#1699 A Government Of the People, By the People, and Weaponized Against the People

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to this episode of theAward-Winning Best of the Left podcast.

(00:03):
If you've been paying attention, theweaponization of the government against
Trump's political and ideological enemiesis exactly what you would've seen coming.
And now, it's here.
For those looking for a quick overview,the sources providing our top takes
in about 50 minutes today includesAmerican Prestige, Democracy Now!, The

(00:23):
Thom Hartmann Program, Velshi, Factuallywith Adam Conover, and Hasan Piker
Then in the additional deeperdives half of the show, there
will be more in four sections.

Section A (00:34):
free speech can be terrorism, followed by section B

Trump can be terrorism, section C: the DOJ, FBI, and the judiciary. (00:40):
undefined
And finally, sectionD: government function.
This development really puts, Ithink, everything this political
moment faces right on the table.
Mahmoud Khalil is a leading demonstratoron behalf of the cause of -- I don't know

(01:04):
what you would even say at this point-- Palestinians being able to survive.
At Columbia University, my understandingis, he's a recent graduate of one of
their grad schools there, the Schoolfor International Public Affairs.
And on Saturday night, as he wasreturning from an Iftar dinner with his

(01:26):
eight month old pregnant wife, Mahmoud,who is a green card holder, and his
wife, who is an American citizen, wereintercepted in their building by plain
clothes officers who turned out to bewith ICE and told that he was going to be
taken into detention, in which accordingto his wife and his attorney, or one

(01:50):
of his attorneys, he was taken with adubiously legal warrant for his arrest.
It's unclear if that arrestwas in fact signed by a judge.
And also, the housing that the Khalilfamily lives in is Columbia University
housing, raising a lot of questionsabout the extent to which Columbia is

(02:12):
allowing ICE on their campus and theircampus extending to its facilities.
Khalil was in fact taken into custody.
There had been confusion for a whileon Sunday and early Monday about where
in the ICE detention complex he was.
The ICE detainee locator function ontheir website did not immediately, as

(02:38):
I understand it, register him, to hiscurrently determined place of detention,
which is an ICE facility in Louisiana.
It should be noted here that while alot of concern for his whereabouts was
using terms like "disappeared," and Ithink while those concerns about not

(03:02):
being able to locate him make it validto use that word, it's important to
note that that is a lot more normal inthe ICE detention complex circumstance,
then I believe is generally known.
There is an opacity about where detaineesare, for days after, and they're

(03:23):
transferred from one place and beforethere arrival in another, and there is
a lag on that that has persisted forso long that it's clearly by design
to obscure access to what passes fordue process in the immigration system.
We're gonna leave that aside for a second.
Khalil has not only been takeninto detention, but, according to

(03:47):
Secretary Rubio, president Trump,and White House Press secretary
Caroline Levitt, he faces deportation.
He faces deportation and thisextraordinary -- at first, I called
it detention, then DHS startedcalling it an arrest, so I'll use that
term -- arrest without presenting orfeeling the need to present any evidence

(04:11):
that Mahmoud Khalil has done anythingviolent, has broken any laws of the
United States or anything like that.
Instead, what they said was that Khalilwas arrested because of "activities"
-- this is a term the Department ofHomeland Security used that we'll
unpack in a second, but it's importantto put this out -- "activities aligned

(04:34):
to a banned terrorist organization,"in this case, meaning Hamas.
That's an ominous constructionthat we can get into in a moment.
But before we get there, it also becameclear and of all places, it was Barry
Weiss's The Free Press that I saw reportthis first, that the White House said that

(04:56):
they did not take him into custody andattempt to defend that custody because
they're accusing him of having violatedany law, that they are instead relying
on national security authorities, whichmeans in this case, as they will seek to
apply them, terrorism authorities, andthat is an exceptionally dangerous moment

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for everyone in this country, regardlessof their politics and regardless
even of their citizenship status.
This is a moment of unbridled lawlessnessand it's one where it makes it really
important to refer to Mahmoud Khalilas what he is, which is right now a
political prisoner of the United States.
On Saturday, Trump used the order todeport 137 Venezuelan immigrants to El

(05:42):
Salvador, claiming they were all membersof Tren de Aragua, a gang which Trump
has labeled a terrorist organization.
The deportation flights came despite atemporary restraining order from U.S.
District Judge James Boasberg, whosaid, quote, “Any plane containing these
folks that is going to take off or isin the air needs to be returned to the
United States. Those people need to bereturned to the United States,” he said.

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But the Trump administration appearedto ignore the order and allowed the
planes to continue to El Salvador.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele,a Trump ally, tweeted, “Oopsie…
Too late.” The comment was thenretweeted by U.S. Secretary of State
Marco Rubio and the White Housecommunications director Steven Cheung.
White House Press Secretary KarolineLeavitt said, quote, “A single judge

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in a single city cannot direct themovements of an aircraft … full of foreign
alien terrorists who were physicallyexpelled from US soil,” she said.
We’re joined now by Lee Gelernt,deputy director of the ACLU
Immigrants’ Rights Project.
On Saturday, he argued the motion thatled to the temporary restraining order
blocking the Trump administrationfrom removing the immigrants from
the U.S. using the Alien Enemies Act.

(06:51):
Can you respond what the Trumpadministration said, that this
judge doesn’t have the right to stopthese people from being deported?
This is a very, very dangerous statement.
I think we’re on verydangerous ground, generally.
Federal courts have the right and theduty to police what the executive branch

(07:12):
is doing, if they violate the law.
And that’s exactly what’s happeninghere, is this is ultimately a
separation-of-powers case, as you weretalking about with the congressman before.
Congress could not have been clearer.
They’re granting this authorityto the president — I mean, it’s
over 200 years ago, but grantingthis authority to the president,

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only — only — if there’s a foreigngovernment or foreign nation involved.
That’s not what’s going on here.
So the president has oversteppedthe authority Congress has given
him, so it’s creating a classicseparation-of-powers question.
The federal courts have to be ableto say, “You have overstepped the
law.” So, federal courts can reviewwhether the Alien Enemies Act is being

(07:57):
used illegally, and they have to.
In terms of defying the court orderand sending the planes anyway and not
turning them around, you know, we’retrying to get to the bottom of that.
The government filed what they calleda clarification notice yesterday, that
left more questions than it answered.
And so, we filed something at 2:15in the morning last night asking

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the court to order the governmentto file sworn declarations stating
whether they had defied the court’sorder by not turning around planes
after the court issued the order.
In both cases, the federal court ison solid, established ground to review
what the administration is doing.
Didn’t the same thing happen withthe Brown assistant professor?

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She is from India.
She had been in this country for years.
And she was coming from— rather, she is from Lebanon.
She was visiting family.
And she was deported when a judge said no.
Yeah, so, I’m not involved in thatcase, so I don’t know the specifics,
but I know that there are seriousallegations there, and the judge is

(09:07):
looking into it and is very concerned.
So, you know, we hope that theadministration is not outwardly,
explicitly defying court orders andclaiming they have the right to do that.
That would put us on — you know,one step further to what many people
would view as a constitutional crisis,just deciding they are not going

(09:28):
to listen to the federal courts.
So, you know, we will try and getto the bottom of what’s going on
in the Alien Enemies Act case.
We’ll see what the government files,what the court does, you know, and
we’ll leave it there for the moment.
But all the indications looklike they defied the court order.
But the bigger question, as you’ve noted,is: Can the Alien Enemies Act now be used?

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It’s only been used three times inour country’s history, all during

declared wars (09:55):
the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.
And that’s not surprising, because thisis a very serious authority that Congress
has given the president, but Congresslimited it to when there’s a declared war
with another country or another countryis invading us, not anytime the president

(10:16):
decides some gang is so dangerous, I’mgoing to invoke a wartime authority.
The minute we start using wartimeauthorities during peacetime, we’re on a
slippery slope to a very dangerous place.
Lee Gelernt, can you also talk aboutthe ACLU’s work fighting Trump’s use
of Guantánamo to hold immigrants?
On Friday, you argued on behalf offoreign nationals the Trump administration

(10:40):
is trying to send to Guantánamo.
Now, it looks like they have clearedpeople from Guantánamo at this point.
And I’d like to ask if you know why.
And is El Salvador, this supermax prisonthat is run by the president, a Trump
ally, where gross human rights violationshave taken place — has this new prison

(11:04):
in El Salvador become — has this prisonin El Salvador become the new Guantánamo?
Yeah, well, thanks forasking about that, Amy.
You know, as you mentioned, I arguedthe Alien Enemies Act case on Saturday.
But the day before, I argued theGuantánamo case in a long, long hearing.
And ultimately, the judge decided notto rule for us, only because Guantánamo

(11:27):
had been cleared out at that point,and there was no imminent — at least
imminent indication to him that peoplewere being sent back to Guantánamo.
It’s very coincidental that every timewe’re going to go before a federal
judge on Guantánamo, they clear it out.
So I think that the litigationis having the effect of forcing
them to back down in a way.

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And so, we’ll see if theysend people back there.
But your point about is ElSalvador the new Guantánamo?
It may be.
And I hope not, because as bad asGuantánamo is, sending these Venezuelan
men to a Salvadoran prison is reallygoing to put them in immediate harm.
I mean, we stressed that to thejudge, and the judge, fortunately,

(12:10):
understood that and acted quickly.
And as many of you have probably seen,there was a video released of how the men
were treated when they got to El Salvador.
And I think that only reinforces thatthe judge was correct to act quickly.
I think that there’s probably goingto be, if this — if this Alien Enemies
Act invocation is upheld, anybody canbe designated an alien enemy, because

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the government is making the dangerousargument that federal courts can’t
review, so any immigrant can then findthemselves in a Salvadoran prison.
You know, we will try to stopthis, obviously, and we need
those men to be brought backif the court order was defied.
And is the U.S. responsible ifthey are abused there in Salvador?

(12:56):
I mean, this goes to Democratic andRepublican presidents of the United
States in charge of Guantánamo — right?
— and the whole call for Guantánamoto be closed, is that it’s used
as an extrajudicial place wherepeople can be sent, and it’s not
clear who’s in charge of them.
But that’s the same with Salvador.
Once they’re put into thisprison, who’s responsible?

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Does the U.S. bear anymore responsibility?
Well, I think the U.S. always bearsresponsibility if they illegally
deport people and then they’reultimately put in danger and harm.
You know, we’ll see how thecourt reacts to this, if in fact
they defied the court order.
But I think the key for us, going forward,is that no one else is sent, and we also

(13:41):
try and deal with the people who weresent, to get them back any way we can,
especially if the court order was defied.
But yeah, the United States is understrict obligations not to send anybody
to be persecuted or tortured anywhere.
It would have been bad enough if thesepeople were sent to Venezuela, because
they were fleeing danger there and haveasylum claims, you know, most of them that

(14:04):
we know, or at least our named plaintiffs.
We obviously don’t know all thepeople, because the government
is doing it in secret.
But absolutely, it’s the government’sobligation not to send people
to persecution or torture.
There’s no question, in theseSalvadoran prisons, these
people are in imminent danger.
Are nonviolent protestorsnow labeled terrorists?

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Really?
Corporations are trying to use thePatriot Act in ways that have nothing
to do with Osama Bin Laden, becausethe Patriot Act gives transnational
corporations the power to snuff out theactivism of anybody who opposes them.
Terrorism, as it is commonly considered,is the use of violence against civilians

(14:47):
to achieve any number of politicalends: the destruction of the federal
government, the overturning Roe vWade, the restoration of a caliphate.
If you try to kill people or succeedin killing people for a political
purpose, you're a terrorist.
If you blow up the Alfred P.Murra Federal Building and Kill 168
civilians like Tim McVeigh, you'vecommitted an act of terrorism.

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Seems pretty self-explanatory, right?
Ehhh, not according to TransCanadaCorp, the Canadian-owned energy
conglomerate that is the backer ofthe Keystone XL Pipeline extension.
A new set of documents obtained bya progressive group, it's called
Bold Nebraska, shows that thisforeign corporation is encouraging

(15:31):
American law enforcement agenciesto treat anti-pipeline protestors
as if they were terrorists.
Yes, terrorists.
The documents which Bold Nebraska got ahold of through a FOIA request -- Freedom
of Information Act request -- were partof a briefing given to Nebraska law
enforcement agents about the, quote,"emerging threat" end quote of groups like

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Tar Sands Blockade and Rainforest Action.
And what are the terrorist activitiesthat TransCanada is so concerned about?
They include things like monkeywrenching, tree sitting, and tying
yourself to a construction vehiclewith a device called a Dragon Lock.
If this seems familiar, it should, becausewhat groups like Tar Sands Blockade are

(16:16):
engaging in is classic civil disobedience.
This is not terrorism, but thisforeign corporation, trans Canada,
wants American law enforcement agentsto start looking at it like it is.
By far, the most damning documentobtained by Bold Nebraska urges
Nebraska authorities to considerusing, quote, "state or federal
anti-terrorism laws prohibitingsabotage or terroristic acts against

(16:40):
critical infrastructures." End quote.
Another is TransCanada thinks Americanpolice should treat blockading
construction vehicles just likeblowing up a bus in downtown DC.
And I would add, they think that doinganything to harm a pipeline that's
taking oil down to the Gulf Coastso it can be refined and exported is

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somehow "critical infrastructure."
I don't see how you canjustify that definition.
Now, on the other hand, if a group ofTar Sands Blockades activists were in
fact planning to bomb TransCanada'sCalgary Alberta headquarters or
assassinate a CEO, God forbid, thenthey would absolutely be terrorists.

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But right now they're justprotestors or vandals, and should
not be treated as terrorists.
So what makes TransCanada think it canget the American police to treat people
sitting in trees like Muhammad Atta?
The Patriot Act.
The US Legal Code definition of terrorismwas expanded to include a new meaning of

(17:50):
domestic terrorism by Congress in 2001.
This new definition considers domesticterrorism as, quote, "activities that
involve acts dangerous to human life,that are a violation of the criminal laws
of the United States or of any state;
appear to be intended to intimidate orcoerce civilian population;" -- I don't

(18:10):
see the word corporation in there -- "toinfluence the policy of a government
by intimidation or coercion; or toaffect the conduct of a government
by mass destruction, assassination,or kidnapping; and occur primarily
within the territorial jurisdiction ofthe United States." End of sentence.

(18:30):
According to the ACLU, this definition,this is a verbatim quote from the

ACLU, quote (18:34):
"This definition is broad enough to accompany the activities
of prominent activists, campaignsand organizations." End quote.
In other words, given the right lawyer,TransCanada can convince a federal
judge that monkey wrenching or tyingoneself to a construction vehicle is
dangerous to human life and intendedto intimidate a civilian population.

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We already know, thanks to Edward Snowden,that our government has used the broad
powers of the Patriot Act to amass a largecollection of American citizens' telephone
records, something think that even oneof its authors, Republican Congressman
Jim Sensenbrenner has said, goes beyondwhat he thinks was its original intent.
Do we really want to givecorporations this sort of power to
misuse our criminal justice system?

(19:18):
Our founders envisioned a societyin which all were held accountable
to and by the law, not a society inwhich vague and overly broad statutes
empower foreign private corporationsto persecute American activists.
So bottom line, let's repeal the PatriotAct, not only to preserve our civil

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liberties, and not only to protect ourdemocratic republic from the predation
of transnational corporations, butto protect our right to protest.
"Calling Trump corrupt and athreat to America are not opinions.
They are objective statements of fact.
I never expected to reach thispoint when I became a journalist
47 years ago, I did not pursueopinion journalism for a reason.

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My model was my father, RichardHarwood, who built his stellar
Washington Post career on fearlessreporting and news analysis.
"But Donald Trump is different.
He has gained power by catering to hisparty's darkest impulses and his own.
So I've become quite comfortableasserting these facts.
Donald Trump is a racist,a grifter, and a crook.
He is a liar, and a cruel one.

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He governs as an authoritarian,not as a leader of a democracy.
He weakens America andits global standing.
"I once could not have dreamed ofdescribing a president this way, but the
truth remains the highest journalisticvalue, and those objective realities
sit in plain sight." End quote.
In a similar vein, First Amendment scholarMaryanne Franks argues that in an era of

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disinformation, access to the truth andthe promise of the First Amendment have
become even more muddled and untenable.
In the face of Trump's encroachingauthoritarianism, Franks argues that
what is needed is fearless speech, speechwhich boldly speaks truth to power.
Franks writes, quote, "Fearless speechhas three fundamental characteristics.
It is sincere.

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It is critical.
And it is courageous.
The fearless speaker seeks to holdthose in power accountable, and she
is undeterred by the risk of harmto herself that her speech creates.
Fearless speakers use speech tochallenge power and vindicate
the rights of the oppressed.
"In contrast to a reckless speechculture that fetishizes speakers who
endanger others for selfish ends,a fearless speech culture valorizes

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speakers who endanger themselvesfor the collective good." End quote.
It feels like anybody saying anything thatis not in line with governmental thinking
today, the bar has been lowered now.
We're all practitioners of fearlessspeech, at risk of being arrested,
fired, exiled, or, what have you.
I think it's certainly truethat we're all now at risk.

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I don't know if necessarily everybodyis now speaking fearlessly, but
certainly the stakes for even mildlydisagreeing or even accurately pointing
out reality, the stakes have certainlygotten higher, and it certainly is a
testament to just how far we have fallendown the authoritarian rabbit hole.
So the other side of your argument,though, is that we should be
more fearless in our speech?

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We have these protectionsand we must use them?
Well, honestly, the argument is to saythat the reason why we have to be fearless
in times like this is because we don'tnecessarily have those protections.
We have told ourselves as Americansthat we, because of the First Amendment,
we would never end up in a momentlike the one we're in right now,
where people are being disappearedbecause of things that they have said.

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Vague accusations are being made aboutpeople simply because they happen to fit
a certain kind of profile that's beendehumanized for the last several years.
But no one should have to be fearlessin order to speak up and say the truth.
But the most important thing forany democracy, any kind of society
that actually does believe inequality, is to be able to speak
out against the people in power.

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We have to be able to criticizethose who have power over us.
And we should be able to do thatwithout any cost to our liberty.
Unfortunately, that is not the case, butthat means that it's more important now
than ever for us to be able to do that.
John, you and I have both come upin a world largely surrounded by
business and economics journalism.
Interesting, didn't always require thegreatest profile in courage to do it.

(23:18):
But things have evolved for both of us.
We've both been in situations now wherewe've had to say things -- you articulated
it very well in your column -- that Inever imagined myself having to talk
about or criticize or hold to account.
But that is the job we must doin the media, and there's a lot
of pressure on us not to do it.
That's right.
And a lot of pressurecoming from media ownership.

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Jeff Bezos, we've seen the steps thathe's taken to erode the reputation
and practice of the Washington Post.
But look, I think in line with whatyour Wesleyan president said a few
minutes ago, this is a war on civilsociety, and everybody in civil
society needs to stand up to it.

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That includes business people.
Sometimes business people have difficultysorting the short term, which, oh,
he's gonna give me a tax cut, versusthe long term, he's going to destroy
the rule of law and undercut businessconditions in the United States.
And so far we haven't seen them do that.
In terms of journalists, we'reone element of civil society.

(24:23):
I don't exaggerate our influence.
We have some influence,less than we used to.
And I don't even purport that ifeverybody chose the same blunt
descriptors that I did for Donald Trump,it would make all that much difference.
But I'm compelled to doit because it's true.
And I think... I can't do anythingother than describe accurately

(24:46):
what I'm seeing and some of theparallels are really horrific.
The first time, Ali, I ever encounteredan authoritarian government was
when I went to South Africa andcovered the unrest against apartheid.
And you saw the secret police in SouthAfrica seizing anti-apartheid activists,
taking 'em someplace where people didn'tknow where they were, never really

(25:08):
charging them or coming up with charges.
And now it, it is not surprising to meto see Donald Trump doing the same thing
with that graduate student at Columbia,eight months pregnant wife, and they
ship him down to Louisiana and theydon't even know for a while where he is.
These are not American values in action.

(25:29):
They're the antithesis of it.
And Mary Anne, that in particularis an interesting situation.
'cause not only is, they've notcharged him with anything, they've
used some obscure provision in whichthe Secretary of State himself has
determined that this man's merepresence in the United States is some
sort of threat to American society.
Putting that aside, thereis a university involved.

(25:50):
And to the extent that the media is notall of civil society and universities
are not all of civil society, when itcomes to threats of authoritarianism
and the diminishment of democracy inhistory, when universities and journalism
cave, society finds it easier to cave.
Absolutely.
This is why we needcourage now more than ever.

(26:11):
These institutions are under attack.
This is what is happening to them.
What is happening to universitieslike Columbia and others
is completely unjustified.
It is the exercise offascistic tendencies.
But they have to resist it, because theyhave more power than most individuals.
They certainly have morepower than their students.
They need to stand up for their students.

(26:31):
They need to stand upfor their communities.
They need to stand up for their mission,and say that we are not going to
cave in this kind of pressure again.
They shouldn't have to make thosekinds of sacrifices, but they need
to when they have that kind ofinstitutional power and privilege.
But let me ask you, Mary Anne.
Some universities have talked aboutinstitutional objectivity or institutional
neutrality, or not taking positions onthings that are not core to their mission.

(26:55):
But what the government is doing toColumbia is they've asked them to take
one of their departments and put it undersome sort of stewardship or receivership.
It's unbelievable that thegovernment should have a
role in a private university.
Sure, they fund research,as well they should.
But how do you explain to peoplehow slippery a slope this is, how
dangerous this is for Columbia or anyuniversity to accept that that's okay.

(27:22):
I think this is really, very tellingabout the moment that we're in, that
it's not just what is happening, it isthe under reaction to what is happening.
That there are so many people, the averageperson who isn't necessarily an extremist,
who isn't someone who embraces fascism,but does not seem to understand just how
seriously under threat all of us are.
It may seem when you attack ColumbiaUniversity that you're just attacking

(27:45):
a bunch of elites, but you'reattacking the idea of knowledge.
You're attacking the idea of criticism.
You're attacking the ideaof independent research.
You're attacking people's jobs,their livelihoods, the research
that can save people's lives.
And there is this fundamental disconnect,I think, between the average person and
the kind of representation of what'shappening that makes us not understand
that this is a direct threat to all of us.

(28:07):
They are threatening knowledge,they're threatening curiosity, they're
threatening independent inquiry.
I got to meet the scientists at NOAAand the National Weather Service.
Not only have these people createdone of the most advanced weather
prediction and climate analysissystems on the planet, they literally
took me up in a goddamn plane andflew me into the eye of a hurricane.

(28:28):
Now, this is one of the wildestmoments of my entire life, but for them
it's another Tuesday at the office.
Because every time there is a hurricaneoff the American coast, there is literally
a plane of government scientists flyinginto it over and over again to measure
how strong it is and where it's going.
And then they share that data with thepublic, with us, to protect us from

(28:50):
these extreme weather events so wecan plan evacuations and save lives.
In fact, all of the data from theNational Weather Service's enormous
network of sensors and scientiststhat are working on our behalf 24/7
is shared for free with the public.
When your local weather person givesyou the forecast on the news, they are
literally reading government weatherdata produced by a government scientist

(29:14):
who is paid for by your tax dollars.
And I just wanna underline here what abig deal it is in human history that we
can now predict the weather this way.
Do you know how amazed people from afew centuries ago would be that you
wake up every morning and learn witha high degree of accuracy whether or
not a flood is coming to kill you?
That is wizard shit.

(29:34):
These scientists literally predictthe future and then they give those
predictions to people who need it.
Farmers, airplane pilots,moms planning outdoor birthday
parties, and you, for free.
And now a billionaire high onketamine and his 19-year-old freak
henchmen just fired thousands of them.
They even fired some of thefucking hurricane hunters

(29:55):
I mean, look, if I seem a littleincensed about this, it's because
this topic is personal to me.
Not just because I met these scientistsand fell in love with what they do, but
because people who are important to meliterally had their lives saved a few
months ago by National Weather Servicemeteorologists who accurately predicted
that LA was about to catch on fire.
These fires destroyedentire neighborhoods.

(30:17):
But luckily, very few lives werelost, in large part because the
evacuation alerts went out in timebecause we knew the fires were coming.
The people who work for NOAAand the National Weather Service
aren't there to make money forsome TV station or weather app.
They have exactly one job to saveour lives and improve America by

(30:39):
accurately predicting the weather.
These scientists are real people who doremarkable work and they deserve to be
honored, not kicked to the fucking curb.
And the same goes for the scientistsat the National Institutes of Health,
which has also received massive cuts withnearly 1200 science workers laid off.
Now, if you don't know what theNIH is, let me just fill you in.

(31:00):
It's a government institute that happensto be the largest and most important
medical science organization in theworld, and the scientists who work there,
the people who just lost their jobs,really give a shit about saving lives.
Like Emily, who worked on cancer cures.
Several close family membersof mine either have passed
from cancer or survived cancer.

(31:20):
I'm just worried people aren'tgonna get the treatments they need.
People are going to lose their lives.
This is going to waste years ofdata collection, at the worst
make these experiments invalid.
And Katie Sandlin, a first generationcollege graduate who moved to DC
from Alabama for her dream job asa genomics educator at the NIH.
And I've just always thought that hardwork pays off, you know, and it just,

(31:45):
it doesn't feel like that right now.
Watching these wonderful nerds befired is simply heartbreaking, not just
because they're the best and brightestof America and Elon's just loaded them
into a wood chipper, but also becauseof all the cures we are going to miss
out on if these cuts aren't reversed.
The NIH is responsible forcountless revolutionary treatments.

(32:06):
NIH scientists literally inventedchemotherapy, which has saved multiple
family members of mine from cancer.
They found a treatment for sickle cellanemia and were even working on a cure.
They developed a bloodtest for Alzheimer's.
They do research that helps peoplesuffering from opioid addiction,
asthma, and traumatic brain injuries.
No matter who you are, you orsomeone you know's life was

(32:29):
saved or improved by the NIH.
And, call me naive, but even in my mostcynical moments, I would've thought
that everybody, even Elon Musk andTrump, would agree that we should keep
trying to cure cancer and heart disease.
I mean, after all these two s eatso much, McDonald's heart disease
is gonna get them eventually.
But okay, some might argue that thegovernment shouldn't be doing that

(32:52):
research, that it's too inefficient,and that for-profit businesses should
do that fundamental research instead.
But let's be fucking real.
Last time I checked, most Americans agreethat the unending lust for profit is the
problem with the healthcare industry.
For-profit companies aren'tgonna invest billions to research
the cures for rare diseases.
There's no money in it.

(33:13):
Instead, they'll just research how tosqueeze more money out of us and how to
give better butt implants to rich people.
And yes, I enjoy looking at a hotrich lady with a BBL, but I'd like
to not die of cancer while I do it.
For-profit companies aren't going todo fundamental climate research like
NOAA does because climate change isbeing caused by for-profit companies.
You can't even argue that we arespending too much on science and that

(33:37):
we need to cut back because beforethese cuts, federal funding for
science was already at a 25 year low.
It was literally just over 1% offederal spending, which is crazy
because government funded scientificresearch basically prints money.
After World War II, American policymakersrealized that the key to prosperity was

(33:58):
science and technological innovation.
So they poured funding into science,and the results literally made
America the superpower it is today.
Since 1945, science andtechnology have driven 85% of
the economic growth in America.
Every dollar spent by the NIHturns into more than twice as much
economic value by creating jobsand supporting infrastructure.

(34:20):
Scientific research is one of thefew investments you can make that
actually produces more financialand human value for everyone.
Even Republican lawmakers should knowthis because their state economies
also depend on science funding.
Before these cuts, Texas was receiving$1.9 billion in NIH grants that
directly supported almost 30,000 jobs.

(34:42):
And those jobs generate an estimated112,000 private sector jobs and all
of that put together turned into over$6 billion for the state of Texas.
Is that really something that wewanna cut from the federal budget?
In Alabama, the Universityof Alabama at Birmingham is
the state's largest employer.
And it doesn't just paythose salaries from tuition.

(35:03):
It relies on over $400 millionin grants from the NIH.
These universities in red statesare so deeply affected by Trump and
Elon's science cuts they're alreadyrescinding graduate students' acceptance
letters because they can't affordto invest in their research anymore.
Research hospitals are one of theonly parts of a university that makes
money besides the football team.

(35:24):
Even if every dollar we spent on sciencedidn't pay us back many times over, which
it does, we shouldn't even have to puta dollar value on it because science
is literally more important than money.
Science, just to remind you, once again,is the process by which humans understand
the universe around us in order to improveall of our lives, all of human society.

(35:47):
And that knowledge gives us power.
America's global dominance asa superpower has largely been
based on our lead in science.
Everything from the Manhattan Projectthat created thermonuclear weapons
to the Human Genome Project thathelped us understand our own biology.
So, disemboweling our country's sciencecapability to save money, literally

(36:08):
just makes America poorer and weaker.
It makes all of human society worseand yet the destruction of science was
literally called for in the right wingblueprint for Trump's second term.
Project 2025.
Why?
Why would project 2025's rightwing authors wanna make America

(36:29):
smaller, stupider, and weaker.
Ask yourself this.
Why exactly is science the firstpart of government spending that
Elon and Trump are going after?
I mean, they could have cut themilitary budget, they could have
cut the agriculture budget, theycould have replaced the resolute
desk with a "Klarg" from IKEA.
But no, they started with science.

(36:50):
Why?
It's because they literally hatescience even more than they hate a
trans mouse who plays women's sports.
Trump and a sanctions regime onVenezuela played a very big role in
the Venezuelan economy tanking evenfurther at a time when they needed aid.

(37:10):
Okay?
They said, Maduro's a badguy: fair, sure, whatever.
Okay?
And use that as a justificationto make the economy scream.
And the economy did scream.
And as a direct consequenceof that instability many
Venezuelans escaped Venezuela.
They went to Columbia.
They went to other Latin Americancountries, and a lot of them also

(37:32):
came to the United States of America.
Trump, politically, as he has done inthe past, as the American administrations
have done in the past with Cubanswho are escaping Cuba, offered
Venezuelans Temporary Protective Status.
He said, you guys are political refugees.
We are anti-communist.
You are anti-communist.

(37:53):
Come to America, we'll use you.
That's usually the goalfor American Empire.
They bring in a bunch of reactionariesor bring in a bunch of, people who
are escaping political repressionand used them as a propaganda tool.
So that's what we did.
The American government did that, and inthe process, Donald Trump was such a fan

(38:16):
of offering Temporary Protective Statusto the Venezuelan refugees that came
into the United States of America, thathe actually extended it on his way out.
And then Joe Biden became president forfour years, and now he turned around
and is revoking the TPS in this insanelyviolent matter, deciding that every
single Venezuelan on US soil that hasdocumentation, mind you, documented or

(38:40):
undocumented, but virtually all of theVenezuelans on US soil are documented.
They have the paperwork, theygot Temporary Protective Status.
Understand that they have the documents.
These are not undocumented migrants, okay?
They have the documents, or they'rein the process of getting their
documentation as in their court documents.

(39:01):
The Trump administration turned around andblack bagged a bunch of Venezuelans that
they had actually welcomed inside of theUS boundaries, and in a pure political
ploy, decided to ship them to the ElSalvador anti terror prison unit, CECOT.

(39:24):
We've watched the El Salvador CECOTprison before on this broadcast
because, a bunch of right-wing, MexicanYouTubers went there and glazed Bukele
and also, the prison structure, andtalked about how awesome it is that
they were like [unintelligible]people there, lights on 24/7, another

(39:46):
gross violation of human rights.
In El Salvador, "we've been under astate of exception since 2021, meaning
we have no constitutional rights. Peoplecan be jailed without committing a crime
or ever seeing a judge. Bukele has shutdown all transparency, so any Venezuelan
sent here can end up in a concentrationcamp with no records or oversight".
Yes, I know the prison system in ElSalvador right now due to MS 13 gang

(40:08):
activity that was truly violent,okay?, which is another American issue
that we basically gave to ElSalvador, but I'm not gonna get
into the history of that right now.
Having said that, because of themassive amounts of crime, caused by MS
13, which was born outta the US prisonsystem, where we initially dumped El

(40:33):
Salvadoran migrants that became radicalin the California prison system.
We, without telling the El Salvadorangovernment, deported those migrants
to El Salvador, creating a network, aback and forth, for MS 13 to operate.
MS 13 became this like incrediblypowerful gang as a direct consequence

(40:56):
of us deporting El Salvadoran criminalsfrom the California prison system,
from MS 13 into El Salvador, withoutinforming the government, without
telling the El Salvador government thatthese guys were MS 13 gang members.
You could say, sure thing, buddy.
It's just the truth.
Okay?
It's just the truth.
I'm not even talking aboutVenezuelan gangs right now.
I'm talking about MS 13 and howMS 13 became a thing, became like

(41:21):
this internationally renowned gang.
I'm not talking about Tren de Aragua.
I'm talking about MS 13.
Okay?
Pick up the pace.
Maybe you can accidentallylearn a thing or two.
Nayib Bukele, who initially came intopower with a fairly progressive ticket,
okay?, who had a fairly progressivebackground, Nayib Bukele, he is literally
of Palestinian descent, before hebecame this like weird cryptocurrency

(41:44):
guy, he was actually seen as like,uh, part of the pink tide, the social
democrat to socialist revolutionaryfigures that were winning a lot of
elections all around Latin America.
And then he quickly changed that attitude.
He actually had a lot ofrehabilitative programs.
Initially, when Nayib Bukelecame into power, he had

(42:07):
rehabilitative programs in mind.
He was like, we have to do due process.
We have to make sure that likewe fix the underlying material
conditions to make sure that crimecan never manifest ever again.
And then he became this monster.
Okay?
And yes, for those of you who don'tknow, there are a lot of Palestinians
or people of Palestinian descentliving in Latin American countries.

(42:29):
He came in and he implemented, he builtthis massive prison structure called
CECOT, and he started doing dragnetoperations, where if you are even 11
steps removed, okay?, without any careor consideration to how you became
MS 13 adjacent, or MS 13 aligned,because MS 13, the way that they work,

(42:49):
they'll go to a village or they'll goto a town and they'll basically say,
we're gonna kill your mother and yourdaughter if you don't work with us.
Like basically shopkeepers, anyoneand everyone that they could claim
was actually MS 13, they just grabbed,black bagged, and put in front of
a judge, sometimes 200 people at atime, 200 people sitting in front

(43:14):
of a judge wearing a balaclava asthe judge decides on all 200 being a
part of MS 13 in real time like that.
And once you have been decided,once you have been considered an MS
13 gang member, it's over for you.
That's what they did.
That's what they did, and that's whatthey've been doing in El Salvador.
Now, Bukele is saying you can useour concentration camps for the

(43:38):
people that you're deporting fromthe United States of America.
Yeah.
7.7 million Venezuelans haveleft the country since 2015.
Okay?
They've gone mostly to otherLatin American countries.
Some of them have gone to Spain.
Some of them have made their way allthe way to the United States of America.
The largest population went to Columbia,obviously, as I talked about before.

(44:01):
This is a major destabilizing force.
When you have 7.7 million refugees,you have a refugee crisis, and
it did not have to be this way.
Where is this?
I remember reading this articleabout Bukele a few years ago.
They interviewed a mother whoseseverely autistic son was abducted
by the cops, and days after searchingfor him, found out he was sent to
Supermax, where they don't even feed youconsistently unless your family pays.

(44:23):
"Even before he started the slavelabor business, I could take one look
at this guy and guess he was alreadyembezzling from the treasury. Not
that we needed the help, but Americanprestige will crater even further when
everyone figures out the obvious here".
Yeah.
Nayib Bukele, who has been yelled atby Donald Trump, ironically enough,
on numerous occasions, which is whyI always thought it was strange,

(44:43):
Donald Trump would go on CPAC andbe like, 'Nayib Bukele, he sucks.
He's dumping out his prisons,'like probably because he doesn't
know anything about Latin America.
He probably thinks El Salvadoris Venezuela or something.
Okay?
And he would constantly shit on Bukelewho's also a crypto guy, is now working
with him because he said, Hey, it's great.

(45:04):
Send us all of your deportees.
Will use them as slave laborin our concentration camps.
That's where we're at right now.
I need you to understandhow insane this is.
I'm not being hyperbolic at all.
Okay?
This is not hyperbole.
We are here, we are officiallyin Nazi Germany status.

(45:25):
But unlike Nazi Germany's concentrationcamps being maintained directly by
people of German descent or the foreignlegions or whatever, we are outsourcing
the concentration camp to El Salvador.
Now, watch this, watch this video.
Watch this promotional videofrom Nayib Bukele and tell me

(45:46):
that this isn't Nazi shit, okay?.
Nayib Bukele says, "Today, thefirst 238 members of the Venezuelan
Criminal Organization Tren deAragua arrived in our country.
They were immediately transferred toCECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center,
for a period of one year, renewable.
The United States will pay a very lowfee for them, but a high one for us.
Over time, these actions combined withthe production already being generated

(46:06):
by more than 40,000 inmates engaged invarious workshops and labor under the
Zero Idleness program will help makeour prison system self sustainable.
As of today, it costs$200 million per year.
On this occasion, the US has also sent23 MS 13 members wanted by Salvadoran
Justice, including two ringleaders.
One of them is a member of the criminalorganization's highest structure.
This will help us finalize intelligencegathering, go after the last remnants

(46:29):
of MS 13, including its former andnew members, money, weapons, drugs,
hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors.
As always, we continue advancing in thefight against organized crime, but this
time we are helping our allies, makingour prison system self sustainable
and obtaining vital intelligence".
They're making their prison system selfsustainable by doing slave labor, okay?
They're literally, we're doing slavetrade for Venezuelans who have not

(46:54):
gotten any due process whatsoever.
Venezuelans that have not,this is a work camp, okay?
I don't know what words to use.
It is not hyperbolicat all when I say this.
We are, we're there.
We're here.
Okay?
This is it.
This is the first step of the final actof the darkest chapter of American Empire.

(47:18):
We've just heard clips startingwith American Prestige focusing
on the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil.
Democracy Now!
discussed Trump's deportation ofVenezuelans against a court order.
The Thom Hartmann Program lookedat the history of the Patriot
Act and the practice of callingnonviolent protestors terrorists.
Velshi held a conversation about therising authoritarianism in the US.

(47:39):
Factually!
With Adam Conover highlighted thedetrimental impact of destroying
the country's science capacity.
And Hasan Piker laid out the perverseway US policy impacted Venezuelans
before and after they gained temporaryprotected status in the country.
And those were just the Top Takes.
There's a lot more inthe Deeper Dive sections.
But first, a reminder that this showis produced with the support of our

(48:01):
members who get access to bonus episodesfeaturing our team of producers and
enjoy all of our shows without ads.
To support all of our work and havethose bonus episodes delivered seamlessly
to the new, members-only podcast feedthat you'll receive, sign up to support
the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support(there's a link in the show notes),
through our Patreon page, or fromright inside the Apple Podcast app.

(48:23):
And as always, if regular membershipisn't in the cards for you, shoot
me an email requesting a financialhardship membership, because we
don't let a lack of funds stand inthe way of hearing more information.
And if you have questions or would likeyour comments included in the show, our
upcoming topics that you can chime inon include the outright assault on the
LGBTQ community, and a deep dive into theshifting dynamics of the Democratic Party,

(48:46):
whose dynamics definitely need shifting.
So get your comments and questions innow for those topics or anything else.
You can leave a voicemail orsend us a text at 202-999-3991.
We're also findable on the privacy-focusedmessaging app Signal at the handle
bestoftheleft.01, or you can simplyemail me to Jay@BestOfTheLeft.Com.

(49:09):
Now as for today's topic, I was remindedof an experience I had years ago when
attending a march against police violence.
I wasn't a leader, or a speaker.
I had no plan to take up any spaceaside from adding my body to the crowd.
But as the march was just takingshape, one of the black organizers

(49:32):
pulled my group to the front ofthe march and handed us the banner.
And the reasons for this included optics.
It's good to show that themarch was multi-ethnic.
You know, it's good for the cameras.
The unfortunate truth is that theconcerns of white people are simply taken
more seriously than people of color.
And then finally, there's thecold hard truth about safety.

(49:55):
Instances like this are where therubber meets the road on privilege.
Once again, the unfortunate truth isthat angry passers by, inconvenienced
motorists, and the police themselves wereall less likely to inflict violence on me
than if the march had been led by one ofthe black activists organizing the event.

(50:17):
And no one there wanted forthose things to be true.
But it was smart to recognize themas true for the sake of the movement
and the safety of the activists.
Now, as the weaponization of thegovernment revs up, some individuals and
groups are going to be targeted first.
We know this.

(50:38):
It's clear as day.
And it is best for the resistanceto this tyranny that we
recognize the truth of that.
And when some groups are targetedfirst, the flip side of that coin is
that some people are inherently safer.
They won't be primarily targeted.
They have more legal avenues toprotect themselves, like having full
citizenship rather than a green card.

(51:00):
And then of course some simply havebigger support networks who can help
them out of trouble should it come.
Now I understand it's a touchy thingfor a podcaster like me to sit behind a
microphone and tell people that they needto go out and put their bodies on the line
in the face of a tyrannical government.
Everyone has to make their own choicesabout how to navigate this moment.
But number one, the more of us who standtogether, the more protected we all are.

(51:24):
And two, when those of us with therelative privilege to not be at the top of
Trump's enemies list can use our positionto guard the more vulnerable among us, we
are collectively protected all the more.
Now, what this looks like exactlyis going to be different for every
situation, but it's an idea that's worthremembering as we go forward together.

(51:51):
And now we'll continue todive deeper on four topics.
Section a free speech can be terrorism,followed by section B, opposing
Trump can be terrorism, section C,the D-O-J-F-B-I, and the judiciary.
And finally, sectionD, government function.
And Marco Rubio followed up by declaringon, uh, ex formerly Twitter saying

(52:16):
We will deport green card holders.
And then Trump, of course, followed upwith his own statement of declaration, um,
stating that this is the first of many.
Um, that will incur the, the same fate.
Mara, what does that mean exactly?
Can we just break down?
Because look, I'm a productof the war on terror.
I've seen a lot, and at thispoint this does seem to be one

(52:39):
of the most authoritarian andkind of terrifying moments.
Of Unconstitutionality, Hamas alignedis their only accusation here.
So what does that even entail to them?
I mean, you said that it's just, itcould be as loose as just someone
calling for a ceasefire meansthat they're aligned with Hamas.
But, but really break that down becausethat's a lot of Trump supporters and a

(52:59):
lot of the Trump administration is, isbacking this decision by saying, look, he
provided material support for terrorism.
He was passing out leaflets thatcould be construed as supporting
Hamas because it was pro-Palestine.
What.
Does that mean if green cardholders are now going to be deported
for simply expressing speech?

(53:20):
I think it would be helpful to putthis really in the larger context of
what the administration has said, um,what it has said it's going to do, and
what it plainly is attempting to dowhen it comes to, uh, speech that is
in support of Palestine speech that hasopposed the US backed genocide in Gaza.
And from the beginning, the Trumpadministration with its first executive

(53:43):
orders, uh, began laying out certainlanguage indicating that they were going
to be targeting people, um, based on theirspeech, based on, um, their advocacy.
Um, they had language about comingafter persons who they asserted were,
um, seeking to overturn the culture.

(54:04):
Upon which the Constitution wasfounded, just a straight out
rallying cry to white supremacists.
And they were putting this intheir, uh, context of their, uh,
completely false presentation of.
Basically apprehending terrorists inthe United States, which is an effort
to go after immigrants, undocumentedpeople, and with a broad rush target.

(54:28):
Um, all, both immigrants and, uh,organizations that are supporting
immigrants in the United States asterrorists are supporting terrorists.
We see this also then extended inthe context of Palestine advocacy and
those who have demanded a ceasefire.
So the administration.
Has, uh, announced then in subsequentexecutive order on the 29th that it was,

(54:53):
uh, in this combating antisemitism order,completely abusing as so many in the right
wing have done, um, the term antisemitism,because of course we all understand and
believe that antisemitism is at point.
This is this continuing effort.
To equate criticism of Israel withantisemitism, but the administration is

(55:15):
seeking to use that as a legal leveragepoint to then say both that anyone
who is engaged in criticism of Israelor criticism of the US backed war on
the Palestinian people and genocide.
Is, uh, engaged in anti-Semitic activity.
So they wanna use that, uh, to beable to both say that they're engaged

(55:38):
in discriminatory conduct, butthey wanna take it a step further.
And this is what we're startingto see, which is what was being
foreshadowed when it comes to Mach wood.
Khalil.
What they are trying to do now is saythat people who call for a ceasefire,
people who have stood in solidaritywith the right of Palestinians to have

(55:59):
freedom and liberation and against.
Oppression are somehow alsoquote aligned with Hamas.
That was the language that theadministration used, um, in response to
the demands for freedom for Mahmud Khalil.
So what they're saying is that if you.

(56:19):
As a person in the United States arecalling for a ceasefire and if Hamas was
also calling for a ceasefire, or if youare calling for freedom of liberation
for the Palestinian people and Hamas iscalling for freedom or liberation for the
Palestinian people, that's somehow is aquote alignment that then labels someone
in their mind, uh, potentially excludable.

(56:43):
Of course it is not.
Of course, it is not excludable tobelieve those views to advocate for peace,
but that's what they're trying to do.
Well, I think this is the most dangerouspart of this, is this Hamas alignment
allegation based on nothing at allother than this tenuous, you know, link.
That that essentially is rhetoricthat could be similar in terms of

(57:06):
calling for a ceasefire, callingfor a cessation to massacres.
Somehow you're aligned with Hamas.
If you're just a. Posing the genocidethat we've all been witnessing on our
phones for the last 15 months, andthat's what makes this extraordinarily
kind of a dystopian moment.
I wanna comment on Khalil'scharacter and why he was even a
leader in the student movement.
I'm gonna quote a fellow studentactivist Miriam, who posted quote Mahmud

(57:29):
did everything that administratorsclaim they wanted from us.
He was unmasked.
He was extremely tactful with his words.
He was kind patient.
Even with those who dehumanized him,he always stayed rational and calm.
He was a lead negotiator preciselybecause of these qualities.
He extended grace to thosewho didn't deserve it.
The fact that the Trump administrationdid not actually single out someone

(57:50):
who used inflammatory rhetoric.
Or engaged in violencebut actually singled out.
Khalil, do you think thisis a trial balloon, Mara?
I mean, there's a lot hinge on thisand, and is it an unprecedented case?
It is an unprecedentedcase, uh, to my knowledge.
I mean, certainly if you go back and lookat the crackdowns against the movement.

(58:13):
The removal of persons like Emma Goldmanand others in history we have, it is
not un unprecedented to see the stateuse its authority, including the State
Department and other, um, agenciesuse their authority against political
movements in the United States in orderto obstruct, to deport, to repress.

(58:36):
Certainly could see thatwith, you know, Paul Robeson.
You can see that William worthy over andover again, the State Department tries
to use, its, its controls, its powersto, uh, to target political activists.
But certainly within our timewe have seen nothing like this.
It is completely unconstitutional.
It is fundamentally a violation ofthe First Amendment in all respects

(59:00):
for the administration to take speech.
Just because it opposes it ideologicallyand wrap it up and announce that
it's terrorism, and then thisincredible stretch of suggesting
that there's some equal sign.
Between speech in support of Palestinianpeople or speech that is opposing an
extraordinary genocide and saying thatthat is somehow support for an FDO.

(59:24):
It is not everyone who hasread the Constitution or even
heard of it, understands it isnot the administration knows.
That it is not, but this ispart of their broader agenda.
In that same January 29th combatingantisemitism order, they issued a fact
sheet and the adjacent, the fact sheetthat came along with it said explicitly

(59:44):
that they intended to target, um,persons who were engaged in political
speech or views that they labeled asleftist, left wing or anti-American,
and they were wrapping that all up.
In the same context as as this attackon people who have been, um, issuing

(01:00:05):
statements, marching, rallying, organizingthe brave students on campus who are
demanding divestment from genocide.
This is their effort.
In a really despotic mannerto try and crack down on
dissent in the United States.
And their first target is of course,the Palestine movement because
they know and hope that peoplewill turn away, that people who

(01:00:28):
don't care about this will accept ademonization of the Palestine movement.
But they're also doing the exact samething to the immigrant rights movement.
They are doing this in their own waywith the environmental justice movement,
calling them domestic terrorists.
Across the board, they're abusing andmisusing authority that relates to
national security or terrorism in order totarget all those in the United States that

(01:00:51):
they oppose, whose viewpoints they oppose.
Because in truth, they know that thebiggest threat to this authoritarian
grab, what we're really witnessingis a, a coup in real time.
This fundamental threat tobasic democratic principles.
They know that the thing theyhave to worry about the most
is dissent, is organizationis the movement of the people.

(01:01:13):
And if they can terrorize people, ifthey can threaten to arrest people,
if they can threaten to jail people,they're hoping to fully suppress that
speech and movements for justice.
So, most of the investigations focuson colleges' partnerships with a
nonprofit called The PhD Program.
What is that?
And what exactly is administrationall at alleging here?

(01:01:34):
So The PhD Project is this effortthat is designed to get more
professors from underrepresentedbackgrounds into business schools.
So, colleges, student bodies are muchmore diverse than they used to be.
So about half of undergraduatesare students of color.
Most faculty members are white.
And so colleges have been tryingto get more underrepresented groups
represented among the faculty.

(01:01:56):
Now, the Trump administration believesthat these diversity, equity and
inclusion efforts, these DEI efforts,are illegal because they consider race.
They treat peopledifferently based on race.
That's their argument.
And so the Trump administration sees ThePhD Project, which is working with these
45 universities, as part of the illegalDEI that it's trying to crack down on.

(01:02:18):
That's its argument.
Obviously, a lot of people would say theseDEI programs are not illegal, they're
just an important part of creating morewelcoming environments on campuses.
And so most of the schools arebeing targeted because of that.
There are seven other colleges that arelisted here that are being investigated
for awarding what the administration callsimpermissible race-based scholarships.
Sarah, have the universitiesresponded to any of these allegations?

(01:02:40):
At this point, the universities havesaid, we are reviewing the allegations.
We will cooperate with anyfederal investigations.
They haven't said a lotspecifically so far.
We have seen a range of these scholarshipprograms targeted in the past, so this
has been something going on for some time.
And some universities have actuallystopped offering certain kinds
of scholarships or have changedthe way that they are awarded.

(01:03:03):
But these scholarships typicallyare designed to help low-income
students from particular backgroundspay for their college tuition.
So that's what they have traditionallybeen designed for, and that is
now — that's now being targetedby the Trump administration, who
believes those efforts are illegal.
We have also seen the administration morespecifically target Columbia University.
That was the site of a lot ofpro-Palestinian protests that

(01:03:24):
began after the October 7 Hamasattack and Israel's war in Gaza.
This week, the administrationcanceled some $400 million in
federal funding to Columbia.
What does a cut of that sizemean to a school like Columbia?
Yes, so Columbia does receivea lot more in federal funding
than just that $400 million.
But, just to be clear,it's really impactful.

(01:03:45):
So we have already seen that thesecuts are affecting National Institutes
of Health research on, for example,opioids, on malaria vaccine.
So these are really impactful researchprojects, as the university sees it.
And so it's already having an impact.
And so you might think, oh,Columbia is a university with
a billion-dollar endowment.

(01:04:06):
Can't they just pull from thatendowment and backfill this funding?
That's not how it works.
So, for a university likeColumbia, even this is a big deal.
We have also seen, at Columbia,this is, of course, the headlines
about Mahmoud Khalil, becausehe was a former student there.
Federal immigration agents arrestedhim on campus housing there.
He helped to lead some of those protests.
And he's a legal permanent residentthey're now trying to deport.

(01:04:29):
We have seen another arrest of aforeign student at Columbia as well.
How are our universities now kind ofnavigating this moment, when federal
immigration authorities could potentiallycome onto campus or campus housing
and arrest members of their community?
Yes, so this is a newconcern for colleges.
At least, in the past decade, ICE hasnot regularly carried out deportation

(01:04:50):
activities in these sensitive locations,such as schools and college campuses.
So universities have been, forthe past few months — their
communities are concerned aboutpotential immigration enforcement.
Universities have been sending outmessages to their communities, here
are the protocols for dealing with ICE.
But what we're seeing at Columbia isreally the first example of ICE agents

(01:05:11):
actually coming to a campus, in somecases, like we have seen recently this
week, with a warrant, with warrants,and what happens to — when universities
have to respond to those situations.
And so I think a lot of campuscommunities, especially at
Columbia, international students,undocumented students, they're
very concerned right now.
The investigations they announcedjust today, the threat of pulling
federal funds is the through line here.

(01:05:32):
And we have already seen the impact thatcan have at Johns Hopkins, for example.
That's a leader, of course,in scientific research.
They just announced that they're slashing2,000 jobs after the university lost
more than $800 million in federal grants.
Those are unrelated to the efforts togo after DEI programs, though, right?
This is all, I would say, part of alarger effort by the Trump administration

(01:05:55):
to try to change the policies andpractices on college campuses.
The Johns Hopkins cuts are morerelated to the USAID situation.
And so that is a little bit different.
But it's all part of this larger effortby the Trump administration to try to have
universities in alignment with his agenda.

(01:06:16):
That's really what is underlyingeverything that we're seeing here with
DEI programs, with these protesters andpotential deportations of protesters.
That's what we're seeing here.
On Friday, President Trump spoke at theDepartment of Justice and threatened to
take revenge on his political enemies.
Our predecessors turned this Department ofJustice into the department of injustice.

(01:06:40):
But I stand before you today todeclare that those days are over, and
they are never going to come back.
They’re never coming back.
… So, now as the chief law enforcementofficer in our country, I will
insist upon and demand full andcomplete accountability for the
wrongs and abuses that have occurred.

(01:07:02):
In a moment, we’ll be joined byDemocratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin
of Maryland, but first let’s turn to apart of his response to Trump’s speech.
Raskin spoke outside theDepartment of Justice Friday.
In the 18th century, the AmericanRevolution overthrew the kings, the
lords and the feudal barons to establisha nation where we would have a nation

(01:07:25):
where all would be equal under the law.
As Tom Paine put it, in monarchies,the king is law, but in the
democracies, the law is king.
But, amazingly, we now have apresident in the 21st century who
believes he’s a king, and he believesthat the king is the law once again.
The first seven weeks of this radicalexperiment in neomonarchism has been a

(01:07:50):
disaster for the rule of law and for theConstitution and for the First Amendment.
There have been 120 federal casesfiled against Donald Trump all
over the country, and he has lostalready in more than 40 courtrooms
across the land, where temporaryrestraining orders and preliminary

(01:08:13):
injunctions have been issued againsthis lawless attack on the Constitution.
That was Congressmember Jamie Raskinof Maryland speaking outside the DOJ on
Friday, responding to Trump’s speech.
He’s joining us now fromTakoma Park, Maryland.
Congressmember Raskin is the top Democraton the House Judiciary Committee and

(01:08:35):
a former constitutional law professor.
During Trump’s first presidency,Raskin served as a floor manager and
the Democrats’ lead prosecutor forTrump’s second impeachment after the
January 6th Capitol insurrection.
He was also a member of the HouseJanuary 6 committee investigating
the Capitol insurrection.

(01:08:56):
In January, Biden gave preemptivepardons to Raskin and other members
of the January 6th House committee.
Earlier today, President Trump claimedthe pardons are invalid because,
he said, they were done by autopen.
Congressmember Jamie Raskin,welcome back to Democracy Now!
Why don’t we start there, withPresident Trump saying all the

(01:09:20):
pardons that he issued that weredone by autopen are invalid?
That would include you.
Your response?
First of all, thank you for having me,Amy, and that was the first time I got
to hear a clip from our press conference.
What you couldn’t hear there was theconstant berating and heckling of MAGA

(01:09:42):
counterprotesters who showed up.
We were being drowned outby a guy with a bullhorn.
I wanted to borrow his bullhorn, becausewe didn’t have a sound system with us.
But I appreciate your runningthat clip where we went and
appeared opposite Donald Trump.
So, but I had not seen that Donald Trumpis claiming that the pardon rendered by

(01:10:06):
President Biden was somehow illegitimatebecause of the kind of pen that was used.
This sounds like classicDonald Trump stuff.
You know, the pardons, of course,were necessary because of Trump’s
promises to prosecute Bennie Thompsonand Liz Cheney, less so the rest

(01:10:27):
of us, but they had already madetheir moves against Liz Cheney.
And I have no reason to think thatthose were not valid any more than
the humiliating and atrocious pardonsthat Donald Trump gave to nearly
1,600 insurrectionists, includingviolent felons who viciously attacked

(01:10:53):
our police officers on January 6th.
So, if you can talk about thisalmost unprecedented speech?
It is very rare for a presidentto go to the Department of Justice
and give a speech like this.
I think Clinton did around someanti-crime bill, which many would
dispute was actually an anti-crime bill.

(01:11:15):
Obama went to say goodbyeto the attorney general.
But to give an hour address namingnames of targets, talking about the
press as enemies of the people, if youcan respond, overall, to what he said?
Well, it was a typical rambling andhate-filled diatribe by Donald Trump.

(01:11:37):
No speech like that has ever takenplace at the U.S. Department of
Justice, which has existed since 1870,when it was set up to try to enforce
the Reconstruction amendments to theConstitution against the Ku Klux Klan
and against white supremacists and
insurrectionists and secessionists.
But nobody has ever taken a sledgehammerto the traditional boundary between

(01:12:03):
independent criminal law enforcement,on the one side, and presidential
political will and power, on the other.
But here Trump made it clear that heviews these people as his lawyers.
They are reporting to him, according tohis corrupt unitary executive theory.
And far from staying out of thebusiness of deciding who will be

(01:12:25):
prosecuted and who will be let go,he’s going to superintend the whole
machinery of the Department of Justice.
I want to go to a clip fromPresident Trump speaking at
the Department of Justice.
I believe that CNN and MSDNC, wholiterally write 97.6% bad about me, are

(01:12:47):
political arms of the Democrat Party.
And in my opinion, they’re reallycorrupt, and they’re illegal.
What they do is illegal.
… These networks and these newspapersare really no different than a
highly paid political operative.
And it has to stop.
It has to be illegal.
It’s influencing judges, and it’sentered — it’s really changing

(01:13:12):
law, and it just cannot be legal.
I don’t believe it’s legal.
So, that is President Trumpspeaking at the Justice Department.
Of course, he has sued ABC.
He has sued CBS.
He has sued The Des Moines Register.
Because he has the backing of thewealthiest person on Earth, Elon

(01:13:32):
Musk, he could do endless lawsuits.
And whether or not theywin, that’s not the point.
But he could just wipe outone news institution after
another, Congressmember Raskin.
Well, he’s obviously frustratedbecause he’s losing everywhere in
court on everything from the birthrightcitizenship executive order, which
is blatantly unconstitutional, tothe spending freeze to the sacking of

(01:13:57):
thousands of probationary employees.
And so, he’s frustrated, so he says it’sgot to be illegal for the media to be
covering his defeats and to be tryingto expose the various constitutional
violations of his administration.
Of course, it’s completely lawfuland protected by the First Amendment.
And he’s just operating out of theauthoritarian playbook, which says that

(01:14:20):
the first thing you do when you get inis you crack down on the free press.
And he’s been doing that in numerous ways.
He’s been ordering the FCC togo after ABC, CBS, NBC, anybody
who displeases him in any way.
But he’s also been personallysuing media entities.
There was a shakedown of $15million against ABC because he

(01:14:41):
was unhappy with coverage there.
And now he’s got a $20 billion lawsuitagainst CBS, not even because of
anything they said about him, butbecause he thought that the coverage
of Kamala Harris was too positive.
It was about, right, a 60 Minutesinterview, which in all news media
you do an hour an interview, andyou play 10 minutes, so things

(01:15:03):
like her sneezing were taken out.
And he said that was used to affectthe — try to use to affect the election.
Of course, Fox News operates completelyas an ideological arm of the Republican
Party and of the Trump cult, and there’snothing unconstitutional about that.
You know, it’s totally fine for anewspaper entity to be endorsing

(01:15:27):
Harris or Trump or what have you.
So, he’s just absolutelyconfused on the point.
When you drill down on these supposedcases of assault, again, something
that Politico in their coverage ofMahmoud Khalil referenced this, right?
They vaguely alluded toassault on Jewish students.
Nine times out of 10,this is what they mean.
They mean people who are activelysupporting and again, they’ll say
this, they’re pro-Zionist, pro-Israelfactions who go, and you saw this in the

(01:15:50):
most conspicuously on the UCLA campus,when the so-called counter-protesters
started firing fireworks and lightingthings on fire and assaulting
people, some of whom actually werecharged by the district attorney.
These are pro-Israel, pro-Zionist,what Vanessa Redgrave called in her
1978 Oscar speech, Zionist hoodlums.
These are people who are there tofuck up people they view as being

(01:16:12):
threatening to Israel and Israel security.
This is not a protected ethnic class.
This is an ideological support fora nation-state, and this is just
constantly conflated in this coverage,and they’re not remotely the same thing.
So for instance, since you mentionedUCLA, Adam, in a recent article
from NBC News covering the arrest ofMahmoud Khalil, there is this section

(01:16:34):
buried midway through the article.
Quote,
At UCLA, students gathered atDickson Plaza on campus, where
megaphones and rattling drumspunctuated calls for Khalil’s release.
This is what follows.
Quote,
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk announcedMonday that the university would launch
an “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism”that will include recommendations on

(01:16:56):
how it can combat anti-Israel bias, hesaid in a message to the UCLA community.
“UCLA is at an inflection point,”Frenk said. “Building on past
efforts and lessons, we must now pushourselves to extinguish antisemitism,
completely and definitively.”
End quote.
Antisemitism being oppositionto Israel and Israel’s policies.

(01:17:17):
Right?
I mean, it says it right there.
Right.
And they do this over and over again.
None of these initiatives are aboutopposing genocide or opposing US
military and state funding forthe ongoing occupation, apartheid,
and genocide in Palestine.
That is, of course, we’re not goingto see any initiatives to combat that.
We just see the ongoing conflationof criticism of a nation-state

(01:17:42):
that is committing crimes againsthumanity, horrific war crimes
against a people, as being the samething, synonymous with antisemitism.
And if you feel like this is drivingyou insane, or you feel like you’re
losing your mind, you’re not alone,because this is how every single of
these squishy, useless fucking universityadministrators, and of course, much

(01:18:05):
of the so-called liberal media, orcentrist media, is framing this.
They’re framing this as an issue ofantisemitism, when all they have is
guilt by association, vague innuendo,and this War on Terror language.
I mean, so much is laundered through thisterrorist, terrorist, terror, terror.
Again, only certain groups can be terror.
You can commit a genocide and drop2,000-pound bombs on apartment

(01:18:26):
buildings and kill tens of thousandsof people, thousands of children,
probably tens of thousands of children.
And that’s not terrorism.
Why we don’t know?
We’re going to debate that later.
That’s an academic question.
Let’s just move on.
Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror.
Antisemitism, antisemitism.
Terror, terror, antisemitism,antisemitism, terror, terror, terror.
Until you look up and you go, Wait,what are we even talking about anymore?
Right?
Like, what’s being adjudicated here?

(01:18:47):
I can’t even keep track ofwhat we’re talking about.
Are we talking about the peoplestarving in Gaza who’ve had their
electricity and water cut off?
That are in month 17 of completedestitution and annihilation?
No, we’re not talking about that.
We’re not talking aboutUS support for that.
We’re talking about these allegedmushy feelings of a bunch of
fucking college kids, which hasnothing to do with anything.
So let’s read the University ofMinnesota President Rebecca Cunningham.

(01:19:09):
We’re going to read this whole statement.
And the reason why is because Ithink this kind of sums up the
combination of cowardice, but alsocorruption, and I think racism.
I think, frankly, a lot of this justfucking anti-Arab racism, to be quite
honest, at work here, which is to sayracism only goes in one direction.
It only matters in one direction.
And we’re going to use the language,the squishy, sort of post-George Floyd
language of anti-racism to defend agenocide in real time, and that’s what

(01:19:34):
we’re going to do, it’s what we’vebeen doing over the last 17 months,
in the most cynical way possible.
Again, everything’s vague.
Everything’s about feelings.
Nothing’s in reference to anyspecific thing that happens.
Yes, so this is University of MinnesotaPresident Rebecca Cunningham, who sent
this message, this statement, to theuniversity community earlier this week.
Here it is, quote,
Dear students, faculty and staff,

(01:19:57):
As President, there is no greaterresponsibility than to ensure each
and every member of our communityfeels safe, valued and respected.
Regardless of your race, genderidentity, disability status, sexual
orientation or religious beliefs, weare fully committed to ensuring that
everyone feels welcomed and protectedhere at the University of Minnesota.
I am writing to you today, as our TwinCities campus is now the subject of
two federal investigations involvingallegations of antisemitism: a U.S.

(01:20:20):
Department of Education investigationand a pending U.S. Department of
Justice task force campus visit.
We also received a failing score onthe Anti-Defamation League’s latest
campus antisemitism report card.
Oh, the totally good-faith ADL,who’s working with the Trump
regime to disappear students.
We’re working with them to fightantisemitism on a totally good-faith,
neutral definition of antisemitism thathas nothing to do with defending Israel.

(01:20:44):
Sorry.
Go ahead.
During the first eight monthsof my presidency, I have been
working closely with members of ourUniversity community to foster a safe,
welcoming environment for everyone.
Unfortunately, harassment,discrimination and bias — including
antisemitism — continues to existacross the globe, negatively
impacting people and communities.
Here at the University of Minnesota,we take these issues very seriously.

(01:21:07):
As a leadership team and aUniversity, we are strongly committed
to enhancing support for membersof our community who are Jewish.
We are in regular communication withJewish students and faculty groups, who
have been advising us to better understandtheir lived experiences in this time,
and augment their experience on campus.
We got a “lived experience,” Nima.
That’s right, you can’t talk aboutthe myriad death experiences of

(01:21:31):
the people who are being, you know,genocided, but no, the lived experience.
We just need bodies and spaces,and we’ll have the hat trick.
Go ahead.
President Cunningham continues, quote,
In response to their advocacy,the University recently joined the
Hillel Campus Climate Initiative — anationwide program that equips campus
administrators with strategies tocounter antisemitism and foster an
environment where Jewish studentsfeel safe expressing their identities.

(01:21:54):
An explicitly pro-Israel organizationbeing laundered through the language
of anti-racism in Jewish identity.
Go ahead.
Over the past year, the Universityhas made substantial improvements
to its Bias Response and ReferralNetwork to ensure that reporting
is easier, intuitive and effective.
We have also worked to clarify andcommunicate our policies regarding
time, place and manner for events,demonstrations and civic engagement.

Translation (01:22:17):
We’ve more easily broadened the definition of racism
into opposition to Israeli policy, inalliance with a bunch of Zionist bullies.
Go ahead.
And therefore made it harderfor people to protest on campus.
And of course, made it hard toprotest, because any protest that
isn’t again, I guess a polite visualis seen as per se racist harassment.

(01:22:38):
Okay, go ahead.
The statement continues, quote,
Let me be clear.
Any and all forms of harassment,intimidation and bias against
any member of our Universitycommunity will not be tolerated.
Decisive measures will be taken to end anyhostile actions based on shared ancestry
or any other protected characteristic, andUniversity leaders will continue to work

(01:22:58):
diligently to prevent their recurrence.
Does it ever occur to University ofMinnesota officials or any officials
that perhaps Trump disappearingPalestinian students was in part
due to their being Palestinian, wasin part due to their being Arab?
No, that’s not racism, right?
You know, disappearing fucking studentsand putting them in undisclosed locations
in Louisiana where they cannot speakto their family or lawyer, that is

(01:23:19):
not racism, by an overtly racist andIslamophobic and anti-Arab president.
That’s not racism when, in fact, we’regoing to work with the group, the ADL,
explicitly cheering that on and supportingthat, tweeting out support for that.
So that’s not racism.
That doesn’t count as racism.
No, no, no.
The solipsistic, self-identifiedperceptions of certain students
matter, but the actual disappearingof Arab students is irrelevant.

(01:23:43):
Now entering Section B,opposing Trump can be terrorism.
Trump declared the vehicle's beautiful,and in particular, praised the company's
unusually designed cyber truck.
As soon as I saw it, I said,that is the coolest design.
Trump said by reviewing the Teslas inpublic before cameras, Trump ensured that
his purchase would receive y attention.

(01:24:05):
Dan s Scavino, a White House deputy Chiefof Staff Live streamed the event on X,
the social media app owned by mosque.
The White House did not immediatelyrespond to a request for comment
on the application of ethics rules.
Trump said he would payfor the vehicle by check.
Elon, can you take a check?
The reporting continues.
The company's shares have declinedevery week since Musk went to

(01:24:25):
Washington and they fell 15% onMonday before rebounding Tuesday.
Asked whether his purchasemight help Tesla's stock.
Trump said, I hope it does.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Yeah.
Basically they asked, I'm doingsome stock manipulation here.
They, they asked if this demonstrationand performative gesture was
on its face, corrupt, and Trumpanswered in the affirmative.

(01:24:46):
Yep.
Me and a bunch of people I, Italked to have all placed, uh,
large bets, all placed large betson the stock going up today, and
so that's the whole point of this.
We make money.
Yeah.
During the event, Trump held a piece ofpaper with notes about Tesla features
according to photos of the notes.
Published by Getty Images, the notesappeared to be something of a sales

(01:25:07):
pitch, uh, including details that Teslascould be purchased for $299 a month,
and that all vehicles have self-driving.
A reference to the company suite ofdriver assistance features, which
cost extra and still require humansupervision and don't work too good.
Yeah.
Senator Chris Murphy ofConnecticut called this, what?
It was over on the, the bad site sayingJust because the corruption plays out in

(01:25:30):
public doesn't mean it's not corruption.
Yeah, that's right.
It's, he is correct to say that.
Yeah.
This is, and Reuters went intodetail about Trump's plans to
criminalize Tesla protestors if theyengage in violence and who knows
how broadly that'll be interpreted.
Yeah.
What is, what, what's yourdefinition of violence?
Is like, it's, it's going to belike words can feel like violence.

(01:25:50):
Yeah.
Or silence is violence.
I'm trying.
You don't talk violence.
You talk violence.
Um, uh yeah.
Especially after, you know, seeingimages from Tesla dealerships where
there is a substantial show of forceprotecting the building and vehicles.
Yeah.
By the police doing the jobthat they do violence against.
Tesla dealerships will belabeled domestic terrorism and
perpetrators will go through hell.

(01:26:12):
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesdayin a show of support for the electric
Carmaker's chief, his ally, Elon Musk.
Uh, yeah, of course thejuxtaposition isn't lost on us.
It's just very sad that we're at apoint where on one hand, taxpayer
funded police officers are guardingTesla dealerships just in case.
While at the same time legal residentsare being disappeared and having

(01:26:32):
their citizenship status revokedbecause they protested a genocide
that the United States agrees with.
The activists have lately stagedso-called Tesla takedown protests
to voice displeasure over Musk'srole in sweeping cuts to the federal
workforce at the behest of Trump andcancellation of contracts that fund
humanitarian programs around the world.
They're harming a great American company.
Trump said at the White Housereferring to the demonstrators.

(01:26:54):
Let me tell you, you do it toTesla and you do it to any company.
We're going to catch you andyou're gonna go through hell.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fieldsaid ongoing and heinous acts of violence
against Tesla by radical leftist activistsare nothing short of domestic terror.
A group said that it was an organizerof the Tesla takedown protest,
responded in a statement on socialmedia platform blue sky, that it

(01:27:16):
was peaceful and opposed violence.
I. Quote, peaceful protest on publicproperty is not domestic terrorism.
They're trying to intimidate us.
We will not let them succeed.
The group said, calling for peopleto join the protests, Trump could
direct the US Justice Department tocharge Tesla dealership vandals under
terrorism statutes, though it isunclear if those charges would hold up
in court according to legal experts.
Yeah.
I mean, so there have beeninstances of vandalism at

(01:27:40):
these protests, but mostly not.
Mm-hmm.
Um.
Uh, a few Tesla charging stationshave been caught on fire, but not as
part of any protests, so it's, it'shard to tell what they're really
talking about other than someone mayberiding with a Sharpie on a window.
Yeah, it seems to be putting thisout in front as justification for.

(01:28:03):
Getting up to, but they're
talking about this as if we're already inlike week two of the George Floyd protest.
Oh yeah.
No.
Like this has been going for a verylong time and Tesla does such a
burning, our death, the country, it just
doesn't correlate with reality.
Teslas are rolling through cities on fire.
It, it, it doesn't yet.
It doesn't make sense, but
like, would those, would the people in NewOrleans who threw beads at those Teslas?

(01:28:24):
Yes.
Would they, are they terrorists?
I guess so.
Donald Trump has made it clear thatthere are groups that he wants to
punish immigrants, transgender people,he said, but less disgust protestors.
He hopes to discipline and potentiallyprosecute civil disobedience, people
who show up on the in the streets andprotest with increased force In May,

(01:28:48):
Donald Trump promised a group of donorsthat quote any student, the protests,
I will throw them out of the country.
End quote.
And that's more than just bluster.
Uh, writes, uh, Vinceover at Mother Jones.
Uh, Reuters reported that sources saidTrump hopes to follow through on the
promise one day, uh, uh, on, excuse me, onday one of his administration, by signing

(01:29:09):
an executive order, prioritizing deportinginternational students who support
Palestinian Militant Group Hamas and haveviolated the terms of their student visas.
Uh, one piece of the potentialinfrastructure, I told, you know, I
mentioned this in the first hour of theprogram, is this stop terror financing and
tax penalties of American Hostages Act.

(01:29:30):
This is the, the law that's probablygonna be voted on this week that
gives the Treasury secretary thepower to designate a non-profit as a
supporter of terrorism and strippedthem of their nonprofit status.
Uh, he notes The Heritage Foundation.
The Rightwing Group behind Project2025 has also given Trump a workable
plan to stop pro-Palestinian descents.

(01:29:51):
It's called Project Esther.
It suggests deporting quote, foreignHamas support organization members end
quote, classifying anti-war nonprofitslike American Muslims for Palestine,
students for Justice in Palestine.
And Jewish Voice for Peace.
As members of a shadowy Hamassupport organization network,
Republicans have revived, uh, R 94 95.

(01:30:14):
It, it failed to pass last week,but they tried to pass it, uh,
using fast Track essentially,which requires, uh, two thirds.
Uh, vote and, uh, they, they actuallyhad 50 Democrats who supported it.
I don't, I just don't think theyknew what they were supporting.
Uh, I doubt they will this time,but, but now they're gonna do it
through regular order, which meansthey don't need a single Democrat.

(01:30:34):
All they need is all the Republicans.
What this bill will do isallow the treasury secretary.
To designate any nonprofit in the UnitedStates as a supporter of terrorism and
instantly with basically, uh, thereis an appeal process, but it, it's.
It's not robust, shall we say.

(01:30:56):
Uh, instantly they will lose theirtax exempt status, which means that
they will lose institutional supportif they're getting foundation support.
Um, donations will nolonger be tax deductible.
Um, there's a whole bunch ofdoors that close when a nonprofit
loses their nonprofit status.
And, you know, whether they're gonnause this to go after investigative, uh,

(01:31:17):
uh, reporting groups like ProPublica.
Uh, you know, what they're sayingright now is that they want to
use it to go after groups that aresupportive of, uh, people in Gaza.
And, uh, this is what, uh, AbbyMaxman, the president and CEO of
Oxfam America had to say about this.
He said, this bill would increase thepowers of the president at the expense

(01:31:38):
of all of our freedoms, and could impactnot only organizations like Oxfam, but
other nonprofits, news outlets, andeven universities who dare to dissent.
It would put our ability to, to respondto some of the worst humanitarian
crises at risk and prevent usfrom delivering lifesaving aid.
To some of the world'smost marginalized people.
This bill follows the same playbook.

(01:31:59):
Oxfam has seen other governmentsaround the world use to crush dissent.
Now we are seeing it here at home.
His analysis of the so-called nonprofitkiller bill was published on Spencer
Ackerman’s blog forever-wars.com.
It’s headlined “The MostDangerous Domestic Anti-Terrorism
Bill Since the PATRIOT Act.”

(01:32:22):
OK, Darryl, why?
Why is this so significant?
Again, it was passed in the House.
It now makes its way to the Senate.
Thank you for having me on, Amy.
As you mentioned, this bill is essentiallya civil rights disaster, that would allow
the government, under any administration— I want to be clear that this bill is

(01:32:42):
terrible no matter who is president — butit would allow the government to shut
down nonprofits on the smear of beingterrorist-supporting organizations.
Now, obviously, the government,after decades of authoritarian “war
on terror” policies, already hasample legal tools at its disposal
to go after nonprofits, essentially,for any reason that it wishes.
What this bill would do in addition,the thing that it would add and the

(01:33:04):
thing that makes it so dangerous, andactually the most dangerous domestic
terrorism law in a generation, isthat it would essentially smuggle
in through the back door a domesticterrorist group list for the first time.
This is something that the UnitedStates, to this day, still doesn’t have.
We have many, many lists of so-calledforeign terrorist organizations,
that are overwhelmingly Muslimand/or based in the Global South.

(01:33:28):
This law requires an accusationwith no evidence, but a tie-in.
It’s an accusation that nonprofitsare supporting a group on one of the
existing international terrorism lists.
This is important to understand, becauseit explains why so many people on
the right in Congress are comfortablesigning on, because the bill is
essentially discriminatory by design.

(01:33:49):
Right-wingers and white supremacistsin Congress can support this bill,
with the assurance that their allies,right-wing extremist groups, are highly,
highly unlikely to ever be targeted bythis bill, because there isn’t going
to — it’s much less likely that theywill be smeared with an accusation
of being tied to an internationalterrorist organization that’s already
on one of the government lists.

(01:34:10):
So, that’s why this particular coalition
— [inaudible]
— has come together.
And it will — oh, go on.
Talk more about the origins ofthe bill, why Democrats supported
the bill, and what it means nowthat it’s going to the Senate, how
organizations are organizing around it.

(01:34:31):
Right.
So, since October 7th, we’ve seen a wholebunch of outlandish anti-Palestinian
pieces of legislation that have beendesigned to crush any protest or
dissent around Palestine in the UnitedStates, while Congress, of course,
continues to supply untold billionsof dollars in weapons to Israel
for its ongoing genocide in Gaza.

(01:34:51):
This particular piece oflegislation is the one that has
gotten closest to becoming law.
And initially, it did have significantbipartisan support, because, of course,
anti-Palestinian racism is one of thegreat bipartisan unifiers in Congress.
With the efforts of civil societygroups to ring the alarm and educate
members of Congress about the dangersof this bill, not only for Palestine

(01:35:14):
advocacy, but broadly, for any numberof causes, and, of course, with the
election of Donald Trump, more and moreDemocrats have awoken to the danger.
If you can talk about Monte and yourexperience—well, first, he’s—after he’s
arrested, before he’s diagnosed, whatthis all means, and then this unbelievable

(01:35:37):
moment where you decide to call inthe police, after he’s back from jail?
Yeah.
Monte—we didn’t know Monte wassuffering from mental illness.
Unfortunate reality is many communities ofcolor, working-class poor communities, we
don’t have people coming in and educatingus about the crisis of mental health.

(01:35:58):
And so, we just thought some—wedidn’t know what was wrong.
We didn’t.
And when Monte was arrested for arobbery and when he was 18 years old,
broke someone’s window, he said thevoices told him to do it, and ended
up going to prison for three years.
In his stay in prison, he wastortured by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s

(01:36:19):
Department, brutally beaten.
And—
Your mother first seeing him—shecouldn’t even find where he was.
No, no, they disappeared him.
And this is actually—was a common practiceof the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.
It’s disappearing prisoners.
And when she finally saw him, twomonths later, he was emaciated.

(01:36:41):
My brother is 6’2”, almost 300 pounds.
They had completely overmedicated him.
And we would learn, later on, years later,just what he endured in that jail cell.
When he was released, when he was23 years old, it was one of the
most exciting days of my life.

(01:37:01):
I get to see my brother.
I hadn’t seen him in years.
We didn’t know that we could visit people.
You know, they don’t give yousort of what are the steps when
your loved one is incarcerated.
We didn’t realize that we could go visithim, so we didn’t see him for four years.
We just wrote a lot of letters.
And the first thing that I noticedwhen I picked him up from the
bus stop is they let him out inflip-flops, an undershirt and boxers.

(01:37:26):
And I just—I was—I was sodisturbed, like I couldn’t—
He was at the bus station in boxer shorts?
He was in boxer shorts and awhite T-shirt and flip-flops,
which—shower shoes, essentially.
And I ushered him in the car.
And he was acting very different.
It was not the brother thatwent inside and that I knew.

(01:37:47):
And the minute he got into the house,my mother said, “This is—something’s
wrong with my son.” And, you know, asevery child, I was like, “Mom, be quiet.
He just got out of prison.
Like just give him some time.”
And over a week, he slowly—hequickly deteriorated.
And I didn’t know who to call.
And eventually I called the ambulance,and I made the unfortunate choice

(01:38:10):
to tell them that my brother hadjust been released from jail.
They said, “Well, that’s not our problem;you have to call the police.” And I said,
“I can’t call the police on my brother.
You have no”—you know, this is beforeBlack Lives Matter, before we’ve seen,
you know, black people be killed at thehands of law enforcement, especially
black people with mental illness.
But I just knew that thatwas not the right choice.
But I didn’t have anybody else tocall, and I did call the police.

(01:38:34):
And I talked them through, and Ilet them know what was happening.
And the first thing they said tome—I said, “What happens if my
brother happens to get violent?”And they said, “We’ll just taser
him.” I mean, just like flat-faced—
These are two young cops who came.
Two young rookie cops, clearlyscared out of their minds.
And I said, “You cannot taser him.
Like, that’s not—that’s unacceptable.”They walked into my house, and the

(01:38:54):
minute they walked in, my brotherjust put his hands up and went on his
knees and just started begging them.
You know, he just started begging them.
And I just knew I made a mistake.
I just knew I made a mistake.
And I, you know, held my brother.
I said, “It’s OK.” And I told them toleave. And it was in that moment that

(01:39:14):
I realized that we’re on our own, thatwe are literally on our own, and there
is no infrastructure for black poorfamilies when dealing with mental illness.
There’s just none.
And we had to piece theinfrastructure together.
And the—talk about the time thathe was charged with terrorism.
Yeah, it was in those years, ashe was off and on his medication.

(01:39:39):
He was in a fender bender.
And he was in the middleof a manic episode.
And he might have cursed atthe woman, might have not.
We don’t know.
We weren’t there.
But the woman claimedthat he had cursed at her.
And because my brother was a secondstriker, then because they said that
the cursing was threatening, they—

(01:40:00):
Explain what you mean by “second striker.”
He has had two strikes on hisrecord, which is part of the
three strikes law, and was—
In California.
In California—and could end upgetting—if he were to receive his
third strike, end up in jail for life.
And—
Even if that third strikeis stealing a candy bar.
Stealing a candy bar,getting in a fender bender.

(01:40:23):
So, we went to court, when wefinally found where my brother was.
We went to that first court date, and thelawyer said, “You know, your brother is
being charged with terrorist threats, andthat is a felony. And they will probably
be putting him away for the rest ofhis life.” And he was 24, 24 years old.

(01:40:46):
You've reached section C, theDOJ, FBI, and the judiciary.
Let's look at what AttorneyGeneral Pam Bondi has been up
to in the midst of this mess.
You might recall that last week Trumpsigned an executive order to punish
a particular law firm because thatlaw firm has done work for Democrats.
Among other things, Trump's executiveorder would block anyone from that law

(01:41:08):
firm from entering federal courthouses.
I. Which might make it difficult tobe a lawyer in Washington, DC I'm just
saying the law firm naturally sued.
Um, and because the case was so importantto Trump and potentially because it was
difficult to find any career prosecutorswho really wanted to defend it, um,
attorney General, Pam Bondy sent her ownchief of staff, the Attorney General's

(01:41:31):
chief of staff to argue the casehimself personally in federal court.
Bring it in like the biggest guns theygot and, and her chief of staff just
got blown out of court by the judge.
The Trump administration lostthat with an exclamation point.
The judge said Trump's ordersent a chill down her spine.

(01:41:52):
She said the whole legal profession wasquote, watching in horror what Trump
was trying to do and what the AttorneyGeneral's chief of staff was trying and
very much failing to defend in court.
Pam Bondi and Trump's Justice Departmentare also apparently trying to launch
an investigation into the otherwisetotally normal process of funding

(01:42:13):
shelters for migrants in New York City.
I say they're trying to launch aninvestigation there because they
seem to be having trouble with someof the fundamentals, like spelling.
At least one of the subpoenas they sentout has folks in New York scratching
their heads because it went tosomething called the Hotel Chandler.
Hotel Chandler does not.
Host immigrants.

(01:42:35):
At all.
It's not clear what's going on therewith a Hotel Chandler, but a CBS News
report does note that quote, A sourcefamiliar with the shelter system
pointed out that another hotel with asimilar name, the Candler, is in fact
a hotel where they house migrants.
Asked about the situation with theChandler and the Candler, a spokesman

(01:42:58):
for the Department of Justice saidquote, we will decline to comment
on an ongoing investigation.
Also, Pam, do you.
Uh, but don't worry about it.
Uh, when it comes to the reallyimportant stuff, Pam Bondy is on it.
This went out from her office this week.
All caps memorandum for alldepartment employees from the

(01:43:21):
attorney general subject endingprocurement of paper straws.
Quote, in accordance withPresident Trump's direction,
the Department of Justice.
She's talking about the US Department ofJustice shall take appropriate action to
eliminate the procurement of paper strawsand ensure that paper straws are no longer

(01:43:43):
provided within department buildings.
Department components shall takeappropriate action to identify and
eliminate any portion of policyor guidance documents designed
to disfavor plastic straws.
Oh, you guys, the JusticeDepartment's long nightmare is over.

(01:44:04):
Today, Pam Bondi took time out of her busyschedule of vanquishing plastic straw,
straw discrimination, uh, to welcomethe president to the Justice Department,
making sure to point out to him the mostimportant decor, the picture of him.
After which Trump gave a a long, longdiscursive rambling, angry speech to

(01:44:25):
Justice Department employees that includedbasically handing them a handy list of
enemies he'd like them to look into.
At Martin, at the DCUS attorney'soffice, he seems to already
have his own enemies list.
I mentioned that Ed Martin.
Tried to indict DemocraticSenate leader Chuck Schumer.
Uh, Chuck Schumer is one of only, uh,several people, including several elected

(01:44:47):
officials, all Democrats who Martinappears to be targeting for investigation.
He's also sent a letter to DemocraticCongressman Robert Garcia, um, because
Robert Garcia criticized Elon Musk.
So that got him a threatening letterfrom the US Attorney's Office.
Democratic Congressman Eugene Binman thisweek also revealed that he has received
a threatening letter from Ed Martin, thisone asking about his personal finances.

(01:45:13):
Eugene Binman and his twin brotherAlexander Vidman have long been
targets of Donald Trump's rageand invective for their roles in
bringing to light the events thatled to Trump's first impeachment.
This is the letter that DCUS attorneyEd Martin sent to Congressman Binman.
It starts, quote, dear Eugene, uh,do you always write your business?

(01:45:35):
Just dear quote, I have received requestsfor clarification of your personal
financial disclosures over the past year.
I look forward to your cooperation withmy letter of inquiry after requests.
Thank you in advance foryour assistance with this.
Please respond by day, month date, 2025.
That is literally what the lettersays, day, month, date 2025.

(01:46:00):
Only the best people.
There were two legal bright linesabout the Trump administration.
One was whether they would followcourt orders that remains to be seen.
The other was whether they would weaponizethe DOJ and create political prosecutions.
And they have crossed that Legal Rubiconand another DOJ prosecutor has resigned.
Rather than move forward lessthan a month after seven, justice
Department lawyers resigned in protestover Ilbo Bay's decision to quash

(01:46:22):
corruption charges against New York.
Mayor Eric Adams.
Another prosecutor has walked out.
Denise Chung.
Now the former head of the criminaldivision at the US Attorney's Office
in DC refused to order a bank tofreeze funds related to a Biden
administration environmental contract.
Citing a complete lack of evidence.
Other prosecutors and FBI agents backedher up, but that wasn't enough for Bovet.
In acting US attorney for the Districtof Columbia, ed Martin, they pressured

(01:46:44):
her to misrepresent evidence andjustify a seizure warrant, which would
freeze billions of dollars of fundsallocated to green energy products.
Chung refused to play along andshe quit, but luckily she made sure
the public knew why her resignationisn't just another DOJ shakeup.
It's a sign that corruption isn't justcreeping into the Justice Department.
It's taking over and it's asign that they're willing to
fabricate criminal prosecutions.

(01:47:05):
Now, US attorneys swear inoath to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States.
They are bound by the ethical rulesin their jurisdiction and tasked
with evaluating evidence, prosecutingcrimes, and pursuing justice.
They're also bound to uphold the lawin service of the American people.
Justice Department lawyers do not swearan oath to the president or his lackeys.
But President Trump apparentlysees it differently.
He recently installed Interim USAttorney Ed Martin, an acting Deputy

(01:47:27):
Attorney General Emil Bove as hisenforcers at the Justice Department.
And so far they have delivered, as we'vetalked about as a criminal defense lawyer.
Bove before he was the acting attorneyGeneral represented Trump in his
election obstruction, classifieddocuments in hush money cases.
And as we've also talked about now thathe's the OD d, Bovey ordered prosecutors
to drop corruption charges against MayorAdams in exchange for political favors.

(01:47:47):
Martin meanwhile is a Trumployalist who still falsely claims
that Trump won the 2020 election.
And like Bovey, ed Martin doesn'tsee his job as upholding law.
He sees it as protecting Trump.
He made that clear when he declared,quote, as President Trump's lawyers,
we are proud to protect his leadershipas our president, and we are vigilant
in standing against entities like theAP that refuse to put America first.
Now, in a normal administration,justice department attorneys

(01:48:08):
are not the president's lawyers.
And Martin has also pledged his truthto Elon Musk when Wired identified
the men who are part of Musk'sDoge Harem, which is not illegal.
Musk asked Martin tocriminally prosecute reporters.
Martin swore to chase do's criticsquote, to the end of the earth, and
Martin also threatened to prosecuteDemocratic representative Robert
Garcia for calling Elon Musk a dick.
But anyway, ed Martin's ascendancy isalready chasing away career prosecutors

(01:48:30):
who won't violate their oath of office.
But this latest flashpointis the Biden Administration's
Signature Climate Initiative, theGreenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.
Which apparently in this administration,they want to criminally prosecute people
to prevent it from going into effect.
But the background here is thatin 2022, Congress enacted the
Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The IRA established a set of cleanenergy incentives and created the
Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or GGRF.

(01:48:53):
The GGRF leverages investment frompublic and private lenders, quote, to
invest in clean energy technologiessuch as solar panels and heat pumps.
Through community lenders.
In 2024, the Biden administration ran twocompetitions to allocate the money and
awarded $20 billion to eight selectees.
And the old EPA website let youquote, read what the eight selected
applicants have committed to deliveron their application packages.

(01:49:13):
However, now that Trump is in office,that information has been removed.
So much for transparency.
But Trump and his allies have also taken ahard line on climate change, and that line
is that climate change does not exist.
I wish you could go to Greenland.
Uh, watch these huge chunksof ice just falling into the
ocean, raising the sea levels.
And you don't know whether ornot that would've happened with

(01:49:34):
or without Man, you don't know.
Well, your scientists, yourscientists at Noah and nasa, no.
We have scientists thatdisagree with that.
But instead of asking Congress torepeal the IRA, the Trump administration
wants to claw back the GGRF fundsand prosecute the grant recipients.
Enter Lee Zelin Trump'snew EPA administrator.
Zelin has been on the job for lessthan a month, but he looked into
it and surprise he found fraud.

(01:49:56):
Fortunately.
Epo,
his smoking gun, a contractbetween the EPA and Citibank.
The EPA had signed a financialagent agreement or FAA with

(01:50:16):
Citibank to distribute the funds.
Now, an FAA is a contract thatdesignates a financial institution
to act on behalf of the government inmanaging and dispersing federal funds.
Zelin said the use of the FAAwas improper and unprecedented.
And although it is true, the EPAhad never used an FAA before.
The government has used thesecontracts for centuries.
In fact, the treasuryDepartment has an entire section
dedicated to utilizing faas.

(01:50:37):
It's called the Bureau of Fiscal Services,but Zelin accused of Biden administration
of quote, purposely designing theagreement with Citibank to obligate
the money in a rush job with reducedoversight because Biden was quote, rushing
to get billions of your tax dollarsout the door before inauguration day.
But on its face, there wasabsolutely nothing nefarious
about the process or the timeline.
Congress passed a law.
President Biden executed the lawby selecting the organizations to

(01:50:57):
receive the funds and the funds weresent to Citibank to be dispersed.
And as for the timeline, theInflation Reduction Act gave the
EPAA deadline of September 30th, 2024to award funding to the recipients.
And the EPA signed the contractwith Citibank in April of 20 24,
9 months before inauguration date.
But even if the Biden administrationwas concerned about getting these
funds out before inauguration day.
I wonder what they couldhave been concerned about.

(01:51:19):
The Trump administration has a longhistory of dispersing funds that have
been allocated by Congress, right?
Donald Trump would never impoundbillions of dollars worth of
congressionally allocated funds, right?
But where other people see lawsand deadlines, zelin saw gold bars.
The financial agent agreement with thebank needs to be instantly terminated,
and the bank must immediately returnall of the gold bars that the Biden

(01:51:41):
administration tossed off the Titanic.
Now Zelda's Gold Bars comments comesfrom a disreputable source project.
Veritas, the right wing group that uses toset the edited videos to make outlandish
and false claims about left-wing groups.
Project Veritas has lost multipledefamation cases for making false
claims and is founder James O'Keefepleaded guilty to unlawfully
entering federal property as partof one of his sting operations.

(01:52:03):
So anything Project Veritas does shouldbe taken with a huge grain of salt.
In this instance, project Veritasobtained a video of an ex EPA official
who thought he was on a date sayingthat the Biden administration was quote.
Trying to get the money outas fast as possible before
they come in and stop it all.
It truly feels like we're onthe Titanic and we're throwing
like gold bars off the edge.
Now that remark wasopen to interpretation.
It didn't mention the GGRF funds.

(01:52:24):
Maybe it was excitement over a governmentwindfall or urgency to fund green energy
projects before potential Biden loss.
And of course, fears of theTrump administration would
come in and stop it all.
We're incredibly well-founded.
But Zelin twisted it into somethingmore sinister, declaring a proof of
a criminal conspiracy and wire fraud,and acting on that flimsy pretext.
Zelin announced the EPA would claw back20 billion in funds held at Citibank, and

(01:52:46):
the very next day the money was frozen.
And yes, this is yet another case of theTrump administration illegally impounding,
congressionally approved funds, whichis illegal, and multiple states and
organizations have sued to stop Trumpfrom canceling grants and reclaiming
money and legal battles continue.
We now have, at least in theory, a 10year term for the f. BI director, and

(01:53:06):
that term was put in place to preventsomeone from doing what Hoover did,
which was to be there for 48 years.
But it was also put in place tomake sure that the FBI still had
some insulation from politics.
10 years was longer than the termof any presidential administration,

(01:53:27):
even if the president was reelected.
And now I think what we're seeing withthe Trump administration is that lots
of those norms and policies and rulesare just being thrown out the window.
Yeah, I mean, he appointed ChristopherRay to be director of the FBI and
then did not allow him to servethe end of his tenure term for one.

(01:53:49):
Right, and he appointed ChristopherRay after he fired James Comey.
And so that was, if we all think back avery big deal in 2017, that was really the
first time that an FBI director had beenfired in that way for what was clearly.
A concern about political loyalty.

(01:54:11):
So this is quite consistent withwhat Trump did in, in his first term.
But of course this time, as sooften has happened, he's, he's
coming for his own appointee.
Yes.
And appointing Cash Patel.
And now Dan Bonino is kind ofturning the whole thing up to 11.
The narrative that we keep hearingis that, you know, the Bureau is

(01:54:33):
this like Toxically left wing agency.
It's rife with anti-Christian,anti-conservative bias.
What do you make of that?
Well, that seems like a very strangedescription of the FBI, which is a
pretty conservative organization.

(01:54:54):
The big claim that the FBI is full ofcloset Marxists does not make a whole
lot of sense to me, and certainly wouldhave shocked and appalled j Edgar Hoover.
Say a little bit more about CashPatel's specific critique of the FBI.
There does seem to be a tension betweenI am coming in with the chainsaw, I'm

(01:55:18):
gonna shut down FBI headquarters andturn it into a Museum of the Deep State.
I love that.
Which is something thatPatel said and we'll see.
You know, I have to say as a historian, Ifeel like, oh, I'd actually love to have
a museum of a deep state, but maybe not.
In this way.
And then there's also a reallypowerful desire to make use of this

(01:55:41):
very large and powerful bureaucracy.
But in some ways, the breakingof the FBI is also about breaking
the norms and processes andconstraints and internal culture.
I also have wondered.
In this process about the Republicans inCongress who were so enthusiastic about

(01:56:08):
confirming Patel as FBI director, becauseI think one thing that we have learned
about Donald Trump is that you might thinkthat you're on the inside for a while, but
at any moment you too could be thrown out.
Into the cold.
And actually if we have, you know,a politicized bureau that's going

(01:56:30):
after Trump's enemies, I think thevery people who have, uh, voted for
this set of changes might themselvespretty easily and pretty rapidly
become the victims of what they wr.
Yeah, that's interesting because itsends a message to even Trump's current
allies that they're on thin ice.

(01:56:52):
I also found it interesting that whenElon Mask demanded that federal workers
send in these emails with the five pointsabout what they did during the week, cash
Patel was actually one of the people whosaid to his employees actually don't do
that because of course we probably don'twant it documented what every FBI agent

(01:57:15):
in the country was doing in the last week.
Oh, that, that's aninteresting interpretation.
What I took away from it was Elon Musk,get your grimy hands out of my bureau.
Well, there's that too, right?
So we have Cash Patel in that case,as allegedly the person who wants
to tear down the bureau, but alsosomehow being, it, it, its protector

(01:57:38):
or at least wanting his own fiefdom.
In some ways we could look at jEdgar Hoover's legacy as a kind of
playbook for this new leadership.
If they choose to wiretappolitical enemies, surveil them.
Bully the press, et cetera.
Are there signs that you're seeingthat Patel and Bongino could

(01:58:00):
go even further than Hoover?
I.
I think Hoover had lots and lots ofabuses, but then there were also certain
constraints in the sense that there weremoments where presidents or other figures
wanted him to use the bureau in explicitlypolitical ways that he resisted, because

(01:58:22):
he thought it wasn't in his interest, itwasn't in the FBI's interest, and I don't
see those sorts of constraints operating.
In this situation, I think what weare seeing potentially is a perfect
storm in which you've got thispowerful, secretive bureaucracy.

(01:58:43):
And Patel and others have been quiteopen about saying that they want
to use the power of an institutionlike the Bureau to go after Trump's
enemies, to go after his critics.
So that seems to me to be a very powerfuland pretty dangerous combination.
The, the lawyer who is suing theTrump administration says this, your

(01:59:06):
Honor, quote, what we have beforethe court is record evidence that
conclusively establishes that OPMdirected the terminations at issue.
We have a very unusual circumstance wherethe government has not mounted, has,
uh, has not attempted to say that theyfactually dispute that they have actually
withdrawn the declaration by whichthey were attempting to dispute that.

(01:59:26):
And there's no record evidenceon the other side by which
they have disputed this fact.
The judge.
I tend to agree with you on that,and the government, I believe,
has tried to frustrate the judge'sability to get at the truth of what
happened here and then set forth shamdeclarations to a sham declaration.

(01:59:46):
They withdrew it, thensubstituted another.
That's not the way it worksin the US District Court.
The judge says, quote, I'm going to talkto the government about that in a minute.
I had expected to have anevidentiary hearing today in
which these people would testify.
If they wanted to get your people on thestand, I was gonna make that happen too.
It would be fair.
But instead we havebeen frustrated in that.

(02:00:09):
The judge then says to the lawyerfor the plaintiff's quote, I'd
like to hear your views on whatrelief should be issued today.
T-O-D-A-Y today, the lawyer.
Thank you, your Honor.
We are aligned in wantingthat to happen as well.
He spelled out T-O-D-A-Y.

(02:00:29):
And so then, um, they have a conversationthat the, the judge and the lawyer for
the plaintiffs, the lawyer who's suingthe Trump administration on behalf
of the fired employees, and they talkabout what the fired employees who
are suing the Trump administration,what they're seeking from the judge
today, the kind of relief they want.
Um, they say they wanna a list ofeverybody who's been fired that
haven't been able to get that, or evenan enumeration from the government

(02:00:52):
of how many people have been fired.
They also want people to be reinstatedif they have been fired illegally.
So they, they go throughall those details.
Then it's time for the Trumpadministration lawyer to make his side
of the case, and he starts explainingto the judge that all these fired
workers, the only reason they werefired is because nobody wanted them.
Nobody told anybody to fire anything.

(02:01:14):
There was no instructions to fire people.
These are just unwanted workers.
If anybody wanted them back, theysurely would've been rehired by now.
Right.
At which point the, the judgeinterjects the judge quote, well,
maybe that's why we need an injunctionthat tells them to rehire them.
You will not bring the peoplein here to be cross-examined.

(02:01:35):
You are afraid to do so because, you know,cross-examination would reveal the truth.
Trump administration lawyertries to interject respectfully.
The judge continues.
This is the US District Court.
Whenever you submit declarations,those people should be submitted
to cross-examination, just likethe plaintiff's side should be.
And we then we, we get at the truth ofwhether your story is actually true.

(02:01:58):
I tend to doubt it.
I tend to doubt that you aretelling me the truth whenever
we hear all the evidence.
Eventually.
Why can't you bring your peoplein to be cross-examined or to
be deposed at their convenience?
I said two hours for Mr.
Zel.
Mr. Zel is the acting head of OPM.
I said, two hours for Mr. Zel,a deposition at his convenience,

(02:02:18):
and you withdrew his declaration.
Rather than do that,come on, that's a sham.
The judge says quote, go ahead.
I'm I'm, it upsets me.
I want you to know that.
I have been practicing or servingin this court for over 50 years, and
I know how we get at the truth andyou're not helping me get at the truth.
You're giving me pressreleases, sham documents.

(02:02:41):
All right?
He says, quote, I'm gettingmad at you and I shouldn't.
The judge then decided in thishearing today that he wasn't gonna
wait to give a written ruling.
He decided, you know what?
I've heard enough.
He decided he was going to rule fromthe bench today, T-O-D-A-Y, today.

(02:03:01):
So he started with this, the judgequote on February 13th, 2025, A
briefing paper from Human ResourcesManagement at the Forest Service
says this, all that's spelled a LL.
All federal agencies, includingthe Department of Agriculture, were
notified on February 12th by the Officeof Personnel Management to terminate

(02:03:23):
all employees who have not completedtheir probationary or trial period.
That then led to thetermination of a lot of people.
The judge says.
But one in particular Iwill give as an example.
Leandra Bailey was a physical scienceinformation specialist in Albuquerque.
In September of last year, she'd receiveda performance review in which she was
quote, fully successful in every category,not just some, but every category.

(02:03:47):
On February 13th, she was terminatedusing the OPM template letter because in
addition to directing these terminations,OPM gave a proposed letter and the
letter said, I'm reading from it.
Memorandum for Leandro Bailey, February13th from the Director of Human Source
Management at the US Forest Service.
This is just one sentence quote, theagency finds, based on your performance,

(02:04:10):
that you have not demonstrated thatyour further employment at the agency
would be in the public interest.
Close quote.
And then the judge says this, despitethe fact that her most recent review
was fully successful in every category.
The judge says, now how could it be?
You might ask that the agency couldfind that based on her per find,
that based on her performance, whenher performance had been stellar.

(02:04:33):
The reason OPM wanted to put this basedon performance was, at least in part, in
my judgment, a gimmick, because the lawalways allows you to fire somebody for
performance, and the judge says this.
Now, what I'm about to say is notthe legal basis for what I'm going to
order today, but I just wanna say it.
He says, quote, it is a sad day when ourgovernment would fire some good employee

(02:04:57):
and say it was based on performance whenthey know good and well, that's a lie.
Excellent.
In all fully, what was the phrase?
I don't wanna misstate it.
Quote.
Fully successful in everycategory, yet they terminate
her based on her performance.
That should not havebeen done in our country.
It was a sham.
In order to avoid statutory requirements.

(02:05:17):
It also happens to be that whenever youfire somebody based on performance, then
they can't get unemployment insurance.
So that makes it even worse, doesn't it?
And then it makes it even worse becausethe next employer is going to say,
well, have you ever been terminated?
Based on performance, they're going tohave to say yes, two thousands of people.
It is illustrative of themanipulation that was going on

(02:05:38):
by OPM to try to orchestrate thisgovernment-wide termination of
probation, probationary employees.
The court finds that OPM diddirect all the agencies to
terminate probationary employees.
The court rejects the government'sattempt to use these press releases
and to read between the lines to saythat the agency heads made their own
decision with no direction from OPM.

(02:06:00):
The relief that's gonna begranted is as follows First.
The temporary restrainingorder will be extended.
The VA shall immediately offerreinstatement to any and all
probationary employees terminatedon or about February 13th or 14th.
This order finds that all suchterminations were directed by
defendant OPM and were unlawfulbecause OPM had no authority to do so.

(02:06:22):
Further, the VA shall ceaseany and all use of the template
Termination notice provided byOPM and shall immediately advise.
All probationary employees terminatedFebruary 13th and 14th that the notice
and termination have been found to beunlawful by the US District Court for
the Northern District of California.
The VA shall cease any terminationof probationary employees

(02:06:44):
at the direction of OPM.
To repeat this order holds thatOPM has no authority whatsoever to
direct order or require in any waythat any agency fire any employee.
Now, given the arguments and thefacts in this case, namely that
defendants have attempted to recastthese directives as mere guidance.

(02:07:06):
My order today further prohibitsdefendants from giving guidance as to
whether any employee should be terminated.
Any termination of agencies employeesmust be made by the agencies themselves,
if made at all, and they must be madein conformity with the Civil Service
Reform Act and the Reduction in ForceAct and any other constitutional

(02:07:26):
or statutory legal requirement.
He says in seven calendar days, reliefdefendant VA the def. The VA shall submit
a list of all probationary employeesterminated on or about February 13th
and 14th with an explanation as to each.
Of what has been done tocomply with this order.

(02:07:47):
And the judge says this now, thisorder so far has only mentioned the
va, the Veterans Administration.
But the same relief is extended,and I'm not gonna repeat it, but
I'm extending the same relief tothe Department of Agriculture, the
Department of Defense, the Departmentof Energy, the Department of the
Interior, the Department of Treasury.
And so it's the VA plusall those other agencies.
He says, and this is without prejudiceto extending the relief later in

(02:08:10):
further, uh, to to other agencies.
If the judge then closes withthis, I will try to get out a short
memorandum opinion that elaborateson this order, but this is the order
and it counts effective immediately.
Please don't say, oh, I'mwaiting for the written order.
This is the order from the bench,

(02:08:37):
To be very clear listeners, DonaldTrump personally took credit for
Hale's arrest and attempted deportationon true social and Secretary of
State, Marco Rubio also was invoked.
Um, and Marco Rubio cited a provisionof the immigration law that allows the
Secretary of State to determine thatthe presence of non-citizens has adverse
effects on US foreign policy and that.

(02:08:59):
These individuals can thenbe deported on that basis.
As Leah just mentioned, halal haschallenged his detention and removal
and he initially filed that challengein the southern district of New York
where he was initially arrested.
The government is fighting to get thecase dismissed, and as we know, halal has
been relocated to the Gina facility inLouisiana, which again would mean that if

(02:09:20):
this is dismissed and Halil had to refile,he would have to refile in Louisiana.
And if there was a challenge thatwas appealed, that appeal would
then go to the Fifth Circuit.
So that is why Leah finds this curiouserand Curious, or Ellie, I don't know
what you think about this, but I foundthis absolutely chilling this week.
Uh, you know, we are six weeks into afour year sentence, and they're basically

(02:09:41):
black bagging people on the streets.
Yeah, look, I wrote aboutthis in the nation this week.
This is what fascism looks like.
This is exactly what it looks like.
It's not fascism that'scoming around the corner.
It is right here because when you can bedripped out of your Manhattan apartment
and sent to the swamp in Louisianawithout committing a crime, simply

(02:10:03):
because you had you, you organized aprotest simply because of your speech
rights and nobody comes to save you.
That is what fascism looks like.
That is what it feels like, and it issupposed to have not just a chilling
effect, uh, on the poor life of Mr.Cleal and his eight month pregnant wife.

(02:10:25):
It's supposed to have a chillingeffect on everybody else.
It's the government saying, nomatter who you are, no matter
where you are, we can come get you.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
So that is where weare with the situation.
Khalil has good arguments, but you know,talking about my book, again, this is
why I'm saying that 1921, immigrationand Nationality Act should be repealed.

(02:10:50):
Must be repealed because the, theparticular legal hook that Rubio
is using that comes from the 1921Immigration Nationality Act, right?
This idea that the Secretaryof State on his say so.
With no evidence, with no hearing,with no proof, can just say, ah, you're
against the interest of the foreign,the policies of the, and remove again,

(02:11:12):
a legal, permanent resident, a greencard holder, and can just get rid
of that entire process on his whim.
Um, that that is a, that isnot just a failure of morality.
It's not just a failure of politics.
It is a deep failure of law that wehave a law like this on the books.

(02:11:32):
Yeah.
And just to unpack exactly like theprovision that Rubio is relying on,
that's part of the INA that Ellie,you know, recommends repealing.
It is this provision that allows theSecretary of State to say the presence
of a non-citizen has adverse effects onthe United States foreign policy, and
therefore can be removed on that basis.
And it purports to give.

(02:11:53):
Extensive amounts of deference tothe Secretary of State in making that
determination, which is part of why it'sso scary that Rubio is making this claim
that, again, organizing a student protestsomehow is affecting our foreign policy.
Like really?
Does France fucking care likeabout the Columbia protest?
I don't think so.
And actually Donald Trump'ssister, judge Marianne Trump bury,
invalidated that particular provision.

(02:12:13):
You know, as a judge, her decisionwas later reversed by then Judge
Alito on the third circuit.
But the point is like these laws areon the books and this administration
is basically providing us a crashcourse in identifying various laws
that are susceptible to gross abuse,um, that we need to get rid of.
Can I ask you guys a question?
Yeah.
So part of the issue here withKhalil is whether or not he has

(02:12:35):
First Amendment protections, right?
Um, there is a 1999 case, uh, that Iwrote about, uh, Reno, the Arab American
Anti-Discrimination League, whereScalia writes, uh, eight to one opinion.
That protections, uh, speech thatwould ordinarily be protected by the
First Amendment can be the basis forremoval for undocumented immigrants.

(02:12:57):
Now, that decision doesn't extendto documented immigrants like
Khalil, but what do you guys think?
Do you think that the Supreme Court willI. Extend that precedent to document it.
Um, immigrants like Khalil, whenthey get a chance to, in a few years,
I mean like as a predictivematter, I don't really know.

(02:13:17):
My guess is there are at leastfour votes to extend those
protections to particularlyprotections permanent re residents.
Um.
As to whether thereare five, I don't know.
But as a matter of precedent, right?
I think it is very clear thatlawful permanent residents have
constitutional protections thatindividuals without documentation lack.
So for example, you cannot justsimply revoke an individual's lawful

(02:13:40):
permanent residence status like thathas to go through an immigration
court and then is susceptible toreview in federal court, right?
They possess due process rights thatother individuals with lesser status lack.
And you know, the, this is clear inthe court's cases to the point where
I think it is just grossly inaccurateto say individuals like Khalil do
not have First Amendment rights orother analogous constitutional rights.

(02:14:04):
Now again, I think part of the problemis like this statute purports to
give the secretary broad authority todetermine what constitutes a threat.
And my guess is theadministration is going to.
Try all sorts of maneuvers, right?
In order to characterize what exactlythe threat is and not precisely link
it to the content of Khalil's speech.

(02:14:24):
And so like that's partially how theyare going to walk around or try to walk
around the First Amendment question.
But I think again, that just underscoreslike the solution here, right?
Is to get this law off the books.
Going to the case against the INA,you kind of alluded to this already in
talking about the origins of the INA.
Could you expand a little bitmore on your case against the
INA and some of its origins?

(02:14:46):
Yeah, so I, I, I like tostart from 30,000 feet.
The, the kind of ideamotivating the INA is that.
We should be anexclusionary country, right?
That there is not enough space, there'snot enough resources for everybody, and
so we need to decide who should be allowedin and who shouldn't be allowed in.
Right now at a.
This is eugenics thinking.
Right.
Well, just at a 30,000foot level, it's wrong.

(02:15:08):
Yeah.
It's a giant country with morethan enough space for everybody,
and so that kind of premise iswrong, but then Yes, exactly right.
Professor Murray, the way they thendecided in the INA to figure out who
should be allowed in and who shouldbe excluded was based on eugenics.
Was based on literal studies andcongressional testimonies that

(02:15:30):
said there were certain racesthat were high quality and certain
races more prone to degeneracy.
And all of this literal eugenics andNazi language is what informed the INA
and thus the exclusionary practicesthat, for lack of a better word,
focus on the global south, right?

(02:15:50):
Um, focus on browner people being thoughtof as degenerate races and thus unable
to participate in the American experienceat the same level as as white Europeans.
And when I'm not, I just wantpeople to understand, again, I
talked about this in the book, Iam not being hyperbolic, right?

(02:16:12):
This is what these people said.
In real time when supporting,developing and voting for this law.
There was an entire court case, um, outtathe ninth circuit where they tried to
get a portion of the INA revoked becauseof this racist language and backstory.
And the judge was basicallylike the ninth circuit.

(02:16:33):
Right.
Which is not, you know, known for,for, for its, uh, shrinking violets.
Right.
The ninth circuit was like, yeah.
If we started getting rid of everylaw just because they were racist,
I mean, we basically have no laws.
And finally, sectionD, government function.
It's open defiance of the courts.

(02:16:53):
He literally said, I don'tcare what the courts say.
You don't do that in a democracy.
You do that in an autocracy,you do that in a dictatorship.
Trump and Rubio haveignored a court order.
This is a five alarm fire.
This, this is how democracies die.
This is a big deal.
This is a, uh, a genuine,as Joe Biden would say, BFD.

(02:17:16):
Um.
What happens when courtorders get ignored?
Well, first of all, that is an assault onour constitution when the administration
ignores a court order, it's only happeneda couple of times in our history.
Andrew Jackson did it back in theday around the Trail of Tears,
and arguably around the, theSecond National Bank of America.

(02:17:38):
The court had said that it wasConstitutional Jackson shut it down.
Anyway, the court didn't sayhe couldn't shut it down.
Um, the Trail of Tearswas a, a better example.
Um, and Abraham Lincoln ignoredthe Supreme Court's order in Dred
Scott saying that Northern statesdid not have to re enslave black
people in those northern states.

(02:18:00):
So you've got two instances.
Um, one of, you know, one of Trump's,Mr. Jackson just defying the courts
and the other of, uh, Abraham Lincolndoing the right thing, arguably.
But it led to the Civil War in part.
I mean, this was one of the thingsthat told the Confederate states

(02:18:21):
that Lincoln wasn't screwing around.
So what can the courts do?
Well, there's, there are twotypes of contempt of court.
I mean, what, what?
It's a virtual certainty that todaythe judge who issued the order last,
uh, or on Saturday saying that Trumpcould not deport these Venezuelan.

(02:18:44):
Uh, nationals without first havingat least a hearing without there
being some sort of due process.
As the Constitution defines in the fifth,sixth, and seventh and eighth amendments
to the Constitution, that these are,these are our basic due process rights.
You're, you're, you're, you'reentitled to face your accusers.
You're entitled to a, to a trial.

(02:19:05):
You're in, you're entitledto, to swift justice.
I mean, just pretty straightforward stuff.
Trump is ignoring that.
So if the court holds the Trumpadministration in contempt,
there are two ways to do this.
One is criminal contempt andthe other is civil contempt.
Now, in criminal contempt, the personis seized and thrown in the clink and,

(02:19:34):
uh, you know, thrown into jail, andthat is done by the US Marshal Service.
Now the problem here, of course,is that the US Marshal service
works for the Attorney general.
Who works for the president.
They are part of the executivebranch, even though they are the
enforcement arm of Article three.
The article, the Third branchof government, the Article three

(02:19:56):
branch of Government, the courts.
So if he were to declare the Trumpadministration in, in criminal contempt
of the law and order the marshal serviceto say, go out and get Tom Holman.
Tom Holman is the border czar.
He is the guy who went on FoxNews yesterday and said, I don't
care what the court orders say,we're gonna do this anyway.

(02:20:16):
We're gonna continue the deportations.
It's gonna be one every day.
It's open defiance of the courts.
He literally said, I don'tcare what the courts say.
You don't do that in a democracy.
You do that in an autocracy, you dothat in a dictatorship, of course.
That's, that's how dictatorships run.

(02:20:38):
The big guy says, Hey, jump.
And everybody goes, how high?
The big guy says, ignore the courts.
And everybody says, okay,we're ignoring the courts.
The big, the big guy says,Congress, do this or don't do that.
And Congress does it ordoesn't do it as as instructed.
I mean, this is how it works in Russia.

(02:20:58):
Which is, I, I'm increasinglybelieving Donald Trump's
role model is Vladimir Putin.
Let's backtrack for a moment and fill ourlisteners in so they can rage with us.
It's eugenics, Ani.
I know, Jess.
I know.
I mean, really it's part of the planto eliminate quote unquote undesirable
characteristics from the populace.
I know.
I know Jess.
And don't even get me started on Buckversus Bell, the Supreme Court case that

(02:21:23):
actually GreenLights all of this and isprobably gonna be one of the precedents.
The Robert Court keeps intact.
Yeah, because it serves, yeah.
That was the case
where Oliver Wendell Holmes saidsomething like, one generation
of imbeciles is enough.
I mean.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
And, and honestly, you're preachingto the choir here it is eugenics.
It is bad.
And Buck v Bell has never been overturned,so technically it is still good law.

(02:21:46):
Right.
And And that's why section 5 0 4 of theRehabilitation Act was so revolutionary.
Mm-hmm.
Precisely because it rejected thepremise of eugenics and essentially
extended the 1964 Civil RightsAct to people with disabilities.
And the way it came about is a goodblueprint for the ways in which
citizen action can translate intomaterial gains for vulnerable people.

(02:22:09):
Oh, yes.
Right.
Because the, the, the, the sortof zeitgeist of the 5 0 4 protests
isn't well known, and it is amazing.
I certainly wasn't aware of how hardpeople with disabilities fought to
get Section 5 0 4 signed, right?
Mm-hmm.
It's not something that wetalk about a lot, right?
So we're gonna talk about it
right now.
Oh, I love it.

(02:22:30):
It means talking about theseventies, greatest generation.
April 5th, 1977.
Brown.
That's why 1970.
I was like two and a half background.
I was about to turn three years old.
I was.
You were about to turn three years old.
I was.
Three.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was gonna turn three years old.
About three in a couple months 'causewe're a couple of months apart.

(02:22:53):
Okay.
April 5th, 1977.
Dozens of disabled people enteredSan Francisco's Office of Health,
education and Welfare, and theyoccupied it for 25 days in what
remains the longest occupation ofa federal building in US history.
The people who occupied the buildingwere from diverse racial and social

(02:23:14):
backgrounds, and they had a wide rangeof disabilities, and the way they all
worked together, you know, to use theirabilities to help other people with
disabilities was actually very remarkable.
Mm-hmm.
Here's how the Long Mower Instituteon disability at San Francisco
State University described it.
Quote, they came on crutchesusing canes and in wheelchairs.
Some used American sign language.

(02:23:36):
Others augmented communication devices.
Many others contributed simplyby showing up to offer support.
Most arrived with little morethan the clothes on their backs.
Guided by a few vague ideasabout why they were there.
Yet enough of them had political smarts,experience with building coalitions,
tenacity and fire in their bellies toconfront the government of a major world

(02:23:58):
power about their civil rights and win.
Oh,
thank you for including this partin today's show, because it's gonna
be what gets me down off this ledge.
I love this discussion because somany people don't know the history
of disability rights in this country,and I feel kind of grateful because,

(02:24:18):
as you know, Amani, I was raisedby a disability rights advocate.
Uh, my dad, uh, youknow, did a DA, uh, uh.
Disability, litigation, Olmsted, uh, seuh, settlements, like really the entire
arc of my childhood was, you know.
Informed by the coalition buildingthat happened in the late seventies

(02:24:41):
within the disability and racialjustice communities and wow, could
we take a page of that today?
You know, and it wasn'tjust San Francisco, right?
In their effort to get Nixon tosign the Rehab Act, hundreds of
protestors around the countryoccupied several federal buildings.
Most were starved out within a day or two.
But what sit.
What set San Francisco apart is thatthey were able to maintain the occupation

(02:25:06):
for a month, and that thanks to reallysolid organizing, the resourcefulness
of the organizers combined withmonths of cementing relationships
with local community organizations,resulted in a coalition of supporters
that included the Black Panthers.
The Gay community's ButterflyBrigade, labor unions, the Glide

(02:25:26):
Memorial Church, Safeway andMcDonald's, along with sympathetic
local and national politicians,the Black Panthers and McDonald's.
Two great tastes thattaste great together.
Listen.
When you're doing sit-ins at the federalgovernment, why wouldn't you wanna

(02:25:47):
be eating a McRib at the same time?
Or a mcd LT, oh my God,
I forgot about mcd.
LT. Did they have mcd LT in theseventies or the hot side stays hot
and the cold side stay stays cold.
I feel like Thatm, that waslike an eighties creation.
I think so.
But either way, your point is valid.
Very, very valid.
Please continue.
I'm loving this.
I mean, the long and the short of it isthat the 5 0 4 occupiers held on at the

(02:26:09):
San Francisco Offices of Department andHealth Education and Welfare for nearly
a month generating national attention andultimately helping to gain the support
necessary for signing section 5 0 4
and the, the, the circumstancessurrounding whether or not these
regulations would be signed.
We're kind of harrowing becausebasically Dick Nixon was being

(02:26:29):
a bit of a dick about it.
He truly really was being a bit ofa dick about, I mean, he vetoed.
Section 5 0 4 at first.
Mm-hmm.
Which at the time led criticseven in his own party to call
it his most inhumane veto.
Particularly because his complaintat the time was that he was over
budget and there was just no money toensure that people with disabilities

(02:26:50):
weren't being discriminated against.
And you have to remember that this waslike right around when a lot of, a lot of
veterans were coming back from Vietnam.
They were coming back from Vietnam.
With disabilities.
And here was this guy who was saying,we, I don't have money to help y'all.
I'm gonna keep spending tons ofmoney dropping bombs in Cambodia
for no fucking reason, right?
Mm-hmm.
But then again, it seems to be alwaysabout budgets when it comes to people with

(02:27:14):
disabilities, as you mentioned earlier.
Right?
When we talk about the aada, the a DA,we talk about reasonable accommodations.
Part of the reasonablenessis a financial inquiry.
How much is it gonna costto accommodate a person with
disabilities at a certain location?
Right?
Either the reasonable accommodationsare too expensive, too expensive, or
the regulations themselves are tooexpansive, as you said, because now.

(02:27:38):
The main reason people seem to be pissedoff these attorneys generals seem to be
pissed off is because of gender dysphoria.
And if all disabilities getswept under the rug along with
it, then that's just fine.
Mm-hmm.
Really this lawsuit is about who we decideis worthy of participating in society.
Right?
Right.
It's about eugenics and it goeshand in hand with other policies

(02:28:00):
of the Trump administration, right?
Like the Make America healthy again,nonsense from Wellness Farm and Bear.
Carcass enthusiasts, RFK, junior.
Oh completely.
Or threatening colleges and universities.
Uh, federal funding ifthey have masking policies.
Right, right.
I mean, the implications ofthis cannot be overstated.
Section 5 0 4, the first civil rightslaw to explicitly recognize and

(02:28:25):
protect people with disabilities couldbe rendered entirely unenforceable.
This would be catastrophic when itcomes to pro to protections for people
with disabilities unless they amend
their complaint.
Instead of expecting us to take their wordfor it, just because they filed a status
report saying they're not really trying tomake the whole statute unconstitutional.

(02:28:45):
Right, right.
So amend your goddamn complaint andthen maybe we might believe you guys.
So what are the lessonsto be learned here?
Well, I think one of the lessons isclearly that collective action works.
Look what the 5 0 4 protestors wereable to do in the 1970s is phenomenal.
And that's without social media.
That's without cell phones.

(02:29:06):
Right, right.
That was certainly no TikTok andblue sky to get the word out at all.
And.
The reality that coalition buildingworks, but that doesn't mean
coalition building with your enemies
Does this have the capacityto crash our economy?
Um, maybe you can answer now orif the, and then, or if they get

(02:29:32):
their way or neither or both.
I.
Yeah, I mean, I, I do think,unfortunately that there is a
serious amount of risk here.
Um, I suspect with the current levelof integration, even if crypto went
through a collapse that we saw just acouple years ago, we would not see a
great recession style, uh, contagion.

(02:29:54):
But I think that the very rapidlyprogressing changes in regulation that
the cryptocurrency industry has spent.
Over a hundred million dollars on and israising even more money to, to continue
to pursue, uh, and seems to be gettingvery much, uh, raise that risk and

(02:30:14):
that that type of contagion could bein the very near future, unfortunately,
um, if these types of regulationsare, uh, removed or if you know.
Favorable regulations are installedfor the cryptocurrency industry.
Um, you know, the more that we're seeingthe US government endorsing crypto, I
think the higher the risk is becoming.

(02:30:36):
We're starting to see statestalking about establishing Bitcoin
reserves at the state level.
Um, and so, you know, this is.
You know, actual people's money,taxpayer money going towards acquiring
Bitcoin, which as you mentioned isprofiting those like the Winklevoss
twins who bought Bitcoin veryearly on and are now billionaires.

(02:30:58):
Um, again, at the expense of everydaypeople, while also introducing
this degree of financial riskthroughout the American economy.
Um.
And honestly further, uh, that could bedevastating during a future collapse.
So I am very concerned about the typeof risk that we are rapidly taking on.

(02:31:21):
And, and then it's a good opportunityto talk about, uh, Andreessen Horowitz.
And, you know, we covered it on our show.
Mark Andreesen in November, went on tothe Joe Rogan podcast, which is the, uh.
The tech oligarch propagandashow, and he was, uh, or VC pick,

(02:31:44):
take your, pick your poison.
He was, uh, saying that, uh,Elizabeth Warren is personally
debunking all of us and coming afterus and targeting us politically.
She does not head the CFPB, but, uh,Elon Musk is taking a hammer to the
agency that, um, has returned $21 billionto consumers who were victimized by
corporate greed, um, and banking greed.

(02:32:06):
And then he went on and, and now he'sbasically claiming that, uh, the.
His business in particularis being targeted.
And you mentioned theirholdings in crypto.
Um, what is this de banking thingall about and why are billionaire
crypto holders like Andreessenfixated on changing those regulations?

(02:32:27):
I.
Yeah, so there has been this narrativecoming out of the cryptocurrency industry
that they're being systematicallyde banked by banking regulators and
by agencies like the CFPB and by theBiden administration in general, um,
through a campaign in which basicallythe administration and regulators were
pressuring banks to deny banking services.

(02:32:50):
To anyone and any company inthe cryptocurrency industry.
Um, and they've really sort ofco-opted this term of de banking,
which is, you know, this idea wheresomeone is improperly denied a bank
account due to, you know, their race,their religion, um, their economic
status, you know, any number ofthings, not based on their actual risk

(02:33:11):
profile, but just because the bank.
Decides they don't wanna work with themfor sort of discriminatory reasons.
Um, the crypto industry is claimingthat they are being discriminated
against and de banked in this same way.
Uh, when in reality most of the documentsthat they have provided that they claim
show, you know, hard evidence of this debanking campaign really show regulators

(02:33:35):
trying to evaluate the risk of banksoffering crypto products themselves.
Um, you know, like I said, the BitcoinATMs in the bank lobby and the, the crypto
purchases in your banking app that soundlike they're covered by FDIC insurance.
Um.
There has been pretty little in theway of evidence that there is any
sort of campaign to systematicallyde bank the crypto industry.

(02:33:58):
And in reality, it seems like banksbasically doing their own risk
assessments and saying this, youknow, this crypto company is too
risky for us to take on as a customer.
You're gonna have to look elsewhere,which is a legal thing to do.
You know, banks are not required toprovide services to every customer.
They just can't deny themfor discriminatory reasons.
Well, they are discriminating againstthese corporate persons according to

(02:34:21):
the Supreme Court, uh, based on theindustry that they're in, which is the
same as apparently racial discrimination.
Right.
Um, but anyway, this is allculminated in this campaign.
You know, it is, it's been used asbasically ammunition by the cryptocurrency
industry to bolster this campaignto attack regulations on banks and
other financial service providers.

(02:34:43):
Um, and it's.
Ironically enough been used asammunition to attack the CFPB, which
is actually the number one defenderagainst discriminatory de banking.
Uh, they are sort of the primary consumerdebunking watchdog, and yet, as the
crypto industry is making all of theseclaims of debunking and even arguing

(02:35:06):
about more general debunking against.
You know, they say it's happeningagainst conservatives or other
industries like the firearms industryor you know, religious organizations.
Even as they're making these claimsabout consumer de banking, they are
celebrating the shutdown of the CFPB.
Um, Coinbase, for example,their CEO, Brian Armstrong was.

(02:35:29):
You know, basically shooting offconfetti cannons about the fact
that the CFPB was being shut down.
Um, probably because the CFPB recentlyissued a sort of interpretive rule saying
that Coinbase would have to, uh, makewhole customers who are, uh, victims
of basically phishing scams, stealingtheir cryptocurrency out of their

(02:35:52):
Coinbase accounts, which a recent, um.
Investigation by a cryptocurrencyresearcher called Zac.
XPT suggested was like $300 milliona year that Coinbase was allowing to
be stole, stolen from its customersthat they would have to repay.
And so, you know, it's very clearwhy someone like Brian Armstrong and

(02:36:13):
Coinbase would be opposed to the CFPPbecause they might install consumer
protections for Coinbase customers whoare historically ignored by Coinbase
when they complain about stolen funds.
Um.
And you know, it's inconvenientfor them to support an agency that
otherwise might be a very usefulally if they were concerned about de
banking in the ways that they claim.

(02:36:34):
But in reality, it's really just apolitical weapon to try to advance
their goal of slashing regulations,reducing these firewalls between the
banking industry in crypto, and youknow, basically just allowing them
to do whatever it is that they want.
Consumers be damned.
Tell me about what happened last week.
Um, when did the Mel Gibsonissue first make its way to you?

(02:36:58):
I was tasked a few weeks ago with joininga, a working group in the department
that brought together multiple officeswithin the Department of Justice in
order to launch a process to broadlybegin restoring gun rights to Americans
who had lost their rights to possess afirearm because of a criminal conviction.
Hmm.

(02:37:18):
This is a project that I understood wasa priority for the Attorney General.
And I was told that this project wasgoing to be centered in the office
of the Pardon attorney, which wasan entirely new workflow for us, not
something that we had ever done before.
And did you, was it like just abunch of people in a spreadsheet or
was it like, Hey, here's Mel Gibson.

(02:37:41):
So I was told that we were workingtoward establishing a process that
all Americans who were prohibited frompossessing a firearm would have access to.
And the initial request of my office wasthat we identify a group of candidates
who we thought would be suitable forthe attorney general to grant this
relief to in connection with making anannouncement of the broader program.

(02:38:03):
So what I did when given that assignmentis I looked to the pool of individuals
who had applied for presidentialpardons and who my office had vetted for
consideration of a presidential pardon.
We extensively vet peoplebefore recommending them to
the president for a pardon?
Because we know that one consequenceof receiving a pardon is that you're

(02:38:25):
able to legally purchase a firearm.
So when we vet. Someone for a pardon in.
We conduct a full background investigationof the level that would be required to
gain a top secret security clearance.
Was Mel Gibson one of thosepeople that you had identified?
He was not.
Uh, Mel Gibson has never appliedfor any type of relief through my

(02:38:47):
office, but we were able to identify95 ordinary Americans who had applied
for pardons, who had been waitingyears to be considered for that relief
and to have been extensively vetted.
All of these folks had in commona number of things, including
that their underlying crimes ofconviction were nonviolent offenses.

(02:39:07):
They were minor offenses.
They were offenses that happenedmany, many years ago, in
all cases 20 plus years ago.
And these are all individuals whohad demonstrated by interviews with
neighbors and employers and familymembers and others who know them, that
they have been outstanding citizenssince the time of their conviction.
Mel Gibson was not among thoseindividuals who we, we identified.

(02:39:31):
So where does Mel g when does, howdoes Mel Gibson enter the workflow?
So what happened was I was asked toput together a memo for the attorney
general, uh, summarizing the casesof nine of the 95 individuals that
my colleagues and I had identified.
They had whittled that 95 down tonine, and they asked me to write a memo

(02:39:51):
to the attorney General recommendingthat these would be suitable
candidates for her to grant this.
Relief of restoring their firearm rights.
And I was comfortable doing thatwith those cases because I had a
great deal of information aboutthose nine people and had already
recommended that they were suitablecandidates for a presidential pardon.

(02:40:11):
So Mel Gibson did not enter the equationuntil after I sent the initial draft
of my memo to some officials within theoffice of the Deputy Attorney General.
They received my memo and they sentit back to me with the direction.
Please add Mel Gibsonto this recommendation.
I see and and theirjustification for that was what?
Well there, there was no justificationspecifically provided, but they did

(02:40:35):
attach a letter that had been sent by MelGibson's personal attorney to the then
Acting Attorney General and Acting DeputyAttorney General, in which Mel Gibson's
attorney requested that he receivethis relief from the attorney General.
Mel Gibson's attorney laid out thatMr. Gibson had a previous conviction
for domestic violence in 2011 andthat he had attempted to purchase a

(02:40:59):
firearm in 2023 and that he was deniedbecause of his criminal background.
And the attorney stated that Mr. Gibsonis a, uh, high profile actor who's made
lots of famous movies and that he hasa relationship with the president and
ask that he be granted that relief.
Um, Todd Blanche, who, uh, is thenumber two, I guess now at Department

(02:41:21):
of Justice, has this to say aboutyour account here saying that former
employees who violate their ethicalduties by making false accusations
on press tours will not be tolerated.
I dunno what that means.
This former employee'sversion events is false.
Her decisions to voice.
This erroneous accusation about herdismissals in direct violation of her
ethical duties as an attorney is ashameful distraction from our critical

(02:41:42):
mission to prosecute violent crime,enforce our nation's immigration
laws, and make us America safe again.
What do you say to that?
Well, Chris, the reason that I'm heretalking about this tonight is because
what's going on inside the Department ofJustice in terms of silencing, dissent is
so frightening that I felt like I neededto share this story after I was fired.

(02:42:02):
And frankly, I think Mr. Blanche'sstatement really just proves my point.
My ethical duty as a Department of Justiceemployee and now a former one, is to
the laws of the United States and thepeople that I was entrusted to serve.
It is not to the bullies who are currentlyrunning the Department of Justice.
We take an oath of office as Departmentof Justice employees and that oath

(02:42:25):
says nothing about loyalty to thepolitical administration or to the
political leadership of the department.
And uh, frankly, I think that.
The position that Mr. Blanche is takingin his statement really just proves how
terrified we should be about the currentsituation at the Department of Justice.

(02:42:50):
Copyright law has been one of theonly effective ways the government has
been able to curb some of this withinthe confines of the First Amendment.
But that is a deeply imperfect solutionthat has resulted in widespread misuse.
So I wanted to know wheredoes this all leave us?
And what about the current Trumpadministration has ADD concerned that
this new bill might be weaponized inways that severely undermine its goals?

(02:43:12):
So in a a normal environment, maybethis law passes, maybe there's a
bunch of chaos, there's a bunch oflawsuits, a bunch of platforms might
issue some policy documents, and wewould slowly and somewhat chaotically
stumble towards a revised policy, right?
Maybe the law gets amended.
Maybe there's an enforcement regimethat builds up around the law.

(02:43:35):
Something happens.
Frankly, the, the most likely outcome isthat someone takes this law to court and a
lot of this is declared unconstitutional.
Sure.
Like in a functioning system, andthen maybe part of the law stands
and maybe, hopefully it's a good partthat isn't open to abuse, but good
chance it would just get overturned.
Right.
And even in that process, I thinkCongress would look at that and
say, okay, this is a problem.

(02:43:56):
We're going to have some solutions forthe back end of this win lose, right?
Like you can see how the normalpolicymaking, legal, judicial
process might otherwise play out.
We have a lot of history with that.
Your piece, uh, is titled the TakeIt Down Act isn't a law, it's a
weapon, and your thesis is thatwe do not live in a normal world.
And the Trump administration inparticular is so sclerotic and so

(02:44:20):
addicted to selective enforcement thatwhat they're really gonna do is pass
this law and then use it as a cudgelto beat platforms in the submission.
Explain what you mean.
I.
Alright, so the normal process we'vebeen talking about this whole time just
assumes there's a function in government.
There's a hard problem.
Everybody in the governmentfights about this problem.
Civil society does.
People play their part, but everyone'skind of acting in good faith.

(02:44:42):
Everyone does actuallycare about stopping.
NCII.
They do recognize that there are problemswith overroad restrictions on speech and.
Everyone's trying to work toward asolution because they believe that
laws are things that should be appliedevenly, and that laws should be
applied in ways that fundamentallywork with the constitution.

(02:45:03):
The Trump administration justdoesn't believe in the rule of law.
It doesn't think that laws arethings that you should apply to
everyone in the way that they aremeant to be applied by Congress.
What it believes is that laws are thingsthat you apply to the people that you
hate in any way that can hurt them.
And I. You don't apply themto the people that you like.
The way that you apply them is notactually in a way that stops the

(02:45:25):
problem they're meant to address.
It's a way that gets you thething you want, which probably
has nothing to do with that.
So we've seen this say, play out with,uh, the TikTok ban might be the most
absolutely egregious example, whichis that while I don't agree with the
ban, it was something that was passedwith a bunch of bipartisan support.
It was passed after years andyears of working with TikTok.

(02:45:45):
It was then.
Sent up to the Supreme Courtand the Supreme Court upheld it.
It is hard to find a law thatwas more rigorously vetted.
And then Trump takes office a dayafter it passes, and he says, well,
specifically, I like TikTok because.
TikTok got me elected, and also TikTokhas been saying, I'm really great.

(02:46:07):
So what I'm going to do is I'mgoing to sign an executive order.
The executive order doesn't makean argument for why I have the
power to extend this deadline.
It doesn't make any kind of argumentfor why this is compatible with the law.
What it says is don't enforce the law,and then it goes to all of these platforms
that are trying to follow the law, andit tells them, don't follow the law, and

(02:46:27):
there is absolutely no reason to do this.
That is compatible with thething that Congress and.
The Biden administration andthe Supreme Court did because
he doesn't care about the law.
What he cares about is gettingthe law to do what he wants.
And the Trump administrationis not staffed with folks who
believe this, who act this way.

(02:46:48):
We talk about Brendan Carl Law atthe FCC, who uses his enforcement
power or his merger review power.
To push broadcasters into doingwhatever speech he wants or punish
them for news coverage he doesn't like.
There's Elon who seems like animportant character in all this
because he runs a platform.
There's Mark Zuckerberg who seems moreamenable to making deals that Trump

(02:47:11):
administration are in moderation, issaying, okay, we have this bill that
says, if you don't take down this imageryin 48 hours, the FTC can find you.
Is that just another way forTrump to say, I could destroy your
company unless you do what I want,or I can tell the FCC to hold off.
Yeah.
There are two sides to this and oneof them is the side that we talk

(02:47:32):
about often, which is what if thisgets weaponized a against people
that the government doesn't like?
And then there's the other sidethat I think less often is.
Raised before Trump, which is, even ifyou take this law seriously, you're not
going to get it applied against the peoplethat are actually hurting NCII victims.
Because again, the administration doesn'teven care about applying the law to

(02:47:53):
people that it should be used against.
Uh, Elon is maybe the clearestexample of that, which is just,
let's take the extreme view thatit is worth doing anything to get
NCI off eye, off the internet.
A place this would come into play isX, uh, formerly Twitter, which has had
probably the biggest NCII scandal of thelast several years, which is that a bunch

(02:48:14):
of Taylor Swift, uh, sexually graphicimages were posted there and spread there,
and it did very little to stop them.
It eventually kind of blockedsearches for Taylor Swift.
If you're looking at major platforms,it's the first one you think of.
You cannot enforce this law against Dexit, it is almost literally inconceivable
because Elon Musk runs the departmentthat governs whether the FTC has

(02:48:39):
money and people who work there.
The week before I wrote this, uh,we broke a story that said that
someone very likely Doge had cut, uh,about a dozen people from the FTC.
I'm trying to imagine a scenario where.
X completely ignores the law andsays, well, screw you taylor Swift.

(02:48:59):
I don't like you.
In what world does the FTC do anything?
I can't think of a way where it would actin any way in the interest of NCII victims
The Department of Educationhas been around since 1867.
Why?

(02:49:19):
Because it's important to have a, aneducational foundation for a country
and its future and society and a whole.
What we've been dealing with now,uh, for the last 70 years is the
fallout from 1954 Supreme CourtDecision, brown v Board of Education.
And so what immediately happenedafter Desegregating public schools?

(02:49:42):
You saw this push by the rightsegregationist, white supremacist, who
then started creating private schoolsas sort of an off ramp to be able to
have control and still have segregation.
This was also a joint effortbetween not just segregationists,
but the evangelical, right?
The modern, uh, uh, anti-abortionmovement actually has its roots

(02:50:05):
in the segregationist philosophy.
You, Nick, you know, andeverybody listening to this
has heard state's rights.
This was the origin of it.
The idea that all power should betaken from the federal government so
that the states can determine whetheror not you're able to discriminate,
which is again, being re-litigating.
So what are we seeing at this point?
We are trying to, or the right istrying to throw this back to the states.

(02:50:28):
So that we can have not just segregatedschooling, but privatized schooling.
That's the, the other component ofthis, um, there's a reason why it
went from Betsy DeVos, who is likeone of the leading champions of
privatizing education to Linda McMahon,who more or less is a pallbearer.
Uh, she knew when she took thisposition, one, she wasn't qualified,

(02:50:49):
and two, she was delivering theDepartment of Education to its death.
So what are we dealing with at this point?
We are dealing with a hierarchicalauthoritarian movement that wants to
make sure that some students are notgoing to get an education at all, or
at least the scant minimum, so thatthey can be productive workers and be
exploited and never understand what'sgoing on while controlling curricula.

(02:51:11):
So that they can hide their historyand their own actions so they can
further mystification, which you andI have talked about ad nauseum, and
basically create this oligarchicalparadise, which is a nightmare in
which you have all of these ownedcurricula and institutions and schools.
In which some people, the chosen few, thepeople at the top of the hierarchy, they

(02:51:33):
get their education, they're able to moveforward and everybody else falls behind.
That's what this is all about.
Well, the irony is that when theytry and make it seem like it's, uh,
state's rights, they want to haveeach individual community control
what, uh, their, their kids learn.
There is a centralized notion to what theywant to teach with the curriculum, right?
Yep.
We're talking about, uh, they don'twant to, they didn't mention slavery.

(02:51:53):
They don't, they probably will goback and get rid of, um, creationism.
Um, and, uh, wait, wait.
They wait.
They want, they don't want,they want creationism.
They'll also get rid of the genocide ofthe Native American population as well.
Yes.
At least that, that's the top three.
That's gotta be another five or sixin there that they're gonna throw
in there that are awful stuff.
And so it really, you know, in realitythis isn't any sort of, you know, uh,

(02:52:15):
local thing that they want to control.
This is some sort.
Uh, nefarious, uh, mind controlpropaganda arm that they're trying to
establish, which you need to have, Isuppose if you wanna form an oligarchy
or an authoritarian government, right?
You need to have that kind of controlover what the kids are learning.
Yeah.
And this is how authoritarianmovements always work.
It's, it's a matter ofinstitutional capture, right?

(02:52:36):
Like you take over, uh, while you'retaking over state power, you're
also then going down the chain.
I keep referring to this as theavalanche coming down the mountain.
So you, they go into the schools, whetheror not it's higher education or lower
tier education, and basically go in.
And intimidate everybodyto go along with them.
And we're seeing a lot of that right now.
Nick, we're seeing the leveragingof federal funding being tied

(02:53:00):
to ideological conformity.
Basically, administrators at all levelsare being told that they will lose all
funding and all support if they don't fallin line and capitulate and collaborate.
And this is what we see withall authoritarian movements.
There are all these sort ofsigns that come together.
The weird nefarious part of thisthough, Nick, is it's not just

(02:53:20):
authoritarian, white supremacist, uh,patriarchal ideology and also possibly
Christian nationalist ideology.
The weird component now is there isthis private sector that has already
cur created this curricula, right?
It's basically handing out patronageto places that are going to come in
and supply that curricula that isgoing to go ahead and push the author

(02:53:44):
authoritarian state power, which.
Just sort of underlines thecomplicated, uh, nightmare that
we're currently dealing with.
The first thing that they do isthey list their convictions, is that
parents are the primary decisionmakers in their children's education.
That's all about school choice.
Right, right now.
But let me, as far as I can understandhow that means is they want,

(02:54:04):
they're the, the primary decisionmakers in the curriculum itself.
But I'm curious, as a professor fora lot of years, did you ever do like
the, the, uh, training, uh, the teachertraining, uh, that, you know, for like
maybe graduate level stuff that they havefor, you know, teaching the classroom?
Or were you just sort of an expertin your field and then you got,
you were a professor for that way?
No.
You, you got
training.

(02:54:24):
Yeah.
No, like they, they, they,they trained you basically how
to put these things together.
Yeah, for sure.
Right.
And I, I asked that because I, I had alot of experience doing that at the high
school level, and you start to realizethat, you know, I know that schools are
failing us and we can talk all about thereasons for that, but there, I have to
tell you, uh, a lot of the infrastructurebuilt into helping and supporting teachers

(02:54:46):
and educating kids is pretty good.
You know, it is well thought out and thereare experts who are designing how we need
to educate kids in the classroom, and it'svery dynamic and they're always updating
and they're always examining things.
And so to hear someone like this who iscoming from a whole different spectrum of,
of thought, you know, convinced that whatthe teachers are teaching and how they're

(02:55:08):
being trained, I suppose the connectionor the similarity would be, uh, how police
are trained and how you, and I wouldsay we need to radically changed that
this is what they feel like, they feellike these police, these, um, teachers
are like what we feel cops are like now.
Well, and, and that is the present moment.
Mm-hmm.
And the, the really frightening thinghere, Nick, and it's becoming more and

(02:55:31):
more, um, you know, clear every singleday how much of what's going on with the
Trump administration and the oligarchicalcoup that we've been covering is that
they're just setting the ground for ai.
They're just ma, you know, they'rebasically creating a market need
for AI to handle everything.
So not only are teachers going to losefunding, not only are they going to lose

(02:55:53):
training and materials and studies thatwe're talking about with the Department
of Education, eventually the solutionis going to be the usage of ai, which
is why, and I know a lot of teachers anda lot of educators listen to this show.
This is unacceptable.
This is a red line.
And with this happening, um, you know,I think I said it was in, I think it

(02:56:14):
was during our, our live coverage ofthe post, uh, address to Congress.
I said, this is the equivalent of,you know, uh, an attempted kidnapping
where they're trying to move you toanother location, you know, where
like you're really, really in danger.
This is the point where you don't put yourhead down and say, this is inevitable.
This is going to happen.
If you are not in a union, youneed to get together right now.

(02:56:38):
And quite frankly.
Uh, you're right.
There are going to be lawsuits that aregoing to challenge this, but this is
the type of thing it, it, the walls areclosing in and if you are going to make
a difference, it needs to be made now.
So my advice to everybody listeningthis who is an educator, a teacher
who's involved in any of this, youneed to get in the ears of your
administrators, that ears of your bosses,and you need to start talking to your

(02:57:01):
colleagues about stepping out of this.
Because this is, it.
It, it's not just getting rid offunding and the training, it's also
completely changing this over toanother system that once we get
there, I don't know how we get back.
That's going to be it for today.
As always, keep the comments coming in.
I would love to hear your thoughts orquestions about today's topic or our

upcoming topics (02:57:19):
the outright assault on the LGBTQ community, followed by
a deep dive on the shifting dynamicsof the Democratic Party, whose
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You can leave a voicemailor send us a text at.
202-999-3991. You can reach out tous on the Signal messaging app at the
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(02:57:45):
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(02:58:06):
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#1699 A Government Of the People, By the People, and Weaponized Against the People