Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media Welcome, there could happen here. We decided
every week you were going to do in episode called
Executive Disorders White House Weekly, where we report the news,
and today we are going to start that episode. We
(00:24):
have the entire full time team here. We have Mio Wong,
Garrison Davis, Robert Evans, James Stout, and I am the
voice in your ear, Sophie Lichterman.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, and you should know we'll be making a number
of references to a show you haven't watched, called The
News Rooms. So many we didn't just pretend we didn't.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yeah, anyways, let's do the episode now go.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
So this episode's also going to be a little bit
different because the idea is to cover each week of
stuff that's happening visa via the White House. And it's
been two weeks since since Inauguration Day, and we are
recording usually on Wednesdays, so the you know, a day
or two there that we will record the week after.
But we have a whole bunch of stuff today because
we are covering essentially two weeks. All start with some
(01:08):
of the transgender executive orders that happened last week. There
was an order defining two sexes assigned at conception, which
made plenty of biologists scratch their heads. A lot of
this is just going to impact the ability to change
your gender marker on federal documents for the next four years,
(01:29):
you know, passports also removing the ex gender marker from
federal documents. There's also a new directive that Pride flags
are not to be flown on federal buildings. Also a
separate one I don't think we have included here in
the research doc but how brutalist and modernist architecture is
now not allowed to be used on new federal buildings.
(01:52):
You have to use Greek or Roman inspired architecture because
they project power. So all of those, like Greek have
what our statue Twitter accounts have a complete cultural victory.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Now, uh great, I am going to agitate to replace
the Oregon State capital with just a statue of a
Roman orgy. You know, we don't even need place for
the legislators. Just look at the statue and you'll know
what to do.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
This actually is like bad, you know, very very nineteen thirties, you.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Know, yeah, yeah, famously no other regimes have hawken back
to Clauds Calera well.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
And specifically is like calling like you know, modern architecture,
brutalist architecture, as you know, is like weak or bad
or things that get restricted.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
On a more somber note, part of this two sex
that conception thing also means that a whole bunch of
trans women are now being sent to men's prisons. And
like a lot of this stuff is stuff that we
knew was going to happen, and it did happen quite immediately.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, and this is just the start.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
I guess we'll throw over to MIA for some more
executive action done on the WOKA gender ideology angle.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Yeah, but by the time we're finished recording this, there
might be another anti trans executive order. We'll get to
that end. But the big ones for right now is
that Trump is trying to do a and this is
something we talked about in our in our last episode
about what's gonna look like with trans people, but a
federal funding ban for trans healthcare, which means for for
youth trans healthcare, which means any provider that like gets
(03:23):
federal funding and this and this includes things like taking
Medicare and Medicaid right those like hospitals can't do any
kind of gender for a main care for youth.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Part of what's sort of terrifying.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
I mean, there's a lot of terrible stuff about this,
but they've they've defined a kid as age nineteen.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Or under the age of nineteen.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, under the age of nineteen. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Obviously, like that gives you know, worries for stuff that
we've been talking about for years for how they might
try to start bumping up the age for these for
these HRT bands. This also could be them not really
realizing what they're doing to some extent, because this could
also just be copying I believe in Alabama or Arkansas
ban and that was like the highest age used in
(04:04):
any of these like state healthcare bans. They could just
be copying that over because it is the highest one.
And like I'm not sure how much they've like thought about,
you know, their capacity to start like you know, arbitrarily
raising that number.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
I mean, part of what I think is happening, and
I think this because this was definitely at play in
the Alabama ban is this is, in addition to being
an attack on trans people, part of a broader set
of messaging towards the Parents' Ranks movement, which very much
does not consider eighteen year olds to be adults.
Speaker 6 (04:32):
Totally, totally, yeah. And on that note, one of the
things they're trying to do is target states that have
like transanctuary laws by trying to like get parents who
take their kids to save states like charged on kidnapping
charges and so forth, noting supposedly later today there's going
to be one about using the Charney General's Office to
(04:53):
work with the charity generals in states who prosecute teachers
to use gender firming pronouns as like sexual users. And
I want to point out like these executive orders specifically,
like the second raft of them that I've been talking about,
Like these are all unbelievably legal, right, yeah, Like these
are probably not going to get implemented immediately because there's
immediately going to go to the courts, Like the Supreme
Court will probably give them some of it. But like
(05:15):
you can't just like declare something a crime and have
the Attorney General prosecute people for it. Like that specific
thing is genuinely so ridiculous that it might not survive
the Supreme Court. It's nonsense. But things that aren't nonsense,
and this is something you genuinely can do that's very dangerous.
Is he's trying to get and this is from per
Aaron Reid. He's a trans journalist, does pretty good work
(05:36):
on this stuff. The federal government has been instructed to
not follow w PATH guidelines or WPATH is this sort
of organization that sets the guidelines for like trends healthcare
and this. We don't know what this is going to do.
There is a chance that this could endanger private like
Healthcare covering it because they follow the government using WPATH.
So that's extremely extremely bad. But again, and this is
(05:59):
going to be a running theme in the next section
of this. A lot of this is stuff that he
shouldn't need Congress for and he's just trying to do
it because he thinks that he can and he doesn't
give a shit.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Well, and it's just signaling to the base even if
it gets stopped, like he's I think, I don't think
he cares if decent chunks that it gets stopped.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
He tried to do the thing. Yeah, I agree with Robert.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, he can now shift the blame to someone else. Look, man,
I did the executive order, which honestly is what Biden
should have done on some stuff, right, fuck it? Ye
make the statement, you know.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
Yeah, yeah, so speaking of fuck it, let's get into
this whole, this whole freezing the entire federal government thing.
We're gonna do a more detailed episode about this next week.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
But maybe the.
Speaker 6 (06:41):
Most unhanged thing that he's done so far than the
birthright stuff, he did an executive order that's telling everyone
they can't fund DEI. Yeah, early this week, the US
Office of Personnel Management sent out this memo to everyone
telling them that, like all grant programs are frozen until
they submit a like they submitted a description of like
(07:01):
what the grant program is and why it's not DEI
and so like think things that were like fucked by this, right.
I have a few of these programs and they were
the grants they were shutting down. Here, the Nicholas and
Zachary Burt Memorial carbon Monoxide Poisoning Program, WHOA, the National
School Lunch Program, Special Milk Program for children, the Supplemental
(07:23):
Nutrition Program for Women, infants, and children, the do d's
Basic and Applied Scientific Research Grants DEI DI.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
It's even got a D right in there.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
That's right, like one of these and this is a
very serious one at least for these people holding onto
power was the National Guard's military operation and maintenance samously low,
which like it's like it's like eight billion dollars of
money to the National Guard.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Hey, critical support. He got one thing right.
Speaker 6 (07:51):
The way that you can tell that none of these people,
and the thing is a sign of is that none
of these people have any idea what's going on inside
of the state. They don't understand what it is. They
don't understand what it does. And I can prove this
for a fact because one of the programs that they
froze was a program that gives money to police to
do patrols outside of a nuclear weapons assembly plan. Joey,
(08:13):
they defunded the nuke police, Like.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Check the Signal Loop gang.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I think I got a plan based on that we're
gonna become the first nuclear armed podcasting network.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
So so like I think I think people have this
conception that, like, you know, they're operating according to a plan.
These are all sort of strategic like strokes and masters strokes,
and like no, they're just they're just lashing out right,
They're driven by pure anger and they're trying to do
this purge of the government of anything woke or whatever,
like anything that's like vaguely involves non white people or
(08:46):
just like anyone who's not assists white dude they're trying
to get rid of. Yeah, and this memo was immediately
challenged in court because it's also this is also hideously illegal.
The president doesn't control the purse strings. That's like, you know,
in the Constitution, it says that Congress controls this. So
where we're at now is that the memo has been withdrawn,
(09:10):
but there's there's a bunch of really conflicting information where
like Trump spokespeople are saying that they're still going to
go through with the executive orders.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
They're probably gonna try to rewrite it. They might make
it more targeted against you know, woke whatever that means. Yeah,
it may not be as like broad as this as
this initial memo, but they're certainly going to try again.
Speaker 6 (09:29):
But the problem that they have is that there's there
are literally so many of these grants and the read
the reason they did it this way in the first
place was because they just they just they found a
list of grants, they copied all of them, and they
were like, okay, departments, you have to go figure this out,
and we're freezing your stuff until you do that.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Even Medicaid was frozen for a few hours yesterday.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
Right, Like, they effectively nuked most of the capacity of
the federal governments, and it's going to take a lot
of effort for them to sort through which of these
things they could afford to turn off so that they
don't end up like turning off the nuke police.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Right, Yeah, critical support to abolishing the nuclear security.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, they did what Biden couldn't do.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
Yeah, let's go on a quick ad break and then
we will return to report more of the news. All right,
we are back. I guess I will turn over to
(10:29):
our Immigration and Border correspondent, James Stout.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
That's me.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yes, please report the news.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
I'm ready to report the news. I have never been
more ready. Okay, this is going to be a long
run because there was a raft of executive orders about
the border in the flurry flurry Yeah, sound the word
we're allowed to use a flurry Okay, we can use
a murder like crows, you know the connective down for crows.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
I mean this is going to result in a murder. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Well, so let's start with a couple of the big ones, right.
The first one was essentially revoking the right to asylum
to anyone quote engaged in the invasion across the southern
border end quote. I want to highlight this invasion language
because obviously, like I'd adventure to say, I've spent more
time at the southern border of the United States sent
anyone in the executive branch, and most people reporting on
(11:18):
it too. The idea of an invasion is laughable. I've
been at the border twice since Trump was inaugurated. It's
extremely quiet. I've never seen things more quiet. The only
remarkable thing I saw was a pig of Vietnamese pop
Belied Big, which some people have released, which now lives there.
I think it's being rehomed because of some other stuff
that we will talk about later. But this invasion language
(11:39):
is important because it's used as a justification for some
of the things that the executive Branch is doing which
would otherwise seem to be outside of its authority. It's
getting the national security encounter terrorism treatment, and anyone who's
followed US politics for the last twenty years will understand
that that means an effective waiver for all of your
constitutional rights. And my have always been people who don't
(12:01):
have rights, and this is just something that we're now
seeing like further pushed.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
So let's go through some of these orders.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
Aside from the effective asylum ban, he directed the United
States Northern Command to quote unquote seal the border. This
has resulted in a deployment of about sixteen hundred United
States troops. Most of them are military police or engineers.
We've got marines, and we've got army in San Diego
Sectory its first marines out of Pendleton. They're the ones
(12:30):
that I've seen locally. He has directed various government departments
and the Attorney General to begin quote identifying countries throughout
the world for which vetting and screening information is so
deficient as to warrant a partial full suspension on the
omission of nationals from those countries. This is effectively the
travel ban that we saw in the first Trap administration,
(12:53):
or a version of that. Right, it's a visa revocation
or a travel ban for people from certain countries. We
can guess what those countries will be. At last time,
they were for the most part, majority Muslim countries, right.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
And we might well see that again.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
They have attempted to rescind birthright citizenship for children of
undocumented families.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Right.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
This is one if people go back to our like
what can Trump do for mass deportations podcasts that Robert
Sophie and I did sometime in November, I think you'll
get more information there on what is and what is
not possible than we have time to go into today.
But you're seeing a lot of the things that we
talked about there coming into reality now. I guess specifically,
(13:35):
the attempt to resin birthright citizenship relies on the idea
that they are not quote unquote under the jurisdiction thereof
of the United States, which which is how the fourteenth
Amendment is phrased. Generally, it is understood that people who
are not considered to be under the jurisdiction of the
United States and therefore don't get citizenship when they're born
here are the children of diplomats because they have some
(13:57):
diplomatic community, right, so they're not necessarily governed by United
States laws in all areas, and that is why children
of diplomats don't get citizenship people when they're born here.
The Trump administration is arguing that applies to children of
undocumented people as well. There are five court cases challenging
that already so that they've got an upp battle in
the courts there. He has attempted to restart the Migrant
(14:18):
Protection Protocol MPP, better known as Remain in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
The Migrant Protection Protocol requires migrants to wait in Mexico
whether immigration cases are processed. In practice, it puts them
in a lot of danger.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Right.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Some of them are fleeing Mexico. Others are fleeing groups
or states that can reach them in Mexico, so it
leaves them in an unsafe place. The other thing he
did while Trump was still in the inaugural ceremonies literally
minutes after taking office, was canceling CBP one CBP one.
There is a lot of misinformation about what CBP one is.
(14:51):
CBP one is an application that allowed migrants to make
an appointment and they had to be either in southern
border states of Mexico or north of Mexico's city. They
could then make an appointment to approach a United States
port of entry, those that are places where you can
enter across the land border and make their case for
their asylum right, do their first asylum interview.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Like this is like following the law, like this is
like the process.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Yeah, making a CBP one appointment is quote unquote the
right way exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
You have a legal right to enter between ports of
entry and still make an asylum claim, which is what
we saw in their outdoor attention situation, right, But doing
it via CBP one is like the belt embraces correct
way to do it. People who had appointments at noon
Pacific on the day Trump was inaugurated, sow those appointments counseled.
They can't make appointments anymore CBP one, it's gone. Those
(15:40):
people who have waited an average of nine months in
dangerous places have wasted their time. They now don't have
a pathway to asylum in this country. If you go
back to my episodes on the Daddi and Gap, you
will hear some of those people.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Right. Those people are now stuck in Mexico without really
any legal means to enter the United States and c asylum.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Trump has directed ICE to increase detention capacity. We spoke
about this in our previous podcast. Don't like the amount
of detention beds they would need to hit. The thirteen
million deportations they talked about is immense, but one of
the things they are doing is starting to house it's
people whose countries won't accept them for deportation, right, which
(16:21):
is a thing that has happened. The United States has
begun using military aircraft for deportations in the last two weeks.
I want to stress that this isn't a capacity issue.
Biden deported eight thousand people in a month in the
September to October of twenty twenty one. Trump is aiming
to hit five thousand. Biden did it all with contractor flights.
(16:42):
Trump is doing a lower number and using air force flights.
This is not because he can't get the contractors. It's
purely an aesthetic choice, and it's an aesthetic choice which
has roughfled enough feathers in South and Central America that
you have Honduras saying that they're going to revote the
US mission to have a military base in Hondolas as
a mistreat migrants. We had Columbia briefly refusing US military
(17:08):
flights with deportees, Mexico doing the same.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
Briefly entering a trade war with Columbia. Yeah, yes, which
lasted about two hours.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
The one hour trade war at about the same length
as the Civil War in Western Yugoslavia.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
Yeah, the trade war with Columbia was averted when Columbia
sent its own military plane to get these deportees.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Yeah, Columbia caved immediately.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Yeah, then they will continue to accept US deportees as
they have done for a long time. Right again, if
you listen to my Darien series, you'll hear of some
Colombian people being deported. We're now getting into things that
are like more. These are orders that we haven't seen
realized yet. One of them is he is. He has
talked about having the Attorney General remove as far as
(17:53):
possible federal funding from so called sanctuary jurisdictions.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Right.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
These are normally places where local law enforcement were cooperates
with federal immigration enforcement. ICE makes a majority of its
detentions from people who are already detained.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
People who are like arrested by police, yes.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Exactly for whatever. Then those police notify ICE and ICE
come get them. We've seen a lot more of door
to door ICE raids in the last two weeks, and
they've been ramping up even really really this week. But
ever since Trump was inaugurated, we've seen ICE attempting to
enter people's homes. Often they just have a warrant issued
(18:29):
by themselves rather than they judicial warrant. So we've seen
people refusing to let them into their homes. We've also
seen the removal of the quote unquote sensitive places doctrine. Yeah,
sensitive places had previously been understood to be schools, churches,
and hospitals. Now ICE is conducting quote unquote enforcement operations
(18:50):
in those places. Those are actually places like the sensitive
places doctrine have been in place for a long time.
This wasn't like a Biden thing. This was This has
been a long term thing. So ICE is now and
we've seen immigration actions conducted at like a church in Atlanta,
for instance. We've seen I think they were actually Secret
Service agents who identified themselves as an ICE agent, sort
(19:13):
of school in Chicago because a childhood posted an anti
Trump video. And then I guess. The last thing that
we are seeing is this designation of organized crime groups
as foreign terrorist organizations. This is an interesting one. We
haven't really seen any action on this yet, but it's
one of his executive orders.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
In day one in his.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
First administration, he designated Iran Kuld Force as a foreign
terrorist organization and then proceeded to kill their leader. Right,
So this FDO designation opens up the possibility of a
lot of like covert activity I'm talking like the CIA
and like Tier I special forces units. It also allows
(19:56):
him to bring about economic sanctions on any one material
really supporting these organized crime organizations. In practice, that would
encompass huge swaths of the Mexican economy, right, because there
are people in agriculture, people in business who are paying
protection or they're being extorted to pay money, right, And
(20:18):
so in theory, those people are now materially belefating a
tent terrorist organization and they could be sanctioned as well.
We will have to see how this plays out, I guess,
and that there's still the directive was to look into
and then name these groups.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Well, and it's something that heg Seth has previously been
in favor of and he has now been confirmed.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yes, yeah, Hegzeth has talked about using special forces in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Oh yes, and this was Agenda forty seven stuff. They've
been talking about this for a while.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's also in our Agenda forty seven episodes.
If people want to go back, there a direct action
rate in Mexico.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Drone warfare in Mexico.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
Obviously doing this without the permission of the Mexican government
would be an act of war, right like killing foreign
nationals without the permission of their government. Conducting direct action
raids bombing another country like that, that is an act
of war. The US has had an fid FED Foreign
Internal Defense Mission right where it trains advisors and assists
(21:16):
Mexican law enforcement and military for a long time. The
guys who arrested El Chappa, for instance, were trained I
think by Mars Sock. But this has been happening for
a long time. But to go from that to unsanctioned
direct action would be a huge, a huge step up.
The only really analogous, directly analogous thing I can think
of is Clinton with a planned Columbia designating FARC as
(21:36):
a foreign terrorist organization, But that was very much with
the cooperation and support of the Colombian government. We're seeing
a much more adversarial relationship between the United States and
Mexico right now. The last thing I want to mention
is that this deployment, I've spoken about it, but they
are about sixteen hundred troops deployed right now. Biden deployed
fifteen hundred troops in the summer of twenty twenty three.
(21:59):
This is not a vastly different number that they are
doing different things. They seem to be chucking razor wire
on top of the wall and being photographed there two
major jobs at the moment. We will see how that
plays out. Also, with reference to military, Trump immediately canceled
the refugee resettlement program. This left people all over the
world stranded, including Afghans, many of whom worked for the
(22:20):
United States or family members of US service people. Their
refugee resettlement program, people don't come to the southern border.
They go do all their background things and then fly
into the United States to different status to entering and
claiming asylum. Those people, many of whom had booked flights,
found their flights were canceled.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
They're now stranded.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Lots of them were stranded in Pakistan and facing immigration
enforcement there in the case of the Afghans. So yeah,
that is a speed run of all the terrible Trump
immigration executive orders. We'll be reporting on this pretty extensively,
so you can keep coming back for more. But another
thing that we have more of right now is advertisements.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Okay, we are back. I have a few other notes.
I want to add for the woke front that I'm
reporting on right now, I think it's been a lot
of conflation between you know, like DEI and like what
we would consider like affirmative action. DEI refers to like
these specific like corporate training policies and diversity initiatives, which is,
you know, separate from long standing affirmative action policies, which
(23:32):
has been used both in the corporate world and in
like the government for like decades at this point. And
what a whole bunch of this DEI rollback type stuff
is essentially doing is just openly discriminating against people who
are not like straight white men. It's like, if you
are a straight white man, we cannot hire you because
that would mean we are doing DEI. And like, this
is what a lot of the stuff that we're seeing
(23:53):
kind of looks like. There was a mass email to
federal agencies about DEI and calls to report DEI policy
in their department if they're going by like other names, right,
So that would be stuff like affirmative action, right, if
there's anything that that is about, you know, trying to
trying to increase the diversity in your workforce or any
quote unquote woke topics, including you know, gender ideology, anything
(24:15):
anything that seems vaguely woke. You're supposed to now report
to make sure that gets removed because that's not part
of the new federal government. I believe someone from the
NSA did leave a tip on that email line reporting
reporting DEI masquerading as as another name. Similar to this,
there was a memo or an email that was leaked
to Ken Klippenstein from the Defense Intelligence Agency which basically
(24:39):
said that they're not going to be observing any any
woke holidays, including Martin Luther King Junior's Birthday, Black History Month,
Women's History Months, the Holocaust Remembrance Day, Asian American Pacific
Islander Heritage Month, Pride Month, June teenth, Women's Equality Day,
National Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and
(25:01):
National American Indian Heritage Month, with a small asterisk saying
that the pause on observing these will not affect the
federal holidays, which would be MLK and Juneteenth, although who knows,
they might try to even remove some of those as
being federal holidays.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
I did wonder that like at some point, you're gonna
like you're gonna lose people when you take away their
days off work.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
I get, like that's right, right, So, like I think
they might leave those like actual federal holidays in but
you're not allowed to observe any of these, any of
these other awareness months or or you know, Pride Month,
Black History months, like you're not allowed to acknowledge that
at all in these federal agencies now, at least for
the Defense Intelligence Agency. Support for most of Trump's executive
(25:44):
orders does fluctuate. According to a poll from Reuters, the
support for closing all DEI offices is actually pretty split.
Fifty one percent oppose the closing of these offices. According
to their poll, Forty four percent are in fame and
it's very segmented. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to be
(26:04):
the Gulf of America pretty disliked, with seventy percent being
in opposition.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Look, the one thing people hate most is changing names.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Having the names been change.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Yeah, nobody likes that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Yeah, he did Denali as well. Right, Yeah, I guess
that was changed more recently. But the Gulf of Mexico
has been the Gulf of Mexico for longer than it's
America has existed as a country the United States, right.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
I mean, Denali has been Denali for longer than America
has existed.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
It's just right, right, right, But.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
There was a period where we called it McKinley. No
one's ever called it the Gulf of America.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, I'm not saying the Denali thing's right. I'm just saying,
like that's all a much harder.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
So yes, yeah, yeah, you're not going to get much
buying on that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Pardening J six protesters, new tariffs or taxes on Canadian goods,
and ending birthright citizenship are all around sixty to thirty
sixty opposed thirty percent in favor. Trump. During his first
we did see a record high approval rating that is
slowly I think gone down, but I don't know, it's
hard to gauge the level of like general enthusiasm for
(27:08):
his actions right now. And there's I think part of
like the general strategy that we're seeing is there's just
so much happening every single day that you can't even
keep track of it all, let alone like internalize it.
Like he's he is trying to sign as many of
these orders every day so that both the courts, all
of these like NGOs advocacy groups are always working, and
(27:29):
we're never sure what is real, right, We're never sure
what's going to stick around all of these memos about
funding and grants. It's just so exhausting. And that's like
part of the design is that this just feels like
a constant stream of nonsense that we maybe have to
deal with, maybe we won't. One of the more odd
things is Trump openly embracing manifest destiny language, which I
(27:53):
guess isn't actually odd, that's actually makes sense. It's just
one of those things that it feels very rubicon esque.
But he does have this new distinct focus on territorial expansion.
During his inaugural address, he praised quote unquote our American
ancestors for having quote won the wild West. Now, apparently
the call about Greenland to Denmark did not go very well.
(28:16):
Denmark did not realize how serious Trump was and was
apparently quite angry during that phone call, and you know,
seemingly upset that Denmark is not going to easily hand
over Greenland. He seems to be pivoting more towards retaking Panama. Yeah,
which is which is something that he also mentioned in
his inaugural address.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Let me tell you Panamanians not stoked.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
I've been receiving communications from Panama where it was his
step down, but they are burning American flags.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
The quote from the inaugural address is quote the United
States will once again consider itself a growing nation when
that increases our wealth and carries our flag into new
beautiful horizons, and we will pursue our manifest destiny into
the stars.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
Yeah, I don't know, what, what do you have to do.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
That's not a good thing.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
I think that's bad, Like obviously, that's you know, not great,
not ideal. You know, invading Panama not ideal. Going to
war with Greenland slightly more funny because it's cold. I
think specifically he's focused on, like why that he believes
the US has a vested interest in Greenland? Isn't just
picking out a spot on the map. I think this
(29:24):
also could be like related to trying to prepare for
climate change. Having territory in the Arctic is going to
become an increasingly valuable commodity to have. And and I
think there is a part of this that could be
legitimately on on that side, because I mean, I don't know,
maybe Trump should just get really into Alaska.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
Well, he did deregulate drilling in Alaska, drill baby drill.
I will be up there later this year talking to
people in Alaska about drill baby drill.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Very excited for.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
That, but I don't know. I think it's also generally
not super useful to make huge generalizing statements about what
this type of stuff Trump is doing right now and
how it will reflect on his entire presidency. People have
been been doing this kind of about Trump's flip flopping
opinions on TikTok, you know, being very into like, you know,
saving TikTok and then then calling it worthless, but then
(30:12):
going back to actually making sure that Microsoft buys it
or something. And you know, people are very easy or
quick to like jump onto these sorts of things. Trump's
flip flopping tendencies maybe not sinking every single easy bucket
and acting like these would be emblematic of his entire presidency,
and like that's not the case. That that that does
not actually mean that Trump just says things even though
(30:33):
he's gonna call TikTok worthless, does not mean that he's
going to not do that easy lay up. We're all
aware of how much he just says what is on
his mind, yep. And I think these sorts of things
do not necessarily mean that he's going to like plummet
to being the most unpopular president ever because he, you know,
refuses to use the right messaging around TikTok or something.
(30:54):
The other economic situations he might walk us into would
be you know, much much more affecting to his general popularity.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Yeah, he's he is doing again. I talked about this
a lot. Why fascists succeed is that they try, like
they're constantly reaching for stuff, and oftentimes like they overreach,
but nobody pushes back so they get the thing, right.
That's what he's doing here. Do I think that he's
willing at this point to commit to a full scale
(31:22):
military invasion and armed occupation of Panama, a thing that
could be a real problem for his presidency?
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Right, Like US troops dying in meaningful numbers in attacks
in a country that we had no fucking beef with before.
That could be a real fucking problem for a guy
who ran on the things that he ran on. But
maybe he gets a bunch of concessions for nothing. It's
the same thing with Greenland. You make the push, you
try to scare Denmark, you try to scare Greenland, and
(31:50):
you see if they'll accept something, and then you you
walk away, maybe with a coup, and you do it
fucking widely enough you might get something.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Right, Like, that's that's it.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
He's he's testing his limits because that's what they do.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
Yeah, I mean, look at Columbia, right, he immediately went
to like eleven on the retaliation scale and effectively received concessions.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
So I think, you know, similar to how you know
it was annoying in the first like resistlib era, to
take every single crazy statement Trump says seriously, or like,
you know, do this performative outrage over every single thing
he does. I think it's also useless to do fast
mimetic reactions that form generalizing statements about you know, how
how something that Trump is doing is emblematic for the
(32:33):
rest of his term and now he's like doomed to failure.
I think those statements are actually pretty useless and at
the very least are not helpful. Right now, let's close
by talking about Guantanamo. I guess Robert and James, I'll
have I'll have you taken.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
So, Trump has signed an executive order saying that they're
going to create a facility capable of storing thirty thousand
migrants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. First, we should probably just
talk about how realistic this is. If you ever looked
at a topographical map of Guantanamo Bay, it's quite a large,
Like the US concession in Cuba, is a sizable degree
(33:09):
of land. But it's not easy land to build things on,
right like it is that it's rugged terrain, you would say,
So making a camp like this is almost certainly going
to be extremely expensive, and at least under kind of
the way things currently work, it will probably take a
(33:30):
good amount of time to get set up.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
Like.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
This is not a quick thing. This is not an
overnight thing. And one thing I want to remind people
of is that they have already have expanded a number
of camps and facilities in the US to deal with
all the migrants they are taking in. So this is
not the start. If you want to call this, and
I think it's fair to call this a plan to
start a concentration camp system, that system began early, and
(33:56):
in fact it started before Trump took office. A decent
junk of it was anticipating him coming into office, But.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
This is not the first camp, right, Yeah, and like
Biden did significant legwork for detension that is cool and unusual, Yes,
with his legal defense and his establishment of outdoor detention
for migrants since the end of Title forty two in
May of twenty three. And I think, like we have
to acknowledge that, I know people are very much into
(34:25):
the like, don't criticize the Dems right now, Like if
they don't change, if taking a fat l in what
should have been one of the easiest elections of the
century doesn't change them, then nothing will. And like we
have to acknowledge that we are going to concentration camps quicker.
I mean there were foreign outlets that called the outdoor
(34:45):
detention sites in Hakumba concentration camps, right because they'd sure
as hell look like one.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
And they are. This is a big personal frustration to me.
I'm seeing a ton of people going online and comparing
this to the Nazi concent camp hereafter referred to as
the KZ system.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
There's one post I came across on Twitter where a
person whom I'm not going to name, just to not
cause a bunch of bullshit for them. Time from taking
office to opening a massed attention camp. Mussolini eight years,
ll Gala and others, Libya Hitler fifty one days. Docau
Germany Trump nine days. That's fucking horseshit. Yes, Docou took
(35:24):
longer to establish. Docou was not the first concentration camp.
The concentration camp system in Germany under the Nazis started
as soon as the Nazis took power with a series
of what were called wild concentration camps, and this was
involved a huge number of people, largely political enemies of
the regime, members of the opposition party, being taken into custody, beaten, tortured,
(35:46):
and stored in a series of airsats facilities. Two hundred
thousand people were taken into custody under the wild concentration
camp system in nineteen thirty three, the first year that
Germans were in power. These are not comparable systems. That
does not mean that I don't believe what Trump is
doing is a concentration camp. It is a concentration camp
(36:06):
made in the model of the American system. This is
part of the American history of concentration camps, which goes
back something like two hundred years right to the I
mean we were one of the first countries.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
To employ concentration camps.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
The concentration camp as a concept began with what we're
called reconcentrados in Cuba at the behest of a Spanish
general fighting an insurgency. There were US officers embedded there.
They came back and those tactics were adapted for our
wars with Native American tribes on the frontiers and the planes.
(36:40):
General Sherman was one of the very first Americans to
carry out concentration camps. And what we are seeing here
is part of America's tradition with concentration camps. It is
not part of the German tradition with concentration camps. And
you're going to be mistaken about like how this is
going to proceed and what the dangers are, because I
(37:01):
do not think the dangers at this point are that
we build a death factory capable of incinerating a million
people in less than a year. That's not the threat.
The threat is huge numbers of people are taken into
custody and stored in places that are not safe, that
do not have good hygiene, that do not have good
food standards, and a significant number of those people will
(37:22):
die or suffer permanent physical injury, but it won't look
like Auschwitz. And if that's what people are expecting, they'll
be like, well, maybe this isn't that band, Maybe this
isn't a concentration camp after all. So it's important to
get things right, both for that reason and because it's
also disrespectful to the people who died during the fucking
Holocaust to be like, yeah, Trump's a lot worse than
Hitler right now, Like.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
No, no, stop that.
Speaker 5 (37:44):
Yeah, Like we have you can trace online from like
Bosquier Rodondo, right, but they sent a Navajo people.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Right, Boss Gredondo is a great thing to bring.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Yeah, yes, And you can trace a direct line from
that to the outdoor detention comps we started twenty twenty three,
where people were forced to remain in one place without food, water,
or shelter, and people died as a result of that
last year two years ago, and like that from there
to Guantanamo Bay.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
It is not a massive leap.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
And yeah, just being like we don't have Auschwitz, it's
just asinine. Like if you can't acknowledge that America has
a long history of doing this, and you know, really
you need to examine your own preconceptions before like speaking
for others.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
Yep, all right, is that this episode for this week? Everyone?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I think that's the episode. I think we're done.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
We reported the news.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
Thanks, we reported the news.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
You can now find sources for It could Happen Here.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Listened directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Thanks for listening.