7/14/25: Epstein Brother Says Trump May Have Killed Him, Alligator Alcatraz Debate, FEMA Gutted Amid Floods

Krystal and Saagar discuss Epstein brother says Trump may have killed him, Alligator Alcatraz debate, FEMA gutted as they failed to answer Texas flood victims.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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Speaker 2 (00:33):
So let's talk a little bit more about the direct
Trump and Epstein connections. Interesting moment on Don Lemon's podcast
he had on Jeffrey Epstein's brother Mark and ask him directly, Hey,
do you think that Trump during his first administration.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Actually had your brother killed? Let's take a listen to that.

Speaker 5 (00:49):
When you saw that interview with them, I think there
was a couple of interviews, the one thing with Maria
Bartiromo where they sat down and I mean they were
glum and they're saying there's nothing there be honest with you,
there's nothing there. After years and years of pushing and
also calling this somehow a Democrat according to them, conspiracy theory,

(01:10):
and that's somehow the Democrats were involved in your brother's dad.

Speaker 6 (01:14):
I don't think the Democrats. Look well, I look at
it this way.

Speaker 7 (01:18):
Bill Barr when he came out that ridiculous statement, he
worked for he was the attorney general. You know who
did he look he was If Jeffrey was murdered, which
I believe he was, somebody did it. So the people
who were coming out with these ridiculous statements, I think
are covering up for somebody, right, So who are they.

Speaker 6 (01:39):
Covering up for?

Speaker 7 (01:41):
You know, Bill Barr worked for the President of the
United States. Cash Berttel works for the President of the
United States. Pam Bondi works for the President of the
United States.

Speaker 6 (01:50):
Maybe someone should ask him what he knows.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Who do you think they're covering up for?

Speaker 6 (01:56):
Who do they all work for?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
They all work for Donald Trump.

Speaker 6 (02:02):
Well, like I said in another interview, I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
You wouldn't be surprised if Donald Trump was behind your
brother's death. Are you saying that Donald Trump had your
brother murdered?

Speaker 6 (02:13):
You believe I'm not saying that, I'm saying, in fact,
that's what it was.

Speaker 7 (02:16):
I wouldn't be surprised. We know that Jeffrey had dirt
on Donald Trump. We know that that's a fact because
he said in twenty sixteen with the election that if
he said what he knew, they'd have to cancel the election.
He didn't tell me what he knew, but that's what
he said, and I've been public about that before.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
That shouldn't come as a shock.

Speaker 7 (02:37):
Of course, Steve Bannon said that the only person he
feared for Donald Trump's sake was Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 6 (02:43):
Why what do you think Jeffrey's going to beat him
up because of what Jeffrey knew?

Speaker 1 (02:48):
And what did Jeffrey know?

Speaker 6 (02:50):
Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 7 (02:51):
He didn't tell me what he knew, but he said
if he said what he knew, it'd have to cancel
the election.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
So very interesting comments there, Zagar, which.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Mark is an interesting figure.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
So Mark actually some background if people want to listen
to my interview with Tucker. Tucker in twenty nineteen was like, yeah,
you know, maybe he killed himself. You know, we'll see whatever.
But he said that Mark Epstein called him, and he
was like, I'm telling you one hundred percent he did
not kill himself, you know, based on everything that I
know about this. And it began actually a years long
relationship between Mark and Tucker basically about this issue of

(03:22):
whether he killed himself or not, which was an exploration
about the intelligence connections, et cetera. So Mark is not
a partisan democratic figure. I just want people to lay
that out and know it. At the beginning. I mean,
in a way, he's like advocating for his dead brother,
even though it was, you know, a heinous individual. But
whatever the point is is that it's an entree point
to which you're aft to ask the question why who

(03:43):
is covering this stuff up and for what purpose? And
I'll be honest, you know, for me, I always thought
that Trump thing was tenuous. And Tucker kind of put
it to me and he's like, well, you know, wouldn't
the Biden administration released it?

Speaker 1 (03:53):
And it was like a compelling point.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
And then the second part is like, it's just not
really who Trump is and you know, for all of
his sexual proclivities, and you can read it in it
all for yourself from Stormy Daniels. It just like it
seems like pretty standard, like horny old man behavior. But
then this, you know, the way this is now being handled,
combined with the totality of the reaction previously, that really

(04:15):
makes me start to be like, man, what's going on here?
And I don't know, is it Trump himself? Is it
about his own enabling him? Let's be honest. You know,
he hung out with him, He was a mar A
Lago friend. They were just pictures of them all being together.
So at this point I almost have no choice but
to ask, like, look, maybe there really is something there.
And I don't think that's some I don't think that's

(04:36):
a crazy thing to say. It's not a conspiracy theory.
It's like, in the same way that we look past,
let's look at the evidence about the way he said
to Glaine, I wish I wish her well right about
the way that that case was handled, in which they
basically localized the entire prosecution to just Glaine, Maxwell and
Jeffrey Epstein to make sure it didn't implicate anybody else.
He did die under his watch. All these people do

(04:57):
work for Donald Trump. Obviously, the you know, of faith
has to be proclaimed here from Cash betel BONDI and
others come from Trump himself, I would assume. And then
there's this public record now in the camera, right, it's sketchy.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
I don't know another way to say it.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
And you have this choice of numerous Epstein linked figures
for his first and second administration. Whether it's Bill Barr,
whose dad gives Epstein his first job at a private school.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
His very first job, right, yeah, who is never have
a college degree? At Dalton School, Bill Barr's father hires him,
where he gets introduced to whom, to bear Stearns, where
he then gets like, man, you're sending.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Me down the road. This is important degree.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
I don't know if people still teach mass.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Dalton is a highly elite Yes, it's like, you know,
the pinnacle of like elite private schools. So he gets
plucked with no college degree to go teach there, then
parlays that into somehow becoming this financier managing billions of dollars.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Oh, who are your clients?

Speaker 2 (05:57):
We don't know, I don't know outside of Les Wexner,
that's the only one we really know. But we're told
this is, you know, so lucrative and he's so extraordinary
at it that you know he becomes so wealthy that
he has he has actually sort of gifted to him
actually from Les Wexner, the largest private residence in Manhattan.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with Manhattan,

(06:18):
but there's a lot of.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Wealthy people there. It's crazy.

Speaker 4 (06:21):
Yes, it's on the Aubrey's side.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Absolutely wasn't didn't you tell his neighbors with Howard Lenny.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yes, he was.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
How Just by the way, Howard recently purchased a twelve
hundred dollar bottle of tequila and bragged about it online.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
If you're wondering engaged, you're wondering.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
Yeah, So, I mean you have that.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
You've got alex Acosta, who is the person who gave
Epstein that sweetheart deal which really buried all of this evidence.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
I mean that was critical.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
And you know, Alan Dershowitz was his lawyer in all
of that and has continued to receive legal fees from
Jeffrey Epstein over time. Here you've got Pam Bondi, who
also was Florida who also you know there's linkages there
as well, and so and then you consider Trump in
his longtime relationship and the things that we know about that,
and then there he is acting guilty, is fucking covering

(07:07):
some thing up.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
Yeah, you have to ask some questions about that.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Michael Wolfe, journalists who did hours of interviews actually with
Jeffrey Epstein, talked about how a bunch of these linkages
were just basically hiding in plain sight with regard to
Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.

Speaker 8 (07:22):
Donald Trump has gotten away with literally everything, and it
turns out to be one of his greatest gifts. And somehow,
again hiding in plain sight is long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,
and Trump has just waved it away, swept it under

(07:43):
the rug, ignored it, and gotten away with it. Once
when I was and this was in mar A Lago,
I went to sit have a sit down with him,
and in his aids just asked me, you know, a
rough outline of what I wanted to talk about, and
I had a lot of subjects, but I said, I

(08:05):
also said Epstein, and they said and they said, you know,
if if you ask about that, he'll just stop the
interview and you won't get anything.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
So interesting there he says, you know, Epstein, other things fine,
Epstein off limits. And you know how that interview shaping
works in advanced they said, Okay, well, yeah, you can
ask if you want, but that's just gonna be the
end of it.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
You know what the key is to do that is
to ask it at the end.

Speaker 9 (08:30):
The very last.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Anybody wants to know exactly strategy.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
That's what I did, you know, Yeah, before I went
into the Oval Ones, Sarah Sanders was like, Hey, just
don't ask about this whole Egene Carroll thing.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
And we're like, for sure. And then of course when
we were done and we were like.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Hey, by the way, what do you think about this
whole And of course we got this iconic answer, which
she ended up using in her own defamation lawsuit, citing
it multiple times.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
That answer. So, yes, that's the strategy about what you're
supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
And Wolfe has other things that he said as well,
that Epstein told him that they were bestie for you know,
a deck over a decade, and certainly they were you know,
closely linked for quite a while in the early nineties
and in the nineties in general. He also has talked about,
you know, photos with girls of uncertain age and staying
on Trump's pants and girls pointing and laughing at him.

(09:17):
That's what his claim is in terms of things that
exist out there. So another interesting data point here puts
the three up on the screen. Apparently Trump held some
talks on a pardon for Gawayne Maxwell, which fits with
the response when he got asked about her, you know,
when she was on trial, Hey, I wish her well,
and fits with a very persistent pattern of getting quite

(09:40):
squarely when asked about the Epstein files and the release
of the Epstein files.

Speaker 4 (09:44):
Every time he got asked about it would be like, yeah, well.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Maybe no, Actually, you've got to worry about people's privacy there.
So you know, for people who I guess wanted to
hear that there would be a release, they just listened
to the figures around Trump, or they listened to that first,
like yeah, sure, before well I don't know, I'm not
so sure. The other ones, yes, but not so much
on Epstein. Let's put this next one up on the
screen here. This is just another indication of like the

(10:10):
things that were said about this case before we got
the memo that was just like case clothes, nothing to
see here. Prince Andrew, by the way, and everybody else,
you're all let off the hook, don't worry about it.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
You're good to go, completely innocent.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
FBI employees had received a directive to begin working uninterrupted
on the Epstein records. Hundreds under pressure from Patel, hundreds
of FBI employees, including special agents from the DC New
York Field Office, have been working furiously to meet Pam
Bondi's demands. They've been hold up in offices at the
bureaus sprawling Central Records complex in Winchester, Virginia houses two

(10:47):
billion pages of physical FBI records, and older building a
few miles away. They've been working alongside analyst tasks with
processing FOIA requests at the department. So whatever happened with
those hundreds of FBI employees, Like, what were they doing there?
What records were they looking at? What are we talking
about here? For it all to be just case closed
with a single page memo that you know, supposedly there's

(11:10):
nothing going on and there's nothing to learn, and we
have definitively decided that he definitely killed himself.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
I mean, look, I think it's all just totally crazy.
And you flagged this to me, this piece by Chris Hedges.
Let's put C five please up on the screen. I mean, really,
what Chris gets into is not only the list of
all of the figures, including Trump himself, that are like,
you know, all tied up within this, but listen, I
mean when looking back also at the fact, at this

(11:38):
point we have to acknowledge, you know, we have at
Epstein who dies under Trump, We have all of these
allegations and weird and sketchy things that happened, you know.
In terms of Trump's answer that specifically happen here around
the Epstein scandal, he cites a lawsuit which I actually
was not aware about about these like Epsteinian orgies and

(11:58):
weird things, yeah, which you know, allegedly implicate Trump. I
had no idea what this was.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
I didn't know about this either. Yeah, this was what
surprised me.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
So let me just read this section to get the details,
you know, very specifically correct here. The Miami Herald investigator
reporter Julie K. Brown, whose dogged reporting was largely responsible
for reopening the federal investigation into Epstein and Maxwell, documents
in her book Perversion of Justice The Duffrey Epstein Story.
As Brown writes in twenty sixteen, an anonymous woman using
the pseudonym Kate Johnson filed a civil complaint in a

(12:27):
federal court in California, alleging she was raped by Trump
and Epstein when she was thirteen over a four month
period from June to September ninety four. I loudly pleaded
with Trump to stop, she said in the lawsuit about
being raped. Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking
me in the face with his open hand and screaming
he could do whatever he won. Now, basically that lawsuit

(12:47):
goes away. Is it because there's no there there?

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Or is it very possible about Maybe, yeah, it's possible.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
It is because you know, what Hedges alleges here is
more likely is that Trump was able to quash the
laws by buying her silence, is what he says. And
she has since disappeared. So, you know, again, maybe it
went away because there was no there there, or maybe
he was able to use his well to make it
go away. But this all just speaks to the fact

(13:14):
that these entanglements, I mean, this was reported long ago,
and these entanglements, this was all. This is not conspiracy.
This is a thing that happened, and we have the
pictures together, we have the you know, the flight logs
actually came out during Gleeene Maxwell's trial. We know we
covered at the time the way that the federal garment
case that was pursued against Galeene Maxwell's well, they called
it like a thin case.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Or something like that.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
It was meant to be very narrow.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
So it just focused on like the things that they
felt really confident they could prove, but meant that anyone
else who may be implicated, there was not going to
be discovery around that. There was not going to be
any sort of like opening the books of which other
powerful people were ultimately involved there. And then you also
get the news, oh, hey, Trump was actually thinking about
pardoning her because he was kind of worried about what

(13:59):
she might say about So I think there are real, justified,
non conspiratorial reasons to look at this whole chain of
events and have some real questions about how exactly Trump
was implicated and involved. Here was he in the Epstein files.
I mean, there's no doubt about that. We know that
he's in the flight log So I guess it depends
on your definition of the Epstein files. But you know,

(14:22):
the extent or the nature that I think is an
open question.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
But very reasonable one to ask.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, And that's just my last point on Epstein files.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
And I know we've talked a lot about it, and
I do understand maybe fatigue and others, but you know,
this is important. There is no such thing as a
ledger that's just like client supports Israel now, because we
black that's not how this stuff works. What works is
the totality of documentation, flight logs, IRS, records, state filings,

(14:50):
LLCs passed through entities through which the money flowed in
and to where it flowed out. Now, all the public
evidence that we have right now from the nonprofit and
apparatus at Deutsche Bank and others shows a lot of
money coming in from the world's billionaires for purposes completely
unknown to us, going out to Eastern European sex trafficking rings,
paying off all a lot a whole bunch of other people,

(15:13):
and being used for purposes that continue to remain unknown,
very likely for intelligence purposes that implicate multiple billionaires, very
famous people, prime ministers of Israel, all sorts of the
Pritzker family, the governor right now in Illinois, all of
these people are implicated and they're using it specifically to

(15:34):
fund a variety of different things, But that is not
an Epstein files. That's financial records that exist right now,
the irs. If anybody could pull our documentation right now
and look at everything that we filed ever as a business,
to show exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
The money coming in the money going out.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
The government has that, but people narrowly focus and they
make bombastic claims about the Black Book or whatever. It's like,
that's not I mean, yes, I want that release too,
But my point is is that there's an entire vast
apparatus that he was like sitting at the top of.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
But there's a whole lot of stuff out of there.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
So let's also not get over our skis and then,
you know, be satisfied if like, oh, they released the
Black Book, It's like, no, it goes so much deeper
than that. The question is why did Leon Black, a
man worth nine billion dollars, pay one hundred and seventy
million dollars for republic tax adfice from Jeffrey Epstein. That's
the question I want to know, And that's a much
bigger question than any so called client lists.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
Where do that money go for what reason?

Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know? And that's when you really start to you know,
I'm quoting the wire. When you start to follow the money,
you don't know where the fuck it's going to take you.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, so that's what I encourage people to do.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
How did he make his money?

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:38):
What happened to all the videos video recordings that we
know exists from both his Manhattan residents and the island, Like,
there are some really big unanswered questions that remain.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
And you know, one edited video with a portion missing
I don't think is going to put to bed. I
agree those persistent questions.

Speaker 6 (17:00):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Okay, let's get to immigration.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, So some really interesting polling just came out from Gallup,
and I would say at this point I would call
this poll an outlier, although it is consistent with a
trend in terms of public sentiment around immigration that we
have seen reflected in other polls as well. So let's
go ahead and put this up on the screen. According
to Gallup, we now have a huge search in the

(17:27):
number of people who say, Hey, actually I don't want
immigration decreased. I want it to stay the same, a
significant search also in those who say actually want it increased,
in a major decline in those who say they want
it decreased. So now the plurality of people say hey,
let's just keep things status quo at the present level.
But even more significant, we actually have a record breaking

(17:47):
number of people who say that immigration is a good
thing for this country today. So it has spiked up
to now seventy nine percent of the public who say
overall they think immigration is a good thing for the country.
It's worth noting this number has base has always actually
been above water. The lowest was near fifty percent. That

(18:09):
was in the year two thousand and two, is at
fifty two percent. But even as recently as you know,
twenty twenty four, when you had sort of like a
nator in support for immigration in this country was still
at sixty four percent. But you've got a huge increase
there to a record breaking number of seventy nine percent
who are like, you know what, on net, I think
immigrants are really a benefit to this country.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
They pulled a bunch.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Of other they've got, you know, you've got significant obviously
partisan divides with regards to immigration, but they pulled a
number of other questions, and the shifts are all in
the same direction, shifting towards more tolerance and support for immigration,
less tolerance and support. For example, hiring significantly more border
patrol agents. Those numbers declined by seventeen percent. And it's

(18:50):
not a mystery to understand, Soger why this is going on.
People are seeing the reality of the Trump administration's immigration policy.
They're seeing these raids, including ice agents and like military
year and you know, marching down suburban streets. They're riding
on horseback through a park. They're seeing alligator Alcatraz, They're
seeing seacot, the lack of due process. They're seeing the

(19:10):
distance between the rhetoric of hey, we're going to be
targeting the criminals to the reality of no, actually, we're
going to be going to the home depot, going to
the seven to eleven, et cetera. And it has caused
a significant, I think you can say at this point
backlash to the Trump administration's direction.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, I mean this is I warned about this in
the beginning in the Trump administration. The laws of thermostatic
public opinion. There's probably no better issue than immigration. Whenever
Trump is in office the first time around, record support
for immigration, when Biden's in office, record low support for immigration.
Now right back to where it is, the question is
about solving consensus and to the extent that I think
that the Trump administration can be criticized the most it

(19:46):
is for shows, and it is for shows of force
compared to any sort of semblance of process and of stability.
I talked about this during la The reason people turned
against a Biden administration was the reality of eight to
ten million people who floate illegally into our country in
an insane process. It was chaotic, and so the promise

(20:07):
was We're going to solve the chaos. And on the border,
it's empirically true they have I mean, their border crossings
are basically zero right now, and so in a way
they're almost benefiting from the success of the problem that
they were truly elected to solve immediately. On border, then
it's a common question of enforcement and or deportation. So
it's one thing to have deportation or increase in the
ice budget of going after criminals, increasing investigation. It's another

(20:31):
to send you know, active duty US Marines the streets
of Los Angeles. It's another to have alligator Alcatraz. And
then even on the question of Alcatraz, it's like one
of those questions of specifically to emphasize like the alligators
there and the vibe of it. I understand tactically why
they're doing it, which is the truth is that no
matter how much money you spend, deporting twenty to thirty

(20:52):
million people is like it would cost hundreds of billions
of dollars. A lot of it is about self deportation.
They have succeeded. Over a million people have steff deported
in the last six months, at least rough estimate from
the government figures.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
I'm not sure if we can trust.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
That per se, but what we are watching is the
thermostatic public opinion in effect. So I guess at this
point here's my advice to Democrats. Don't overread what these
things actually mean. Last time around, they're like, see, the
public is with us, and that means we shouldn't enforce
border laws at all.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Eight to ten million people is good.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
We need to decriminalize border crossings, free health care for
illegals and all of this.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
You guys have your.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Moment at this point, and you need to kind of
settle on like what the status quo going forward should
look like. And I think ultimately the failure of the
last multiple administrations on immigration is either punting things for
amnesty while not having a enforcement, basically allowing rage to
bubble up around the issue. I think that Trump administration, unfortunately,

(21:48):
has just decided, you know, for these big headline grabbing
things as opposed to actually trying to come to sort
of consensus, you know, around this, and so it is
now a live ball an issue also which they've seeded
so much ground on not just with Seacott, but by
turning it also into an Israel issue, which actually makes it,
in my opinion, much worse for them because it makes

(22:09):
it seem capricious to the ends of their own individual
priorities and not about America, because it's not just about.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
The illegals here.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
We're talking about the mahmun Khalil case, we're talking about
the oz Turk case. We're also talking about foreigners being
detained for having memes on their phone when entering the
United States under tourism visa that that, you know, the
totality of that comes down to, like, oh, hold on
a second, we.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Asked for law.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
I mean, if you look at the rhetoric, it was
law and order, and I think that what we've had
right now it just strays far away from that. To
the public and specifically the Independent mind, it makes it very,
very difficult. So I actually think this is a democratic
issue now where you guys need to.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Solve it for yourselves.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
And I'm curious to see what, like what ground you know,
that they end up with, for like, what what does
the next Democratic candidate actually say on the issue of immigration.
Can't be Kamala definitely can't be twenty nineteen, it can't
be twenty twenty four either. It's got to be something
authentic and kind of interesting to this moment.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, I think I think that's well said. And the
Israel part is interesting to me because I was seeing
the same thing. And it's not just that it makes
it seem like very clear this is just like an
ideological tool being used against you know, people the administration
doesn't like, or their ideological enemies. It also made it
feel very personal.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
It is personal, you know, quite literally, yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Because it was like, oh, you can't even write a
freaking op ed about this, and you're being kidnapped off
the streets.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
That's insane.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
And so when you had that combined at the very
same time with these guys, many of whom were completely
innocent kill mar Bergo Garcia, of course, who was wrongfully
deported with zero due process. It doesn't take a genius
either to figure out like, oh, if they get moon
jew process, Like they didn't even have to prove that
they were illegal immigrants, Like they could just ship down

(23:57):
anyone that they wanted to so very quickly out of
the gates. It became no longer about oh, some sort
of undefined, distant group of potential criminals. It became like, oh,
this is about us, This is about all of us.
And I think that really, you know, the kil Mar
Brego Garcia case really was a turning point in terms
of Trump administration numbers on this issue. And so while

(24:21):
you know, I think you're right, I think Democrats have
to figure out, you know, how do you have your
own semblance of like, Okay, this is going to be
there's going to be order, because I do think people
want to feel like, Okay, we know who's coming in
and there's some sort of a process here, and it
makes sense. But I do also think that there's lessons
for centrist here. I mean, number one, there was this
assumption that just like the immigration numbers are what they
are and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.
That's clearly not true. People change their minds based on

(24:44):
reality and what arguments are being presented to them, and
like how the issue is being framed, and you know
just what reality is at the time, So a public
opinion canon does change. Number one and number two, there
was a real reluctance from centrist in particular to fight
even on something like kil Maara Brego Garcia. Remember they
were like, you should just be talking about the price
of eggs. Well, now at this point, actually Trump's immigration

(25:08):
numbers have fallen off even more than his economic numbers
and are one of this sort of key sources of
dissatisfaction with the public. So that was a dead wrong analysis.
It was wrong morally in my opinion, but it was
also wrong politically, and people like Chris van Holland who
went down to El Salvador and you know the folks
who really made this and prioritize that issue.

Speaker 4 (25:28):
Again, it was the right moral thing.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
It was also the right political choice and has now
created a weakness for Trump on the issue where he
was previously strongest, which is a classic political tactic of like,
don't you go after the person's strength. That's actually the
best way to bring someone down. So I think you
had a combination of number one, this became very quickly like, oh,
this isn't about them, this is about us.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Number two.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
I do think the imagery that they are intentionally cultivating
to try to trigger these self deportations, you know, and
this is all being run by Steve Miller, that same
imagery of the ICE agents always being masked, of sometimes
not identifying themselves, not having warrants, the show of force
with like all of this fricking military gear, the literal

(26:13):
deployment of National guardsmen and Marines in the streets of
La the way that these shows of force have occurred
in just like you know, there was there's a video
of like ICE agents all kitted out marching down the
street in suburban Utah.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
People like what are the fuck?

Speaker 1 (26:28):
What the fuck is.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Going on here to arrest them? Like landscape or what
is going on? So I think that in addition to
then Seacott and the cruelty there Alligator Alcatraz and the like,
it's very intentional, the language choice and the decision to
sort of highlight the punitive nature of what is being
done here. I think when you put all of those
things together and that sense of like this is actually

(26:51):
creating more chaos in my community. I think those things
that have sort of like turned this issue as significantly
as I don't have.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Really agree I would, but also caution for a lot
of people is and this is always my problem with
the talk about immigration. They don't distinguish in the Gallop
poll between legal and illegal immigration. And I would be
willing to bet that if you actually looked at the
way that people feel about unchecked illegal migration, like what
was happening under the Biden administration, I'd be willing to
bet that those are still some pretty negative numbers. And
that's part of why for the Democrats in the future,

(27:20):
you guys need to figure out like how you can
find come to some sort of consensus on the issue.
The way that the Republicans got to where they are
right now is that for basically forty years they were
told amnesty is good, will do amnesty and eventual do
border security, and in that time, the illegal immigration population
explodes under Bush, under Obama, under Trump, and eventually they're like, no,

(27:41):
I'm done, and then Biden of course is like fire forever,
and so they don't even want to talk here about
amnesty until a massive deportation effort begins to happen on
the immigration side, and question for the Democrats, it's also
still remains like immigration numbers have fallen for Trump, it's
still one of his stronger issues. And you know, it's
not like you can't exactly get to a place where

(28:02):
you could declare a legitimate victory. I mean, look at
the border security numbers or the border crossing numbers from
the Biden administration compared.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Today, it's unbelievable in a way.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
They're almost a victim of their own success because now
people are looking at the deportation efforts in Los Angeles
or Utah or whatever, and there's no more chaos at
the border because it's a solved question. It's like, no,
you're staying in Mexico and you're not coming here. So
the question is they're around what the future looks like
for our policy and look on the Trump administration thing.
I generally my problem for them at least, you know,

(28:33):
as somebody was generally sympathetic, I like, I still support
mass deportation, but the way that they had done it
is such that their trust in all their information is zero.
After Seacott, YEA, because they said very specifically.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Maybe I'm a fool. I believe them.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
I was like, okay, I mean, these guys are gang members,
I said. The federal government for years has always validated
gang movement. This is not a difficult policy to be
able to figure out. Go ask anybody in the Bureau
of Prisons. There's an entire process. How do we valid
people who are in gangs? Maybe there's some questions around that,
but fine, Well, broadly, I was like, I don't think
we have a bunch of an issue. And then you
look at the stuff and you're like, okay, I mean
there's a lie. And then you look at the Israel

(29:09):
stuff and you're like, okay, well that's a lie too,
And so you start to get a credibility gap on
the issue such that you really, even when you are,
in my opinion, sometimes deporting people really deservely you need
to get the hell out of here.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Shouldn't even be here.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
But then you have an open conversation where people are
not even going to be able to trust some of
the facts that you're putting out. And so when you
have that out on the ether, I think it's very
very difficult for all of them. But I don't know
I mean, look for me, there's I had a conversation
in twenty sixteen with somebody who I really respect, and
he said, Donald Trump will be the worst thing that
ever happened to the immigration restriction movement.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (29:46):
And he was like, listen, guys, what's going to happen
is they're going to go full retard. They're going to
do it in the dumbest way possible, and they're going
to polarize the public against all of this. And I
was like, yeah, that maybe it's valid, but look at
all these other Republicans they're all pro amnesty and all
of that.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
And now I'm starting to think he might be right.
But I mean, it took years for I guess, like.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
What's happening about Sara?

Speaker 3 (30:06):
In some ways, yeah, you're right, it's like if you
you know, in some ways it's like maybe this was
the enemy of the cause all along. The counter for
what they would say is nobody else has the balls
to just do it. He's in his second term, he's
got three and a half more years to go. You
can get a lot of million people out of this
country and nobody else will do it.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
And then from that point forward it's a future question.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
I guess I could see both sides, but you know,
as somebody who generally like kind of likes to see
some sort of consensus on the issue, I don't see
it coming anytime.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Soon on this.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
In this particular poll, he only gets thirty five percent
approval of his handle.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Like you said, it's still a leading out.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Thirty five percent. And among independents you have enjoing the
math I'm bud at math sixty nine percent disapproval, forty
five percent of them strongly disapprove. So almost half of
Independence say they strongly disapprove, and then an additional twenty
four percent says they disapprove, but not strongly. And then

(30:59):
you only have twenty eight eight percent who approve this
again Independence that I'm talking about here, who say they approve.
So you know, it's obviously highly polarized. Republicans are very content,
very happy with the immigration policy. Democrats are eighty one
percent say they strongly disapprove. But that number from Independence
to me was really quite significant, and you know they're

(31:21):
they're not letting up. They just passed the one big
beautiful bill which is going to surge massive amounts of
resources into ice and so you know, to you're talking
about whatever we're seeing now. Times however much no, I
will say these organizations are often incompetent. I think they'll

(31:42):
have a hard time hiring and deploying, and you know,
a bunch of the money will just be basically like
stolen by private prison contractors who never really deliver what
they promise and other consultants, et cetera. So there will
be some discount on the money that's actually allocated, but
they're about to have all of the resources in the
world to do whatever they want. One of the things

(32:02):
that I think is contributing to these very grim numbers
on an issue that was previously a strength for Donald
Trump is the display of Alligate so called Alligator Alcatraz
down in Florida. You just had a couple of members
of Congress go and tour that facility, and there had
been previous reporting too. To back up the comments here
from We're going to play a little bit of Maxwell

(32:23):
Frost about the truly abhorrent conditions in which people are
being held within this facility. Let's go and take a
listen to a little bit of what he had to say.

Speaker 9 (32:32):
They opened the door. There was about six security guards
standing there kind of pushing us back, but we could
see in and we could hear everybody. And when those
doors open, you know, what I saw made my heart sink.
I saw thirty two people per cage, about six cages
in the one ten. I saw a lot of people,

(32:54):
young men who looked like me and people who are
my age. People were yelling, helped me, helped me. I
heard in the back someone say I'm a US citizen.
And as we were walking away, they started chanting, leave
it that, leave it that with that freedom, and I
looking into these cages, you could see, of course, it

(33:16):
was warm and hot. Within the tent. People were sweating people.
Some people had taken off their their their their the
top of their clothing because it was just so hot.
Some of them were drenched in sweat. The food we
saw is not enough food. They're being fed essentially a
small sandwich and a bag of chips, and not just that,

(33:38):
but the conditions outside. Of course, it's blazing hot, and
the fact that in the cage comes from the toilet
number one. Not everyone's gonna be able to drink as much
water as they'd like to because of that inconvenience, but
also it's gross and it's discussing, and this is where
people are being held.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
So we've seen reporting indicating and backing up what he's
saying there. We've seen reporting of worms in the food.
We've seen reporting of toilets that don't flush and sewage
on the floor, insect infestations and the like. And then
you ask yourself, soccer to your point, like, Okay, well,
who are they sending there? Because this is another instance
where we were told this is only for the worst

(34:18):
of the worst. Right, let's put this up on the screen.
Miami Herald has been doing some great work on this.
Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz actually have no criminal charges whatsoever.
So again, you know, similar to what we saw when
they sent immigrants to Guantanamo Bay, similar to what we
saw when they sent immigrants to Seacott. In spite of
the representation that this would be the worst of the worst,

(34:41):
in fact, you're sending many hundreds of hundreds of people
here who have no criminal charges in the United States whatsoever.
And you know, it's completely at odds with the portrayal
here and some of the people who have been picked up.
It's just like, oh, they you know, how to traffic
ticket something of that nature. And I think Maxwell Frost
in that particular side said that he heard people saying, Hey,

(35:03):
I'm a US citizen, and you know, it's very Maybe
maybe not, but it's just you can't trust this administration
to handle any of this in anything approaching an appropriate manner,
and they will just lie about the types of people
that they are ultimately picking up here.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, it is difficult. I mean I am very torn.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
I'm somebody who's I mean, I don't think it's you
would admit you know, you would admit this. I'm radical
on the issue. At the end of the day, I
don't believe in exclusion. If you came here illegally, I
think you should go. I mean, I'm fine with the
you know, prioritization and all of that.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
But yeah, I don't know. I personally just get very you.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Know, annoyed, Like I mean, do we have any of
that raid footage of the California thing that that's the
perfect example to me, Like you have a weed farm,
a weed farm which is still federally illegal, where you
have people who are illegal working there, nine of whom
are unaccompanied minors. Many of whom almost all are illegal,

(35:57):
so that people in California can get high and they
are working at like slave wages.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
It's like, how is that a reasonable system?

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Like why is the governor of California and other standing
up and saying, actually, this is all.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Totally above board. I'm like, no, this is disgusting. It's
bad for the kids.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
And then it's like the only time anybody expresses in
the outrage is whenever you send people who are being
exploited here back to where they came from.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
It's like the whole system is all fucked up.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
But I don't know, people only care when they're removed
the status quo seems like fine. I mean, I don't
think you support that, but you know, functionally, that's where
the Democratic Party was on the immigration issue. All this
slave labor is totally okay, all of this unchecked illegal migration.
You know, you have children basically working in these like
marijuana fields so that rich yuppies in Venice Beach can

(36:42):
get high. I'm like, I'm sorry, that's a gross like
order to the way that our whole society works. And
it's like we only care whenever somebody goes and like
you know, either takes care or arrests them. Some of
these people who have like serious criminal charges. That's where
you know, everyone's like, oh the cruelty of this is
there no cruelty? And the fact that these you know,
these kids are like working to like pick weed so

(37:03):
that people rich yuppies or whatever can get high. I
think that's cruel. I think it's bad. Why didn't nobody
say anything when they were being sent here across the border.
What kind of parents is sending their kid illegally across
the border to go work in a weed field? And
yet oh, these are an asylum and all, It's like, no,
I'm sorry, that's bullshit.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
I mean, nobody cared.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I don't really personally care what type of farm it is.
But I mean, here's the thing, though, Zabrea, is that
like you're expressing a view of caring about cruelty or
like human rights and dignity, And so when you see someone.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
Who's being exploited by.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
A system where you know, they're like, these farms are
probably our labor abuses hiring literal children, which is outrageous,
Like they should be prosecuted for that, no doubt about it.
But then you're taking the farm worker and you're shipping
them to, you know, a place like Alligator Alcatraz or
just like out of the country. No do process to

(37:54):
be abused and effectively tortured and held in completely inhumane conditions.
That is certainly not a reflection of any sort of
concern for humanity or dignity.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
I don't disagree per se.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
But it's like, look, it's a stop off on the
way for deportation. You're not supposed to be here. Like,
at the end of the day, you came here illegally.
There are consequences for breaking the law. And it's there's
also this idea that there's like a statue of limitations.
It's like, oh, but they've been here for years. It's like, okay,
I mean you came here, you shouldn't have been here.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
You're working illegally.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
Of course you're liable to consequences for your actions. It's like,
we take you an agency away from these.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
I think you have to anolge this, but I think
you have to acknowledge though. I mean, the point of
a place like Alligator Alcatraz is a demonstration of horror.
I mean that's what it is intended to do, and
that's the reason also for like you know, there's a
freaking like helicopter that landed in the field deliver farm ry,
you know, and they're coming in in these armored vehicles

(38:52):
and with you know, the military gear and all of
these sorts of things, Like it's meant to terrorize.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
That's that is the goal. It's meant to to terrorize.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
And so while I think it's you know, it's it's
certainly reasonable. Okay, well, how many people can you know,
can we absorb and what's the appropriate level?

Speaker 4 (39:08):
Like these are questions nations have to ask themselves.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
I don't think that many people find it acceptable that
someone whose only crime was which is not even you know,
a felony, but whatever, it's a civil infraction, but whose
only crime is crossing the border illegally and who has
been living, working, doing the right thing, et cetera, that
a punishment commeserate with that is being like put into
these horrific conditions in whether it's alligator alcatraze with other

(39:34):
detention facilities also have you know, quite.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Important, Wow, how do you deport somebody?

Speaker 4 (39:39):
I think, Okay, but that's a reasonable question.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
They're not going to leave, they don't leave.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
But actually, in reality, the number of people who do
show up for their court hearings is quite high.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Number one numbers already here.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
But number two.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
You know, another option is we have these things called
ankle bracelets where you are monitored and tracked and so
you doesn't require like insane cruelty. So you know, your
working assumption here is that they're trying to, like, in
a good faith way, and I don't even know if
you really believe this, but in a good faith way
deal with this logistical challenge. I'm not talking, and I

(40:15):
don't think that they are dealing in a good faith
way with this logistical challenge. I think there are many
other routes. Even if you wanted to accomplish the goal,
which is not a goal I agree with, that would
not entail mass institutionalized cruelty. But they intentionally choose the
mass institutionalized cruelty and don't look for any solution that
would you know, probably create an even more like even

(40:37):
more rapid outcome.

Speaker 4 (40:39):
But that does not include.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
That sort of horror, because the horror and the terror
like that is a core part of that.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
I don't just agree that it's part of a strategy
to get them to go. But it's also like, you know,
we do this for criminals too.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
You know, if you, for example, drunk driving is not
I believe so right, it's not a felony. Am I
think what am I getting wrong here? There's something about
I think it's there's some type of whatever.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Demeanor, like you'll lose your license, you.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Get thrown in the drunk tank. Now, like you get
to go to prison, do you know why you do?

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Or not prison?

Speaker 3 (41:05):
You get to go to jail for a couple of
days and you have, Yes, you eat a sandwich and
a bag of chips. That's like standard prison for food.
Why because drunk driving is bad you broke the law.
It's also I think it's not a class a felonyre
or whatever. There are all kinds of things for which
we have preemptive or we have punishment in which yes,
some of the treatment is part of the of the
course to trying to discourage to make sure that you

(41:26):
don't participate.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
In this illegal activity.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
And like that's what I'm saying is you come here illegally,
you take advantage of the United States, the openness of
the United States of America. You know, there's also this
talk about paying taxes total bullshit. No, it's like yes, absolutely, oh, yes, Oh,
vast numbers of thirty million illegals are filing their income taxes.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Yeah, exactly, No, No, no, there's a number.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
There is a significant tax contribution.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
From undogmated once again, like if you look at that
statistically compared to gen pop. And then also, even if
that is the case, you're not supposed to be here
at a principal level. And if we up all the
welfare and medicaid and hospital bills of all these people
in our society, I'd be willing to bet it still
in that negative on a social basis, just purely net in,
net out.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
You can make GDP arguments in other cases.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
But it just comes back to like, yes, there are
consequences for breaking the law. If you want to change
that law, be my guest, Biden Obama. All these people
had multiple Houses of Congress and they never did so
as long as the system is currently constituted, you're here illegally.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
There are consequences for doing that.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
Yes, I think the government in many cases has both
lied and gone too far under the Trump administration, But
the core goal is still one that I think most
people would want of some sort of order and the
fact that we have to know who you are here,
and yes that that if you came here illegally under
false pretenses, at the very least, the government needs to
check you out.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
We need to figure out what's going on.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
And my belief is you should be sent back to
where you came from and perhaps in the future we
can have some sort of reapply. Now many people will
disagree with me on that subject, but I just I
really don't know how you could have lived through the
Biden administration and the way that the permission structure came
for what eight to ten million people flow legally into
our country and not believe in a like a serious

(43:12):
effort to deal with this at a law and order level.
I really just don't know how we can still come
down to compassion and aside. It's like these people are
the biggest abusers of US asylum law in all of history.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
They're all economic migrants.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
They'll admit it if you ask them, and it's like
we're just supposed to let them in and give them
citizenship apparently because they quote want a better life.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
You can want a better life.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Wherever you are, there are people all over the world
who want a better life. Just because you have the
proximity to walk into the United States of America, you're
not special.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
I mean, Sager, obviously I disagree with you on the policy,
but I think what the punishment throughout history for that
has been has been getting deported back to your own country,
not to some random third country where you may be
in danger and don't speak the language and don't know
anyone and have never been. Not being disappeared, which is
what's happening without even any record into you know, someplace

(44:02):
that has been set up to intentionally like be cruel
and horrific and deny you basic human rights, not to
be disappeared into a foreign google slave labor gulug like Seacott,
the idea, Okay.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
You're here illegally, you're going to go.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
You know, the country is voted and they've decided, like
we only want a certain level of undocumented population. You're
going back to your home country. That's been the idea.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
The country won't take. Ultimately, yes, why do you think
they're going to be with because they don't want them back.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
But that's not even true thing to do. But that's
not even true in many instances. So for example, Venezuela,
there were ongoing to go shoot. Venezuela was accepting immigration
return like deportation returns flights into that country. So you know,
you cannot You also can't act like the Trump administration
has no power here to like make a deal and
do some diplomacy to be able to effectuate those returns.

(44:52):
But you know, just on the on the numbers of
how people feel about this now, and it's actually not
that different from how they felt about it when Trump
was running on mass deportation, seventy eight percent say that
they would like to see a pathway to citizenship for
immigrants who were living in the US illegally if they
meet certain requirements.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
So there is a there is a sort of very.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Widespread acceptance of immigration, of the being an important part
of the fabric and character of this nation, of the
sense of like, hey, if you're here and you did
the right thing, and you were working and you didn't
do anything wrong, like we should give you a chance
to become a citizen. That is a very popular and
widespread view. And like I was saying, that number has
gone up, but actually in twenty twenty four it was

(45:38):
still seventy percent.

Speaker 4 (45:39):
Who felt that way.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
So I think people are very on board with like, Okay,
you're a criminal, you're in a gang, whatever, Yes, let's
get you out of here. But the reason that there's
been such a backlash is when you go much beyond that,
it does start to rub up against people's sense of
actually what America is and certainly the way that they
want to see people treated by their government, whether their
citizen or not.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
I look, that's just going to be a disagreement. You
broke the law, you came here legally, just because you
happen to be here, and you know, allegedly didn't commit
a crime except for the first crime that you did
by entering our country, you get a free pass. It's
crazy to me, all right, It's an insult to the
millions of people who spent you know, people like my
parents and others who came here legally, spent thousands of
dollars of their own money, going through the process of
pain in the ass.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Ask anybody who's ever done it.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
And oh, because somebody gets to walk here and then
be basically low wage labor, they're allowed, you know, a
special process just by being here long enough it's preposterous.
I mean, and that's one of those Look, I'll keep
making that case forever up until the day they do
eventually pass amnesty. I don't think there's any basic fairness.
It is completely preferential treatment. It is just like I

(46:39):
don't know, we've debated this, you know, forever.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah, to continue, Well, one last news item I do
want to slip in here. On immigration. Let's put D
five up on the screen. There was a significant court
decision in California halting what they're describing as indiscriminate immigration
stops in LA and beyond. And basically what a judge
found here is that, you know a lot of credible
evidence that they are just basically racially profiling, you know,

(47:02):
roll up on the home depot, see some Latino like
Spanish speakers, and just arrest them. And we've got a
number of instances. One that was a part of this
case in particular, is actually a car wash and the
guy was like, I'm an American citizen. Here is my identification,
and they were like, you don't have your passport, so
that's not good enough, so we're arresting you. And they

(47:23):
had other instances too, where you know, I mean, this
seems to be the sort of approach of just like
we're going to go into places where we think that
undocumented immigrants congregate. We're going to check out whether you're
speaking Spanish and what your skin tone is, et cetera,
and we're going to arrest you if we have any
suspicion whatsoever, not based on anything other than basically like
ethnicity and the location that you are. And you have

(47:44):
a judge who says, yes, it's racial profile. You can't
do that. That's against the Fourth Amendment. Okay, So we're still,
you know, focused on the aftermath of those horrific floods
in Texas, which I actually don't think we've gotten to
hear anything from you on.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
I'm interested to get your take care as well.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
But we have a lot of questions about DOGE cuts
to National Weather Service and Noah, the sort of pushing
out of some key individuals who should have been involved
in warning community members. So you have those you know,
was the forecast, Could the forecast have been better if
you didn't have the DOGE cuts? Could the warnings have
been better if you didn't have the DOGE cuts? Those

(48:22):
questions on the front end. Now you have a question
now that you're into the recovery phase about FEMA's performance,
and let me go ahead and put Guys E two
up on the screen.

Speaker 9 (48:31):
Here.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
There's some significant reporting from the New York Times that
FEMA failed to answer thousands of calls from flood survivors.
And this is directly attributable to the fact that Christy
Noam at DHS, which runs FEMA, they allowed these call
center contracts to lapse. They were not extended, and so

(48:52):
you had a loss of personnel. It's personnel who would
ordinarily be the ones fielding these calls at this critical moment.
And so you've just been hit with a flood, You've
lost everything that you owned.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
You're trying to.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Figure out, Okay, how do I interface with the federal government,
et cetera. Most people, the way they go about trying
to navigate that bureaucracy in that paperwork is through this hotline,
these call centers, and they did not have nearly the
personnel in place to handle this flood of calls. In addition,
there was another program previously in place where FEMA would

(49:25):
actually go door to door to people who had been
impacted by any sort of natural disaster. Or flood in
this instance, and help them be able to organize their
paperwork and figure out what they could apply for, etc.
That program has also been cut. Christine home under fire
and trying to answer for this on the Sunday Shows.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to what she
had to say.

Speaker 10 (49:45):
A rule that you recently implemented. It reportedly requires that
every FEMA contract, every grant over one hundred thousand dollars
be personally approved by you.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
Now.

Speaker 10 (49:56):
Officials within the agency have told multiple news outlets that
the policy led to a slower deployment of some FEMA resources,
including urban search and rescue crews. So let me just
ask you, did your policy delay some of the critical
response resources on the ground.

Speaker 4 (50:13):
You know those claims have are absolutely false.

Speaker 11 (50:16):
Within just an hour or two after the flooding, we
had resources from the Department of Homeland Security there helping
those individuals in Texas.

Speaker 10 (50:24):
There were resources that were deployed, But I think the
question revolves around were all of the necessary resources deployed?
According to reports, multiple FEMA officials said, you didn't approve
the deployment of these FEMA search and rescue teams until Monday,
which was seventy two hours after the flood started.

Speaker 11 (50:42):
They were deployed immediately as soon as they were requested.

Speaker 10 (50:45):
And when was the request put in and when did
you approve it? And is this accurate that there's this
one hundred thousand dollars sign off, the one.

Speaker 11 (50:55):
Hundred thousand dollars sign office for every contract that goes
through the Department of Homeland Security, and that that's an
accountabilit it's an accountability on contracts that go forward.

Speaker 10 (51:03):
When did you get the request for these search and
rescue tees and other resources immediately?

Speaker 9 (51:09):
So immediate?

Speaker 4 (51:09):
What does everyone will tell you They didn't.

Speaker 11 (51:13):
Hill will say, well, this is what I think is
really unfortunate.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
And zager.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Trump of course had originally been really sort of ideologically
opposed to FEMA at all, wanted to send all disaster
relief to the States. In the wake of this, he
seems to be backing off of some of those more
maximust demands. But there's no question that FEMA and w
National Weather Service, they have been impacted by the Dotge cuts.
And you know, some very serious questions being raised here

(51:38):
about the impact that that had, specifically in the hourrificance.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
Roll, the tape.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
What did I say after the airplane disaster. I was like,
it's coming. I was like, you don't want to do it.
It's the last part of the government that you actually
want to cut Noah and the National Weather Service and
all these other places. But you know, eventually they just
forget their And you know, this also gets to a
basic issue of competence. And I've also been thinking about
this with regard to the Trump administration. Actually can't underestimate
how incompetent.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
They have acted. Just look at the last six months.
Elon's in charge.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Now he's not in charge with the tariffs on, wear
the tariffs off. You can't look at the current cabinet
and accept in some very few cases and be like, yeah,
you know they've got it, Like these are your guys
who are really up.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
To the job.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
I said that about Chrissy nome I remember, I was like,
this lady was a governor of South Dakota, which no
offense South Dkota, nobody even lives there.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
And now you're in.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Charge of the last largest law enforcement agency in the world.
What like, in what possible way are you qualified? I
don't think that she's handled herself good at all.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
That way.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
But that's my point, right, I think you know that
shit matters whenever you have a full blown flood by
the way, you know, I've been to a lot of
those areas. It's horrible. I mean, it's devastating. You know
what happened there, it's still like an open question. It's
the whole National Weather Service, you know, I've been reading
the TikTok about the alert went out, but it was
at four am, and there's open questions about the state agency.
And you know, there's some stuff here about the camp

(52:57):
what is it camp Mystic and how they're actually there.
Their permits kept getting delayed. It's a slow rolling disaster
actually if you kind of look at the background of
the way this all happens. So nobody's like directly attributed.
But let's not forget. I mean, it's July fourteenth, you
and I are talking right now, when's hurricane season.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
People, you know, do the math.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
You are only one disaster away from a catastrophic news cycle.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
For the administration.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
If there's even one way that the Weather Service and
all those people didn't do something, and there's an I mean,
remember Hurricane Sandy.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
That was a disaster.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
I mean it came out of nowhere, billions of dollars
in damage. FEMA shit the bet on that one too.
I can't even really think of the last time they
did a great job in response to a hurricane thing,
and that becomes like serious political issue which they can
directly trace back to DOGE. They have them literally bragging
about it on camera, and especially now with you know
now that the fact that the Doge project has basically

(53:51):
been a complete failure. They are they just opened themselves
up for any future airline disaster, any future storm, any
future hurricane, and then they don't have the best and
the brightest.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Who are in charging well.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
And to that point, they had someone who had emergency
management experience in place at FEMA. Originally they had a
guy named Cameron Hamilton. He was a Navy seal, former
combat medic, former director of the Emergency Medical Services Division
at the Department of Homeland Security. He got fired a
month ago because he dared to testify to Congress that.

Speaker 4 (54:23):
He thought FEMA should continue to exist.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
So he got fired and they put in his place
this guy named David Richardson, who there was all kinds
of reporting, so he has no background in this whatsoever.
There's all kinds of reporting about how he didn't know anything.
He was like, oh, when's hurricane season or what even
is hurricane season? I mean, just a complete matter of
war on which is why you haven't seen.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
Him at all.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
I mean, think about the like, you know, good job
Brownie situation. At least Brownie was out there trying to
do something. This guy, we don't even see him. He
doesn't even exist, because even this administration is smart enough
to realize, like, oh, it's going to be a train
wreck if we put this dude down there because he doesn't.

Speaker 4 (54:59):
Know shit about shit.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
So that's the guy who you have running FEMA. I mean, FEMA,
I'm sure has his problems. I have no doubt about
it that you could do a better job with disaster recovery,
but like you are just making it so much worse
and degrading its capabilities in ways that are blatantly obvious.
Not only do you have this call center fiasco, but
you also had some reporting, independent reporting as well about

(55:22):
how the number of FEMA staffers that were on the
ground were way next to nothing compared to what it
would have been ordinarily in previous circumstances. So yeah, I mean,
it's just this is an area where it felt like
during all the Doge chainsaw madness, they just thought that
nothing was ever going to matter. You know, it just
was this sense of unreality, like we can just flash

(55:45):
and burn wherever and whatever without any regard, like not
even trying to do it in an intelligent way, and
that there's never going to be any impact from that.
And this is like in the most horrific way, possibly
got one hundred and thirty plus dead now in one
hundred and sixty still missing reality you in the face
of like no, Actually, sometimes government functions are literally life
and death.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
Absolutely, I mean, I you know, it would didn't take
a genius or anybody even remotely familiar with everything, And
I think, yeah, I think those will continue to be
a noose around the neck of the administration for the
next four years. We're just you're just waiting one disaster.
I mean, look at the Air India crash that I
mean that came out of nowhere, you know, a Boeing
seven eighty seven and crashed in the middle of a city,
according to Pilot Air. I mean, imagine if something like

(56:26):
that happened here today. I literally on my way here
I saw a plane it was maybe like twenty thirty
feet above me as it was landing over Ronald Reagan,
and I was like, I don't know about this man.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
You know, no offense to Air India, but don't fly.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
Oh no, no offence to it's scary offence.

Speaker 9 (56:41):
Sue me.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
You're the worst airlines. Some of my nobody.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
Flying experiences are on Air wid Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Sorry, Air India. You guys got off your game. It's terrible.
Anybody flyers, I mean maybe if they have a deal.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
But honestly, at this point I'm not flying it anytime.
So anyways, thank you guys so much for watching. We
appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
I'll see you tomorrow

Speaker 6 (57:02):
At