a very, very fancy dog bed and is pampered and loved. Look at the face on this baby.
- [57:09]
Dana Goldberg
All right, this is in the survival kit for the feds. Chaos Survival Kit. Pen to remember the reasons you are awesome. Marker to leave your mark. Notepads to remember what is important. Mints to help keep you cool. Lifesavers for obvious reasons. Chocolate to reduce stress. Wellness tea to keep you healthy. Hand sanitizer to wash your hands of it all. Gum to help you in sticky situations. Kleenex to let it all out. I think this is the perfect survival kit. Chaos Survival Kit. I don't even know if we're keeping this, you know, appropriate for anyone. I don't even know what I would add.
- [57:44]
Allison Gill
These kids, I love them.
- [57:46]
Dana Goldberg
I know. I mean, maybe some bubbles to make some magic, but that's about it.
- [57:52]
Allison Gill
Incredible. Thank you all so much for your absolutely wonderful good news. So don't forget, find the Tesla takedown rally near you March 29, and then the Hands Off 50501 nationwide on April 5. And of course, you know, don't miss Liz Winstead's protests in front of the Supreme Court on April 2nd and 3rd. You definitely don't want to miss those from yesterday's show. Do you have any final thoughts today, my friend?
- [58:20]
Dana Goldberg
Just want to end with a love again for my pop. Miss you and love you 17 years.
- [58:25]
Allison Gill
Sending you love, my friend.
- [58:27]
Dana Goldberg
Thank you.
- [58:28]
Allison Gill
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. I've been AG and I've been dg and them's the beans.
- [58:37]
Jon Cryer
Refried beans.
- [58:38]
Allison Gill
I like refried beans. I just want you to come home, Mom.
- [58:46]
Suzanne Rico
This is a story that begins with a dying wish.
- [58:49]
Allison Gill
One thing I would like you to do.
- [58:52]
Suzanne Rico
My mother's last request. Request that my sister and I finish writing the memoir she'd started about her German childhood. When her city burned and her father designed a secret superweapon for Adolf Hitler, My grandfather, a man named Robert Lesser, headed the Nazi project to build the world's first cruise missile, which terrorized millions, ripped his family apart, and left a legacy that dogged my mother like a curse.
- [59:27]
Allison Gill
Mom often felt like she suffered. You know, that's what she deserved because her dad was a Nazi scientist. And see what happened to the family?
- [59:39]
Suzanne Rico
My mom always seemed to be haunted by a question that was shrouded in time. Who bombed a remote farmhouse at the end of the war and killed her mother? And why?
- [59:51]
Dana Goldberg
She had some secrets.
- [59:52]
Allison Gill
Mom had some secrets.
- [59:54]
Suzanne Rico
She did. All we have to go on is the dusty family legend that the attack was British revenge for my grandfather's flying bomb.
- [60:03]
Jon Cryer
You know, my experience, even with secret projects, is nothing stays secret forever.
- [60:11]
Suzanne Rico
The odyssey to finish the twisted story our mom ran out of Time to tell takes us deep inside our own ancestry to the dark intersection where family history and world history collide.
- [60:25]
Jon Cryer
It was something even a nightmare cannot repeat.
- [60:31]
Suzanne Rico
I'm Suzanne Rico. Join my sister and me as we search for the truth behind our grandfather's work, solve the mystery of our grandmother's death, and for the first time, face the ghosts of our past.
- [60:45]
Allison Gill
Jeez, who is he?
- [60:49]
Suzanne Rico
Listen to the man who Calculated death. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.