February 20, 2026 • 55 mins
The gang discuss presidential approval polls and the growing nationwide sentiment against ICE, what the partial government shutdown means for DHS, and a public domestic violence shooting being weaponized for the culture war.
Sources:
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2021953022213902763?s=20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh7DPSP65JA
https://www.instagram.com/p/DU1zLiWjDVx/
https://x.com/WCVB/status/2023544634216005773?s=20
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/chaos-kristi-noem-homeland-security-f095ac95
https://ohss.dhs.gov/khsm/dhs-repatriations
https://ohss.dhs.gov/khsm/ice-detentions
https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/immigration-enforcement/monthly-tables
https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/2024-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is it could happen here? Executive Disorder, our weekly
newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis to name,
joined by James Stout, Mia Wong and Robert Evans. This
episode recovering the week February eleventh to February eighteenth. Some
small news items up top. Last week, the FDA declined
(00:29):
to review a new flu vaccine from Maderna. On February twelfth,
Tom Hoeman announced that Operation Metro Surge has concluded and
quote significant drawdown has already been underway this week and
will continue through the next week.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Un quote.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Zarmamdani has ordered a new audit of city agencies to
ensure compliance with sanctuary city laws in New York and
Stephen Colbert says that CBS refused to air his interview
with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Tallerico, citing the FCC's
equal time rule. Despite this rule historically having an exception
for late night talk show interviews. Last month, FCC Chairman
(01:05):
Brendan Carr threatened to enforce the rule regardless of the
well established President that excluded talk show interviews. And finally,
the owner of a warehouse facility in Hutchins, Texas, so
so that they won't sell or lease the building to
the federal government as a detention facility. The city's mayor
and council all opposed the project. Seizure by eminent domain
is still possible.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, And I guess with that, there's been campaigns in
a couple of other small, traditionally conservative rural areas to
not lease facilities for ICE. And it's still a little unclear,
and I suspect it's kind of column A columbee. How
much of this is, you know, nimbiism and how much
of this is resistance to ICE specifically.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Yeah, we covered a little of that in the episode
I did on Social Circle, which is in Georgia last week.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
But I think it's fair to say both.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, And obviously when I say nimbism, I don't mean
it in a bad way.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's bad to have this in your bag.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, right, But like their issue was into moral one
in some cases, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
In some cases.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
I think in some cases it's their little columny, little
column B.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, it's hard to tell.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah, And I think like It's worth noting, for instance,
hearing in southern California right a town called Dulzura, pretty
small town. Maybe you've heard of it from when the
KKK did border patrols there back in the day. But
the Border patrol are trying to build a big new
facility there and have been for some time called New
brown Field. There has been local opposition to that among
(02:30):
people who are very like people who I have spoken
to are otherwise conservative, and like, some of it is, yeah,
I don't want this changing the character of the town.
I don't want a giant detention center that would eclipse
the population of this very small town. Some of it
is also like I want them to be locking up
people out here. We have a nice life out here,
and you know, we have little lots of fields and
(02:51):
horses and space, and it seems like it would be
really fucked.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
Up to have people detained out here.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Like I think like that that Nimby impulse can sometime
like could still combine with even people who are not
you know, abolitionists. They don't want to be confronted with
the horrors directly next to them.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And we'll talk a little bit more about the numbers
like ICE's polling numbers, like how popular they are with Americans.
But one of the things we've seen this year is
that like they've been shedding support even from Republicans. So like,
you know, whatever debate we have here, that's like certainly
not a non factor.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Definitely.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
I think it's now time for us to talk about
the biggest news story this week, which is that Shilah
buff was arrested in New Orleans during Marty Graw after
getting into.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
A series of fights. Who he was in the movie Holes?
Speaker 7 (03:45):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah, he was also in a different production called Holes,
but not based on a book.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
He was in Holes.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I forgot, Yeah, it was in both holes.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
So I don't know who this person is.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I've never Yeah, he's a he's a child actor who
is a who was very popular during the early two
thousands and has gone. He played the Indiana Jones's son
in the reboot event or in the new in the
fourth Indiana Jones movie God and then he has He
has since kind of fallen into madness and disrepute. He's
(04:16):
a spousal abuser. He's repeatedly assaulted people in public. He
showed up on that webcam white supremacists were drinking milk
on once for reasons that are still to this day
somewhat unclear to me. And he got into a fight
in Marty Gras, which is just just just a fun
little bit of news. My favorite part of this is
that he assaulted a guy. He was repeatedly restrained by
(04:37):
members of a bar, and whenever they would let him
go because they just wanted him to leave they didn't
want to call the cops, he would then continue to
attack the guy he was assaulting until they forced they
were forced to call the police and have him arrested.
And I've been in Marty Gras over the last few days,
and let me tell you, getting arrested by the police
during Marty Gras not easy. I don't have a lot
(04:59):
to say about that other than I was surprised by
the number of very political floats that I saw, particularly
at least one that was entirely paper mache ice guy's
in a very like, non flattering way. There were a
lot of like costumes and a number of like references
on floats. There's a couple of pretty hideous caricatures of
Trump on floats, and they all got like a widely
(05:23):
positive reaction and I find this interesting, and I'm bringing
this up because the research that I've largely been doing
for the EED this week is trying to get a
handle on, like where Americans are polling right now and
how popular or unpopular is the president and his agenda,
because like we see articles every week about like Trump's
polls hit a new low, or the most recent article
(05:46):
that I think it's gallup is no longer going to
be doing presidential like popularity polling. But I wanted to
get a look at, like how the actual parties and
their agendas are holding up. And it's a pretty shocking
gap between I mean September October, like fall of last
year and today. So in September of twenty twenty five,
(06:07):
per Yugov, the Democratic Party had about a sixty four
percent unfavorable So like sixty four percent of polled Americans
didn't like the Democratic Party and a little less than
thirty four percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of
the Democratic Party. And if you actually look at the
graphs for those that you GOV presents, they're basically making
(06:28):
like a wineglass shape, right, So what that means is
unfavorability is moving up and favorability is moving down rapidly,
like at the time at which those bulls were taken
in September of last year. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, neither
party was popular, but the Republican Party the wineglass shape
was a lot more muted, more like a shot glass.
(06:49):
Fifty five point four percent of Americans pulled by Yugov
expressed a unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party, at about
forty two point three expressed a favorable opinion. You can
compare this to October twenty twenty five polling by Pew Research,
which showed something similar. Sixty four percent of Americans were
frustrated with the Republican Party, Seventy five percent of Americans
(07:12):
reported being frustrated with the Democratic Party. Forty nine percent
of Americans poll replied that they were angry at the
Republican Party, Fifty percent reported being angry at the Democratic Party. Similarly, Republicans,
thirty six cent of Americans felt hopeful about the Republican Party,
twenty eight percent of Americans felt hopeful about the Democratic Party,
and then twenty seven percent of Americans were proud of
(07:35):
the Republican Party sixteen percent Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Those are pretty bleak numbers.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
For the Democrats coming in the fall of twenty twenty five.
Like that is kind of black pilling stuff, right. This
was in the fall of last year, pretty rapid change
fro where things had been about four years ago. For example,
in September of twenty twenty one, about sixty four percent
of Americans had expressed frustration with the Dimmerocratic Party as
(08:00):
opposed to seventy five percent four years later.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So that's all fall of last year.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Now, between when the polls that I read to you
came out and now we've had a cup several major
things happen. One of the more significant was the long shutdown,
which was disasters for Republican favorability and for Trump's own favorability.
And we also had a significant I mean, obviously in
LA and in Chicago. Ice had been doing very terrible
(08:27):
and very like you know, I guess I should say,
like documented crimes, like horrible things that were spread widely
on social media. But that has also accelerated massively in
the first couple of weeks of twenty twenty six. And
what we're seeing now in more recent polls taken in
late January and from anywhere from like kind of early
(08:49):
January to late January and early February is a significant reversal.
So NBC News's Decision desk collated a bunch of different
polls like Daily Mail, Marquette, Wall Street, Journal, Yahoo, you
go of Fox News, Emerson, and over the last month
or so, you're looking at an average spread of all
of these polls of about negative nineteen point nine percent
(09:13):
favorability for the Republican Party and about negative twelve point
eight percent favorability for the Democratic Party. So when you
think back to those numbers from last fall, that's a
pretty dramatic change, and it kind of correlates to a
dramatic change in Trump's own favorability, which has gone down
by about twelve percent per the average of those polls
(09:34):
that kind of aggregated by NBC Newsdesk.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Their article notes quote.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Ipso's polling released in late January found fifty one percent
of Americans say Trump's immigration policy is on the wrong track. Amazingly,
just a year ago, American said Republicans have a better plan, policy,
and approach than Democrats on immigration by a twenty two
point margin. Now that advantage is down to five points.
So while Trump is underwater with immigration his and the
(09:59):
Republican Party. These policies towards immigration are still more popular
than the Democratic Party's responses to immigration, but they have
also collapsed in terms of like. The gap between those
two things, again, twenty two point margin to a five
point lead is a is a pretty dramatic narrowing. And
one of the things that has come along with this
(10:20):
is an increasing agreement among Americans that ICE has not
only gone too far, but needs to be if not
abolished entirely, then severely curtailed, and a lot of Americans
a shocking amount currently support abolishing ICE entirely. A PBS
News NPR Merist poll released recently found that a majority
(10:41):
of Americans feel ICE is making the country less safe
and has gone too far. Six in ten Americans disapprove
of what ICE is doing, only about three in ten
approve of it, So by a two to one margin,
Americans disapprove ICE's operations to approve of their behavior. This
(11:01):
is a very like political breakdown. About ninety one percent
of Democrats disapprove of ICE, sixty cent of Independence disapprove
of ICE. Meanwhile, seventy three percent of Republicans approve of ICE.
But even that number has dropped fairly recently.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
In fact, the percentage of Americans that believe Ice hasn't
gone far enough dropped from eighteen percent to twelve percent
over the last year, and only about twenty two percent
of Americans feel like Ice is doing a good job
compared to twenty six percent of Americans a year ago.
So we're seeing like pretty unequivocally Americans rejecting the Republican
(11:39):
tactics on immigration, and they tend to be blaming Ice
for it, right Like. That's one of the things that's
most interesting to me is that both Ice and President
Trump have seen the most dramatic collapses in public support,
which suggests to me that, like, Americans are kind of
tying these two things together. Currently, per Yugov, as of
(12:02):
January twenty fourth, twenty twenty six, more Americans support abolishing
ICE than oppose it. Now, this has not mean a
majority of American support abolishing ICE. I've seen some people
mistate that forty six percent of US adults, as pulled
by Yugov, somewhat or strongly support abolishing Ice, twelve percent
are not sure, forty one percent somewhat or strongly oppose
abolishing ice.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, that's still pretty striking.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Yeah, say a plurality, right, Maybe now would be a
good time to talk a little bit about like where Democrats,
different Democrats are, different wings of the Democrat Party are
on abolishing ice, because I think it's one of these
areas where like the further up the party you go,
the more detached from that public opinion you get. So
(12:48):
maybe you will start the Keem Jeffries, Democrat leader in
the House, hit him on the Joy Reid Show on
the topic of abolishing ice.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
Why not lead and say abolish ice? Because what you're
telling us is you want our taxpayer dollars to pay
for a lawless, massed armed agency to continue terrorizing our cities.
And I'm trying to figure out how you, as a
leader can be telling Americans that their taxpayer dollars should
be going twice, I don't.
Speaker 8 (13:16):
Understand anything that you just said when I've moved English, well,
I don't understand anything that you've just said to me
when I've made clear that taxpayer dollars should be used
to make life more affordable for the American people, not
brutaliz or kill them. That's the whole reason we're in
this fight right now. That's the whole reason the DHS
is getting ready to shut down.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
That's abolish abolish ice.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
That is a listen. I'm going to use the language
that I want to use. You can use the language
that you want to use.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
You can see Jeffries visibly kind of tense when the
phrase abolish ice is used, right like, he's yeah, he
wants nothing to do with it. The immediate responses is
to go to affordability. I do want to note that
when he was previously asked if he would use the
appropriations process to rain in eyes, he did exactly the
(14:11):
same thing.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
But why not use the appropriations as to rain in ice, leadergen.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
For an operation?
Speaker 9 (14:17):
No, what I'm what I'm focused on right now, Chad,
is to make life better for the American people by
extending the affordable care and tax credits, which, by the way,
a lot of folks in this institution believe was not possible.
But Democrats made clear before the government was shut down
that we were in this fight until we win this
(14:38):
fight on behalf of the American lower the cost, save
health care.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
That's our objection.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Why there, he does the same thing, right, he goes
back to affordability, which is something that Democrats have done
for the last year and a half right when asked
to take a strong leadership stance and ice, far too
much of their leadership has instead like tried to deflect
to affordabilit I do want to note that, like they
are now doing exactly what he was deflecting from there, right, Yeah,
(15:06):
and that was only less than a month ago.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
It's interesting because it's like this cowardice on like specific
terms and messaging. Yeah, even though they are using the
provisions process to try to rain an ice like that
is that, Yeah, that is what they are doing now.
But it's like a complete complete cowardice or actually like yeah,
trying to like use like public pressure to your advantage
at the moment, Like.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Yeah, he's doing the thing and almost like failing to
It's not that he's doing the thing, you know, as
many of us would wish he did, but like he's
failing to take the easy win. Yeah, like because of
like you say this like institutional cowardice or like these
it's like there's some kind of red line rhetorically for
jeffrees and other leadership Democrats that they will not cross.
(15:52):
And I have to believe that some of that comes
from what they see as like the long legacy of
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Or like perceptions of the Democratic Party is like too
far to the left, is too extreme or something.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Yeah, they that, like specifically the perception that they like
attempted to abolish the institution of policing, which was not
really anything that they had that was not in their
policy platform. Right, they were not Democrat leaders saying We're
going to do away with the cops. In fact, Biden
was talking about how we need to fund the police,
not defund the police in twenty twenty.
Speaker 10 (16:24):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Yeah, But nonetheless, like that, there seems to be this real,
like it's very hard for them to break that rhetorical boundary.
It's not entirely just jeffreyes on this. Seven Dems cross
party lines in late January to vote for a DHS
funding bill. So we got Representative Henry Quella of Texas.
Speaker 10 (16:43):
Worst the worst Democratic congressman.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah, shit, fucking.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Texas Deems hit different and like specifically like Rio Grande
Valley Democrats are a different breed.
Speaker 10 (16:58):
God, it sucks so much.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
There's Jared Golden of Maine, Mary Glousen camp Perez Washington,
Laura Gillen, Don Davis of North Carolina, Lauri Gillan is
New York, Tom Swosey of New York, and Vicente Gonzales
of Texas.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
This is not it.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
There's not a position that is unique to Jeffrey's right, Like,
this's this idea that like, perhaps there needs to be
some reform of ICE, but bit abolishing it would go
far too far. Other Democrats have introduced an act which
would essentially move funding from ICE to local law enforcement.
So it would take that seventy five billion dollar budget
(17:37):
allocation to ICE and move it to local cops.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
This is called the Providing Useful Budgets for Localities to
invest in cops by substituting six appropriations from federal enforcement
to yield results Act.
Speaker 11 (17:52):
Holy shit, Now, wonder these people's favorabilities like negative onondrillion.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, good word.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
It's what we call a backronym in that they have
started with the word public safety and then made a
really horrendous attempt turning that into an acronym. There is
also like a wing of the Democratic Party right there
on the left, which is more forthright about abolishing ICE.
His clip of AOC talking about why I should be abolished.
(18:22):
And this is at an event in Queen's Yeah.
Speaker 12 (18:25):
ICE is a very young agency relative to many others.
Enforcements of people who committed crimes that were undocumented or
had visas used to be under the Department of Justice.
And in the Department of Justice, if someone wants to
come to your house, you need a judge. You mean,
(18:45):
you need an entire judicial process, You need a warrant
to ensure that your constitutional liberties would take are respected.
You need all of it. What they did was that
they took ICE out, well, they took Immigration enforcement out
of the DOJ, which had very tight rains on what
you're allowed to do. They take that they put it
into this new agency that they put at the time,
(19:07):
which is a Department of Homeland Security. First of all,
in what world does FEMA belong under the same umbrella
as ICE. It makes no sense at all, no sense
at all. And what happened is that once you take
that enforcement piece out of that agency, they then start
(19:28):
to answer to nobody. Even though I technically, statutorily their
responsibility is just supposed to be on immigration enforcement. They
are now expanding their data collection to US citizens, to
everyone on this soil.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
They are waiving.
Speaker 12 (19:44):
These phones around and saying that they're implementing facial recognition
technology to a centralized database. We have to fight this
tooth and nail. We need to defund it. We need
to not allow this to be collected by private companies.
A lot of what we need to do is not
just revisit Session seven oh two. We need to abolish ICE,
(20:07):
and we need to have complemented.
Speaker 13 (20:09):
Changes block that up.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
One thing I do want to note about her statements
is that during the appropriations process, she did give statements
about how she was pushing to defund ICE as an agency,
and this did cause a reaction from some i'll call
them over the online leftists, claiming that it had changed
positions from wanting to abolish to defund, that this is
some sort of slide. And then she then had to
(20:35):
follow up with saying, well, currently, the way to restrict
ICE and lead to abolishing it is through defunding it.
So that's what we're doing through the appropriations process. No,
my position has not changed. I still think think the
agency should be abolished.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah, there's a broad issue we had, which was that
at the end of twenty twenty, as a result of
all of the federal agents that were in American cities
(21:09):
and had been video brutalizing citizens and places like Portland,
there was a lot of anger about DHS.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
In particular.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
I wrote a column for Business Insider about like, look,
this agency is going to remain under Biden, but if
we don't cut the legs out from under the entire agency,
it's basically set up to be the president's secret police.
And broadly speaking, the Democrats didn't do anything to stop it.
But I also, like, I guess where I am on
(21:37):
this is. I think it's kind of counterproductive at this point.
The failures of the Biden administration, I think are quite
manifest in what the Trump administration is doing right now.
And what I want to focus on is the fact
that we've had, in the space of several months, Americans
become more than twice as likely to support abolishing ICE,
(22:00):
which is both a fragile coalition because the fact that
the number has changed so rapidly means that it could
potentially change back. Like, I don't feel solid in counting
on that to be the permanent state of affairs, but
it introduces an opportunity, and it's an opportunity to build
support to destroy this agency. And I think it's probably
(22:23):
too much to hope for DHS as a whole and
anything close to the near term. But the fact that
during the Biden administration so much got punted on, I
don't know, like we're past that. We have the opportunity, now,
we have the anger now I do I retain my worry,
And I would say almost one of my biggest political
(22:43):
fears is that twenty twenty six and twenty twenty eight
go well for Democrats. They do again what happened under
the Biden administration.
Speaker 10 (22:50):
Yeah, and they leave all these things intact.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
But one of the big differences that we have, at
least right now is that at no point was abolishing
ICE polling the way it is right now during the
Biden or the first Trump administration. Yeah, And I think
we have to take advantage of that. There's momentum right now,
like this is a.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Crucial time, not just like we're talking here in terms
of like abolishing ICE moves us back to the two
thousand and three norm right, Like what it doesn't do
is fixed the fundamental issue here, which is that there
are not legal pathways for people to come to the
US and there need to be and like I think
like now is the time for people who are involved
(23:30):
in democratic politics right to agitate for like a genuine
reform package. I don't think we will ever see support
like this again for legalization of undocumented people, for Dreamers right,
or people who are impacted by deferred action for childhood arrivals,
which is a policy that it came to place under Obama.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Like, now is the time for substantial immigration reform.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
I say this knowing that this will not fix a problem.
Like more than most people you know, I have seen
the horrors of our immigration system firsthand, but like there
is a moment right now that we could change things
for the better. And I share roberts worry that if
Democrats get like an easy win even in the midterms,
(24:19):
that we might not get that. And like what we
saw rounder Biden was a big pointer to what we're
seeing under Trump that essentially the DHS was almost impossible
for him to control. Yeah, in that he acquiesced to oads,
he is still responsible for them, like the buckstops with him.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
He's president.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
I'm not certain that he planned it, but nonetheless it
continued to happen for months and months and months out
of his presidency, right, Like, it was very obvious the
way this was going to go if we got another
Trump presidency, and if they do that again, we're just
setting the table for things to get worse again.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
And I think James the task before is twofold, right,
because on one hand, we have to reform the system
by which people gain legal acceptance to live in this country,
and that also includes I think there needs to be
a push for some sort of federal law that will
(25:17):
make it impossible or at least much harder, to reverse
these acceptances and to do things like nullify or cancel
green cards and permanent residency like the administration is doing
right now. Like both, we need increased pathways and we
need increased resilience to promise people that, hey, if you
go through all of these hoops to become a legal
(25:37):
resident or a citizen or whatever, it can't just get
pulled away the next time a Republican wins office.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
And then on the other side of things, you have
this vast, uncontrollable militant agency built as the armed wing
of the presidency that has to be destroyed because it
can't exist a democracy yeah, it's no compatible and then
you have I mean I would extend that to DHS
as a whole. But it's my same issue with like,
(26:07):
if we can defund ICE right now, I'm always in
favor of taking away some of their money.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
That's not the extent of what I think should happen
to ICE.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
It's just like it's a salient, right, Like you have
to look at it that way. Like it it would
be as if you're you're like, well, it's not worth
winning the Battle of Stalingrad because that doesn't give us
Berlein It's well, but these are steps, you know, you
try to damage and reduce the agency's power and ability
to function. Yeah, while you're continuing. And I guess the
(26:35):
worry about that too is that if you do defund ICE,
if they because we've had some Trump has made a
couple comments about worrying that, like we need to reduce
kind of the tempo at which ICE is operating because
it's bad for them.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
So that is kind of one of my concerns.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
That maybe if they, if they pull back on the
throttle a little bit, the rage will decline enough that
there's not this kind of motivation and behind abolishing but
I feel like that's just a fear you kind of
have to eat, as opposed to not trying to stop
and reduce the harms the agency does in the immediate
(27:11):
term while you're working long term for abolition.
Speaker 6 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Did want to talk a little about other numbers, because
immigration is obviously a major issue for American voters. It's
an issue people pick who they're going to vote for
the presidency on. It's one of them, but it's not
the main one. As a general rule, throughout most of
modern political history, the kind of the top issue for
Americans is the economy. And if the economy is bad,
(27:38):
it is very hard for your party to stay in power.
If the economy is good, it is a lot easier
for your party to stay in power. Right, Like, these
are fairly basic facts of political life in the United States,
always with some caveats, but that it bears looking at
how do Americans feel about the economy and who do
they blame for the fact that they feel badly about
(27:58):
the economy? And per Politico, which carried out a recent survey,
about forty six percent of Americans say the cost of
living is the worst they can remember it ever being
This includes thirty seven percent of people who voted for
Trump in twenty twenty four, and Americans pretty like significantly
agree that this is a Trump problem. Inflation, the fact
(28:20):
that they can't afford things is on him because he's
the present. Again, forty six percent of Americans say it's
Trump's economy and his administration is responsible for rising costs.
And this is true both among Republicans and Democrats, which
is very interesting to me. A percentage of Americans, based
on the vote in the twenty four election, fifty three
(28:43):
percent of Harris voters in twenty twenty four say the
cost of living is the worst they've seen it, and again,
thirty seven percent of Trump voters in twenty twenty four
feel the same way. So that is it's an example
of something that we've talked about and wondered about on
this show a lot, which is like how much.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Does reac break through the fever swamps? And this is
suggesting that, like to a pretty solid degree, that actually
Trump is I still think he's got a floor of
somewhere around thirty percent of Americans who will follow him
into the pits of hell, even if it means shoveling
themselves into it, but that number used to be like
forty percent, right, and it does seem to be declining.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
This is being treated as a five alarm fire among
the Trump White House, which is interesting me for a
couple of reasons. You know, anytime you talk with especially
people them left about but also increasingly a lot of
Democrats about the midterm elections in the twenty twenty eight elections,
I think you have to deal with his people saying,
but are there going to be elections?
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Right?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
And you know it's I don't dismiss those concerns out
of hand, obviously in part because the administration is talking
right now about having ice agents and polling places, right,
you do have to acknowledge that as a concern. But
at the same time, I think if you're looking at
this rationally, you have to note that the Trump administration
internally is acting as if there will be elections and
(30:03):
that those will be competitive elections. They are worried about
the economy, they are worried about their polling, and they
are taking actions to try to mitigate the worries that
they have, which they wouldn't be doing if they were
already sure there's never going to be another election. Right,
and that is important to remember. It doesn't mean there's
not a danger, doesn't mean they won't try shit if
they lose, but it does mean that they are treating
(30:25):
these political issues as political issues that they have to
deal with via messaging. There is an article in Fox
News recently about Trump's team huddling to decide on midterm messaging.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
I'm going to quote from that now.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
The meeting, which was confirmed to Fox News by sources
familiar with the gathering, was hosted by White House Chief
of Staff Susie Wilds and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair,
who is steering Trump's political strategy. According to sources, the
message during a slide presentation by chief polster and Chief
Strategists and strategist Toorney Fabrizio was that the economy will
be the top issue in the minds of voters, and
the White House needs to spotlight its efforts on easy affordability.
(31:01):
The meeting was held as the GOP ares to defend
their control of the Senate and their razor thin House
majority in November's midterm elections. Republicans are also dealing with
the presidents continued underwater approval ratings and a slew of surveys,
including the latest Fox and News pulling that indicates Americans
are pessimistic about the economy, and publicly, the administration's claim
is that Americans are happy with the economy. The economy
(31:22):
is the best it's ever been. Look At how good
the doo is. It's over fifty thousand, right, Yeah, But
everything we're hearing internally, like all of the reports that
from people inside the administration about like what's going on
day to day, is that they're wide awake and worried
over the fact that their economic numbers are completely fucking
dog shit. Now, what does this mean for the midterm elections, Well,
(31:44):
very few people that I have found who are like
credible analysts don't expect the Democrats to retake the House, right.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Meaning, most credible analysts do think the Dems are likely
to retake the House.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
That said, there's a fairly few people who expect a
twenty eighteen style Democratic blowout, among like the professional bull
watchers and stuff, which is, if you remember the Democrats
flipped about forty one seats. There's a couple of reasons
for this, right, And I found a good article in
The Hill that's kind of analyzing like why we shouldn't
(32:23):
be expecting some of the exuberants that you're seeing on
social media about like early elections and how bad Trump's
numbers are, is maybe making people overly optimistic about like
flipping all of Congress to Democratic control, which is not
currently the likeliest outcome. And there's a couple of reasons
for this. One of them is that, as unpopular as
(32:43):
Trump is, and I've hit on that quite a lot,
the Democratic Party's overall favorability is at about thirty three percent,
which is nine points lower than the Republican Party's favorability
and you know, depending on the poll, five to ten
points lower than Trump's own favorability. This is based on
a Marquette Law School pol Right, So Trump is very unpopular,
(33:05):
so with the Republican Party, but people don't like the Democrats,
the Democratic Party as a whole. People like individual Democrats,
a lot of people like their Congress person, a lot
of people like whoever it is they want to see
as the presidential candidate. You know, you can look at
you know, you've got folks who really like Mamdani or
really like pritzkerp But as a whole, voters, including Democratic
voters don't feel very positively towards the Democratic Party, in
(33:28):
many cases more negatively still than they feel about the
Republican Party that started to turn around. But if you're
kind of hoping that there's going to be like a
full on switch that makes it immediately possible to successfully
impeach President Trump, that is extraordinarily unlikely to come in
twenty twenty six, right, which doesn't mean that it's unlikely
(33:48):
to have a good result. Republicans losing control of Congress
is a good result.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Right. There's just a lot less. I mean, there's a
lot less.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Even if you're kind of taking the unfavorability of the
Democratic Party out of it, there's a lot fewer seats
up for grabs right now. In twenty eighteen, and when that,
you know, the Democrats flipped forty one seats. There were
seventy five competitive races this year. Heading into the midterms,
there were only eighteen. Right, there's a lot less that
can flip. And I don't think Republicans are likely to
(34:19):
lose control of the Senate, right, And the polling shows
things being pretty razor thin there. Democrats have about a
four percent advantage according to Economist. You GOV polling right
now in the congressional midterms, and there's a three point
margin of error, so you're looking at like a lead,
but not enough of one for a complete fucking blowout. Right,
(34:43):
there has been some more positive data, like kind of
right before we came on to record this, like I
looked at some charts by Focal Data that was kind
of breaking down midterm voting and tensioned by groups and
looking at like likely voters, And this is always kind
of a little bit like voodoo, right in terms of
how you're trying to, like, well, how likely is a
(35:03):
likely voter and how do we like factor in realistically
are they going to show up anyway if you're kind
of assuming that like people who self report as likely
voters will only actually vote about a third of the time.
Per this study, Democrats are ahead by about seven points
in a generic house ballot. So you know, that's kind
of where we are right now. I think we're looking
(35:25):
at a midterm season that's going to go well for
the Democrats, But I don't think we're looking at a
midterm season that delivers us from the Republican Party being
able to ram through legislation. I think our kind of
best case scenario is one in which they have to
give major concessions because the Democrats have you know, flipped
(35:50):
the House at the very least like.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
And that's that's big. But I don't think.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
I don't think Trump's going to get impeached starting January
of next year.
Speaker 11 (36:00):
The one thing I will say about the polling data
is that so obviously Democrats tend to perform better in
special elections because to vote in a special election, you
have to be a higher interest voter. And that also
special election cycles get driven by immediate like anger over stuff,
and there's a bunch of different factors that dry special
election turn out. And also the Democrats have been absolutely
(36:23):
obliterating the Republicans in all the special elections that have
been happening recently, or even in the cases where they're lose,
they're losing by very small margins in places where Trump
was wining blowouts. Yeah, so I think if you want
to be optimistic, I think that's the case for optimism.
But also, yeah, like we're not going to have all
of our problems magically solved by the mid terms.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah, yes, to specify on that, what you were saying,
there was a special election in Tennessee and Republican Matt
Van Epps beat the Democrat often Bane by nine points,
but Trump had won in twenty twenty five, were there
by twenty two points.
Speaker 11 (37:02):
Yeah, and like like a few we talked about this
on the show. But like last year there was there
was an election in like a special election in western
Iowa that Trump had won by double digits and the
Democrats won by double digits.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
And that kind of thing shouldn't be happening.
Speaker 11 (37:17):
It sure shouldn't, No it is, And yeah, you know,
so that's that's the optimistic case.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
And hey, like I've just come in saying like, hey,
don't expect Congress to be completely flipped, but like, you know,
it's the times are crazy. Who knows what else? Who
knows how many more people Ice is going to murder?
Who knows like what other like how bad the economy's
going to get.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
We might have invaded Canada by then, Like who knows.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Anything's on the table, anything's still on the table. We're
just kind of looking at shit from February.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
Yeah, yeah, and some of this shit will depend on
like what atrocities they commit in the weeks and days
before the midterm election. Right then, I think we see
so around certain the killing of Rene Good, the killing
of Alex pretty right, we see those things shift public
opinion dramatically. And the ongoing snatching of immigrants and deportations
(38:14):
and sending people back to places where they be tortured
and killed. Like that's kind of the background and it
makes people angry, but like it's these these these specific
actions which seem to shift public opinion dramatically. All right,
(38:40):
So on that topic, I guess we should talk about
the quote unquote shutdown, and specifically the shutdown of the
Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I guess the first thing to clarify is this isn't
a government shut down in the sense of the shutdown
we saw last year, right that that lasted like forty
plus days.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Right, It's a partial shutdown.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
It's partial shutdown.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
What's happening right now is the Democrats are holding up
further funding for DHS until the administration agrees to some
concessions that they have asked for. This is unlikely to
impact ICE and CBP a very great deal for a.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
Couple of reasons.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
Firstly, the Taxi Spending Cuts Bill right, twenty twenty five
bill funded them to an absolutely unfathomable degree, I think
sixty five and seventy million, respectively. More quickly, it will
affect other agencies under DHS. Those includes Transport Security Administration,
(39:37):
Federal Emergency Management Administration, the Secret Service, and the Coast Guard.
Some TSA workers will be working that they will likely
not be receiving pay. This is pretty common right that
they're deemed does quite unquite essential workers, and that means
that they will be expected you to work. What we
saw last time was that as the shutdown dragged on,
(39:59):
people were calling in sick or not coming into work
because they were taking other jobs right because they had
bills to pay. The reason this is happening is because
Democrats successfully managed to get Trump to separate DHS funding
from another spending bill, which passed through and funded the
rest of the federal government.
Speaker 6 (40:17):
They are demanding an end to masking.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
I should clarify specifically like masking in the sense of
law enforcement officers wearing gates over their faces, a return
to opposites displaying their name, badge, and ID number, increased
oversight of detention conditions, coordination with local law enforcement, and
end to the detention of US citizens targeted enforcement and
not roving patrols, and a unified use of force and
(40:44):
uniform conduct policy for CBP and ICE, and then an
end to raids using Form two point fifteen. I'm just
going to note here them moving forwardre going to refer
to that using its it's that name and not call
it an administrative warrant, because an administrative warrant like kind
of implies the action of a judge. But these are
(41:06):
forms that are filled out right that it is not
the same early aspected as a warrant, and that's a
judicial warrant. The Republican counterproposals so far have shown pretty
little common ground on this, aside from over body cameras
where Gnome did implement body cameras. As I said, ICE
and CBP will continue doing what they do right. I
(41:28):
was at the border on Saturday and I saw tons
of CBP patrols. They do not seem to have slowed
down with their wall construction. That may overtime slow down.
They won't be paying like the workers week by week
on those contracts. They will be paying a contractor who
might be paying a subcontractor, so that would take time
(41:50):
to slow down. The things that will slow down. Are
things like the oversight function to DHS, potentially administrative and
hiring functions, things like that, right, But the actual like
on the ground patrolling, most of those people are deemed
as essential workers. So it seems unlikely that we will see,
for instance, fewer CBP patrols at the border or fewer
(42:14):
ero iscera agents like tasked with doing these ongoing raids.
So yeah, talking about DHS, I want to talk a
little bit more about the Coast Guard. I think it's
likely that some people won't be aware that the Coast
Guard is an element of the DHS. They're also a
branch of the military, right they're the only branch of
the military that's under the DHS. Yes, so they considered veterans,
(42:35):
but they're not on the DoD or the DOW as
you can now call it. The NBC has a piece
suggesting that there is, I guess, a split in the
Coast Guard between lower ranks and higher ranks, and specifically
they're talking about feeling that Coast Guard is moving away
from its court mission, which is search and rescue. They
(42:56):
highlight one incident in February of last year when a
Coast guardsmen went overboard and a Coast Guard see one
thirty was detailed to participate in the search for that
Coast guardsman.
Speaker 6 (43:08):
Right.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
It had previously been detailed for a deportation flight that
it was retasked to assist with the search. According to
the piece, quote non verbally instructed the acting Commandant of
the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, to pull the plane
off the search and rescue mission so it would not
miss the immigrant flight, a part of DHS's so called
alien expulsion operations. According to two US officials and a
(43:31):
Coastguard official, as a result, what happened is that local
Coast Guard officials in San Diego scrambled to find two
C twenty seven's that could fulfill that deportation flight. In
doing so, that freed out the Sea one thirty to
then go return to participate in the search. Right. They
did continue searching, I believe, for one hundred and ninety hours,
but they never found the missing Coast guardsmen.
Speaker 6 (43:53):
Right.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
You cannot and will never be able to conclusively prove
that all of this back and forth with this one
thirty had any impact on that, But this incident has
clearly had an impact on morale and it suggested general
shift in priorities away from search and rescue.
Speaker 6 (44:09):
And towards doing more border enforcement.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Right.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Under NOME seven hundred and fifty flights have been redirected
from their regular work to instead deport migrants. This comes
after she removed a high ranking Coast Guard official from
her house so that Nope could live at the house.
Speaker 6 (44:26):
Wait what Yeah, yeah, she kicked the Coastguard person out.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Of their house.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
Yeah, this was last year. She moved with like very
short notice. She moved onto a shit, Yeah, she moved
onto a base.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Yeah with Lewandowski, right, that might be the case, goes,
there was like a few people in like the cabinet
or orbit.
Speaker 6 (44:49):
Yes, yes, I thought you meant like they were cohabiting.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Oh no, no, no, okay, yeah, okay, beautiful domestic life.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
Yeah okay, I was, I was. I don't want to
doubt you. That would have been in news to me. Yes,
a number of Trumps, like executive officials, are living on
basis more than is usual. I think the Millers maybe
do as well.
Speaker 6 (45:10):
But yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
She also purchased two Gulf Stream jets to fly her around,
unlike most government jets, which tend to be returned towards
what's called a sterile state after use. That just means
that they go back to being completely clean, like they're
like a generic jet. They're not your jet. Nome prefers
to keep some personal items aboard the Gulf streams, but
(45:31):
one of these items, a heated blanket, was left behind
after her jet broke down she had to switch planes.
Coylewandowski reportedly sheltered at the Coastguard flight staff and demanded
they turn around before attempting to fire the pilot, who
fused to do so.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Jesus right, I need my blanky.
Speaker 10 (45:51):
I need my blanky.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Turn around.
Speaker 5 (45:53):
Yeah, I think she'd she had a rough week. I
guess one of the blankets.
Speaker 11 (45:58):
These are absolutely just like the softest fascist that have
ever ruled the country. Like it, turn off flight around
because I left my baby blanket like.
Speaker 6 (46:07):
Yeah right, like I oh god.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Fortunately, I guess they de escalated that one and continued
the flight. Blanket free, the fire the pike. Yeah, I
think it is interesting to look at Coast Guards morale. Right, Like,
Coast guards traditional mission has been search and rescue and
then the interdiction of like drug vessels, and they have
(46:32):
been doing a great deal of order enforcement stuff and
removal stuff. And it is obviously like people who have
been at the Coast Guard for a long time, not
what they joined the Coast Guard to do. I will
just say that there are very few areas in which
the United Kingdom has worked shit out, but the lifeboats
are one of them. They are mentioned in Mutual Aid.
(46:54):
The Royal National Lifeboat Institute has an article on for
Popkin on their website.
Speaker 10 (46:59):
Incredible and it.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
Is one of the really genuinely good things about Britain.
By contrasting that are not part of our government security apparatus.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, because that makes no sense. The entire agency of
DHS makes no sense whatsoever.
Speaker 10 (47:12):
Yeah, it's just because.
Speaker 6 (47:13):
Yeah, there are better ways to do this.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
I mean it makes again, it makes a lot of
sense as the president's private army.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
For our final segment in this episode, some tragic news.
On Monday afternoon, February sixteenth, two people were killed in
a shooting at a hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Before the shooter died by suicide. Three others were shot
but survived their injuries. In the aftermath of the strategy,
(47:41):
people across the right and the left have both used
this shooting offensively and defensively in the culture war because
of the shooter's general identity and far right conspiratorial politics,
even though evidence points towards this being targeted domestic violence.
The deceased or the shooter's X onefe and eldest son,
(48:01):
and the deceased ex wife's parents were critically wounded but survived,
as did a family friend. The shooter's other son was
on the ice playing hockey while the shooting took place. Ordinarily,
we would not talk about an instant like this in
the news because there's a lot of domestic violence shootings
that happened across the United States every week, and not
all of them become national news stories. This is news
(48:24):
because of its weaponization in the political culture war, but
under most methodologies like this incident would not even be
categorized as a mass shooting because less than four people died.
It does qualify under the Gun Violence Archive criteria, which
counts injuries not debts, in which this would be the
forty first shooting in the US this year. But after
(48:47):
the shooting took place, right wing accounts and influences started
using this as a part of their trans mass shooter narrative.
On Monday night, the Pawtucket Police that they believed the
shooting stemmed from a family dispute. The shooter was fifty
six years old with six kids. About ten years ago,
the shooter started identifying as a transgender woman and used
(49:07):
the name Roberta Esposito. The legal last name is Dorgan.
They're not Hispanic, oh. The shooter was divorced about five
to six years ago, and Dorgan's ex wife lists the
grounds for divorce in the documents as quote, gender reassignment, surgery,
(49:28):
narcissistic and personality disorder traits. Then she crossed that out
and instead wrote quote irrevocable differences which caused the remediable
breakdown of the marriage unquote. The shooter was extremely active
on Twitter, made anti semitic and conspiratorial posts, and frequently
(49:51):
interacted with a large assortment of mega influencers, as well
as far right, neo Nazi, and conspiracy theory influencers like
Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones. Dorgan also shared pictures of
a massive like SS toteen CoV tattoo on their right
arm and wrote on Twitter quote post off trans to
(50:12):
the right of Hitler and quote you can be pro
LGBT and pro Trump unquote. From looking through their Twitter
it it mostly appears to be someone who is suffering
from extreme mental distress. It's hard to, you know, chart
how much of the political beliefs that can be to
split on Twitter are like genuinely held versus how much
(50:34):
they relate to long standing mental health issues this person
suffered from, which I'll get into in a sec.
Speaker 6 (50:39):
I'm still a little hung up on the name.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
The name also, I think relates to just this person's
very very not well.
Speaker 6 (50:46):
Okay, they're just trying to pay people off, flick with correct.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I think everything about this person can be seen as
an expression of like antisociality politics their presentation the name now.
While right wing news agent Season influencers have used this
horrifying instant of domestic violence for their trans mass shooter narrative,
framing every transperson is at risk of randomly becoming a
(51:09):
mass killer while ignoring this shooter's own extremist politics, people
on the left have blamed this tragedy on the shooter
being a quote unquote far right Trump supporter or a
quote unquote Nazi groper. And this is in part a
defensive reaction against the right zone like misleading and non
source claims about a statistical epidemic of trans violence. But
(51:30):
laying blame on Make America Great Again and the MAGA
movement doesn't really get us much closer to understanding this violence.
We're so used to defaulting to this heartizan culture war
like ideological explanation for the cause of public violence, whether
that's you know, for the right, trans ideology or neo Nazism,
(51:52):
even though both in this case and the shooting in
Canada last week, which I talked about a few days
ago on the show, this was like anti social, unstable
and self destructive individuals who kill family members and then
created a deadly public situation leading them to kill themselves.
Despite Nazi tattoos and Twitter posts, this hockey game shooting
(52:13):
was not ideologically motivated violence. This was targeted interpersonal violence
against family stemming from extreme mental health issues. This goes
beyond like right left politics. This shooter just seemed to
be drawn to anything seen as extreme or anything that
produced anti social effects. The daughter of the shooter briefly
(52:33):
spoke to local news on Monday, saying that the shooter
was her father and that the shooter had quote unquote
mental health issues and was quote unquote very sick. The
Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence said in a statement
Monday night, quote while details are still emerging, we know
that violence within families and intimate relationships can have devastating
(52:53):
and far reaching impacts. Domestic violence does not stay behind
closed doors. It affects children, extended family members, and entire communities.
Speaker 10 (53:01):
Unquote.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, I mean, I guess if you want to do
analysis of it, it's that like the thing that's actually
a predictive for violence is domestic violence, and this is
another really horrible to mastic violence incidents.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
But yeah, it's it's pretty tragic.
Speaker 10 (53:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Interestingly, there was some news that came out today, which
is Wednesday, that one of the other sons of this
shooter was arrested a few years ago in North Providence
for setting fires to a black church, which did appear
to be ideologically motivated violence. Police found notebooks inside of
(53:41):
this person's home filled with hateful writings quote, gutten down
everyone that isn't white. If one is white, spread the gospel.
Always give our bloodline a chance unquote. So this incident
of a arson in a black church is definitely ideologically motivated.
Speaker 10 (53:58):
Yeah, it's been a great, stremely normal country.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
And this person was sentenced to six years in prison.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Oh wow.
Speaker 6 (54:05):
So the person that's the son of the person, the.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Son of the shooter, one of the sons of the shooter.
Speaker 6 (54:10):
Yeah, they had several sense.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Yeah, just a pretty tragic series of incidents with this family.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
I do find it really disturbing that the thing that
you mentioned where people just kind of drop into a
channel when it comes to responding to a tragedy like this, like,
and I find it really upsetting when I see it
from like, yeah, left and progressive organizations that promote firearms
training or like.
Speaker 6 (54:35):
I just find it really kind.
Speaker 5 (54:37):
Of disappointing, I guess, to see people dropping into these
same kind of callous and dismissive responses.
Speaker 6 (54:45):
It's just something that's been weighing on me recently.
Speaker 5 (54:47):
I am a person who owns guns, but it's still
I don't know, I'm disappointed.
Speaker 6 (54:52):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
All right, well we reported the news.
Speaker 10 (54:58):
Put a transcrol on your couch.
Speaker 5 (55:00):
Yeah, And if you have some news that you think
we should report, tips, you can do so by emailing
Cool Zone Tips at proton dot me. If you have
someone that you would like to be a guest on
our show, or a topic that you think Roberts should
cover from behind the bustards, we will make another email
for that, but if you could just not email the
tip line. If you're a publicist and you email, I
(55:22):
will block you.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
We reported the new.
Speaker 13 (55:33):
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is it could happen here? Executive Disorder, our weekly
newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world,
and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis to name,
joined by James Stout, Mia Wong and Robert Evans. This
episode recovering the week February eleventh to February eighteenth. Some
small news items up top. Last week, the FDA declined
(00:29):
to review a new flu vaccine from Maderna. On February twelfth,
Tom Hoeman announced that Operation Metro Surge has concluded and
quote significant drawdown has already been underway this week and
will continue through the next week.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Un quote.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Zarmamdani has ordered a new audit of city agencies to
ensure compliance with sanctuary city laws in New York and
Stephen Colbert says that CBS refused to air his interview
with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Tallerico, citing the FCC's
equal time rule. Despite this rule historically having an exception
for late night talk show interviews. Last month, FCC Chairman
(01:05):
Brendan Carr threatened to enforce the rule regardless of the
well established President that excluded talk show interviews. And finally,
the owner of a warehouse facility in Hutchins, Texas, so
so that they won't sell or lease the building to
the federal government as a detention facility. The city's mayor
and council all opposed the project. Seizure by eminent domain
is still possible.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Yeah, And I guess with that, there's been campaigns in
a couple of other small, traditionally conservative rural areas to
not lease facilities for ICE. And it's still a little unclear,
and I suspect it's kind of column A columbee. How
much of this is, you know, nimbiism and how much
of this is resistance to ICE specifically.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Yeah, we covered a little of that in the episode
I did on Social Circle, which is in Georgia last week.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
But I think it's fair to say both.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, And obviously when I say nimbism, I don't mean
it in a bad way.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's bad to have this in your bag.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, right, But like their issue was into moral one
in some cases, Yeah.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
In some cases.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
I think in some cases it's their little columny, little
column B.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, it's hard to tell.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah, And I think like It's worth noting, for instance,
hearing in southern California right a town called Dulzura, pretty
small town. Maybe you've heard of it from when the
KKK did border patrols there back in the day. But
the Border patrol are trying to build a big new
facility there and have been for some time called New
brown Field. There has been local opposition to that among
(02:30):
people who are very like people who I have spoken
to are otherwise conservative, and like, some of it is, yeah,
I don't want this changing the character of the town.
I don't want a giant detention center that would eclipse
the population of this very small town. Some of it
is also like I want them to be locking up
people out here. We have a nice life out here,
and you know, we have little lots of fields and
(02:51):
horses and space, and it seems like it would be
really fucked.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
Up to have people detained out here.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
Like I think like that that Nimby impulse can sometime
like could still combine with even people who are not
you know, abolitionists. They don't want to be confronted with
the horrors directly next to them.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And we'll talk a little bit more about the numbers
like ICE's polling numbers, like how popular they are with Americans.
But one of the things we've seen this year is
that like they've been shedding support even from Republicans. So like,
you know, whatever debate we have here, that's like certainly
not a non factor.
Speaker 6 (03:26):
Definitely.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
I think it's now time for us to talk about
the biggest news story this week, which is that Shilah
buff was arrested in New Orleans during Marty Graw after
getting into.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
A series of fights. Who he was in the movie Holes?
Speaker 7 (03:45):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah, he was also in a different production called Holes,
but not based on a book.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
He was in Holes.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
I forgot, Yeah, it was in both holes.
Speaker 6 (03:52):
So I don't know who this person is.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I've never Yeah, he's a he's a child actor who
is a who was very popular during the early two
thousands and has gone. He played the Indiana Jones's son
in the reboot event or in the new in the
fourth Indiana Jones movie God and then he has He
has since kind of fallen into madness and disrepute. He's
(04:16):
a spousal abuser. He's repeatedly assaulted people in public. He
showed up on that webcam white supremacists were drinking milk
on once for reasons that are still to this day
somewhat unclear to me. And he got into a fight
in Marty Gras, which is just just just a fun
little bit of news. My favorite part of this is
that he assaulted a guy. He was repeatedly restrained by
(04:37):
members of a bar, and whenever they would let him
go because they just wanted him to leave they didn't
want to call the cops, he would then continue to
attack the guy he was assaulting until they forced they
were forced to call the police and have him arrested.
And I've been in Marty Gras over the last few days,
and let me tell you, getting arrested by the police
during Marty Gras not easy. I don't have a lot
(04:59):
to say about that other than I was surprised by
the number of very political floats that I saw, particularly
at least one that was entirely paper mache ice guy's
in a very like, non flattering way. There were a
lot of like costumes and a number of like references
on floats. There's a couple of pretty hideous caricatures of
Trump on floats, and they all got like a widely
(05:23):
positive reaction and I find this interesting, and I'm bringing
this up because the research that I've largely been doing
for the EED this week is trying to get a
handle on, like where Americans are polling right now and
how popular or unpopular is the president and his agenda,
because like we see articles every week about like Trump's
polls hit a new low, or the most recent article
(05:46):
that I think it's gallup is no longer going to
be doing presidential like popularity polling. But I wanted to
get a look at, like how the actual parties and
their agendas are holding up. And it's a pretty shocking
gap between I mean September October, like fall of last
year and today. So in September of twenty twenty five,
(06:07):
per Yugov, the Democratic Party had about a sixty four
percent unfavorable So like sixty four percent of polled Americans
didn't like the Democratic Party and a little less than
thirty four percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of
the Democratic Party. And if you actually look at the
graphs for those that you GOV presents, they're basically making
(06:28):
like a wineglass shape, right, So what that means is
unfavorability is moving up and favorability is moving down rapidly,
like at the time at which those bulls were taken
in September of last year. Meanwhile, the Republican Party, neither
party was popular, but the Republican Party the wineglass shape
was a lot more muted, more like a shot glass.
(06:49):
Fifty five point four percent of Americans pulled by Yugov
expressed a unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party, at about
forty two point three expressed a favorable opinion. You can
compare this to October twenty twenty five polling by Pew Research,
which showed something similar. Sixty four percent of Americans were
frustrated with the Republican Party, Seventy five percent of Americans
(07:12):
reported being frustrated with the Democratic Party. Forty nine percent
of Americans poll replied that they were angry at the
Republican Party, Fifty percent reported being angry at the Democratic Party. Similarly, Republicans,
thirty six cent of Americans felt hopeful about the Republican Party,
twenty eight percent of Americans felt hopeful about the Democratic Party,
and then twenty seven percent of Americans were proud of
(07:35):
the Republican Party sixteen percent Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Those are pretty bleak numbers.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
For the Democrats coming in the fall of twenty twenty five.
Like that is kind of black pilling stuff, right. This
was in the fall of last year, pretty rapid change
fro where things had been about four years ago. For example,
in September of twenty twenty one, about sixty four percent
of Americans had expressed frustration with the Dimmerocratic Party as
(08:00):
opposed to seventy five percent four years later.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So that's all fall of last year.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
Now, between when the polls that I read to you
came out and now we've had a cup several major
things happen. One of the more significant was the long shutdown,
which was disasters for Republican favorability and for Trump's own favorability.
And we also had a significant I mean, obviously in
LA and in Chicago. Ice had been doing very terrible
(08:27):
and very like you know, I guess I should say,
like documented crimes, like horrible things that were spread widely
on social media. But that has also accelerated massively in
the first couple of weeks of twenty twenty six. And
what we're seeing now in more recent polls taken in
late January and from anywhere from like kind of early
(08:49):
January to late January and early February is a significant reversal.
So NBC News's Decision desk collated a bunch of different
polls like Daily Mail, Marquette, Wall Street, Journal, Yahoo, you
go of Fox News, Emerson, and over the last month
or so, you're looking at an average spread of all
of these polls of about negative nineteen point nine percent
(09:13):
favorability for the Republican Party and about negative twelve point
eight percent favorability for the Democratic Party. So when you
think back to those numbers from last fall, that's a
pretty dramatic change, and it kind of correlates to a
dramatic change in Trump's own favorability, which has gone down
by about twelve percent per the average of those polls
(09:34):
that kind of aggregated by NBC Newsdesk.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Their article notes quote.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Ipso's polling released in late January found fifty one percent
of Americans say Trump's immigration policy is on the wrong track. Amazingly,
just a year ago, American said Republicans have a better plan, policy,
and approach than Democrats on immigration by a twenty two
point margin. Now that advantage is down to five points.
So while Trump is underwater with immigration his and the
(09:59):
Republican Party. These policies towards immigration are still more popular
than the Democratic Party's responses to immigration, but they have
also collapsed in terms of like. The gap between those
two things, again, twenty two point margin to a five
point lead is a is a pretty dramatic narrowing. And
one of the things that has come along with this
(10:20):
is an increasing agreement among Americans that ICE has not
only gone too far, but needs to be if not
abolished entirely, then severely curtailed, and a lot of Americans
a shocking amount currently support abolishing ICE entirely. A PBS
News NPR Merist poll released recently found that a majority
(10:41):
of Americans feel ICE is making the country less safe
and has gone too far. Six in ten Americans disapprove
of what ICE is doing, only about three in ten
approve of it, So by a two to one margin,
Americans disapprove ICE's operations to approve of their behavior. This
(11:01):
is a very like political breakdown. About ninety one percent
of Democrats disapprove of ICE, sixty cent of Independence disapprove
of ICE. Meanwhile, seventy three percent of Republicans approve of ICE.
But even that number has dropped fairly recently.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
In fact, the percentage of Americans that believe Ice hasn't
gone far enough dropped from eighteen percent to twelve percent
over the last year, and only about twenty two percent
of Americans feel like Ice is doing a good job
compared to twenty six percent of Americans a year ago.
So we're seeing like pretty unequivocally Americans rejecting the Republican
(11:39):
tactics on immigration, and they tend to be blaming Ice
for it, right Like. That's one of the things that's
most interesting to me is that both Ice and President
Trump have seen the most dramatic collapses in public support,
which suggests to me that, like, Americans are kind of
tying these two things together. Currently, per Yugov, as of
(12:02):
January twenty fourth, twenty twenty six, more Americans support abolishing
ICE than oppose it. Now, this has not mean a
majority of American support abolishing ICE. I've seen some people
mistate that forty six percent of US adults, as pulled
by Yugov, somewhat or strongly support abolishing Ice, twelve percent
are not sure, forty one percent somewhat or strongly oppose
abolishing ice.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, that's still pretty striking.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
Yeah, say a plurality, right, Maybe now would be a
good time to talk a little bit about like where Democrats,
different Democrats are, different wings of the Democrat Party are
on abolishing ice, because I think it's one of these
areas where like the further up the party you go,
the more detached from that public opinion you get. So
(12:48):
maybe you will start the Keem Jeffries, Democrat leader in
the House, hit him on the Joy Reid Show on
the topic of abolishing ice.
Speaker 7 (12:56):
Why not lead and say abolish ice? Because what you're
telling us is you want our taxpayer dollars to pay
for a lawless, massed armed agency to continue terrorizing our cities.
And I'm trying to figure out how you, as a
leader can be telling Americans that their taxpayer dollars should
be going twice, I don't.
Speaker 8 (13:16):
Understand anything that you just said when I've moved English, well,
I don't understand anything that you've just said to me
when I've made clear that taxpayer dollars should be used
to make life more affordable for the American people, not
brutaliz or kill them. That's the whole reason we're in
this fight right now. That's the whole reason the DHS
is getting ready to shut down.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
That's abolish abolish ice.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
That is a listen. I'm going to use the language
that I want to use. You can use the language
that you want to use.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
You can see Jeffries visibly kind of tense when the
phrase abolish ice is used, right like, he's yeah, he
wants nothing to do with it. The immediate responses is
to go to affordability. I do want to note that
when he was previously asked if he would use the
appropriations process to rain in eyes, he did exactly the
(14:11):
same thing.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
But why not use the appropriations as to rain in ice, leadergen.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
For an operation?
Speaker 9 (14:17):
No, what I'm what I'm focused on right now, Chad,
is to make life better for the American people by
extending the affordable care and tax credits, which, by the way,
a lot of folks in this institution believe was not possible.
But Democrats made clear before the government was shut down
that we were in this fight until we win this
(14:38):
fight on behalf of the American lower the cost, save
health care.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
That's our objection.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Why there, he does the same thing, right, he goes
back to affordability, which is something that Democrats have done
for the last year and a half right when asked
to take a strong leadership stance and ice, far too
much of their leadership has instead like tried to deflect
to affordabilit I do want to note that, like they
are now doing exactly what he was deflecting from there, right, Yeah,
(15:06):
and that was only less than a month ago.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
It's interesting because it's like this cowardice on like specific
terms and messaging. Yeah, even though they are using the
provisions process to try to rain an ice like that
is that, Yeah, that is what they are doing now.
But it's like a complete complete cowardice or actually like yeah,
trying to like use like public pressure to your advantage
at the moment, Like.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Yeah, he's doing the thing and almost like failing to
It's not that he's doing the thing, you know, as
many of us would wish he did, but like he's
failing to take the easy win. Yeah, like because of
like you say this like institutional cowardice or like these
it's like there's some kind of red line rhetorically for
jeffrees and other leadership Democrats that they will not cross.
(15:52):
And I have to believe that some of that comes
from what they see as like the long legacy of
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Or like perceptions of the Democratic Party is like too
far to the left, is too extreme or something.
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Yeah, they that, like specifically the perception that they like
attempted to abolish the institution of policing, which was not
really anything that they had that was not in their
policy platform. Right, they were not Democrat leaders saying We're
going to do away with the cops. In fact, Biden
was talking about how we need to fund the police,
not defund the police in twenty twenty.
Speaker 10 (16:24):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Yeah, But nonetheless, like that, there seems to be this real,
like it's very hard for them to break that rhetorical boundary.
It's not entirely just jeffreyes on this. Seven Dems cross
party lines in late January to vote for a DHS
funding bill. So we got Representative Henry Quella of Texas.
Speaker 10 (16:43):
Worst the worst Democratic congressman.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah, shit, fucking.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Texas Deems hit different and like specifically like Rio Grande
Valley Democrats are a different breed.
Speaker 10 (16:58):
God, it sucks so much.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
There's Jared Golden of Maine, Mary Glousen camp Perez Washington,
Laura Gillen, Don Davis of North Carolina, Lauri Gillan is
New York, Tom Swosey of New York, and Vicente Gonzales
of Texas.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
This is not it.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
There's not a position that is unique to Jeffrey's right, Like,
this's this idea that like, perhaps there needs to be
some reform of ICE, but bit abolishing it would go
far too far. Other Democrats have introduced an act which
would essentially move funding from ICE to local law enforcement.
So it would take that seventy five billion dollar budget
(17:37):
allocation to ICE and move it to local cops.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
This is called the Providing Useful Budgets for Localities to
invest in cops by substituting six appropriations from federal enforcement
to yield results Act.
Speaker 11 (17:52):
Holy shit, Now, wonder these people's favorabilities like negative onondrillion.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah, good word.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
It's what we call a backronym in that they have
started with the word public safety and then made a
really horrendous attempt turning that into an acronym. There is
also like a wing of the Democratic Party right there
on the left, which is more forthright about abolishing ICE.
His clip of AOC talking about why I should be abolished.
(18:22):
And this is at an event in Queen's Yeah.
Speaker 12 (18:25):
ICE is a very young agency relative to many others.
Enforcements of people who committed crimes that were undocumented or
had visas used to be under the Department of Justice.
And in the Department of Justice, if someone wants to
come to your house, you need a judge. You mean,
(18:45):
you need an entire judicial process, You need a warrant
to ensure that your constitutional liberties would take are respected.
You need all of it. What they did was that
they took ICE out, well, they took Immigration enforcement out
of the DOJ, which had very tight rains on what
you're allowed to do. They take that they put it
into this new agency that they put at the time,
(19:07):
which is a Department of Homeland Security. First of all,
in what world does FEMA belong under the same umbrella
as ICE. It makes no sense at all, no sense
at all. And what happened is that once you take
that enforcement piece out of that agency, they then start
(19:28):
to answer to nobody. Even though I technically, statutorily their
responsibility is just supposed to be on immigration enforcement. They
are now expanding their data collection to US citizens, to
everyone on this soil.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
They are waiving.
Speaker 12 (19:44):
These phones around and saying that they're implementing facial recognition
technology to a centralized database. We have to fight this
tooth and nail. We need to defund it. We need
to not allow this to be collected by private companies.
A lot of what we need to do is not
just revisit Session seven oh two. We need to abolish ICE,
(20:07):
and we need to have complemented.
Speaker 13 (20:09):
Changes block that up.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
One thing I do want to note about her statements
is that during the appropriations process, she did give statements
about how she was pushing to defund ICE as an agency,
and this did cause a reaction from some i'll call
them over the online leftists, claiming that it had changed
positions from wanting to abolish to defund, that this is
some sort of slide. And then she then had to
(20:35):
follow up with saying, well, currently, the way to restrict
ICE and lead to abolishing it is through defunding it.
So that's what we're doing through the appropriations process. No,
my position has not changed. I still think think the
agency should be abolished.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah, there's a broad issue we had, which was that
at the end of twenty twenty, as a result of
all of the federal agents that were in American cities
(21:09):
and had been video brutalizing citizens and places like Portland,
there was a lot of anger about DHS.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
In particular.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
I wrote a column for Business Insider about like, look,
this agency is going to remain under Biden, but if
we don't cut the legs out from under the entire agency,
it's basically set up to be the president's secret police.
And broadly speaking, the Democrats didn't do anything to stop it.
But I also, like, I guess where I am on
(21:37):
this is. I think it's kind of counterproductive at this point.
The failures of the Biden administration, I think are quite
manifest in what the Trump administration is doing right now.
And what I want to focus on is the fact
that we've had, in the space of several months, Americans
become more than twice as likely to support abolishing ICE,
(22:00):
which is both a fragile coalition because the fact that
the number has changed so rapidly means that it could
potentially change back. Like, I don't feel solid in counting
on that to be the permanent state of affairs, but
it introduces an opportunity, and it's an opportunity to build
support to destroy this agency. And I think it's probably
(22:23):
too much to hope for DHS as a whole and
anything close to the near term. But the fact that
during the Biden administration so much got punted on, I
don't know, like we're past that. We have the opportunity, now,
we have the anger now I do I retain my worry,
And I would say almost one of my biggest political
(22:43):
fears is that twenty twenty six and twenty twenty eight
go well for Democrats. They do again what happened under
the Biden administration.
Speaker 10 (22:50):
Yeah, and they leave all these things intact.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
But one of the big differences that we have, at
least right now is that at no point was abolishing
ICE polling the way it is right now during the
Biden or the first Trump administration. Yeah, And I think
we have to take advantage of that. There's momentum right now,
like this is a.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Crucial time, not just like we're talking here in terms
of like abolishing ICE moves us back to the two
thousand and three norm right, Like what it doesn't do
is fixed the fundamental issue here, which is that there
are not legal pathways for people to come to the
US and there need to be and like I think
like now is the time for people who are involved
(23:30):
in democratic politics right to agitate for like a genuine
reform package. I don't think we will ever see support
like this again for legalization of undocumented people, for Dreamers right,
or people who are impacted by deferred action for childhood arrivals,
which is a policy that it came to place under Obama.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Like, now is the time for substantial immigration reform.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
I say this knowing that this will not fix a problem.
Like more than most people you know, I have seen
the horrors of our immigration system firsthand, but like there
is a moment right now that we could change things
for the better. And I share roberts worry that if
Democrats get like an easy win even in the midterms,
(24:19):
that we might not get that. And like what we
saw rounder Biden was a big pointer to what we're
seeing under Trump that essentially the DHS was almost impossible
for him to control. Yeah, in that he acquiesced to oads,
he is still responsible for them, like the buckstops with him.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
He's president.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
I'm not certain that he planned it, but nonetheless it
continued to happen for months and months and months out
of his presidency, right, Like, it was very obvious the
way this was going to go if we got another
Trump presidency, and if they do that again, we're just
setting the table for things to get worse again.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
And I think James the task before is twofold, right,
because on one hand, we have to reform the system
by which people gain legal acceptance to live in this country,
and that also includes I think there needs to be
a push for some sort of federal law that will
(25:17):
make it impossible or at least much harder, to reverse
these acceptances and to do things like nullify or cancel
green cards and permanent residency like the administration is doing
right now. Like both, we need increased pathways and we
need increased resilience to promise people that, hey, if you
go through all of these hoops to become a legal
(25:37):
resident or a citizen or whatever, it can't just get
pulled away the next time a Republican wins office.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
And then on the other side of things, you have
this vast, uncontrollable militant agency built as the armed wing
of the presidency that has to be destroyed because it
can't exist a democracy yeah, it's no compatible and then
you have I mean I would extend that to DHS
as a whole. But it's my same issue with like,
(26:07):
if we can defund ICE right now, I'm always in
favor of taking away some of their money.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
That's not the extent of what I think should happen
to ICE.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
It's just like it's a salient, right, Like you have
to look at it that way. Like it it would
be as if you're you're like, well, it's not worth
winning the Battle of Stalingrad because that doesn't give us
Berlein It's well, but these are steps, you know, you
try to damage and reduce the agency's power and ability
to function. Yeah, while you're continuing. And I guess the
(26:35):
worry about that too is that if you do defund ICE,
if they because we've had some Trump has made a
couple comments about worrying that, like we need to reduce
kind of the tempo at which ICE is operating because
it's bad for them.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
So that is kind of one of my concerns.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
That maybe if they, if they pull back on the
throttle a little bit, the rage will decline enough that
there's not this kind of motivation and behind abolishing but
I feel like that's just a fear you kind of
have to eat, as opposed to not trying to stop
and reduce the harms the agency does in the immediate
(27:11):
term while you're working long term for abolition.
Speaker 6 (27:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Did want to talk a little about other numbers, because
immigration is obviously a major issue for American voters. It's
an issue people pick who they're going to vote for
the presidency on. It's one of them, but it's not
the main one. As a general rule, throughout most of
modern political history, the kind of the top issue for
Americans is the economy. And if the economy is bad,
(27:38):
it is very hard for your party to stay in power.
If the economy is good, it is a lot easier
for your party to stay in power. Right, Like, these
are fairly basic facts of political life in the United States,
always with some caveats, but that it bears looking at
how do Americans feel about the economy and who do
they blame for the fact that they feel badly about
(27:58):
the economy? And per Politico, which carried out a recent survey,
about forty six percent of Americans say the cost of
living is the worst they can remember it ever being
This includes thirty seven percent of people who voted for
Trump in twenty twenty four, and Americans pretty like significantly
agree that this is a Trump problem. Inflation, the fact
(28:20):
that they can't afford things is on him because he's
the present. Again, forty six percent of Americans say it's
Trump's economy and his administration is responsible for rising costs.
And this is true both among Republicans and Democrats, which
is very interesting to me. A percentage of Americans, based
on the vote in the twenty four election, fifty three
(28:43):
percent of Harris voters in twenty twenty four say the
cost of living is the worst they've seen it, and again,
thirty seven percent of Trump voters in twenty twenty four
feel the same way. So that is it's an example
of something that we've talked about and wondered about on
this show a lot, which is like how much.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Does reac break through the fever swamps? And this is
suggesting that, like to a pretty solid degree, that actually
Trump is I still think he's got a floor of
somewhere around thirty percent of Americans who will follow him
into the pits of hell, even if it means shoveling
themselves into it, but that number used to be like
forty percent, right, and it does seem to be declining.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
This is being treated as a five alarm fire among
the Trump White House, which is interesting me for a
couple of reasons. You know, anytime you talk with especially
people them left about but also increasingly a lot of
Democrats about the midterm elections in the twenty twenty eight elections,
I think you have to deal with his people saying,
but are there going to be elections?
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Right?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
And you know it's I don't dismiss those concerns out
of hand, obviously in part because the administration is talking
right now about having ice agents and polling places, right,
you do have to acknowledge that as a concern. But
at the same time, I think if you're looking at
this rationally, you have to note that the Trump administration
internally is acting as if there will be elections and
(30:03):
that those will be competitive elections. They are worried about
the economy, they are worried about their polling, and they
are taking actions to try to mitigate the worries that
they have, which they wouldn't be doing if they were
already sure there's never going to be another election. Right,
and that is important to remember. It doesn't mean there's
not a danger, doesn't mean they won't try shit if
they lose, but it does mean that they are treating
(30:25):
these political issues as political issues that they have to
deal with via messaging. There is an article in Fox
News recently about Trump's team huddling to decide on midterm messaging.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
I'm going to quote from that now.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
The meeting, which was confirmed to Fox News by sources
familiar with the gathering, was hosted by White House Chief
of Staff Susie Wilds and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair,
who is steering Trump's political strategy. According to sources, the
message during a slide presentation by chief polster and Chief
Strategists and strategist Toorney Fabrizio was that the economy will
be the top issue in the minds of voters, and
the White House needs to spotlight its efforts on easy affordability.
(31:01):
The meeting was held as the GOP ares to defend
their control of the Senate and their razor thin House
majority in November's midterm elections. Republicans are also dealing with
the presidents continued underwater approval ratings and a slew of surveys,
including the latest Fox and News pulling that indicates Americans
are pessimistic about the economy, and publicly, the administration's claim
is that Americans are happy with the economy. The economy
(31:22):
is the best it's ever been. Look At how good
the doo is. It's over fifty thousand, right, Yeah, But
everything we're hearing internally, like all of the reports that
from people inside the administration about like what's going on
day to day, is that they're wide awake and worried
over the fact that their economic numbers are completely fucking
dog shit. Now, what does this mean for the midterm elections, Well,
(31:44):
very few people that I have found who are like
credible analysts don't expect the Democrats to retake the House, right.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Meaning, most credible analysts do think the Dems are likely
to retake the House.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
That said, there's a fairly few people who expect a
twenty eighteen style Democratic blowout, among like the professional bull
watchers and stuff, which is, if you remember the Democrats
flipped about forty one seats. There's a couple of reasons
for this, right, And I found a good article in
The Hill that's kind of analyzing like why we shouldn't
(32:23):
be expecting some of the exuberants that you're seeing on
social media about like early elections and how bad Trump's
numbers are, is maybe making people overly optimistic about like
flipping all of Congress to Democratic control, which is not
currently the likeliest outcome. And there's a couple of reasons
for this. One of them is that, as unpopular as
(32:43):
Trump is, and I've hit on that quite a lot,
the Democratic Party's overall favorability is at about thirty three percent,
which is nine points lower than the Republican Party's favorability
and you know, depending on the poll, five to ten
points lower than Trump's own favorability. This is based on
a Marquette Law School pol Right, So Trump is very unpopular,
(33:05):
so with the Republican Party, but people don't like the Democrats,
the Democratic Party as a whole. People like individual Democrats,
a lot of people like their Congress person, a lot
of people like whoever it is they want to see
as the presidential candidate. You know, you can look at
you know, you've got folks who really like Mamdani or
really like pritzkerp But as a whole, voters, including Democratic
voters don't feel very positively towards the Democratic Party, in
(33:28):
many cases more negatively still than they feel about the
Republican Party that started to turn around. But if you're
kind of hoping that there's going to be like a
full on switch that makes it immediately possible to successfully
impeach President Trump, that is extraordinarily unlikely to come in
twenty twenty six, right, which doesn't mean that it's unlikely
(33:48):
to have a good result. Republicans losing control of Congress
is a good result.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Right. There's just a lot less. I mean, there's a
lot less.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Even if you're kind of taking the unfavorability of the
Democratic Party out of it, there's a lot fewer seats
up for grabs right now. In twenty eighteen, and when that,
you know, the Democrats flipped forty one seats. There were
seventy five competitive races this year. Heading into the midterms,
there were only eighteen. Right, there's a lot less that
can flip. And I don't think Republicans are likely to
(34:19):
lose control of the Senate, right, And the polling shows
things being pretty razor thin there. Democrats have about a
four percent advantage according to Economist. You GOV polling right
now in the congressional midterms, and there's a three point
margin of error, so you're looking at like a lead,
but not enough of one for a complete fucking blowout. Right,
(34:43):
there has been some more positive data, like kind of
right before we came on to record this, like I
looked at some charts by Focal Data that was kind
of breaking down midterm voting and tensioned by groups and
looking at like likely voters, And this is always kind
of a little bit like voodoo, right in terms of
how you're trying to, like, well, how likely is a
(35:03):
likely voter and how do we like factor in realistically
are they going to show up anyway if you're kind
of assuming that like people who self report as likely
voters will only actually vote about a third of the time.
Per this study, Democrats are ahead by about seven points
in a generic house ballot. So you know, that's kind
of where we are right now. I think we're looking
(35:25):
at a midterm season that's going to go well for
the Democrats, But I don't think we're looking at a
midterm season that delivers us from the Republican Party being
able to ram through legislation. I think our kind of
best case scenario is one in which they have to
give major concessions because the Democrats have you know, flipped
(35:50):
the House at the very least like.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
And that's that's big. But I don't think.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
I don't think Trump's going to get impeached starting January
of next year.
Speaker 11 (36:00):
The one thing I will say about the polling data
is that so obviously Democrats tend to perform better in
special elections because to vote in a special election, you
have to be a higher interest voter. And that also
special election cycles get driven by immediate like anger over stuff,
and there's a bunch of different factors that dry special
election turn out. And also the Democrats have been absolutely
(36:23):
obliterating the Republicans in all the special elections that have
been happening recently, or even in the cases where they're lose,
they're losing by very small margins in places where Trump
was wining blowouts. Yeah, so I think if you want
to be optimistic, I think that's the case for optimism.
But also, yeah, like we're not going to have all
of our problems magically solved by the mid terms.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah, yes, to specify on that, what you were saying,
there was a special election in Tennessee and Republican Matt
Van Epps beat the Democrat often Bane by nine points,
but Trump had won in twenty twenty five, were there
by twenty two points.
Speaker 11 (37:02):
Yeah, and like like a few we talked about this
on the show. But like last year there was there
was an election in like a special election in western
Iowa that Trump had won by double digits and the
Democrats won by double digits.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
And that kind of thing shouldn't be happening.
Speaker 11 (37:17):
It sure shouldn't, No it is, And yeah, you know,
so that's that's the optimistic case.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
And hey, like I've just come in saying like, hey,
don't expect Congress to be completely flipped, but like, you know,
it's the times are crazy. Who knows what else? Who
knows how many more people Ice is going to murder?
Who knows like what other like how bad the economy's
going to get.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
We might have invaded Canada by then, Like who knows.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
Anything's on the table, anything's still on the table. We're
just kind of looking at shit from February.
Speaker 5 (37:48):
Yeah, yeah, and some of this shit will depend on
like what atrocities they commit in the weeks and days
before the midterm election. Right then, I think we see
so around certain the killing of Rene Good, the killing
of Alex pretty right, we see those things shift public
opinion dramatically. And the ongoing snatching of immigrants and deportations
(38:14):
and sending people back to places where they be tortured
and killed. Like that's kind of the background and it
makes people angry, but like it's these these these specific
actions which seem to shift public opinion dramatically. All right,
(38:40):
So on that topic, I guess we should talk about
the quote unquote shutdown, and specifically the shutdown of the
Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Right.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I guess the first thing to clarify is this isn't
a government shut down in the sense of the shutdown
we saw last year, right that that lasted like forty
plus days.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
Right, It's a partial shutdown.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
It's partial shutdown.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
What's happening right now is the Democrats are holding up
further funding for DHS until the administration agrees to some
concessions that they have asked for. This is unlikely to
impact ICE and CBP a very great deal for a.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
Couple of reasons.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
Firstly, the Taxi Spending Cuts Bill right, twenty twenty five
bill funded them to an absolutely unfathomable degree, I think
sixty five and seventy million, respectively. More quickly, it will
affect other agencies under DHS. Those includes Transport Security Administration,
(39:37):
Federal Emergency Management Administration, the Secret Service, and the Coast Guard.
Some TSA workers will be working that they will likely
not be receiving pay. This is pretty common right that
they're deemed does quite unquite essential workers, and that means
that they will be expected you to work. What we
saw last time was that as the shutdown dragged on,
(39:59):
people were calling in sick or not coming into work
because they were taking other jobs right because they had
bills to pay. The reason this is happening is because
Democrats successfully managed to get Trump to separate DHS funding
from another spending bill, which passed through and funded the
rest of the federal government.
Speaker 6 (40:17):
They are demanding an end to masking.
Speaker 5 (40:20):
I should clarify specifically like masking in the sense of
law enforcement officers wearing gates over their faces, a return
to opposites displaying their name, badge, and ID number, increased
oversight of detention conditions, coordination with local law enforcement, and
end to the detention of US citizens targeted enforcement and
not roving patrols, and a unified use of force and
(40:44):
uniform conduct policy for CBP and ICE, and then an
end to raids using Form two point fifteen. I'm just
going to note here them moving forwardre going to refer
to that using its it's that name and not call
it an administrative warrant, because an administrative warrant like kind
of implies the action of a judge. But these are
(41:06):
forms that are filled out right that it is not
the same early aspected as a warrant, and that's a
judicial warrant. The Republican counterproposals so far have shown pretty
little common ground on this, aside from over body cameras
where Gnome did implement body cameras. As I said, ICE
and CBP will continue doing what they do right. I
(41:28):
was at the border on Saturday and I saw tons
of CBP patrols. They do not seem to have slowed
down with their wall construction. That may overtime slow down.
They won't be paying like the workers week by week
on those contracts. They will be paying a contractor who
might be paying a subcontractor, so that would take time
(41:50):
to slow down. The things that will slow down. Are
things like the oversight function to DHS, potentially administrative and
hiring functions, things like that, right, But the actual like
on the ground patrolling, most of those people are deemed
as essential workers. So it seems unlikely that we will see,
for instance, fewer CBP patrols at the border or fewer
(42:14):
ero iscera agents like tasked with doing these ongoing raids.
So yeah, talking about DHS, I want to talk a
little bit more about the Coast Guard. I think it's
likely that some people won't be aware that the Coast
Guard is an element of the DHS. They're also a
branch of the military, right they're the only branch of
the military that's under the DHS. Yes, so they considered veterans,
(42:35):
but they're not on the DoD or the DOW as
you can now call it. The NBC has a piece
suggesting that there is, I guess, a split in the
Coast Guard between lower ranks and higher ranks, and specifically
they're talking about feeling that Coast Guard is moving away
from its court mission, which is search and rescue. They
(42:56):
highlight one incident in February of last year when a
Coast guardsmen went overboard and a Coast Guard see one
thirty was detailed to participate in the search for that
Coast guardsman.
Speaker 6 (43:08):
Right.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
It had previously been detailed for a deportation flight that
it was retasked to assist with the search. According to
the piece, quote non verbally instructed the acting Commandant of
the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, to pull the plane
off the search and rescue mission so it would not
miss the immigrant flight, a part of DHS's so called
alien expulsion operations. According to two US officials and a
(43:31):
Coastguard official, as a result, what happened is that local
Coast Guard officials in San Diego scrambled to find two
C twenty seven's that could fulfill that deportation flight. In
doing so, that freed out the Sea one thirty to
then go return to participate in the search. Right. They
did continue searching, I believe, for one hundred and ninety hours,
but they never found the missing Coast guardsmen.
Speaker 6 (43:53):
Right.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
You cannot and will never be able to conclusively prove
that all of this back and forth with this one
thirty had any impact on that, But this incident has
clearly had an impact on morale and it suggested general
shift in priorities away from search and rescue.
Speaker 6 (44:09):
And towards doing more border enforcement.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Right.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Under NOME seven hundred and fifty flights have been redirected
from their regular work to instead deport migrants. This comes
after she removed a high ranking Coast Guard official from
her house so that Nope could live at the house.
Speaker 6 (44:26):
Wait what Yeah, yeah, she kicked the Coastguard person out.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Of their house.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
Yeah, this was last year. She moved with like very
short notice. She moved onto a shit, Yeah, she moved
onto a base.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Yeah with Lewandowski, right, that might be the case, goes,
there was like a few people in like the cabinet
or orbit.
Speaker 6 (44:49):
Yes, yes, I thought you meant like they were cohabiting.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Oh no, no, no, okay, yeah, okay, beautiful domestic life.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
Yeah okay, I was, I was. I don't want to
doubt you. That would have been in news to me. Yes,
a number of Trumps, like executive officials, are living on
basis more than is usual. I think the Millers maybe
do as well.
Speaker 6 (45:10):
But yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
She also purchased two Gulf Stream jets to fly her around,
unlike most government jets, which tend to be returned towards
what's called a sterile state after use. That just means
that they go back to being completely clean, like they're
like a generic jet. They're not your jet. Nome prefers
to keep some personal items aboard the Gulf streams, but
(45:31):
one of these items, a heated blanket, was left behind
after her jet broke down she had to switch planes.
Coylewandowski reportedly sheltered at the Coastguard flight staff and demanded
they turn around before attempting to fire the pilot, who
fused to do so.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Jesus right, I need my blanky.
Speaker 10 (45:51):
I need my blanky.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Turn around.
Speaker 5 (45:53):
Yeah, I think she'd she had a rough week. I
guess one of the blankets.
Speaker 11 (45:58):
These are absolutely just like the softest fascist that have
ever ruled the country. Like it, turn off flight around
because I left my baby blanket like.
Speaker 6 (46:07):
Yeah right, like I oh god.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
Fortunately, I guess they de escalated that one and continued
the flight. Blanket free, the fire the pike. Yeah, I
think it is interesting to look at Coast Guards morale. Right, Like,
Coast guards traditional mission has been search and rescue and
then the interdiction of like drug vessels, and they have
(46:32):
been doing a great deal of order enforcement stuff and
removal stuff. And it is obviously like people who have
been at the Coast Guard for a long time, not
what they joined the Coast Guard to do. I will
just say that there are very few areas in which
the United Kingdom has worked shit out, but the lifeboats
are one of them. They are mentioned in Mutual Aid.
(46:54):
The Royal National Lifeboat Institute has an article on for
Popkin on their website.
Speaker 10 (46:59):
Incredible and it.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
Is one of the really genuinely good things about Britain.
By contrasting that are not part of our government security apparatus.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Yeah, because that makes no sense. The entire agency of
DHS makes no sense whatsoever.
Speaker 10 (47:12):
Yeah, it's just because.
Speaker 6 (47:13):
Yeah, there are better ways to do this.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
I mean it makes again, it makes a lot of
sense as the president's private army.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
For our final segment in this episode, some tragic news.
On Monday afternoon, February sixteenth, two people were killed in
a shooting at a hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Before the shooter died by suicide. Three others were shot
but survived their injuries. In the aftermath of the strategy,
(47:41):
people across the right and the left have both used
this shooting offensively and defensively in the culture war because
of the shooter's general identity and far right conspiratorial politics,
even though evidence points towards this being targeted domestic violence.
The deceased or the shooter's X onefe and eldest son,
(48:01):
and the deceased ex wife's parents were critically wounded but survived,
as did a family friend. The shooter's other son was
on the ice playing hockey while the shooting took place. Ordinarily,
we would not talk about an instant like this in
the news because there's a lot of domestic violence shootings
that happened across the United States every week, and not
all of them become national news stories. This is news
(48:24):
because of its weaponization in the political culture war, but
under most methodologies like this incident would not even be
categorized as a mass shooting because less than four people died.
It does qualify under the Gun Violence Archive criteria, which
counts injuries not debts, in which this would be the
forty first shooting in the US this year. But after
(48:47):
the shooting took place, right wing accounts and influences started
using this as a part of their trans mass shooter narrative.
On Monday night, the Pawtucket Police that they believed the
shooting stemmed from a family dispute. The shooter was fifty
six years old with six kids. About ten years ago,
the shooter started identifying as a transgender woman and used
(49:07):
the name Roberta Esposito. The legal last name is Dorgan.
They're not Hispanic, oh. The shooter was divorced about five
to six years ago, and Dorgan's ex wife lists the
grounds for divorce in the documents as quote, gender reassignment, surgery,
(49:28):
narcissistic and personality disorder traits. Then she crossed that out
and instead wrote quote irrevocable differences which caused the remediable
breakdown of the marriage unquote. The shooter was extremely active
on Twitter, made anti semitic and conspiratorial posts, and frequently
(49:51):
interacted with a large assortment of mega influencers, as well
as far right, neo Nazi, and conspiracy theory influencers like
Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones. Dorgan also shared pictures of
a massive like SS toteen CoV tattoo on their right
arm and wrote on Twitter quote post off trans to
(50:12):
the right of Hitler and quote you can be pro
LGBT and pro Trump unquote. From looking through their Twitter
it it mostly appears to be someone who is suffering
from extreme mental distress. It's hard to, you know, chart
how much of the political beliefs that can be to
split on Twitter are like genuinely held versus how much
(50:34):
they relate to long standing mental health issues this person
suffered from, which I'll get into in a sec.
Speaker 6 (50:39):
I'm still a little hung up on the name.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
The name also, I think relates to just this person's
very very not well.
Speaker 6 (50:46):
Okay, they're just trying to pay people off, flick with correct.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I think everything about this person can be seen as
an expression of like antisociality politics their presentation the name now.
While right wing news agent Season influencers have used this
horrifying instant of domestic violence for their trans mass shooter narrative,
framing every transperson is at risk of randomly becoming a
(51:09):
mass killer while ignoring this shooter's own extremist politics, people
on the left have blamed this tragedy on the shooter
being a quote unquote far right Trump supporter or a
quote unquote Nazi groper. And this is in part a
defensive reaction against the right zone like misleading and non
source claims about a statistical epidemic of trans violence. But
(51:30):
laying blame on Make America Great Again and the MAGA
movement doesn't really get us much closer to understanding this violence.
We're so used to defaulting to this heartizan culture war
like ideological explanation for the cause of public violence, whether
that's you know, for the right, trans ideology or neo Nazism,
(51:52):
even though both in this case and the shooting in
Canada last week, which I talked about a few days
ago on the show, this was like anti social, unstable
and self destructive individuals who kill family members and then
created a deadly public situation leading them to kill themselves.
Despite Nazi tattoos and Twitter posts, this hockey game shooting
(52:13):
was not ideologically motivated violence. This was targeted interpersonal violence
against family stemming from extreme mental health issues. This goes
beyond like right left politics. This shooter just seemed to
be drawn to anything seen as extreme or anything that
produced anti social effects. The daughter of the shooter briefly
(52:33):
spoke to local news on Monday, saying that the shooter
was her father and that the shooter had quote unquote
mental health issues and was quote unquote very sick. The
Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence said in a statement
Monday night, quote while details are still emerging, we know
that violence within families and intimate relationships can have devastating
(52:53):
and far reaching impacts. Domestic violence does not stay behind
closed doors. It affects children, extended family members, and entire communities.
Speaker 10 (53:01):
Unquote.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, I mean, I guess if you want to do
analysis of it, it's that like the thing that's actually
a predictive for violence is domestic violence, and this is
another really horrible to mastic violence incidents.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
But yeah, it's it's pretty tragic.
Speaker 10 (53:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
Interestingly, there was some news that came out today, which
is Wednesday, that one of the other sons of this
shooter was arrested a few years ago in North Providence
for setting fires to a black church, which did appear
to be ideologically motivated violence. Police found notebooks inside of
(53:41):
this person's home filled with hateful writings quote, gutten down
everyone that isn't white. If one is white, spread the gospel.
Always give our bloodline a chance unquote. So this incident
of a arson in a black church is definitely ideologically motivated.
Speaker 10 (53:58):
Yeah, it's been a great, stremely normal country.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
And this person was sentenced to six years in prison.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Oh wow.
Speaker 6 (54:05):
So the person that's the son of the person, the.
Speaker 2 (54:08):
Son of the shooter, one of the sons of the shooter.
Speaker 6 (54:10):
Yeah, they had several sense.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Yeah, just a pretty tragic series of incidents with this family.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
I do find it really disturbing that the thing that
you mentioned where people just kind of drop into a
channel when it comes to responding to a tragedy like this, like,
and I find it really upsetting when I see it
from like, yeah, left and progressive organizations that promote firearms
training or like.
Speaker 6 (54:35):
I just find it really kind.
Speaker 5 (54:37):
Of disappointing, I guess, to see people dropping into these
same kind of callous and dismissive responses.
Speaker 6 (54:45):
It's just something that's been weighing on me recently.
Speaker 5 (54:47):
I am a person who owns guns, but it's still
I don't know, I'm disappointed.
Speaker 6 (54:52):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (54:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
All right, well we reported the news.
Speaker 10 (54:58):
Put a transcrol on your couch.
Speaker 5 (55:00):
Yeah, And if you have some news that you think
we should report, tips, you can do so by emailing
Cool Zone Tips at proton dot me. If you have
someone that you would like to be a guest on
our show, or a topic that you think Roberts should
cover from behind the bustards, we will make another email
for that, but if you could just not email the
tip line. If you're a publicist and you email, I
(55:22):
will block you.
Speaker 3 (55:24):
We reported the new.
Speaker 13 (55:33):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources where it Could Happen here listen directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Clifford Show
The Clifford Show with Clifford Taylor IV blends humor, culture, and behind-the-scenes sports talk with real conversations featuring athletes, creators, and personalities—spotlighting the grind, the growth, and the opportunities shaping the next generation of sports and culture.