March 6, 2025 • 35 mins
Garrison, James, and producer Sophie discuss Trump’s first joint congressional speech declaring WOKE dead, and the lackluster response from Democrats.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/05/nx-s1-5318104/trump-joint-address-congress-takeaways
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/04/nx-s1-5318102/trump-joint-session-al-green-protest
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/05/january-littlejohn-donald-trump/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/03/05/trump-social-security-fraud-claims/81508815007/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to and it could happen here special Report. I'm
Garrison Davis. I'm joined by James Stout and Sophie right Laterman,
we are here to discuss Trump's first Joint Session speech
of his second term. This is basically the equivalent of
a State of the Union, except it's too early to
really give a good state of the Union, even though
(00:26):
this month has felt kind of like a year. So
we are doing a special report here in addition to
our regular Executive Disorder episode because there is just so
much to talk about that we cannot fit it all
in our regular EDA. Pause for effect. Okay, this was
(00:48):
us speaking of This was the longest joint Session speech
in American history, and man, it felt like it lasted
for ever.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, I was gonna say, and boy, howdy did it
feel never ending?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It went on so long.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Not a great feat of ar tree. Really.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I was supposed to watch some Yawi with a friend
last night and they came over and I was like, haha,
I gotcha. Actually I have to watch this this speech first.
Don't worry. Usually it's only like an hour or so.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Two I did the exact same two hours later, I
did the exact same scam to my friend Sarah. She
was like, you know, I seriously love you, right, because
this is horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Two hours later, it finally ends and they're like, Okay,
we can finally watch yowie, right, And I'm like, no, no, no,
I have to watch the Democratic response speech. Don't worry.
It should be shorter, and thankfully it was. Yeah, but yeah,
let's let's just start by talking about like the beginning
of this speech, or rather with the general overview of
this speech was this was not a leaning across the
(01:58):
aisle speech, right, This wasn't trying to night the country.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
No, it was not, but you know, just catered to.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Core like mega supporters and new issues at the center
of the modern right wing media machine. The version of
the speech I watched on on ABC frequently cut to
Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro sitting together overlooking Congress as
they were special guests of the President and the First Lady.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yes, magic, they did they did this. They did the
same on CNN. I switched back and forth between a
couple of channels. I noted this to our team, but
when I first looked up, like what time the speech
was starting? I turned on my TV and went to
see it in and I happened upon the them talking
about if Dems should not applaud or if they should heckle,
(02:46):
and some motherfucker I don't care about said that Gems
should find places to applaud him to show unity.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Cool. Sure, yeah, mm hmm. That's always worked well.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Dems should find places to applaud him, to apprawd.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The king, approd the king for ruining the governments, firing
all the workers. Give him a clap. Why don't you sorry, James?
I realized that got a little insensitive.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Wow, yeah, Garrison, this is why we have to watch
those videos where the bad actors talk about how they feel.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Not anymore talking about our workplace harassment videos.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
EEI is over, James. No more of those videos here
in the free State of Georgia. That's illegal.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Unfortunately, here in California, I have approximately seventy five little
little red bells and I log into my work day.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But like a single time. Early in the speech, Trump
asked Democrats why not join us in celebrating America? After
he complained I could cure any disease, and these people
sitting right here, the Democrats, they would not cheer. I
could cure any disease and these people wouldn't cheer.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
No, No, that was weird. I mean, like some Dums
didn't even show up. They had the subcab of wearing
certain cars. They did the same performative bullshit they always do,
and they had what I can only describe as like
church paddles.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The statist the statistic signs on it.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
They were they weren't even like I mean, like, come on,
like a.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Description. But no. Some Dems did not show up in protest.
Others were black, kind of like in mourning.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, who cares.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Some of the women's caucus were pink, very cool, very feminist,
and others were the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Sure
that will help, but you know, Trump just pointed towards
the Democrats side of the chamber throughout the night and
just referred to them as the radical left lunatics. Like
this This was not across the aisle speed, No, it wasn't.
(04:46):
This was this was, if anything, emphasizing the divisions within
the country.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
One of the one of the things that happened before
the speech even started was like he drove in with
Malania and.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
You first, lady and first bitch boy.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah weird, yeah, h first buddy, Garrison. First buddy is
the official term first buddy.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, I don't know, but like, you know, Trump starts
off the speech.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
With America is back.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And like how far back are we talking? Because you're not.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Wrong, yeah, like eighteen sixty four. I think it's the
it's the goal.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I mean, this is the same phrase that that Biden
opened his first speech with as well. I think Biden
was referring to, like we are back to pre Trump America,
and now Trump is using this phrase to refer to
like this like mythical America. Right, sure, but no, Trump
took the stage to us a chance throughout yeah, throughout
the rotunda.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
That was you know, I grew up watching the Houses
of Parliament, so I'm used to like the boomers getting unruly,
but this was something else.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
They're just so fairal it's weird.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So cheesy. The speech was outlining like a new golden
age of America and the renewal of the American dream.
Trump talked about how he has accomplished in forty three
days more than most administrations do in four to eight years,
and that we're just getting started.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
He referred to this wide popular mandate a quote, a
mandate like this has not been seen in many decades,
referring to like winning all swing states, winning the electoral
college and the popular vote, and reference to this mandate
kind of sparked the big boo, big like disruption of the.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Night, specifically when he started saying we won the popular vote.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Which like it's heavily disputed, Like I don't.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Know, I don't think that that's not specifically what mister
Green was talking about.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I'm not necessarily talking about. When he specifically was staying together.
That's when the crowd had their biggest reaction of the night,
which like weird in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
It's great. It's the thing that Democrats are doing now,
which is try trying to be like the Republicans but
lib like kind of just I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But not really because they didn't follow fucking through.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Without any like strength, like without any actual like momentum.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Right like we saw like the sort of blue and
non attempts at election denial like after the election, and like,
I don't think that's what they were doing here, agreed,
They gave off this like yeah, this very ineffectual kind
of half fast attempt at booing, and then aside from Green,
they they'll just sit down and wave their ping pong things.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, so representative Al Green from Texas old man with caine.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It's a good cane. It's got a gold handle.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Like I thought it was snazzy.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I thought, I mean, it's a sort of cane you
normally see a sword coming out of if.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I'm yeah, that would have been cooler. That would have
been cooler. But instead he doesn't waves the cane around
talking about how this mandate doesn't mean that there's a
mandate to like, you know, cut Medicaid, cut medicare. That
was specifically what he was talking about. Yeah, television mics
did not really pick that up.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
No, and a lot of reporting didn't either, which was shitty.
I thought, like, yeah, a lot of reporting just mentioned
that he had shouted and not what he had shouted about,
which I think is like, really, when you like, you see,
what the media is doing is serving as like the
propagandoram of a certain class of people when they're more
upset that he was shouting than that he was protesting
(08:22):
the fact that people are going to lose their healthcare
and probably die because of it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, and like Trump started like yelling over these protests.
There was like a brief maybe like like you know,
minute or so, like yelling match in the chamber. Mike
Johnson was like, what do I do here? Eventually, you know,
Mike Johnson threatens mister Green, gives a warning, and eventually
directs the Sergeant of Arms to restore order and remove
him from the chambers. Not a regular scene in American politics,
(08:49):
but a scene that you might be more familiar with
in overseas politics, and specifically in democracies that are in trouble.
You'll have more and more scenes like this.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, we candn't get any smoke grenades like you see
in Serbia.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
You know, it's still twenty twenty five, James, we still
have three more three.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
More years, three more year assumed to break out the
ass off smoke grenades.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Whether or not this is like, you know, performative or cringe,
it's like it's something that demonstrates, hey, like this, this
actually isn't normal. More than holding up a cheesy sign
next to Trump reading this is not normal, which is
some others did in protest. This actually is treating it
like a serious situation and more Democrats should have done this.
They should have staggered their protests throughout the entirety of
(09:35):
the speech, continually disrupting it, making this speech basically unable
to end. Pushing this past midnight, having an endless procession
of people having to be escorted out. You should force
Congress to censure half of the sit in Congress people. Yeah, Like,
if this really is like an actual existential threat to
our democracy, If if Trump represents right now a genuine
(09:57):
constitutional crisis, which he does, he is ignoring the courts,
the people in Congress should fucking act like it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
They should have gone literally, single file, one by one.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Stagger it every like three minutes so that he just
is unable to finish the speech. Like have have Mike
Johnson do this every time.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Because he was thrown.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, he was thrown, and they should have continued to
do this. The fact that no one else did is
pretty disappointing.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You could see Vance was very uncomfortable as well, Like.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
He didn have that nervous smile for most of he.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Does when he's confronted with it human being that.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Later on the speech, after Trump talked about you know,
trans women in sports and the price of eggs, had
you had a group of Democrats wearing resist T shirts
walk out of the speech in protest, and like, that's
so much more pathetic than actually like standing up and
talking about how this guy is ignoring the courts and
is actually breaking the constitution. Like that's what they should
(10:56):
have all been doing instead of wearing resist slim merch Performatively.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, you could write an onion to go parodying this,
but you actually couldn't because they would just do that
next time, Like if they really think this is the last,
the last joint session of Congress the ever going to have.
They sure didn't act like it or whatever.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
But this is going to be the first ad break
in a series of two mid episode ad breaks that
we are playing on this show. So here's the ads.
All right, we are back. I hope you pick up
(11:36):
your new ad break themed T shirts to walk around
in protest of capitalism.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yep, not made by unions.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
All right, let's talk about transgenderism. One of the first
topics Trump had discussed at length was the anti trans
culture war, declaring that the government will be woke no longer.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Oh God, that fully fucking sent me. I'd forgotten about that.
It's just so asinatin like drunk old man at pub.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
He bragged about about signing an executive order establishing that
there's only two genders, as well as an order preventing
quote unquote men from playing in women's sports. He first
pointed out to someone in the audience who was a
former volleyball player who got hurt by a volleyball and
then decided to quit the sport. And they now blame
(12:28):
this on the fact that a trans woman was allegedly
responsible for probably spiking the volleyball, which yes, is painful.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
For playing sport the way that everyone else plays sport.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, for trying to win, yeah, in a team of
volleyball context. So yes, this was the first kind of
of these political props that Trump brought along to kind
of point out and demonstrate some of the things that
he was talking about. Frankly, it just seems like this
person was not a very good volleyball player. But the
the next example Trump pointed two I think James can
(13:03):
speak better on but Trump said that essentially there was
a quoe unquote, a man who beat a woman in
a race by five hours, to the shock of the audience.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, So look, it was shocked listeners to hear that
most of what he said is wrong. He directly referenced
a friend of mine. He was referring to Austin Killips,
who is a woman. She's a trans woman. She's a
very good cyclist. The reason she was doing the race,
which is the Arizona Trail Race, it's an eight hundred
mile ultra endurance race like I used to do these
kind of things. The reason she was doing it is
because of a UCI Union Cycles Internationale that governing bodies
(13:36):
stopped trans women competing, right, so she did these races
which were not sanctioned by them. She did get the record.
The previous holder of the record was a CIS man.
That CIS man had previously beaten. A CIS woman got
Leo Wilcox. It's interesting that in this particular discipline, actually
like SIS, women have been doing as well as it's
(13:56):
not better than men like leoel Wilcox owned nearly all
the long distance records in the United States. She's a
phenomenal athlete. And the idea that there's some inherent biological
advantages it's particularly nonsense in this sphere of cycling. But
the reason that she was five hours ahead is because
this race is eight hundred miles long. Like, those records
are broken by that kind of period. Not all the time,
(14:17):
but when you have athletes like Austin coming from the
higher paying areas of the sport into this which has
been a much less well paid and much smaller area
of the sport, you're going to see these records getting broken.
And again she broke a record that was held by Assis.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Dude, crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I mean, like the level of like propaganda and lie.
I mean, my mom watched the speech and she was like,
that doesn't seem possible. And I was like, because it's
all bullshit.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, it is the second time he's picked on Austin
and obviously it pisss me off. You could read her
op ed in The Guardian where she wrote about this
the last time he cited her in his executive order,
and I would encourage you to So.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
After this initial dive into the trans topic, Trump followed
up by talking about how egg prices are out of
control take a shot, which happened about fifteen minutes into
the speech. But near the end of the speech, Trump
returned to the trends topic, pointing to the anti trans
activist mom named January Little jod no comment whose kid
(15:23):
secretly used they them pronouns at school, with Trump discussing
how wrong it is for schools to secretly transition students
and like this actually just isn't true. Surprise, surprise. The
parents in this case knew that their kid wanted to
use a different name in pronouns at school and actually
were the ones to inform the school of this, according
to school emails obtained by CNN. Not that this matters.
(15:47):
And I will say during this clip, when the camera
cuts towards his mom, like all of the people that
were used as political props that were cut to, they
all had the most bizarre look on their face, like
completely blank, like soulis not even like it really excited
this this woman who's you know, kind of a one
of also the faces of like Florida's don't say gay
Bill just yeah, completely like blank expression because this thing
(16:09):
that the President's talking about is just a flat out lie.
And like you know it, you lost a federal lawsuit
over this lie. But here you are on national TV now,
the prop of the president.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah, on national TV, in front of both hands of Congress,
attacking your own kid, yep for trying to be who
they want to be, a subject on which you lost
a lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Like and then Trump directly asked Congress to pass a
bill banning trans health care for children, saying wokeness is gone,
our country will be woke no longer whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Such a loser.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
The next topic was Elon Musk's doge, as Trump essentially
just read out a list that mischaracterized aid programs or
scientific research grants, talking about how Health and Human Services
paid for housing for displaced immigrants in the United States,
money for Middle East, Sesame Street for making mice transgender,
(17:04):
and LGBTQ education in Africa, as well as DEI in Burma,
which I will now pivot to James again to fill
in some contexts here.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
So I'm aware of this scholarship because I'm aware of
the people within the Symbol Disobedience movement who are talking
to the State Department about it, and they begged for
it not to be a DEI thing because they could
see this happening. Right, It's the Lincoln Scholarship program our
linked to it in the show notes, but it exists
to empower people in Burma write with technical skills and
to rise up young leaders in Burma. And it's not
(17:39):
a DEI program, but for some reason it was categorized
as such.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
It talks about respecting diversity because, as long term listeners
will know, Memmar is an extremely diverse country, right, with
more than fifty ethnic groups and hundreds of languages spoken.
So like, that's why it talks about respecting diversity. This
is one of the few things the United States has
done for the people of Myanmar, after pumping up their economy,
(18:07):
pumping up real estate and then doing nothing when the
military seized power there and started to brutally repress the people.
And the US is also I should add, at this
point holding a billion dollars of the Burmese people's money
that it froze when the coup happened. And if it
doesn't want to give them these scholarships, could give them
back their money, but I'm sure it won't. I know
(18:27):
this one pisss me off in particular because obviously I'm
very invested in the cause of the people of Mema
and they are my friends.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, And this is very emblematic of the way Trumpet
Elon talked about a bunch of these aid programs. How
like you know, HIV prevention programs will be LGBTQ you
said money, right, Like they find a way to mischaracterize
it in the most like culture war way.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, talking about public health programs of circumcisions.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Right, yeah, exactly right. They'll try to find every single
like health or education program and turn it into some
like LGBTQ to ei culture or issue. Trump claimed on
stage that they've found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud. Now,
the doge website previously listed one hundred and five billion
dollars in like found savings, but this very week, the
(19:14):
website scrubbed the five of the highest dollar value receives
after journalists found massive errors in Elon's estimated count, and
now it's while of receipts totals around eight billion, though
that might also be an overestimate according to some journalists.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Trump also talked about alleged social Security fraud, claiming that
millions and millions of dead people are getting Social Security.
Like this just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
The math is not mathing.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, this has been their thing for a while, right,
Dead people are voting. Dead people are getting Social Security.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, Trump's own Social Security administrator has like said as much.
The super old people in the database simply don't have
death details logged, but they are not receiving payments. There
is improper payments in the Social Security system, usually around
one percent. Mostly that's over payments or entertainments to people
who are actually alive, and there is a system for
resolving those already in place, because Social Security is a
(20:10):
pretty old system that we've had for quite a while.
And like, I don't know, like Trump's skirted by a
lot of economy issues, and the way he did so
was just by repeatedly claiming that doge and like, cutting
this fraud will magically fix the economy, right, Like, this
is how he wants to frame this. Eggs are too
much money, all of these things, and he has no
actual solution to it. So instead, we're going to fix
(20:32):
the economy through Doge, through finding all this fraud. Somehow
we will locate this like pot of gold hidden somewhere
that will magically make our economy better. And this is
his solution because he doesn't have any real solution.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, I should have pointed out that Lincoln Scholarships were
in fact a Trump They started in twenty nineteen, this
round of them, so like.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Good job cutting your own fraud. Donald.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Do you know what else started in the first Trump era?
Garrison advertising advertisements was I believe Trump's first executive order.
He established the podcasting advertising industry, which you know supports
us to this day today. Is the backbone of the
American economy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I mean that's actually unfortunately more true than it should be.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
You know, if anyone wants to buy any colloidal silva.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Okay, we are back on top of trains issues. The other,
I would say most cited element in this speech was
the border. Trump referenced to the Lake and Riley Act,
which requires DHS to detain illegal immigrants who've admitted to
were charged with or convicted of theft related crimes or
any crime related to serious bodily injury.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
They're not necessarily illegal. They could just be undocumented people.
They could be asylum seekers.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Correct, correct, Yes, that is a good point.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I just want to note it was in the amount
of sad looking children and or family members that he
had as his propaganda prop people.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
He had a lot of props for this speech.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
A lot of props for his speech. I had fred
watch with me, and she just kept going, how did
he find like these people?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
These people have been figures of his campaign for years.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, I explain that. I explained that. Yeah, He's brought
these same individuals out, as Garrett mentioned over and over
and over again, and used.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Same thing with Fox News with one American News, like
their entire life revolves around being political props.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
It's an industry, right, there was nothing new here.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Trump signed an executive order on stage to rename a
wildlife preserve. In this like anti immigrant propaganda move, he
called for mandatory death penalty for anyone who kills the
police officer and asked Congress to sign that into law,
which is mostly like an anti immigrant dog whistle, essentially
trying to find a way to kill immigrants who are
(23:02):
like charged with the death of a police officer.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, they've proposed the same thing for people smuggling drugs
in the United States, like effectively charging them as if
they were going to give all the drugs to one
person to murder them and therefore giving them the death penalty.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Now that he wants to label all these people terrorists
or you know, has labeled these groups terrorists, it gives
the like the government a lot more leeway to do
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, I mean proving membership of those groups would be
a chat.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I mean, so is proving membership to Antifa?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yes, exactly. Yeah, we haven't seen how they're gon. Well,
we've somewhat seen how they're going to try in the
latter case, but none in the former. I guess we'll see,
I'm sure at some point in the next year or two.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
But like Trump said that, like previously America has quote
unquote buckled under migrant occupation, but now we are achieving
the great liberation of America. That's the sort of language
he was using for this section.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And he said how they rule from mental asylums and prisons.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Very standard campaign rhetoric that he's used for years now.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
If you're in you to this podcast, you can go back.
You can search to word Hacumba or border, and you
can listen to interviews with probably hundreds of migrants. You
can listen to my title forty two series, you can
listen to my Darien series, and you can joy for
yourself if these people are criminal, were bad, or mentally unwell.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
The economy had a very minimal focus compared to border
or trains issues. He really skirted over the tariffs thing
as fast as possible, briefly talked about the federal funding freeze,
bragged about terminating the green new scam something that has
never existed. Yeah, talking about withdrawing from the Preparius Climate
Accords again as well as the corrupt World Health Organization
(24:37):
and the anti American un War Crime Council. Very cool.
Bragged about ending climate restrictions you know, drill, baby, drill,
going after rare earth minerals, talked about no tax on
tips over time and benefits for seniors, and then briefly
discussed that on April second, you be enacting reciprocal tariffs
(25:02):
just completely across the board for all nations. And he
did warn farmers there is going to be an adjustment period. Quote,
there will be a little disturbance unquote certainly.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
When you adjust to not having a job that pays
you any money anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Crashing the economy will have a bit of an adjustment period.
It will be a bit of a little disturbance.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
I mean, just like he just kept going through these
obvious ridiculous claims and making Trump side comment stupidity, like
calling the Middle East a bad neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
And s'same street joke.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, it's just incredible, And James, our colleague Molly Conger
had a good point.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
She did, Yeah, of her many good points. Trump said
that people had never heard of Lesotho, at the same
time pronouncing it in a way that one would only
know if one had heard it pronounced rather than seen
it written on the page. Very very funny, South Own.
He also said something about Liberia like implying like I
would encourage people to understand the history of Liberia. They
think the US does an Liberia a thing or two.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
One of the last focuses of the speech was national security,
promising a Golden Dome missile defense system, which Trump has
previously talked about at previous twenty twenty four campaign events.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Obsessed with gold, Obsessed with gold.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Chess with dome, Garrison didn't even crack for those listening
once again, got him now once again.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
He announced that his administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, Yeah,
saying we have Mark Rubio in charge. Good luck Marco.
If something goes wrong, we know who to play, right.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
His comments on Greenland were specifically odd, saying Greenland We
strongly support your right to determine your own future, and
if you choose, we welcome you into the United States
of America. But the full quote about Greenland was very odd.
He said, quote, we need Greenland for national security and
even international security. So weird, and we're working with everybody
(27:17):
involved to try to get it, but we need it
really for international for world security, and I think we're
gonna get it. One way or another, We're gonna get it.
It's a very small population, but a very very large
piece of land and very very important for military security.
Unquote okay, yeah, very odd, very odd comments.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Whole collection of English language.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Would he is He is continuing to say that one
way or another, he will take Greenland. I think his
focus on it for national security is particularly interesting. I
think this has something to do with trying to make
the US and Russia these like two massive world powers
that both have like you know, Arctic land at their disposal,
considering climate change or you know, a variety of issues.
(28:04):
But I think that this does move towards this like
quasi like duganism of like this like multipolar world that
Putin certainly wants, and Trump is kind of signaling that
you know, through the influence of Bannon. He's also moving
towards with like Putin and trumpet, like, you know, the
two people who control the world. Speaking of Trump did
talk about receiving a letter from President Zelinski asking to
(28:26):
return to the neotiating table, and bragged about freeing another
weed smoking teacher in a Russian jail, returning him home
to America. And oddly enough, Trump met with the mother
of this teacher in Butler, Pennsylvania right before he got shot,
which led him to point towards the comparatour family, again,
(28:48):
pronouncing it in a completely new and different way. All
of the members of the family seemed very not thrilled
to be there, completely blank expressions, quite.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Odd, extremely weird.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, so this is where he ended the speech, was
talking about, you know, getting shot, and then kind of
went on a very long, ten minute, almost gptesque ramble
about like America. I didn't take any notes on it
because it just sounded like word salad. But there is
a few other mislaneous things from the speech I do
want to mention before we close out. Trump bragged about
stopping all government censorship and having brought back free speech
(29:22):
to America. Saying it's back, which is, you know, a
slightly humorous amidst reports of grants being pulled for using
quote unquote the bad words wrong words, as well as
a truth social post a truth made earlier today Wednesday
saying all federal funding will stop for any college, school,
(29:45):
or university that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned
or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.
American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime,
arrested no masks. So in one you can celebrate bringing
back free speech, and in the other you can call
for deporting people who protest or imprisoning students are protesting
(30:07):
on their own university campuses. Very very typical Trump double
speak type stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
He talked about bringing the people back to the office
like these are all like normal Trump yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Well yeah, and these are things that have happened already. RYA.
Most of the half of this speech was celebrating things
that he's already done. The other half was like asking
Congress to help him do more. Things Mixed in with
these weird propaganda moves like making this thirteen year old
brain cancer survivor in honorary Secret Service agent and admitting
(30:42):
this very square looking teenager into West Point. Who by
the way, this this teenager has the most cop phenotype
I've ever seen before. It's crazy. I was shocked, like,
whoa they found him the cop phenotype? There he is,
which was which is two? Two more of these weird props.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
It's like in the cave in Plato. Everything else is
just a reflection of this cob kid. Every other coult It.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
It's so odd because like Trump spent this speech talking
about how, you know, like we're bringing back a merit
based hiring. We have quote ended the tyranny of DEI
across government, private sector, and military, as he then just
did two DEI hires on stage. But you know whom
I who am I to say? So that's kind of
all I had to say on the Trump speech. Right now,
(31:29):
I will briefly, very briefly talk about the Democratic response.
The Democratic response was done by Senator Slutkin from Michigan,
who opened by saying America wants change, but there's a
responsible way to make change in an irresponsible way, trying
to paint Doge as like this very irresponsible and brash
way to achieve efficiencies, something that we all obviously you know,
want the government to move more towards. She warned about
(31:52):
how Trump's actions may result in our recession, warned about
losing social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits. Quote in Musk
who recently social Security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,
and attacked Musk and the twenty year old DOGE members
for using their own servers to access your sensitive data.
Slotkin spent a lot of the rebuttal praising Ronald Reagan.
(32:14):
Odd for a Democrat. I would say, I don't know why, strange,
I don't know why you as the opposition party are
continuing to base your politics on praising Bush and Reagan.
Very cool opposition party bros, very fun stuff. She also said,
I've lived and worked in many countries. I've seen democracies
flicker out. I've seen what life is like when a
(32:35):
government is rigged. Like yeah, I bet you have a
former CIA agent. She also mentioned doom scrolling, So that
really shows how the Democrats have the finger on the
pulse here when doom scrolling is mentioned as something not
to do, saying instead, you should hold your elected officials,
including me, accountable. Watch how the voting, go to town halls,
(32:58):
demand the take action and organize. Pick up one issue
you're passionate about and engage. Doom scrolling doesn't count. Join
a group that cares about your issue and act. If
you can't find one, start one. And that was That
was the bulk of the ten minute Democratic response. Oh boy,
what a what a what a fun what a fun
day in American politics?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
That was Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Any final thoughts, James Sophie like this speech.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
This episode is running long. Yeah, so I really don't
have any final thoughts other than bad, bad, bad, bad bad.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
The Democrats are unwilling to do anything actually serious. Once again,
the attempts that quote unquote fact checking this speech are
also incredibly pathetic to look at.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Truly.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
There's this New York Times fact check which which I
will close on just because it made me and the
rest of our group chat very upset, which outlined this
long paragraph from Trump saying over the past four years,
twenty one million people poured into the United States, many
of whom were murderers, human traffickers, gang members, and other
criminals from the streets of dangerous city and all throughout
the world. Because of Joe Biden's insane and very dangerous
open border policies. They are now strongly embedded in our country,
(34:07):
but we are getting them out and getting them out fast.
And the fact check for this very like false claim
is quote fast is a relative term. This statement is misleading.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's just oh on.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It only focuses on the ending sentence saying that we're
getting these immigrants out and we're getting them out fast.
It ignores calling many of these twenty one million people
human traffickers, gang members, and criminals. Does not say that
we never have had open border policy like it's crazy,
even like the liberal fact checking is completely pathetic and toothless,
(34:43):
and like fact ticking doesn't work. It's not useful anyway.
That's why I'm not spending this whole episode fact checking
Trump's claims. But the fact that you're gonna parrot this
insane anti immigrant rhetoric and only fact chuck Trump saying
that we're gonna get these immigrants out of our country fast,
calling it a relative term, And this is the reason
that the statement is misleading. This completely shows how Democrats
(35:07):
like completely lost any momentum on the immigration topic. Same
thing with the trans topic. They're actually unwilling to push
back on changing population sentiment because they're automatically agreeing with
the actual conceit. Yeah, anyway, that got me upset, and
then I watched Yawe and then went to that, so.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
There we go. Glad you got your Yaoi Erison.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Anyways, It Could Happen Here is a production of cool
Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit
our website pool Zonemedia dot com or check us out.
From the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts, you can now find sources for It Could
Happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Cool media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to and it could happen here special Report. I'm
Garrison Davis. I'm joined by James Stout and Sophie right Laterman,
we are here to discuss Trump's first Joint Session speech
of his second term. This is basically the equivalent of
a State of the Union, except it's too early to
really give a good state of the Union, even though
(00:26):
this month has felt kind of like a year. So
we are doing a special report here in addition to
our regular Executive Disorder episode because there is just so
much to talk about that we cannot fit it all
in our regular EDA. Pause for effect. Okay, this was
(00:48):
us speaking of This was the longest joint Session speech
in American history, and man, it felt like it lasted
for ever.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Yeah, I was gonna say, and boy, howdy did it
feel never ending?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It went on so long.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Not a great feat of ar tree. Really.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I was supposed to watch some Yawi with a friend
last night and they came over and I was like, haha,
I gotcha. Actually I have to watch this this speech first.
Don't worry. Usually it's only like an hour or so.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Two I did the exact same two hours later, I
did the exact same scam to my friend Sarah. She
was like, you know, I seriously love you, right, because
this is horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Two hours later, it finally ends and they're like, Okay,
we can finally watch yowie, right, And I'm like, no, no, no,
I have to watch the Democratic response speech. Don't worry.
It should be shorter, and thankfully it was. Yeah, but yeah,
let's let's just start by talking about like the beginning
of this speech, or rather with the general overview of
this speech was this was not a leaning across the
(01:58):
aisle speech, right, This wasn't trying to night the country.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
No, it was not, but you know, just catered to.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Core like mega supporters and new issues at the center
of the modern right wing media machine. The version of
the speech I watched on on ABC frequently cut to
Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro sitting together overlooking Congress as
they were special guests of the President and the First Lady.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yes, magic, they did they did this. They did the
same on CNN. I switched back and forth between a
couple of channels. I noted this to our team, but
when I first looked up, like what time the speech
was starting? I turned on my TV and went to
see it in and I happened upon the them talking
about if Dems should not applaud or if they should heckle,
(02:46):
and some motherfucker I don't care about said that Gems
should find places to applaud him to show unity.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Cool. Sure, yeah, mm hmm. That's always worked well.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Dems should find places to applaud him, to apprawd.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
The king, approd the king for ruining the governments, firing
all the workers. Give him a clap. Why don't you sorry, James?
I realized that got a little insensitive.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Wow, yeah, Garrison, this is why we have to watch
those videos where the bad actors talk about how they feel.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Not anymore talking about our workplace harassment videos.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
EEI is over, James. No more of those videos here
in the free State of Georgia. That's illegal.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Unfortunately, here in California, I have approximately seventy five little
little red bells and I log into my work day.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But like a single time. Early in the speech, Trump
asked Democrats why not join us in celebrating America? After
he complained I could cure any disease, and these people
sitting right here, the Democrats, they would not cheer. I
could cure any disease and these people wouldn't cheer.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
No, No, that was weird. I mean, like some Dums
didn't even show up. They had the subcab of wearing
certain cars. They did the same performative bullshit they always do,
and they had what I can only describe as like
church paddles.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
The statist the statistic signs on it.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
They were they weren't even like I mean, like, come on,
like a.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Description. But no. Some Dems did not show up in protest.
Others were black, kind of like in mourning.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, who cares.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Some of the women's caucus were pink, very cool, very feminist,
and others were the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Sure
that will help, but you know, Trump just pointed towards
the Democrats side of the chamber throughout the night and
just referred to them as the radical left lunatics. Like
this This was not across the aisle speed, No, it wasn't.
(04:46):
This was this was, if anything, emphasizing the divisions within
the country.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
One of the one of the things that happened before
the speech even started was like he drove in with
Malania and.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
You first, lady and first bitch boy.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah weird, yeah, h first buddy, Garrison. First buddy is
the official term first buddy.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Yeah, I don't know, but like, you know, Trump starts
off the speech.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
With America is back.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And like how far back are we talking? Because you're not.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Wrong, yeah, like eighteen sixty four. I think it's the
it's the goal.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I mean, this is the same phrase that that Biden
opened his first speech with as well. I think Biden
was referring to, like we are back to pre Trump America,
and now Trump is using this phrase to refer to
like this like mythical America. Right, sure, but no, Trump
took the stage to us a chance throughout yeah, throughout
the rotunda.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
That was you know, I grew up watching the Houses
of Parliament, so I'm used to like the boomers getting unruly,
but this was something else.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
They're just so fairal it's weird.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So cheesy. The speech was outlining like a new golden
age of America and the renewal of the American dream.
Trump talked about how he has accomplished in forty three
days more than most administrations do in four to eight years,
and that we're just getting started.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
He referred to this wide popular mandate a quote, a
mandate like this has not been seen in many decades,
referring to like winning all swing states, winning the electoral
college and the popular vote, and reference to this mandate
kind of sparked the big boo, big like disruption of the.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Night, specifically when he started saying we won the popular vote.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Which like it's heavily disputed, Like I don't.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Know, I don't think that that's not specifically what mister
Green was talking about.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I'm not necessarily talking about. When he specifically was staying together.
That's when the crowd had their biggest reaction of the night,
which like weird in my opinion.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
It's great. It's the thing that Democrats are doing now,
which is try trying to be like the Republicans but
lib like kind of just I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But not really because they didn't follow fucking through.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Without any like strength, like without any actual like momentum.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Right like we saw like the sort of blue and
non attempts at election denial like after the election, and like,
I don't think that's what they were doing here, agreed,
They gave off this like yeah, this very ineffectual kind
of half fast attempt at booing, and then aside from Green,
they they'll just sit down and wave their ping pong things.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, so representative Al Green from Texas old man with caine.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It's a good cane. It's got a gold handle.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Like I thought it was snazzy.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I thought, I mean, it's a sort of cane you
normally see a sword coming out of if.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I'm yeah, that would have been cooler. That would have
been cooler. But instead he doesn't waves the cane around
talking about how this mandate doesn't mean that there's a
mandate to like, you know, cut Medicaid, cut medicare. That
was specifically what he was talking about. Yeah, television mics
did not really pick that up.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
No, and a lot of reporting didn't either, which was shitty.
I thought, like, yeah, a lot of reporting just mentioned
that he had shouted and not what he had shouted about,
which I think is like, really, when you like, you see,
what the media is doing is serving as like the
propagandoram of a certain class of people when they're more
upset that he was shouting than that he was protesting
(08:22):
the fact that people are going to lose their healthcare
and probably die because of it.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, and like Trump started like yelling over these protests.
There was like a brief maybe like like you know,
minute or so, like yelling match in the chamber. Mike
Johnson was like, what do I do here? Eventually, you know,
Mike Johnson threatens mister Green, gives a warning, and eventually
directs the Sergeant of Arms to restore order and remove
him from the chambers. Not a regular scene in American politics,
(08:49):
but a scene that you might be more familiar with
in overseas politics, and specifically in democracies that are in trouble.
You'll have more and more scenes like this.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, we candn't get any smoke grenades like you see
in Serbia.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
You know, it's still twenty twenty five, James, we still
have three more three.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
More years, three more year assumed to break out the
ass off smoke grenades.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Whether or not this is like, you know, performative or cringe,
it's like it's something that demonstrates, hey, like this, this
actually isn't normal. More than holding up a cheesy sign
next to Trump reading this is not normal, which is
some others did in protest. This actually is treating it
like a serious situation and more Democrats should have done this.
They should have staggered their protests throughout the entirety of
(09:35):
the speech, continually disrupting it, making this speech basically unable
to end. Pushing this past midnight, having an endless procession
of people having to be escorted out. You should force
Congress to censure half of the sit in Congress people. Yeah, Like,
if this really is like an actual existential threat to
our democracy, If if Trump represents right now a genuine
(09:57):
constitutional crisis, which he does, he is ignoring the courts,
the people in Congress should fucking act like it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
They should have gone literally, single file, one by one.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Stagger it every like three minutes so that he just
is unable to finish the speech. Like have have Mike
Johnson do this every time.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Because he was thrown.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, he was thrown, and they should have continued to
do this. The fact that no one else did is
pretty disappointing.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
You could see Vance was very uncomfortable as well, Like.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
He didn have that nervous smile for most of he.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Does when he's confronted with it human being that.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Later on the speech, after Trump talked about you know,
trans women in sports and the price of eggs, had
you had a group of Democrats wearing resist T shirts
walk out of the speech in protest, and like, that's
so much more pathetic than actually like standing up and
talking about how this guy is ignoring the courts and
is actually breaking the constitution. Like that's what they should
(10:56):
have all been doing instead of wearing resist slim merch Performatively.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, you could write an onion to go parodying this,
but you actually couldn't because they would just do that
next time, Like if they really think this is the last,
the last joint session of Congress the ever going to have.
They sure didn't act like it or whatever.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
But this is going to be the first ad break
in a series of two mid episode ad breaks that
we are playing on this show. So here's the ads.
All right, we are back. I hope you pick up
(11:36):
your new ad break themed T shirts to walk around
in protest of capitalism.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yep, not made by unions.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
All right, let's talk about transgenderism. One of the first
topics Trump had discussed at length was the anti trans
culture war, declaring that the government will be woke no longer.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Oh God, that fully fucking sent me. I'd forgotten about that.
It's just so asinatin like drunk old man at pub.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
He bragged about about signing an executive order establishing that
there's only two genders, as well as an order preventing
quote unquote men from playing in women's sports. He first
pointed out to someone in the audience who was a
former volleyball player who got hurt by a volleyball and
then decided to quit the sport. And they now blame
(12:28):
this on the fact that a trans woman was allegedly
responsible for probably spiking the volleyball, which yes, is painful.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
For playing sport the way that everyone else plays sport.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, for trying to win, yeah, in a team of
volleyball context. So yes, this was the first kind of
of these political props that Trump brought along to kind
of point out and demonstrate some of the things that
he was talking about. Frankly, it just seems like this
person was not a very good volleyball player. But the
the next example Trump pointed two I think James can
(13:03):
speak better on but Trump said that essentially there was
a quoe unquote, a man who beat a woman in
a race by five hours, to the shock of the audience.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, So look, it was shocked listeners to hear that
most of what he said is wrong. He directly referenced
a friend of mine. He was referring to Austin Killips,
who is a woman. She's a trans woman. She's a
very good cyclist. The reason she was doing the race,
which is the Arizona Trail Race, it's an eight hundred
mile ultra endurance race like I used to do these
kind of things. The reason she was doing it is
because of a UCI Union Cycles Internationale that governing bodies
(13:36):
stopped trans women competing, right, so she did these races
which were not sanctioned by them. She did get the record.
The previous holder of the record was a CIS man.
That CIS man had previously beaten. A CIS woman got
Leo Wilcox. It's interesting that in this particular discipline, actually
like SIS, women have been doing as well as it's
(13:56):
not better than men like leoel Wilcox owned nearly all
the long distance records in the United States. She's a
phenomenal athlete. And the idea that there's some inherent biological
advantages it's particularly nonsense in this sphere of cycling. But
the reason that she was five hours ahead is because
this race is eight hundred miles long. Like, those records
are broken by that kind of period. Not all the time,
(14:17):
but when you have athletes like Austin coming from the
higher paying areas of the sport into this which has
been a much less well paid and much smaller area
of the sport, you're going to see these records getting broken.
And again she broke a record that was held by Assis.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Dude, crazy.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I mean, like the level of like propaganda and lie.
I mean, my mom watched the speech and she was like,
that doesn't seem possible. And I was like, because it's
all bullshit.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, it is the second time he's picked on Austin
and obviously it pisss me off. You could read her
op ed in The Guardian where she wrote about this
the last time he cited her in his executive order,
and I would encourage you to So.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
After this initial dive into the trans topic, Trump followed
up by talking about how egg prices are out of
control take a shot, which happened about fifteen minutes into
the speech. But near the end of the speech, Trump
returned to the trends topic, pointing to the anti trans
activist mom named January Little jod no comment whose kid
(15:23):
secretly used they them pronouns at school, with Trump discussing
how wrong it is for schools to secretly transition students
and like this actually just isn't true. Surprise, surprise. The
parents in this case knew that their kid wanted to
use a different name in pronouns at school and actually
were the ones to inform the school of this, according
to school emails obtained by CNN. Not that this matters.
(15:47):
And I will say during this clip, when the camera
cuts towards his mom, like all of the people that
were used as political props that were cut to, they
all had the most bizarre look on their face, like
completely blank, like soulis not even like it really excited
this this woman who's you know, kind of a one
of also the faces of like Florida's don't say gay
Bill just yeah, completely like blank expression because this thing
(16:09):
that the President's talking about is just a flat out lie.
And like you know it, you lost a federal lawsuit
over this lie. But here you are on national TV now,
the prop of the president.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Yeah, on national TV, in front of both hands of Congress,
attacking your own kid, yep for trying to be who
they want to be, a subject on which you lost
a lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Like and then Trump directly asked Congress to pass a
bill banning trans health care for children, saying wokeness is gone,
our country will be woke no longer whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Such a loser.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
The next topic was Elon Musk's doge, as Trump essentially
just read out a list that mischaracterized aid programs or
scientific research grants, talking about how Health and Human Services
paid for housing for displaced immigrants in the United States,
money for Middle East, Sesame Street for making mice transgender,
(17:04):
and LGBTQ education in Africa, as well as DEI in Burma,
which I will now pivot to James again to fill
in some contexts here.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
So I'm aware of this scholarship because I'm aware of
the people within the Symbol Disobedience movement who are talking
to the State Department about it, and they begged for
it not to be a DEI thing because they could
see this happening. Right, It's the Lincoln Scholarship program our
linked to it in the show notes, but it exists
to empower people in Burma write with technical skills and
to rise up young leaders in Burma. And it's not
(17:39):
a DEI program, but for some reason it was categorized
as such.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
It talks about respecting diversity because, as long term listeners
will know, Memmar is an extremely diverse country, right, with
more than fifty ethnic groups and hundreds of languages spoken.
So like, that's why it talks about respecting diversity. This
is one of the few things the United States has
done for the people of Myanmar, after pumping up their economy,
(18:07):
pumping up real estate and then doing nothing when the
military seized power there and started to brutally repress the people.
And the US is also I should add, at this
point holding a billion dollars of the Burmese people's money
that it froze when the coup happened. And if it
doesn't want to give them these scholarships, could give them
back their money, but I'm sure it won't. I know
(18:27):
this one pisss me off in particular because obviously I'm
very invested in the cause of the people of Mema
and they are my friends.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, And this is very emblematic of the way Trumpet
Elon talked about a bunch of these aid programs. How
like you know, HIV prevention programs will be LGBTQ you
said money, right, Like they find a way to mischaracterize
it in the most like culture war way.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Yeah, talking about public health programs of circumcisions.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Right, yeah, exactly right. They'll try to find every single
like health or education program and turn it into some
like LGBTQ to ei culture or issue. Trump claimed on
stage that they've found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud. Now,
the doge website previously listed one hundred and five billion
dollars in like found savings, but this very week, the
(19:14):
website scrubbed the five of the highest dollar value receives
after journalists found massive errors in Elon's estimated count, and
now it's while of receipts totals around eight billion, though
that might also be an overestimate according to some journalists.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Trump also talked about alleged social Security fraud, claiming that
millions and millions of dead people are getting Social Security.
Like this just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
The math is not mathing.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Yeah, this has been their thing for a while, right,
Dead people are voting. Dead people are getting Social Security.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yeah, Trump's own Social Security administrator has like said as much.
The super old people in the database simply don't have
death details logged, but they are not receiving payments. There
is improper payments in the Social Security system, usually around
one percent. Mostly that's over payments or entertainments to people
who are actually alive, and there is a system for
resolving those already in place, because Social Security is a
(20:10):
pretty old system that we've had for quite a while.
And like, I don't know, like Trump's skirted by a
lot of economy issues, and the way he did so
was just by repeatedly claiming that doge and like, cutting
this fraud will magically fix the economy, right, Like, this
is how he wants to frame this. Eggs are too
much money, all of these things, and he has no
actual solution to it. So instead, we're going to fix
(20:32):
the economy through Doge, through finding all this fraud. Somehow
we will locate this like pot of gold hidden somewhere
that will magically make our economy better. And this is
his solution because he doesn't have any real solution.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, I should have pointed out that Lincoln Scholarships were
in fact a Trump They started in twenty nineteen, this
round of them, so like.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Good job cutting your own fraud. Donald.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Do you know what else started in the first Trump era?
Garrison advertising advertisements was I believe Trump's first executive order.
He established the podcasting advertising industry, which you know supports
us to this day today. Is the backbone of the
American economy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I mean that's actually unfortunately more true than it should be.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
You know, if anyone wants to buy any colloidal silva.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
No, no, no.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Okay, we are back on top of trains issues. The other,
I would say most cited element in this speech was
the border. Trump referenced to the Lake and Riley Act,
which requires DHS to detain illegal immigrants who've admitted to
were charged with or convicted of theft related crimes or
any crime related to serious bodily injury.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
They're not necessarily illegal. They could just be undocumented people.
They could be asylum seekers.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Correct, correct, Yes, that is a good point.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I just want to note it was in the amount
of sad looking children and or family members that he
had as his propaganda prop people.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
He had a lot of props for this speech.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
A lot of props for his speech. I had fred
watch with me, and she just kept going, how did
he find like these people?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
These people have been figures of his campaign for years.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, I explain that. I explained that. Yeah, He's brought
these same individuals out, as Garrett mentioned over and over
and over again, and used.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Same thing with Fox News with one American News, like
their entire life revolves around being political props.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
It's an industry, right, there was nothing new here.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Trump signed an executive order on stage to rename a
wildlife preserve. In this like anti immigrant propaganda move, he
called for mandatory death penalty for anyone who kills the
police officer and asked Congress to sign that into law,
which is mostly like an anti immigrant dog whistle, essentially
trying to find a way to kill immigrants who are
(23:02):
like charged with the death of a police officer.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, they've proposed the same thing for people smuggling drugs
in the United States, like effectively charging them as if
they were going to give all the drugs to one
person to murder them and therefore giving them the death penalty.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Now that he wants to label all these people terrorists
or you know, has labeled these groups terrorists, it gives
the like the government a lot more leeway to do
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah, I mean proving membership of those groups would be
a chat.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I mean, so is proving membership to Antifa?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yes, exactly. Yeah, we haven't seen how they're gon. Well,
we've somewhat seen how they're going to try in the
latter case, but none in the former. I guess we'll see,
I'm sure at some point in the next year or two.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
But like Trump said that, like previously America has quote
unquote buckled under migrant occupation, but now we are achieving
the great liberation of America. That's the sort of language
he was using for this section.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And he said how they rule from mental asylums and prisons.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Very standard campaign rhetoric that he's used for years now.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
If you're in you to this podcast, you can go back.
You can search to word Hacumba or border, and you
can listen to interviews with probably hundreds of migrants. You
can listen to my title forty two series, you can
listen to my Darien series, and you can joy for
yourself if these people are criminal, were bad, or mentally unwell.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
The economy had a very minimal focus compared to border
or trains issues. He really skirted over the tariffs thing
as fast as possible, briefly talked about the federal funding freeze,
bragged about terminating the green new scam something that has
never existed. Yeah, talking about withdrawing from the Preparius Climate
Accords again as well as the corrupt World Health Organization
(24:37):
and the anti American un War Crime Council. Very cool.
Bragged about ending climate restrictions you know, drill, baby, drill,
going after rare earth minerals, talked about no tax on
tips over time and benefits for seniors, and then briefly
discussed that on April second, you be enacting reciprocal tariffs
(25:02):
just completely across the board for all nations. And he
did warn farmers there is going to be an adjustment period. Quote,
there will be a little disturbance unquote certainly.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
When you adjust to not having a job that pays
you any money anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Crashing the economy will have a bit of an adjustment period.
It will be a bit of a little disturbance.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
I mean, just like he just kept going through these
obvious ridiculous claims and making Trump side comment stupidity, like
calling the Middle East a bad neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
And s'same street joke.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, it's just incredible, And James, our colleague Molly Conger
had a good point.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
She did, Yeah, of her many good points. Trump said
that people had never heard of Lesotho, at the same
time pronouncing it in a way that one would only
know if one had heard it pronounced rather than seen
it written on the page. Very very funny, South Own.
He also said something about Liberia like implying like I
would encourage people to understand the history of Liberia. They
think the US does an Liberia a thing or two.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
One of the last focuses of the speech was national security,
promising a Golden Dome missile defense system, which Trump has
previously talked about at previous twenty twenty four campaign events.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Obsessed with gold, Obsessed with gold.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Chess with dome, Garrison didn't even crack for those listening
once again, got him now once again.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
He announced that his administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, Yeah,
saying we have Mark Rubio in charge. Good luck Marco.
If something goes wrong, we know who to play, right.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
His comments on Greenland were specifically odd, saying Greenland We
strongly support your right to determine your own future, and
if you choose, we welcome you into the United States
of America. But the full quote about Greenland was very odd.
He said, quote, we need Greenland for national security and
even international security. So weird, and we're working with everybody
(27:17):
involved to try to get it, but we need it
really for international for world security, and I think we're
gonna get it. One way or another, We're gonna get it.
It's a very small population, but a very very large
piece of land and very very important for military security.
Unquote okay, yeah, very odd, very odd comments.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Whole collection of English language.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Would he is He is continuing to say that one
way or another, he will take Greenland. I think his
focus on it for national security is particularly interesting. I
think this has something to do with trying to make
the US and Russia these like two massive world powers
that both have like you know, Arctic land at their disposal,
considering climate change or you know, a variety of issues.
(28:04):
But I think that this does move towards this like
quasi like duganism of like this like multipolar world that
Putin certainly wants, and Trump is kind of signaling that
you know, through the influence of Bannon. He's also moving
towards with like Putin and trumpet, like, you know, the
two people who control the world. Speaking of Trump did
talk about receiving a letter from President Zelinski asking to
(28:26):
return to the neotiating table, and bragged about freeing another
weed smoking teacher in a Russian jail, returning him home
to America. And oddly enough, Trump met with the mother
of this teacher in Butler, Pennsylvania right before he got shot,
which led him to point towards the comparatour family, again,
(28:48):
pronouncing it in a completely new and different way. All
of the members of the family seemed very not thrilled
to be there, completely blank expressions, quite.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Odd, extremely weird.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, so this is where he ended the speech, was
talking about, you know, getting shot, and then kind of
went on a very long, ten minute, almost gptesque ramble
about like America. I didn't take any notes on it
because it just sounded like word salad. But there is
a few other mislaneous things from the speech I do
want to mention before we close out. Trump bragged about
stopping all government censorship and having brought back free speech
(29:22):
to America. Saying it's back, which is, you know, a
slightly humorous amidst reports of grants being pulled for using
quote unquote the bad words wrong words, as well as
a truth social post a truth made earlier today Wednesday
saying all federal funding will stop for any college, school,
(29:45):
or university that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned
or permanently sent back to the country from which they came.
American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime,
arrested no masks. So in one you can celebrate bringing
back free speech, and in the other you can call
for deporting people who protest or imprisoning students are protesting
(30:07):
on their own university campuses. Very very typical Trump double
speak type stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
He talked about bringing the people back to the office
like these are all like normal Trump yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Well yeah, and these are things that have happened already. RYA.
Most of the half of this speech was celebrating things
that he's already done. The other half was like asking
Congress to help him do more. Things Mixed in with
these weird propaganda moves like making this thirteen year old
brain cancer survivor in honorary Secret Service agent and admitting
(30:42):
this very square looking teenager into West Point. Who by
the way, this this teenager has the most cop phenotype
I've ever seen before. It's crazy. I was shocked, like,
whoa they found him the cop phenotype? There he is,
which was which is two? Two more of these weird props.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
It's like in the cave in Plato. Everything else is
just a reflection of this cob kid. Every other coult It.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
It's so odd because like Trump spent this speech talking
about how, you know, like we're bringing back a merit
based hiring. We have quote ended the tyranny of DEI
across government, private sector, and military, as he then just
did two DEI hires on stage. But you know whom
I who am I to say? So that's kind of
all I had to say on the Trump speech. Right now,
(31:29):
I will briefly, very briefly talk about the Democratic response.
The Democratic response was done by Senator Slutkin from Michigan,
who opened by saying America wants change, but there's a
responsible way to make change in an irresponsible way, trying
to paint Doge as like this very irresponsible and brash
way to achieve efficiencies, something that we all obviously you know,
want the government to move more towards. She warned about
(31:52):
how Trump's actions may result in our recession, warned about
losing social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits. Quote in Musk
who recently social Security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,
and attacked Musk and the twenty year old DOGE members
for using their own servers to access your sensitive data.
Slotkin spent a lot of the rebuttal praising Ronald Reagan.
(32:14):
Odd for a Democrat. I would say, I don't know why, strange,
I don't know why you as the opposition party are
continuing to base your politics on praising Bush and Reagan.
Very cool opposition party bros, very fun stuff. She also said,
I've lived and worked in many countries. I've seen democracies
flicker out. I've seen what life is like when a
(32:35):
government is rigged. Like yeah, I bet you have a
former CIA agent. She also mentioned doom scrolling, So that
really shows how the Democrats have the finger on the
pulse here when doom scrolling is mentioned as something not
to do, saying instead, you should hold your elected officials,
including me, accountable. Watch how the voting, go to town halls,
(32:58):
demand the take action and organize. Pick up one issue
you're passionate about and engage. Doom scrolling doesn't count. Join
a group that cares about your issue and act. If
you can't find one, start one. And that was That
was the bulk of the ten minute Democratic response. Oh boy,
what a what a what a fun what a fun
day in American politics?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
That was Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Any final thoughts, James Sophie like this speech.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
This episode is running long. Yeah, so I really don't
have any final thoughts other than bad, bad, bad, bad bad.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
The Democrats are unwilling to do anything actually serious. Once again,
the attempts that quote unquote fact checking this speech are
also incredibly pathetic to look at.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Truly.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
There's this New York Times fact check which which I
will close on just because it made me and the
rest of our group chat very upset, which outlined this
long paragraph from Trump saying over the past four years,
twenty one million people poured into the United States, many
of whom were murderers, human traffickers, gang members, and other
criminals from the streets of dangerous city and all throughout
the world. Because of Joe Biden's insane and very dangerous
open border policies. They are now strongly embedded in our country,
(34:07):
but we are getting them out and getting them out fast.
And the fact check for this very like false claim
is quote fast is a relative term. This statement is misleading.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's just oh on.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
It only focuses on the ending sentence saying that we're
getting these immigrants out and we're getting them out fast.
It ignores calling many of these twenty one million people
human traffickers, gang members, and criminals. Does not say that
we never have had open border policy like it's crazy,
even like the liberal fact checking is completely pathetic and toothless,
(34:43):
and like fact ticking doesn't work. It's not useful anyway.
That's why I'm not spending this whole episode fact checking
Trump's claims. But the fact that you're gonna parrot this
insane anti immigrant rhetoric and only fact chuck Trump saying
that we're gonna get these immigrants out of our country fast,
calling it a relative term, And this is the reason
that the statement is misleading. This completely shows how Democrats
(35:07):
like completely lost any momentum on the immigration topic. Same
thing with the trans topic. They're actually unwilling to push
back on changing population sentiment because they're automatically agreeing with
the actual conceit. Yeah, anyway, that got me upset, and
then I watched Yawe and then went to that, so.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
There we go. Glad you got your Yaoi Erison.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Anyways, It Could Happen Here is a production of cool
Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit
our website pool Zonemedia dot com or check us out.
From the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts, you can now find sources for It Could
Happen here, listed 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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