March 31, 2025 • 53 mins
In this action-packed totally unclassified episode, Mario and Todd recap the last two crazy weeks in Congressman Mike Turner efforts to avoid his constituents. But he's unsuccessful when tracked down by his voters! Thwarted!Mike did disappear again only to materialize spending a lot of time carrying water for leaked war plans on a cell phone. Todd has the rundown on upcoming protests and actions you can hit the streets with over the next few weeks, and Mario talks about the philosophy of taking action and organizing as a way to survive overwhelming times.Links and Credits:Rose for Ohio's Mike Turner VideoMike Turner on ABC's This week, March 30, 2025Logo Design by the great Keith Greenstein"Leopards Ate my Face" by the amazing Franchesca Ramsey"S.O.S." by the astounding The Breeders
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:23):
Hello and welcome to Mike Turner is a
Terrible
Congressman.
The single chat edition.
I am one of your host, Mario
McElraine.
And, sitting next to me is our other
host,
Todd Gonzales.
Welcome, Todd. Hello.
(00:44):
Well, we have a lot to talk about
here on the the second episode back of
Mike Turner's Terrible Congressman.
Mike has been busy.
He has been busy both carrying water for
the Trump administration
on just about everything you could think of,
and we'll we'll cover a lot of that,
in the,
later parts in the episode.
(01:04):
But then he is also busy in the,
you know, making media appearances,
but is he is not busy
in, you know, meeting with constituents or allaying
their concerns as the entire federal government
crumbles around them. Social Security being cut, all
kinds of crazy things are happening.
And, he is pretty much content to let
(01:26):
it all happen as long as he, looks
good and keeps giving him to where he
elected, I suppose. Todd, any reactions or any
general comments before we jump into things?
No. It's just typical, you know, another recess
gone by, another no,
representative Turner in the public eye. So missing
Mike is still living strong. That's good. Yeah.
Missing Mike, the concept is very strong.
(01:48):
Mike Turner, the congressman,
not very strong.
So we are going to be covering,
you know, some of the
massive events that go beyond Mike Turner, like
the entire federal government has we were talking
about sort of crumbling around everybody.
We'll cover that. And then later, we're gonna
be talking about sort of what's been, happening
over the past, you know, few weeks as
(02:09):
well. Actually, we're gonna cover that first.
And then,
we're gonna talk about
what you can do
as a constituent
of,
Ohio 10
or as a constituent of any congressional district,
in the country, what you can do to
actually,
invoke change,
from where you are. Then we're gonna talk
(02:31):
about the signal chat. Right? Everyone's talking about
the signal chat where,
highly classified
war plans, and that's exactly what they were,
were,
transmitted and typed out on a group text
on an unclassified cell phone to a journalist,
and,
and how that is a not only highly
illegal, but how much it's being,
(02:52):
defended by the administration, including, as we're gonna
find out, Mike Turner.
And then we're gonna talk about,
anything's going on over the next two two
weeks that you can get involved in. And
then,
we're going to be doing some, information sharing
too about how to reach us,
through social media. Okay. So why don't we
get started right away here?
(03:12):
We are going to be talking about what's
been happening over the past couple weeks
with the district work week. Mike Turner was
supposed to be back doing stuff in his
district.
And Todd has all the,
well, events or nonevents that Mike Turner, was
involved in. Todd?
Yeah. So, basically,
(03:33):
like we said earlier, there was no public
events that anybody could find, and they looked
and they asked,
repeatedly,
and was told either they didn't know his
schedule at all or that they'd let us
know if, let people know they called, if
if he does plan to have something during
his district work week.
So some of the events that did happen,
where Turner was absent was Turner's chief of
(03:56):
staff, met with the Rotary Club, at their
meeting monthly meeting and went over, some things
with NATO.
And while he was in there speaking, some
of his constituents were outside expressing their, voices
and concerns,
highlighting issues with concerns like cuts,
potential
cuts and potential cuts by DOGE and the
administration
ranging from VA,
(04:17):
veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicaid, USAID,
the education department,
immigration. There was also a lot of signs
with support, for Ukraine and encouraging
him that thinking he supports, but wanting him
to push harder on on, what's going on
in Ukraine.
So,
of course, no Turner siding,
(04:37):
no chief of staff siding for those that
are outside from what we heard on the
ground, but they're out there making their voice
heard because they figured they'll show up if
representative Turner's not.
Next stop for Turner's chief of staff was
meeting with business owners. Again, no no representative
Turner's to be found there,
and the impact of NATO in a visit
coming, their concerns about the impact on their
(04:59):
small businesses.
And something interesting that came out,
what we heard was it was actually in
Dayton Daily News article and some other articles,
that there would be a protest zone. It
was discussed by the Dayton Police Department.
And they and the police department at the
time said that any activity outside of that
protest zone will be considered a riot. You
(05:20):
know, they will consider that those folks rioters.
So,
a lot of groups, as you can imagine,
human rights,
groups, activist groups are pushing back
on, the fact that they're, impinging on their
rights to assemble and to protest and considering
anybody outside that zone a riot. So there
are some updates probably by the time this
podcast comes out.
(05:40):
We've heard that there is some responses,
coming back about that, so we'll see if
there's, you know, any adjustments made.
And then in Beavercreek,
which is Greene County, Ohio, which is part
of our congressional district,
a large group of people gathered at 35
And Factory
to highlight a billboard that was displaying messages
asking Turner to. Things like save Social Security,
(06:03):
save Medicare,
stand up for veterans benefits, and
the one that hits home should hit home
hard is save Wright Patterson Air Force Base
jobs.
It was a mix of dems, independents, and
republicans from what we're hearing reporting
that were concerned. And it was pretty loud
crowd in Greene County. A lot of good
responses,
they said, from passerbyers,
(06:25):
actually, in all the events, that have happened
that are protest related.
Then,
next up, we heard the SEIU
eleven ninety nine union members protested outside Turner's
office,
urging him to support, again, Medicaid, Social Security,
their concerns of what they call unjust firing
(06:46):
of federal workers,
and the economic chaos. This is a quote.
The economic chaos caused by Trump's, tariffs.
The the union there,
eleven ninety nine,
they represent, like, a Tristate area, but, specifically,
this this, group was, I think, from Springfield,
and they represent workers in hospitals and nursing
homes. So they are very concerned about the
(07:07):
impact not only on their workers,
but the impact on those people, and their
services that are that are, those in for
those facilities.
And,
I'm gonna go kinda go out of order
here. Yesterday, there was, on one of, I
believe, the third
Tesla protest,
outside the Tesla office in Moraine here.
(07:27):
This this one yesterday, which was Saturday, March
29, was a nationwide,
protest, not only across The US, but also
globally,
protesting,
Tesla.
Large crowd of several hundred people,
lot of positive,
passerbyers,
and including, you know, again, wide range of
(07:48):
signs. This protest was specifically not aimed at,
like, the workers that work at Tesla. It's
aimed at Elon Musk and the administration and
the cuts and, basically,
the illegal,
activity that's happening, the chaotic activity that's happening
with in respect to Doge.
And last, but definitely not least, because our
veterans are very important,
(08:09):
a group of veterans and VA nurses,
both retired and active, went to Turner's office
to talk to staff about their concerns with
cuts to the VA staff and benefits.
And, also, they talked about the, probationary workers
that were,
basically, they were forced to hire them back,
but were told they're put on administrative leave
(08:29):
until further notice. They cannot come back to
work yet, which is very interesting and something
that they walked up and talked, to the
staff, to Turner's staff about their concerns,
about the VA and of the VA benefits.
And, you know, the Turner's Turner's, staffs, when
people have come to visit, they've been receptive,
taking notes, taking the information.
(08:51):
The the blaring thing here, and and it's
it's, you know, it's across the board, is
people are not hearing back. They're not getting
responses. They're not getting their questions answered.
You know, it's it's been pretty crickets and
barely any communication back.
But a few of them,
we heard, went to go get some coffee
(09:12):
at the Schuster
and ran into Turner,
sitting there having coffee.
So they approached him briefly,
and mentioned their concerns. So I believe we
have something we're gonna play for that. Right?
Yes. Let's play this is a video, and
we'll post it on our social medias, on
our Instagram and
Blue Sky and Threads accounts. We'll repost it,
(09:34):
from the person who took it. But this
is, on the podcast here, we'll just play
the audio.
In front of representative Mike Turner's office in
Downtown Dayton. I am here standing with VA
nurses and some of our veterans in Dayton
to demand
that Mike Turner stand up to Donald Trump
and Elon Musk and get their hands off
the VA because these people have served our
(09:56):
country, and we owe it to them that
they have health care, that they have
benefits.
Is this chaos
that DOJ is inflicting at the Veterans Administration
makes us scared?
We are scared for our livelihood. We I
am now a veteran.
I'm a disabled veteran,
retired veteran.
(10:22):
Because every day we wake up nervous, and
we're gonna lose this job, and we're we're
gonna lose our
livelihood. I'd really
love to hear from you if you, whether
it's not that in the paper or it's
helpful, then I'd really love to hear what
you have to say. Sure. Great. To our
veterans. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you to all
the veterans who showed up today to demand
that their VA benefits are maintained.
(10:43):
And also, I do wanna say thank you
to Mike Turner. And he did listen to
those of us who were there and asked
him to please
stand up for this. So we will be
hopeful that that's gonna happen. We'll see.
Okay. So it's a little hard to figure
out what's going on, like, from a little
bit from the audio. But can you, Todd,
can you describe what's happening in the video
there?
Yeah. So, basically,
(11:04):
the video shows,
kind of a start to finish. So so
they were,
videotaping,
showing that they're outside in front of Turner's
office.
They'd hoped to get, some press,
and and and so they instead did some
videos and of of of testimony, and then
they went up to the staffer's office or,
excuse me, Turner's office and talked to his
staff.
So they kinda you see some highlights of
(11:26):
of them in the front, them inside.
And then when they went to go get
coffee,
they videotaped the interaction of, brief interaction with
representative Turner.
So how would you describe Mike Turner's face
to those people listening on audio? Well, yeah,
if you see the clip,
it's it's he looks uncomfortable.
And from what I heard, no answers were
(11:48):
given,
really not a like, it wasn't a receptive
interaction. I mean, it wasn't a bad interaction
either based on audio,
but it wasn't anything,
that you would expect if you just, you
know, walked up to talk to your representative
and and had a few questions for them.
You would expect a a dialogue back and
forth even if it's a few minutes. Exactly.
(12:10):
It seemed like he was very nonresponsive
and just kind of, to me, it looked
like he was, like, sort of smirking,
like, oh, I've gotta endure this. But he
certainly didn't say anything. He didn't engage with
anybody or provide any answers and certainly not
any comfort for, again, the entire country crumbling
around them. Yes. Yes. And and I think
the theme we're hearing from people,
(12:30):
across the board, really, is just
we have questions. We have concerns.
We wanna be able to talk to our
representative directly.
You know, specifically,
the staff is,
the can answer from the staff is we
don't know.
We don't know.
So, basically,
your staff doesn't know,
and can't give responses or there's no responses
(12:53):
coming after,
then people are upset and want to know
will there be some kind of public meetings,
public forum, or they can engage with their
representative.
Right. They just want answers or at least
some kind of, like,
acknowledgement. Even in an acknowledgment of what's going
on and how hard it is for people
would be amazing, but that's not even happening
(13:14):
at that level.
So it is
pretty,
inexcusable
that Mike Turner is essentially silent,
on these, issues and,
apparently has no intention to ever address them,
you know, other than showing up on Sunday
national TV shows.
So great job by Rose in
(13:36):
assembling a quick strike team to,
talk to Mike and confront him because it's
very hard to find him.
And at you know, in his local coffee
shop, I guess. Is that where we're gonna
have to look for Mike? Yeah. I
mean,
it it it that that's the frustration, I
think, with folks. I mean and and I'm
talking about, you know, being fair like any
(13:57):
representative. If there's,
there's so much going on, so many questions
from people, and, there are some representatives that
are stepping up and doing across the nation.
They're doing these town halls or some kind
of meeting,
whether it's virtually, phone, in person,
and, you know, they're they're taking those questions.
I mean, you're an elected official elected by
(14:18):
the people.
You work for the people. So,
the fact that you're not responding,
to those people is an is is a
huge issue.
Especially for house members. Right? House is supposed
to be much more connected to the people,
a little different than senators, although they should,
of course, should be listening to the people
too, but it's especially important for house members
(14:40):
to be connected to their local communities and
taking their concerns,
up to Capitol Hill.
Thanks for that report, Todd. It's always good
to hear. There's so much going on, you
know, we've been, doing this just a few
weeks, and we're we're right now two weeks
between episodes, and it's really good to find
out what's been going on. So I wanted
to speaking of, you know, folks,
(15:01):
getting,
upset or, you know, trying to track all
Mike Turner about their concerns,
I mean, it is officially an emergency here
in The United States.
I mean, everyone listening to this podcast is
probably scared to some degree and wondering what
they should do.
And that's before this texting scandal, which is,
you know, just showing how above the law
(15:22):
people on the Trump administration really are.
So, you know, what I wanted to talk
about, just kinda step back a little bit,
is,
you know, our free fall into authoritarianism,
how that is going to,
affect all of us and what we need
to do about it or what we should
do about it,
both for our democracy, but also for people
(15:45):
just feeling like they're helpless. Federal workers, veterans,
just folks on the street, retired folks, everyone
is unsure of what's going on, and, it
is depressing.
Is probably the biggest thing I could say
is what the reaction might be.
And so we're actually here,
to the point where there's like a constitutional
(16:06):
emergency here in The United States. Like, even
the most,
skeptical experts are kind of saying about that
now,
that we're in this sort of, really critical
point where the courts
are, you know, being neutered,
and the legislative branch, which is currently rep
by Republicans is led by Republicans, I should
say, is going to be completely advocating its
(16:28):
responsibility to the Trump administration.
Now, of course, in two years, we have
the chance to flip the house,
and change some of that a little bit
back, very much like the first Trump administration.
But there's so much damage. There's so much
power grabbing going on that we're not sure
we have two years to to wait. So
every day counts right now, as courts try
to stop the Trump administration from operating unchecked
(16:50):
and consolidating its power, and everything seems to
be exploding at once.
What should you do? What should we do?
Should we hit the streets? Should we fax
our senators or congresspeople? Is that what it's
gonna take? Faxing? What if they gotta fax?
Maybe that would have shocked them to the
point where they actually would read it.
But what do we need to do to
stop this? I hear this from a lot
(17:11):
of people. Yeah.
One of my favorite shows right now is,
Max's,
The Pit, the the emergency room medical drama.
Todd, have you seen this show? No.
Well, it's just a typical, I guess, emergency
room medical drama.
It's entirely set in the emergency room. There's
it's just kind of like a bottle series
(17:32):
where they don't leave the emergency room. Like,
don't go to people's houses and see their
stories. It's literally that you're trapped in there
with them all day.
And they,
when there's like a big emergency in the
emergency room, I was thinking of the cells
of watching this the other day. They gather
the staff together,
and everyone is assigned a very specific job.
So So for instance, in the show, like,
(17:52):
there was like a mass shooting in the
area. And they were getting ready to get,
you know,
like, hundreds of people in with, like, these
very serious wounds. And this is a small
emergency room. They're trying to figure out how
to handle it all.
And so they gathered everyone together,
and they assigned everyone a very specific job,
and supplies were gathered and staged in the
(18:13):
right places, and everyone works on one aspect
that they're assigned to,
and they established a triage. So people come
in and then, you know, the patients would
get assigned here and there depending on exactly
what their needs were.
So,
suddenly, there's this procedure in place to handle
the coming crisis.
And suddenly,
something big and overwhelming has, like, a mass
(18:34):
shooting
just delusion,
you know, people with,
the staff there
with, just
so much, trauma and,
stress.
Now they're able to handle it like a
well oiled machine.
So this is I was thinking this is
a great metaphor for,
you know, absolutely stopping what is happening. We
(18:54):
need to organize.
We need to establish our team,
establish our triage
to save our democracy
for ourselves
and,
our kids and other people's kids too.
So who does what? You know, how do
we figure out, you know, how to establish,
an effective resistance?
(19:15):
So it takes time to assemble and organize
response. It's only been, like, a few months.
Right? And there's been a lot of responses
as you mentioned, Todd, that there's, you know,
there's been Tesla protests and almost daily visits
to Mike Turner,
protests all the time outside of his office.
But,
what should you do?
So maybe the best thing you could do
(19:35):
right now is the thing right in front
of you, your local scene. Right? You could
have a real effect on that. Your local
representative or your senator
or even your state congressional members are all
right there. You can,
interface with them. You can go up to
them, tell them how you're feeling,
write them, call them, do whatever it takes.
But concentrate on the thing that you can
(19:56):
control right in front of you. So that
means hitting the street sometimes if you're able
to.
That means gathering people together to take protests,
things like that.
Everyone's been put on alert
to put maximum effort now to push back
because
the earlier we push back on this, the
easier it's gonna be. It's gonna be much
harder once the power grab is complete
(20:17):
to push back on this and reverse, what
has been happening.
So I know a lot of people been
showing up to to protest in town halls.
They're putting pressure on, the Trump administration.
So as one person, you can actually do
something
that attracts another person.
Alright? And then another, and then pretty soon
you're sort of a gang, your own group,
(20:38):
and you're going to protest, and you're writing
letters. And first of all, the group is,
like, thousands of people or tens of thousands
of people. And at that point, it can't
be ignored even by people like Mike Turner
who are really good at hiding from their
constituents.
The media cover it. It makes them look
bad,
and that's when they start to pay attention.
When their image is tarnished or they feel
(20:58):
like they're unjustly,
being accused of something that they don't feel
like they're being,
they're responsible for or whatever it is, you
know. I'm not sure what goes on in
Republican congress people's heads, you know, as far
as, like, taking responsibility goes, to tell you
the truth. But at that point, when the
media covers it, then that's different because that's
gonna affect their elections.
And congresspeople are up for election every two
(21:19):
weeks or two years, of course. Boy, I
wish it was every two weeks. That would
be great.
So matter if they're a moderate,
or wearing,
you know, MAGA
hat that's, you know, a gallon size MAGA
hat that's giant,
you know, like a Jim Jordan type or
something like that or a Warren Davidson or
something like that,
(21:40):
that has a real effect. They have a
real problem on their hands when we get
visible.
So for this for us living in West
Central Ohio, in Ohio's Tenth Congressional District,
that person, that thing right in front of
you is Mike Turner, and that's what we
really hope to,
focus you toward. That's sort of the focus
of the podcast. So I wanted to kinda
take a step back, Todd, and just talk
(22:00):
about that just for a moment because,
even before a signal gate, which is really
important,
it did sort of distract a little bit
about what was going on as far as,
you know, the power grab goes. And, you
know, Trump issued
executive orders regarding elections
and also executive orders, regarding,
you know, defunding and also the congressional,
(22:22):
folks, like the the House Speaker Speaker of
the House was talking about, you know, defunding
federal judges they don't like. Yeah. Exactly. I
mean, this is just, like, the, not the
highlights, the lowlights, examples of of some of
the executive orders. I mean, I'm just gonna
give, like, titles. I'm not gonna go into
them, but, you could just kind of, I'm
sure people have heard. If not, look into
that. But there's things like rescinding, you know,
(22:45):
rescinding security clearances and access of classified information
for specific individuals. It's that's basically, like, if
you see the individuals as targeting of their
their enemy political enemies,
preventing there's one that sounds you know, they
kinda sound benign, but you look into it
deeper and preventing abuses of the legal system
and the federal courts. If you look in
that, it talks about unnecessary,
(23:06):
like, political attacks literally in that verbiage.
Then there's preserving and protecting the integrity of
America in elections, which is literally almost the
opposite of that potentially,
with some of the things in potentially in
there.
And there's exclusion.
The big one that came out recently that
(23:27):
has a lot of, unions up in arms
is exclusion for federal labor management relation programs.
So that's really got the the unions fired
up. And,
I'm trying to see.
There's also there's one called restoring truth and
sanity to American history.
But, basically
basically,
yeah. I mean, it's just it goes on
(23:48):
and on. And one one I wanted to
highlight, I think you wanna talk about is
is the in invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
So I think you had some some stuff
you wanna talk about that.
Alien Enemies Act.
Right. That is something that's not meant to
be applied
in anywhere near the way they want to
apply it here,
(24:08):
where,
they are just taking people who are, you
know, legally here
that have, you know, green cards, for instance,
or visas or, like, student visas
and, just deporting them
because,
they feel like it. Because they don't they
have maybe just showed up at a protest,
you know, peaceful protests,
(24:29):
or they have said something against the Trump
administration
about something,
and they just, dis first of all, they
disappear them.
They take them without any kind of due
process, and they ship them away usually immediately
to another state, which has been,
with the case in one particular student where
a student just, kinda showed up to a
protest.
(24:50):
They are able to identify the student, and
they whisked them away,
and then, deported them, you know, at some
point later. Now their family has no idea
where they are. They didn't do anything wrong.
But now, according to Marco Rubio, who spoke
about this recently,
we can just, you know, to deport these
people because they are, quote, unproductive,
(25:11):
not because they're part of an a gang
or any of illegal activity, which is what
their first claim was, but the fact that
they just spoke up or, quote, being unproductive,
they can just, whisk people away. And so,
first of all, that is, very Soviet.
It's, like, something you would see in the
Soviet state, like East Germany stuff.
(25:32):
Right? People, quote, unquote, something you would see
in Russia even today,
which I, don't doubt at all.
But then it's also something you would see
in, like, Nazi Germany, right, or any kind
of or North Korea or any other kind
of state like that or even China.
So,
first of all, that's horrendously wrong and un
American.
Second of all, kind of focusing things in
(25:55):
here
to Mike Turner in the Tenth District Of
Ohio.
There are, you know, plenty of colleges and
universities
in Mike's district
that have foreign students, and they are a
big section of the population,
of these universities, especially in graduate programs, for
instance.
(26:16):
So, these folks are here legally. They are,
you know, just fine upstanding students. They have
their, student visa, and they are just doing
their thing. But if they say the wrong
thing on social media
or if they, attend the campus protest, of
which there are many,
in which they have the right to do,
there's nothing wrong with that at all, you
know, that happens all the time,
(26:37):
then they can just be,
disappeared.
And I guess maybe at some point they'll
show up in their they'll show back at
their home country,
their families not know understanding what's going on
and where they are and their friends.
And so this is happening. This can happen.
There's no reason it can't happen at University
of Dayton,
at Wright State University,
(26:57):
and any other universities and colleges,
in the area that's under, Mike's district.
So Mike Turner, I think, needs to respond
to this particular
threat to democracy and his constituents
and the people in his district,
because this can't be allowed to happen. And
Mike Turner needs to answer for this particular
(27:18):
egregious policy interpretation,
of his party,
of which he is shows, like, no
limit to carrying water for us. We're gonna
also gonna find out later here in the
podcast.
Todd, any response to,
UD or bright state students being disappeared out
of Mike's district?
(27:38):
Yeah. I mean, the students are already you
know,
local local colleges are already railing from some
stuff that is being done here in our
state house. You know, s b one just
got signed by the governor. And so, there's
been students protesting,
different universities and colleges
across the state. So this just adds, like,
(27:59):
one more thing that they have to be
concerned about locally, especially, you know,
I I one of the things I love
about this area is there is diversity. You
know, we're Ohio. People will be surprised, but
they're especially in our universities.
So that's just another blow,
that could potentially affect affect us right here.
Todd, for those listeners who are not really,
(28:19):
keeping up or maybe just don't, are aware
of, like, s b one, could you give
us a quick rundown on s b one?
Yeah. So, basically,
s b one is is limiting
what can be taught at university. So that's
they're they're considering it under, you know, the
d I DEI ban, you know, the d
eliminating DEI, and,
(28:40):
it's also affecting,
it has a piece in it too that's
gonna affect, you know, bans faculty strikes.
So just like you were talking about before,
limiting people, limiting their voices,
to be heard, how teachers and universities would
be taught. So what's gonna happen is you're
already seeing stories of of,
you know, professors, you know, people moving to
Canada. It's like, I'm not gonna teach here
(29:01):
if I cannot teach how I wanna teach.
It's it's becoming,
you know, this theme of woke,
and they're taking the wokeness out of public
universities and community colleges. So, you know, that
is just gonna be a huge impact,
not only for the students, but also
us getting talent to and, professors and and
teachers in the state. Of course, at local
(29:21):
universities,
a lot of these grad students who are
from other countries
do carry a pretty big workload as far
as not only being students but also teaching.
They also teach classes. They assist teaching classes.
And if people are gonna feel safe here,
they're not gonna come. And suddenly, you have
a massive crisis on your hands For the
(29:42):
universities,
they can't conduct the classes anymore. They don't
have anyone to teach them.
Universities are very highly,
dependent on adjunct faculty and graduate students to
do a teaching and teaching assistant. And if
you eliminate that, that is gonna be a
huge crisis for the University of Dayton,
and Wright State and other universities in the
area.
(30:02):
I'm not sure and that's gonna that's going
to happen. I mean, this is gonna get
around. Folks aren't gonna send their, their their
kids here,
the or the, you know, the kids I
say the I say kids, but they're adults,
in most cases.
They're just not gonna come. Yeah. And so,
that's gonna be a huge crisis financially for
Ohio's universities,
(30:23):
including
Mike Turner's beloved University of Dayton. So, Mike
needs to get involved. Yeah. For sure. I
mean, one of the things it's like
the higher education institutions can't take positions on,
you know, air quote, controversial
beliefs or policies.
So anything like and not even just, like,
with DEI. So political con what's considered politically
(30:44):
controversial. So,
you know,
climate change, you know, electoral politics, foreign policy,
immigration policy, marriage, abortion. I mean, you name
it. You know? It's gonna be silencing the
voices of these
you know, you hear people talking about when
they also talk about the protest situation with
the students that are being arrested. It's like
college is the time where you're exploring and
(31:07):
learning and expressing. I mean, they're thriving on,
your differences and how to, you know, how
to work through that so that you can
be a productive adult and and go out
to the workforce and go out into your
communities. And this is where you kinda you
know, the
the the the evolution and the growing of
our students comes from to be able to
be free thinkers and and, you know, not
(31:27):
a hive mind, so to speak. So it
yeah. It's really troubling.
Yeah. Everything
that conservatives,
take pride in as far as this lead
in academia and research and science technology,
having the best university system in the world
by far,
that will come to an end.
Conservatives,
(31:48):
seem to be on a path to destroying
that. And maybe that's the idea. They wanna
rebuild,
American academia in their own image,
as frightening as that may be. But it's
certainly not gonna be, best or we're most
well respected or the most funded, and people
are just not gonna come there. That's they're
not there's no plan in place. This they're
just going on vibes. Right? Yeah. This is
(32:08):
what we believe on believe in,
and, this is what we're gonna do. And
we don't know what's gonna happen, but we're
gonna do it anyway. Yeah. There's no place
there's no way to run a country. No.
And it's almost like going back to her
emergency room,
example.
It's like, you know, anytime you're gonna do
surgery, you have a treatment plan, and you
meet with all the specialists, and you plan
(32:28):
it out, and you're very strategic about, you
know, what you're gonna do with that, you
know, if you're doing surgery or a treatment
plan. But this is literally, like, hack it
off. Hack everything off.
Blow it up and and, you know, throw
throw something at it. And it doesn't matter
if you're, you know, when they attack like,
even when they attack, like, radiation for cancer,
(32:49):
you're always, like, the least amount of damage
around that tumor,
not blast the whole body with radiation. You
know, it's so that's you know, I wanted
to go go back back at circle with
your medical example.
Right. And, you know, I guess even even
worse is, like, taking this to really kind
of, carrying this metaphor even farther. It's like,
(33:09):
if you have cancer, well, you should just
be killed. Right? That will eliminate your cancer
for sure. Yeah. And then in the worst
way, let me just, like, let you suffer
and, you know, just slowly suffer and, hemorrhage
it out. So I know it's a little
graphic. Sorry, podcasters.
But but but it it's it's just a
metaphor of, like, how,
(33:31):
how, you know, people's lives are being affected,
and it's gonna it's it's you know, a
lot of people get hurt, their livelihoods,
you know, and and, also, you know,
it's just kinda putting in a little dramatic
metaphor on what we're talking about what's going
on here.
So moving on, to our next topic, and
(33:51):
that is,
Mike Turner's group chat party
as we've been come to know it.
So, wow,
highly, highly
classified war plans. Not just classified, but highly,
highly classified war plans.
You know, this is the this is the
highest level of,
classification you could have pretty much in the
US government are, you know, active war plans
(34:14):
and military plans of active operations.
We're leaked, of course, into,
an unclassified chat. People are very focused that
it's in on signal, and that doesn't matter.
You know, it's there's encryption into it, but
that's just a that's just a sort of
a facade or, you know, a general prophylactic
against whatever.
This is unclassified,
(34:35):
device.
Is it just a chat? I mean, you
know, people say signal, but, you know, if
you have an iPhone, iMessage is encrypted.
It doesn't mean anything,
if you're adding people, first of all, on
unclassified device and then adding under the chat.
It doesn't matter if it's encrypted or not.
It can be, certainly compromised in that way.
And so that was leaked, to a journalist
by mistake who was in on the chat.
(34:56):
They added this person to the chat, Jeffrey
Goldberg,
and included the
times of air attacks were to take place,
in real time. And,
and, journalists got a hold of that information
and, you know, responsibly withheld it too
until,
it was claimed that this information was not
classified.
(35:17):
And then he released it saying, oh, I
guess I'm good to go. It's unclassified. And
then we all looked at this chat, and
we were horrified
that it contained exactly what he said it
contained. I guess what we're saying here in
the podcast and but but some people would
say was that, well, Mike Turner wasn't on
that chat. It's not his chat,
but he is certainly carrying all the water
for it, as it turns out, and defending
(35:38):
it.
And he has many opinions about, you know,
people breaching national security
in the past,
especially when it comes to trumped up stuff,
that was, you know, cleared by the FBI,
like, charges that were cleared by the FBI
in the case of Hillary Clinton's emails,
which, of course, he went bananas over.
Right. And he wanted Mike Turner wanted an
(35:59):
investigation
of the FBI investigation
that cleared
Hillary Clinton.
That's how far he went with that. He
was very not concerned
about
Donald Trump's,
classified information,
storage,
in his bathroom and refusing to give it
back to,
the federal government. But he was very concerned
(36:20):
about a couple, classified documents that were accidentally
found,
they found that, by Joe Biden had taken
back,
and were immediately returned, voluntarily. But he had
so he has lots of opinions. But, you
know, when it comes to illegal activity involving
national security, when it's Republicans, it is an
entirely different matter. He's willing to let everyone,
escape,
(36:41):
escape
responsibility.
So, his opinions are ridiculous,
but he certainly
has them.
You know, and Mike's Turner take on is
that it happens. And, you know, what what
you know, who know? We'll find out what
happened. It's very complicated. Right? It's
so it's Mike's group chat now. Right? He's
(37:01):
defending it, and so, we wanna put him
right in there because he is, responsible for,
being on the,
the house select, committee on intelligence.
And so he, of course, was demoted from
that.
But now he's he's still, you know, a
pretty, high,
member
of the controlling party of that committee.
(37:23):
And
so, he owns this, like, in a lot
of ways. And if he thinks the vets
and members of the military and civilians here
in Dayton who safeguard classified information every day
should accept this,
He really needs to come to a town
hall and tell them that.
Todd, do you have any reaction to I
mean, you my company. Hit the nail on
(37:43):
the head. I mean, yeah, he I
he does have, he's going on national TV,
being interviewed, like, I think the today said
it was exclusive, you know,
with Mike Turner in the topic of discussion,
in the last his last recent interviews has
been this group chat
and asking his opinion on,
(38:04):
one,
is it classified or not? And if it
was classified,
should they be held accountable?
And,
you know, in all questions asked, he's pretty
much sidestepped,
you know, basically sidestepped to get giving an
answer, saying, you know, well, it's gotta be
it's investigated.
So my thing is, I hope that once
(38:26):
it does get investigated, that he will answer
these questions on what he thinks about accountability,
when they find out, you know, more details
about what's going on. But right now, he's
just kinda sidestepping and not really answering.
He said you know, he did admit it
is, you know,
signal's not a good,
way to communicate. So he
(38:46):
kinda went into, you know, some of the
things he thinks vaguely need to be done
about signal not being authorized to use at
all.
But, really, that seems like it's kinda deflecting
from the true hardly hitting questions that they're
asking.
So
even though we do get to hear from
him on the Sunday morning
talk national talk shows, we still have yet
to hear from him locally
(39:07):
on all of these subjects,
to his in front of his constituents or,
even even in
even in some type of written form, there
has not been a lot of
responses back from like like you said earlier
from people contacting him as his office. Yeah.
I think you're referring to the last,
interview he gave on Sunday morning,
(39:29):
talk shows, which we're recording this on Sunday.
So, yeah, literally just, had this interview just
hours ago.
And, this is his appearance on this week
with, Martha Raditz
talking about the, the signal chat.
So why don't we actually play that whole
thing? So, here it is. And I'm joined
now by Republican congressman Mike Turner, the former
(39:50):
chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who has
already called this very concerning.
You heard what your colleagues on the hill
were saying.
Is it a big deal? Well, Martha, thank
you for having me. Well, first off, off,
this was a very successful operations, and there
were no consequences. The operation itself was not
impacted, but oversight is working.
The Senate Armed Services Committee on a bipartisan
(40:13):
basis requested an inspector general
investigation
into this matter, the use of signal
and to the issue of whether or not
classified information
was used, the source of the information in
the single discussion.
And that's very important because it goes to
really
the the heart of the source of the
information
and really the inconsistency
(40:34):
across
agencies
as to the use of signal and the
appropriateness of the use of signal. So so
let me ask you specifically what I asked
senator Warner. Do you think
this that some of those messages, particularly ones
PTACs had sent, were classified?
Well, clearly, the subject matter that's being discussed,
the status of ongoing
(40:55):
military operations,
should be,
and considered classified information. And the and it's
surprising to find it in an unclassified
manner. To find it in this way is
is surprising.
It is not, however,
war plans and the Atlantic and and Goldberg
But is that sort of a word game
(41:15):
in a way? They were attack plans. I
mean, they said when the he said when
the f eighteens would launch. So is that,
you know, war plans, attack plans? They were
really attack plans. They really were on discussions
of ongoing military operations. But in that, the
Atlantic and Goldberg
really did oversell. They really did lose, some
some credibility. But beyond that, that does go
to the issue of whether or not, you
(41:37):
know, the White House has said that there
was no, classified
information
that's
there because this information
really
has at its roots
a classified
content. So so you would say it is
classified?
I would say that the White House perhaps
is being legalistic and that the
the individuals that are discussing this information certainly
(41:59):
have the ability to declassify the information.
And as they made the decision to enter
into a declassified
conversation,
it was perhaps declassified. And that's something I
think Why it goes to HEGSIF?
Perhaps. And that goes to the issue of
the of perhaps what we're going to see
in this inspector general
investigation
that the Senate
(42:20):
Armed Services Committee has requested, they've actually asked
both the to look into the the use
of signal across agencies,
but also the source of this information.
Was this information when it was given to
the individuals
classified in its in its nature? How was
it given to them? And then what decisions
were made? Because it also goes to the
issue of judgment. Was it classified when it
(42:41):
was given to them? Did they declassify it?
But also, you know, what decisions were made?
Should it have been used to possible. So
you're saying it is possible
that Pete Texas, when he wrote those messages,
it was classified.
And then since he said, oh, it's not
classified in everyone else, it had been declassified.
(43:01):
It he would been within his authority. It's
something the inspector general will will look at.
It also goes to the issue of of
judgment. Should this have been
discussed in a signal
content? Now
the director of NSA in the in front
of the,
intelligence committee of the house in response to
representative Crow's question did indicate as you've asked
the question
(43:22):
that,
you know, signal is a vulnerable platform, not
both China and Russia,
have a compromise at times, a signal, and
their their questions as to whether or not
they would have access to the content, especially
with the number of people that are there.
Even if a journalist hadn't accidentally been placed
in it, to have that number of people
and with that type of conversation happening, you
(43:44):
do have to wonder whether or not the
conversation would be vulnerable. Do you think there
should be some accountability, and do you have
confidence in secretary Hegseth and Mike Waltz going
forward? Absolutely.
Absolutely. I think they're doing an excellent job.
They're incredibly important to our our national security.
And certainly, there were no there was no
impact on this operation. It was a great
operation, and I think they're doing an excellent
(44:04):
job.
I do think, though, that that both the
Armed Services Committee, intelligence committees are taking up
this issue, and I think that there will
be a review going forward as to whether
or not signal should be used and whether
that these types of conversations should occur. Very
quickly, do you think lives could have been
lost if if it had gotten into the
wrong hands, as senator Warner said? I think
this is one of the discussions that people
(44:25):
will have as to whether or not the
signal should be used. I do think that
it is a a platform that that can
be compromised and that perhaps these type of
discussions should not be used. I personally do
not use signal because of the fact that
people, when they get into that platform, have
a a an assumption of privacy that it
just does not provide. Thank you so much
for joining us this morning. Appreciate it.
(44:45):
That was not a good appearance by Mike
Turner for his party. That was,
in for the people of The United States
for that matter. Just downplaying everything, telling,
you know, he's very adamant about how good
a job,
Pete Hegseff is doing as, secretary of defense
and how good of a job Michael Rubio
is,
at,
(45:05):
as secretary of state, which are banana statements,
of course, for a variety of reasons.
But, that just makes everything sound, even less
credible.
Of course, it was classified information. It was
never declassified,
and certainly not in real time. It's not
a thing. You know, people can declassify things,
but you have to,
(45:25):
of course, put the paperwork through. It has
to go through an entire government process
and could take weeks, months, or years to
get something declassified.
But that did not happen. They at least
leaked it into a chat trying to come
off and talk talk about, like, retroactively whether
this information was,
declassified.
Like, at the moment, it left his,
(45:45):
you know, signal chat is not a thing
that happens.
If it was anyone else in the federal
government, whether it was a contractor or an
official or a civilian employee,
they would not only lose their jobs instantly.
They would be in jail,
especially if it was a revelation of operational,
details.
They would be in jail for the rest
(46:06):
of their lives.
You know, twenty year jail sentence easily,
and people have gone to jail for a
lot less for leaking information,
that was a lot less sensitive than that.
So,
hopefully, folks don't take any of that as,
like, some kind of explanation.
He's saying that, oh, there's gonna be an
investigation by a senate panel or,
(46:26):
in other officials. They have made it very
clear they will not investigate this. Pam Bondi
has come out the attorney general has come
out and said that she's not gonna investigate
it at all. And I highly doubt,
this will get investigated by any kind of
senate committee.
Not until maybe, you know, Democrats retake the
house or something like that will any true
investigation be done into this. I feel like
(46:48):
we lived all this through the first Trump
administration.
There's no explaining this, but Mark but Mike
is just determined to carry water for it.
And so it's his chat. This is his
thing. And, you know, he should remember,
like, there you know, because, you know, Wright
Patterson Air Force Base is here. Wright Patterson
Air Force Base has
a lot of very classified programs with a
(47:10):
lot of people working on them in a
variety of different,
you know,
different areas, especially in research and development, for
instance.
Of course, NASIC is here. The National,
Air Intelligence,
group is here as well as the, the
equivalent for the the Space Command Disintelligence Group
(47:33):
is here too.
They're all handling
intelligent
very highly classified information and, they do so
with care. And for him to take the
stance is not going to wash at all
with those folks who who know better. And
and to be frank, those are there was
those were his voters.
Those are people who had voted for him,
and they're gonna think twice about it, I
would imagine, the next time. Sorry for the
(47:54):
long winded response to that. Todd, do you
have any other response to Mike's video? No.
You we've I think we've covered it. I
mean, it's, it's disturbing,
you know, kind of the nonanswers
and the not holding, you know, the accountability
or saying that people need to be held
accountable,
and kinda sidestepping that. So, yeah, I think
you nailed it on that.
(48:15):
Well, let's talk about the, actions people can
take over the next two weeks. We talked
about, like, things people can do that are
right in front of them. These things are
happening, you know, in their local neighborhood. Todd,
do you have anything that people can go
and do? Yeah.
Specifically, you know, keep doing what you're doing.
Just like you said,
find your people.
Whatever it is you're able to do, you
have the time for or the skills for,
(48:37):
plug in,
to your to your local
activist group, your local, organization,
ACLU, the League of Women Voters.
There's a lot of good organizations across,
the Ohio and across the nation.
But specifically with, something that's coming up on
April 5, it's Saturday. There's a nationwide
protest,
(48:58):
hands off,
protests that are coming up. And and folks,
we have several,
locally here that you can that you can
participate in.
So, hopefully, you can make it out to
one of those. It's just that it's basically
the campaign. It's called the hands off campaign
and or hands off protest. And their basic
demand is, you know, take millionaires or billionaires,
(49:18):
excuse me, take over.
We don't want them in our government, in
the Trump administration doing that what they want
the will.
They're demanding,
the end to slashing of federal funds for
Medicaid, Social Security, other programs,
working people rely on, and they demand an
end to the tax, especially on immigrants,
trans people in other communities,
(49:38):
you know, minority communities.
Those are kind of their big three demands,
but, really, it covers the whole gamut of,
like, just hands off,
our rights.
And so that's going on April 5. And
then, also, the next time and and the
we've said this in previous podcast was
every so many weeks,
is you'll see on the congressional calendar that
(50:01):
your representative is supposed to be in the
area doing district work. So the next district
work week is April 14 through the eighteenth,
which is Monday through Friday, and then
March or excuse me, April.
So, basically, it's like two weeks long
of a district work week. So once again,
we will see if representative Turner will have
(50:21):
something
publicly. I'm sure there's gonna be events and
going on in constituency,
his constituents,
trying to reach out to him, but we
encourage all of you to call,
email,
go out, visit the office,
like you said, fax if you have to,
not just during that time, but leading up
(50:43):
to that time to see if we can
find and push for a,
getting a public some kind of public forum.
Right. And if you're not,
in District 10, if you're, you know, listening
to this and you're, in another district altogether,
either here in Ohio or somewhere else,
it's district work week for everybody
in the house. So, you can do this
(51:04):
for your local representative,
no matter where you are. They're all they
all the they all have the same schedule
as far as that goes. Yep. Well, thanks
for all of that,
great information, Todd, especially that big protest,
happening at the beginning of, April there. That's
a nationwide protest. Right? I think it's also
going in in DC as well. Yes. Well,
we have lots to do,
to,
(51:25):
fight what's going on here. We have a
lot of pressure yet to put on Mike
Turner. I think he has only begun to
hear from his constituents in coffee shops and
places he's gonna frequent,
as well as his office as well, where
wherever we can find him. So, Todd, thank
you so much for, our second episode here
and, with all the great information. We really
(51:45):
appreciate it.
Yeah. Great to be here. Unfortunately, I wish
it was under better circumstances, like I've said
before.
Well, thank you for tuning in to another
episode of Mike Turner is a Terrible Congressman.
Stay tuned in, between episodes to our social
media. We have a very active our main
active account in social media is on Blue
Sky.
So if you go to Blue Sky and
(52:06):
search for Mike Turner Ohio,
you'll find us right there. We also get,
his mail occasionally because people are tagging him,
so it's actually kind of fun for that
too.
We also are on threads.
Mike Turner is a terrible congress,
and that's the same
handle on Instagram as well. We do have
an Instagram account, Mike Turner is a Terrible
(52:26):
Congress.
Special thanks to Franchesca Ramsey for letting us
use her awesome
song,
The Leopards Eat My Face.
She has a great, Instagram page,
and we'll be back,
probably in two weeks or so. Maybe we'll
have something like a mini episode between in
case something develops.
So, make sure you check out the podcast.
(52:47):
We are on all major podcast directories.
That's Apple, Spotify,
iHeartRadio,
the Google Play Store, all of that. You
can find us find the podcast there. We'll
have, links in the show notes to all
those podcast directory. Thanks, and we'll see you
next time.
Hello and welcome to Mike Turner is a
Terrible
Congressman.
The single chat edition.
I am one of your host, Mario
McElraine.
And, sitting next to me is our other
host,
Todd Gonzales.
Welcome, Todd. Hello.
(00:44):
Well, we have a lot to talk about
here on the the second episode back of
Mike Turner's Terrible Congressman.
Mike has been busy.
He has been busy both carrying water for
the Trump administration
on just about everything you could think of,
and we'll we'll cover a lot of that,
in the,
later parts in the episode.
(01:04):
But then he is also busy in the,
you know, making media appearances,
but is he is not busy
in, you know, meeting with constituents or allaying
their concerns as the entire federal government
crumbles around them. Social Security being cut, all
kinds of crazy things are happening.
And, he is pretty much content to let
(01:26):
it all happen as long as he, looks
good and keeps giving him to where he
elected, I suppose. Todd, any reactions or any
general comments before we jump into things?
No. It's just typical, you know, another recess
gone by, another no,
representative Turner in the public eye. So missing
Mike is still living strong. That's good. Yeah.
Missing Mike, the concept is very strong.
(01:48):
Mike Turner, the congressman,
not very strong.
So we are going to be covering,
you know, some of the
massive events that go beyond Mike Turner, like
the entire federal government has we were talking
about sort of crumbling around everybody.
We'll cover that. And then later, we're gonna
be talking about sort of what's been, happening
over the past, you know, few weeks as
(02:09):
well. Actually, we're gonna cover that first.
And then,
we're gonna talk about
what you can do
as a constituent
of,
Ohio 10
or as a constituent of any congressional district,
in the country, what you can do to
actually,
invoke change,
from where you are. Then we're gonna talk
(02:31):
about the signal chat. Right? Everyone's talking about
the signal chat where,
highly classified
war plans, and that's exactly what they were,
were,
transmitted and typed out on a group text
on an unclassified cell phone to a journalist,
and,
and how that is a not only highly
illegal, but how much it's being,
(02:52):
defended by the administration, including, as we're gonna
find out, Mike Turner.
And then we're gonna talk about,
anything's going on over the next two two
weeks that you can get involved in. And
then,
we're going to be doing some, information sharing
too about how to reach us,
through social media. Okay. So why don't we
get started right away here?
(03:12):
We are going to be talking about what's
been happening over the past couple weeks
with the district work week. Mike Turner was
supposed to be back doing stuff in his
district.
And Todd has all the,
well, events or nonevents that Mike Turner, was
involved in. Todd?
Yeah. So, basically,
(03:33):
like we said earlier, there was no public
events that anybody could find, and they looked
and they asked,
repeatedly,
and was told either they didn't know his
schedule at all or that they'd let us
know if, let people know they called, if
if he does plan to have something during
his district work week.
So some of the events that did happen,
where Turner was absent was Turner's chief of
(03:56):
staff, met with the Rotary Club, at their
meeting monthly meeting and went over, some things
with NATO.
And while he was in there speaking, some
of his constituents were outside expressing their, voices
and concerns,
highlighting issues with concerns like cuts,
potential
cuts and potential cuts by DOGE and the
administration
ranging from VA,
(04:17):
veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicaid, USAID,
the education department,
immigration. There was also a lot of signs
with support, for Ukraine and encouraging
him that thinking he supports, but wanting him
to push harder on on, what's going on
in Ukraine.
So,
of course, no Turner siding,
(04:37):
no chief of staff siding for those that
are outside from what we heard on the
ground, but they're out there making their voice
heard because they figured they'll show up if
representative Turner's not.
Next stop for Turner's chief of staff was
meeting with business owners. Again, no no representative
Turner's to be found there,
and the impact of NATO in a visit
coming, their concerns about the impact on their
(04:59):
small businesses.
And something interesting that came out,
what we heard was it was actually in
Dayton Daily News article and some other articles,
that there would be a protest zone. It
was discussed by the Dayton Police Department.
And they and the police department at the
time said that any activity outside of that
protest zone will be considered a riot. You
(05:20):
know, they will consider that those folks rioters.
So,
a lot of groups, as you can imagine,
human rights,
groups, activist groups are pushing back
on, the fact that they're, impinging on their
rights to assemble and to protest and considering
anybody outside that zone a riot. So there
are some updates probably by the time this
podcast comes out.
(05:40):
We've heard that there is some responses,
coming back about that, so we'll see if
there's, you know, any adjustments made.
And then in Beavercreek,
which is Greene County, Ohio, which is part
of our congressional district,
a large group of people gathered at 35
And Factory
to highlight a billboard that was displaying messages
asking Turner to. Things like save Social Security,
(06:03):
save Medicare,
stand up for veterans benefits, and
the one that hits home should hit home
hard is save Wright Patterson Air Force Base
jobs.
It was a mix of dems, independents, and
republicans from what we're hearing reporting
that were concerned. And it was pretty loud
crowd in Greene County. A lot of good
responses,
they said, from passerbyers,
(06:25):
actually, in all the events, that have happened
that are protest related.
Then,
next up, we heard the SEIU
eleven ninety nine union members protested outside Turner's
office,
urging him to support, again, Medicaid, Social Security,
their concerns of what they call unjust firing
(06:46):
of federal workers,
and the economic chaos. This is a quote.
The economic chaos caused by Trump's, tariffs.
The the union there,
eleven ninety nine,
they represent, like, a Tristate area, but, specifically,
this this, group was, I think, from Springfield,
and they represent workers in hospitals and nursing
homes. So they are very concerned about the
(07:07):
impact not only on their workers,
but the impact on those people, and their
services that are that are, those in for
those facilities.
And,
I'm gonna go kinda go out of order
here. Yesterday, there was, on one of, I
believe, the third
Tesla protest,
outside the Tesla office in Moraine here.
(07:27):
This this one yesterday, which was Saturday, March
29, was a nationwide,
protest, not only across The US, but also
globally,
protesting,
Tesla.
Large crowd of several hundred people,
lot of positive,
passerbyers,
and including, you know, again, wide range of
(07:48):
signs. This protest was specifically not aimed at,
like, the workers that work at Tesla. It's
aimed at Elon Musk and the administration and
the cuts and, basically,
the illegal,
activity that's happening, the chaotic activity that's happening
with in respect to Doge.
And last, but definitely not least, because our
veterans are very important,
(08:09):
a group of veterans and VA nurses,
both retired and active, went to Turner's office
to talk to staff about their concerns with
cuts to the VA staff and benefits.
And, also, they talked about the, probationary workers
that were,
basically, they were forced to hire them back,
but were told they're put on administrative leave
(08:29):
until further notice. They cannot come back to
work yet, which is very interesting and something
that they walked up and talked, to the
staff, to Turner's staff about their concerns,
about the VA and of the VA benefits.
And, you know, the Turner's Turner's, staffs, when
people have come to visit, they've been receptive,
taking notes, taking the information.
(08:51):
The the blaring thing here, and and it's
it's, you know, it's across the board, is
people are not hearing back. They're not getting
responses. They're not getting their questions answered.
You know, it's it's been pretty crickets and
barely any communication back.
But a few of them,
we heard, went to go get some coffee
(09:12):
at the Schuster
and ran into Turner,
sitting there having coffee.
So they approached him briefly,
and mentioned their concerns. So I believe we
have something we're gonna play for that. Right?
Yes. Let's play this is a video, and
we'll post it on our social medias, on
our Instagram and
Blue Sky and Threads accounts. We'll repost it,
(09:34):
from the person who took it. But this
is, on the podcast here, we'll just play
the audio.
In front of representative Mike Turner's office in
Downtown Dayton. I am here standing with VA
nurses and some of our veterans in Dayton
to demand
that Mike Turner stand up to Donald Trump
and Elon Musk and get their hands off
the VA because these people have served our
(09:56):
country, and we owe it to them that
they have health care, that they have
benefits.
Is this chaos
that DOJ is inflicting at the Veterans Administration
makes us scared?
We are scared for our livelihood. We I
am now a veteran.
I'm a disabled veteran,
retired veteran.
(10:22):
Because every day we wake up nervous, and
we're gonna lose this job, and we're we're
gonna lose our
livelihood. I'd really
love to hear from you if you, whether
it's not that in the paper or it's
helpful, then I'd really love to hear what
you have to say. Sure. Great. To our
veterans. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you to all
the veterans who showed up today to demand
that their VA benefits are maintained.
(10:43):
And also, I do wanna say thank you
to Mike Turner. And he did listen to
those of us who were there and asked
him to please
stand up for this. So we will be
hopeful that that's gonna happen. We'll see.
Okay. So it's a little hard to figure
out what's going on, like, from a little
bit from the audio. But can you, Todd,
can you describe what's happening in the video
there?
Yeah. So, basically,
(11:04):
the video shows,
kind of a start to finish. So so
they were,
videotaping,
showing that they're outside in front of Turner's
office.
They'd hoped to get, some press,
and and and so they instead did some
videos and of of of testimony, and then
they went up to the staffer's office or,
excuse me, Turner's office and talked to his
staff.
So they kinda you see some highlights of
(11:26):
of them in the front, them inside.
And then when they went to go get
coffee,
they videotaped the interaction of, brief interaction with
representative Turner.
So how would you describe Mike Turner's face
to those people listening on audio? Well, yeah,
if you see the clip,
it's it's he looks uncomfortable.
And from what I heard, no answers were
(11:48):
given,
really not a like, it wasn't a receptive
interaction. I mean, it wasn't a bad interaction
either based on audio,
but it wasn't anything,
that you would expect if you just, you
know, walked up to talk to your representative
and and had a few questions for them.
You would expect a a dialogue back and
forth even if it's a few minutes. Exactly.
(12:10):
It seemed like he was very nonresponsive
and just kind of, to me, it looked
like he was, like, sort of smirking,
like, oh, I've gotta endure this. But he
certainly didn't say anything. He didn't engage with
anybody or provide any answers and certainly not
any comfort for, again, the entire country crumbling
around them. Yes. Yes. And and I think
the theme we're hearing from people,
(12:30):
across the board, really, is just
we have questions. We have concerns.
We wanna be able to talk to our
representative directly.
You know, specifically,
the staff is,
the can answer from the staff is we
don't know.
We don't know.
So, basically,
your staff doesn't know,
and can't give responses or there's no responses
(12:53):
coming after,
then people are upset and want to know
will there be some kind of public meetings,
public forum, or they can engage with their
representative.
Right. They just want answers or at least
some kind of, like,
acknowledgement. Even in an acknowledgment of what's going
on and how hard it is for people
would be amazing, but that's not even happening
(13:14):
at that level.
So it is
pretty,
inexcusable
that Mike Turner is essentially silent,
on these, issues and,
apparently has no intention to ever address them,
you know, other than showing up on Sunday
national TV shows.
So great job by Rose in
(13:36):
assembling a quick strike team to,
talk to Mike and confront him because it's
very hard to find him.
And at you know, in his local coffee
shop, I guess. Is that where we're gonna
have to look for Mike? Yeah. I
mean,
it it it that that's the frustration, I
think, with folks. I mean and and I'm
talking about, you know, being fair like any
(13:57):
representative. If there's,
there's so much going on, so many questions
from people, and, there are some representatives that
are stepping up and doing across the nation.
They're doing these town halls or some kind
of meeting,
whether it's virtually, phone, in person,
and, you know, they're they're taking those questions.
I mean, you're an elected official elected by
(14:18):
the people.
You work for the people. So,
the fact that you're not responding,
to those people is an is is a
huge issue.
Especially for house members. Right? House is supposed
to be much more connected to the people,
a little different than senators, although they should,
of course, should be listening to the people
too, but it's especially important for house members
(14:40):
to be connected to their local communities and
taking their concerns,
up to Capitol Hill.
Thanks for that report, Todd. It's always good
to hear. There's so much going on, you
know, we've been, doing this just a few
weeks, and we're we're right now two weeks
between episodes, and it's really good to find
out what's been going on. So I wanted
to speaking of, you know, folks,
(15:01):
getting,
upset or, you know, trying to track all
Mike Turner about their concerns,
I mean, it is officially an emergency here
in The United States.
I mean, everyone listening to this podcast is
probably scared to some degree and wondering what
they should do.
And that's before this texting scandal, which is,
you know, just showing how above the law
(15:22):
people on the Trump administration really are.
So, you know, what I wanted to talk
about, just kinda step back a little bit,
is,
you know, our free fall into authoritarianism,
how that is going to,
affect all of us and what we need
to do about it or what we should
do about it,
both for our democracy, but also for people
(15:45):
just feeling like they're helpless. Federal workers, veterans,
just folks on the street, retired folks, everyone
is unsure of what's going on, and, it
is depressing.
Is probably the biggest thing I could say
is what the reaction might be.
And so we're actually here,
to the point where there's like a constitutional
(16:06):
emergency here in The United States. Like, even
the most,
skeptical experts are kind of saying about that
now,
that we're in this sort of, really critical
point where the courts
are, you know, being neutered,
and the legislative branch, which is currently rep
by Republicans is led by Republicans, I should
say, is going to be completely advocating its
(16:28):
responsibility to the Trump administration.
Now, of course, in two years, we have
the chance to flip the house,
and change some of that a little bit
back, very much like the first Trump administration.
But there's so much damage. There's so much
power grabbing going on that we're not sure
we have two years to to wait. So
every day counts right now, as courts try
to stop the Trump administration from operating unchecked
(16:50):
and consolidating its power, and everything seems to
be exploding at once.
What should you do? What should we do?
Should we hit the streets? Should we fax
our senators or congresspeople? Is that what it's
gonna take? Faxing? What if they gotta fax?
Maybe that would have shocked them to the
point where they actually would read it.
But what do we need to do to
stop this? I hear this from a lot
(17:11):
of people. Yeah.
One of my favorite shows right now is,
Max's,
The Pit, the the emergency room medical drama.
Todd, have you seen this show? No.
Well, it's just a typical, I guess, emergency
room medical drama.
It's entirely set in the emergency room. There's
it's just kind of like a bottle series
(17:32):
where they don't leave the emergency room. Like,
don't go to people's houses and see their
stories. It's literally that you're trapped in there
with them all day.
And they,
when there's like a big emergency in the
emergency room, I was thinking of the cells
of watching this the other day. They gather
the staff together,
and everyone is assigned a very specific job.
So So for instance, in the show, like,
(17:52):
there was like a mass shooting in the
area. And they were getting ready to get,
you know,
like, hundreds of people in with, like, these
very serious wounds. And this is a small
emergency room. They're trying to figure out how
to handle it all.
And so they gathered everyone together,
and they assigned everyone a very specific job,
and supplies were gathered and staged in the
(18:13):
right places, and everyone works on one aspect
that they're assigned to,
and they established a triage. So people come
in and then, you know, the patients would
get assigned here and there depending on exactly
what their needs were.
So,
suddenly, there's this procedure in place to handle
the coming crisis.
And suddenly,
something big and overwhelming has, like, a mass
(18:34):
shooting
just delusion,
you know, people with,
the staff there
with, just
so much, trauma and,
stress.
Now they're able to handle it like a
well oiled machine.
So this is I was thinking this is
a great metaphor for,
you know, absolutely stopping what is happening. We
(18:54):
need to organize.
We need to establish our team,
establish our triage
to save our democracy
for ourselves
and,
our kids and other people's kids too.
So who does what? You know, how do
we figure out, you know, how to establish,
an effective resistance?
(19:15):
So it takes time to assemble and organize
response. It's only been, like, a few months.
Right? And there's been a lot of responses
as you mentioned, Todd, that there's, you know,
there's been Tesla protests and almost daily visits
to Mike Turner,
protests all the time outside of his office.
But,
what should you do?
So maybe the best thing you could do
(19:35):
right now is the thing right in front
of you, your local scene. Right? You could
have a real effect on that. Your local
representative or your senator
or even your state congressional members are all
right there. You can,
interface with them. You can go up to
them, tell them how you're feeling,
write them, call them, do whatever it takes.
But concentrate on the thing that you can
(19:56):
control right in front of you. So that
means hitting the street sometimes if you're able
to.
That means gathering people together to take protests,
things like that.
Everyone's been put on alert
to put maximum effort now to push back
because
the earlier we push back on this, the
easier it's gonna be. It's gonna be much
harder once the power grab is complete
(20:17):
to push back on this and reverse, what
has been happening.
So I know a lot of people been
showing up to to protest in town halls.
They're putting pressure on, the Trump administration.
So as one person, you can actually do
something
that attracts another person.
Alright? And then another, and then pretty soon
you're sort of a gang, your own group,
(20:38):
and you're going to protest, and you're writing
letters. And first of all, the group is,
like, thousands of people or tens of thousands
of people. And at that point, it can't
be ignored even by people like Mike Turner
who are really good at hiding from their
constituents.
The media cover it. It makes them look
bad,
and that's when they start to pay attention.
When their image is tarnished or they feel
(20:58):
like they're unjustly,
being accused of something that they don't feel
like they're being,
they're responsible for or whatever it is, you
know. I'm not sure what goes on in
Republican congress people's heads, you know, as far
as, like, taking responsibility goes, to tell you
the truth. But at that point, when the
media covers it, then that's different because that's
gonna affect their elections.
And congresspeople are up for election every two
(21:19):
weeks or two years, of course. Boy, I
wish it was every two weeks. That would
be great.
So matter if they're a moderate,
or wearing,
you know, MAGA
hat that's, you know, a gallon size MAGA
hat that's giant,
you know, like a Jim Jordan type or
something like that or a Warren Davidson or
something like that,
(21:40):
that has a real effect. They have a
real problem on their hands when we get
visible.
So for this for us living in West
Central Ohio, in Ohio's Tenth Congressional District,
that person, that thing right in front of
you is Mike Turner, and that's what we
really hope to,
focus you toward. That's sort of the focus
of the podcast. So I wanted to kinda
take a step back, Todd, and just talk
(22:00):
about that just for a moment because,
even before a signal gate, which is really
important,
it did sort of distract a little bit
about what was going on as far as,
you know, the power grab goes. And, you
know, Trump issued
executive orders regarding elections
and also executive orders, regarding,
you know, defunding and also the congressional,
(22:22):
folks, like the the House Speaker Speaker of
the House was talking about, you know, defunding
federal judges they don't like. Yeah. Exactly. I
mean, this is just, like, the, not the
highlights, the lowlights, examples of of some of
the executive orders. I mean, I'm just gonna
give, like, titles. I'm not gonna go into
them, but, you could just kind of, I'm
sure people have heard. If not, look into
that. But there's things like rescinding, you know,
(22:45):
rescinding security clearances and access of classified information
for specific individuals. It's that's basically, like, if
you see the individuals as targeting of their
their enemy political enemies,
preventing there's one that sounds you know, they
kinda sound benign, but you look into it
deeper and preventing abuses of the legal system
and the federal courts. If you look in
that, it talks about unnecessary,
(23:06):
like, political attacks literally in that verbiage.
Then there's preserving and protecting the integrity of
America in elections, which is literally almost the
opposite of that potentially,
with some of the things in potentially in
there.
And there's exclusion.
The big one that came out recently that
(23:27):
has a lot of, unions up in arms
is exclusion for federal labor management relation programs.
So that's really got the the unions fired
up. And,
I'm trying to see.
There's also there's one called restoring truth and
sanity to American history.
But, basically
basically,
yeah. I mean, it's just it goes on
(23:48):
and on. And one one I wanted to
highlight, I think you wanna talk about is
is the in invoking the Alien Enemies Act.
So I think you had some some stuff
you wanna talk about that.
Alien Enemies Act.
Right. That is something that's not meant to
be applied
in anywhere near the way they want to
apply it here,
(24:08):
where,
they are just taking people who are, you
know, legally here
that have, you know, green cards, for instance,
or visas or, like, student visas
and, just deporting them
because,
they feel like it. Because they don't they
have maybe just showed up at a protest,
you know, peaceful protests,
(24:29):
or they have said something against the Trump
administration
about something,
and they just, dis first of all, they
disappear them.
They take them without any kind of due
process, and they ship them away usually immediately
to another state, which has been,
with the case in one particular student where
a student just, kinda showed up to a
protest.
(24:50):
They are able to identify the student, and
they whisked them away,
and then, deported them, you know, at some
point later. Now their family has no idea
where they are. They didn't do anything wrong.
But now, according to Marco Rubio, who spoke
about this recently,
we can just, you know, to deport these
people because they are, quote, unproductive,
(25:11):
not because they're part of an a gang
or any of illegal activity, which is what
their first claim was, but the fact that
they just spoke up or, quote, being unproductive,
they can just, whisk people away. And so,
first of all, that is, very Soviet.
It's, like, something you would see in the
Soviet state, like East Germany stuff.
(25:32):
Right? People, quote, unquote, something you would see
in Russia even today,
which I, don't doubt at all.
But then it's also something you would see
in, like, Nazi Germany, right, or any kind
of or North Korea or any other kind
of state like that or even China.
So,
first of all, that's horrendously wrong and un
American.
Second of all, kind of focusing things in
(25:55):
here
to Mike Turner in the Tenth District Of
Ohio.
There are, you know, plenty of colleges and
universities
in Mike's district
that have foreign students, and they are a
big section of the population,
of these universities, especially in graduate programs, for
instance.
(26:16):
So, these folks are here legally. They are,
you know, just fine upstanding students. They have
their, student visa, and they are just doing
their thing. But if they say the wrong
thing on social media
or if they, attend the campus protest, of
which there are many,
in which they have the right to do,
there's nothing wrong with that at all, you
know, that happens all the time,
(26:37):
then they can just be,
disappeared.
And I guess maybe at some point they'll
show up in their they'll show back at
their home country,
their families not know understanding what's going on
and where they are and their friends.
And so this is happening. This can happen.
There's no reason it can't happen at University
of Dayton,
at Wright State University,
(26:57):
and any other universities and colleges,
in the area that's under, Mike's district.
So Mike Turner, I think, needs to respond
to this particular
threat to democracy and his constituents
and the people in his district,
because this can't be allowed to happen. And
Mike Turner needs to answer for this particular
(27:18):
egregious policy interpretation,
of his party,
of which he is shows, like, no
limit to carrying water for us. We're gonna
also gonna find out later here in the
podcast.
Todd, any response to,
UD or bright state students being disappeared out
of Mike's district?
(27:38):
Yeah. I mean, the students are already you
know,
local local colleges are already railing from some
stuff that is being done here in our
state house. You know, s b one just
got signed by the governor. And so, there's
been students protesting,
different universities and colleges
across the state. So this just adds, like,
(27:59):
one more thing that they have to be
concerned about locally, especially, you know,
I I one of the things I love
about this area is there is diversity. You
know, we're Ohio. People will be surprised, but
they're especially in our universities.
So that's just another blow,
that could potentially affect affect us right here.
Todd, for those listeners who are not really,
(28:19):
keeping up or maybe just don't, are aware
of, like, s b one, could you give
us a quick rundown on s b one?
Yeah. So, basically,
s b one is is limiting
what can be taught at university. So that's
they're they're considering it under, you know, the
d I DEI ban, you know, the d
eliminating DEI, and,
(28:40):
it's also affecting,
it has a piece in it too that's
gonna affect, you know, bans faculty strikes.
So just like you were talking about before,
limiting people, limiting their voices,
to be heard, how teachers and universities would
be taught. So what's gonna happen is you're
already seeing stories of of,
you know, professors, you know, people moving to
Canada. It's like, I'm not gonna teach here
(29:01):
if I cannot teach how I wanna teach.
It's it's becoming,
you know, this theme of woke,
and they're taking the wokeness out of public
universities and community colleges. So, you know, that
is just gonna be a huge impact,
not only for the students, but also
us getting talent to and, professors and and
teachers in the state. Of course, at local
(29:21):
universities,
a lot of these grad students who are
from other countries
do carry a pretty big workload as far
as not only being students but also teaching.
They also teach classes. They assist teaching classes.
And if people are gonna feel safe here,
they're not gonna come. And suddenly, you have
a massive crisis on your hands For the
(29:42):
universities,
they can't conduct the classes anymore. They don't
have anyone to teach them.
Universities are very highly,
dependent on adjunct faculty and graduate students to
do a teaching and teaching assistant. And if
you eliminate that, that is gonna be a
huge crisis for the University of Dayton,
and Wright State and other universities in the
area.
(30:02):
I'm not sure and that's gonna that's going
to happen. I mean, this is gonna get
around. Folks aren't gonna send their, their their
kids here,
the or the, you know, the kids I
say the I say kids, but they're adults,
in most cases.
They're just not gonna come. Yeah. And so,
that's gonna be a huge crisis financially for
Ohio's universities,
(30:23):
including
Mike Turner's beloved University of Dayton. So, Mike
needs to get involved. Yeah. For sure. I
mean, one of the things it's like
the higher education institutions can't take positions on,
you know, air quote, controversial
beliefs or policies.
So anything like and not even just, like,
with DEI. So political con what's considered politically
(30:44):
controversial. So,
you know,
climate change, you know, electoral politics, foreign policy,
immigration policy, marriage, abortion. I mean, you name
it. You know? It's gonna be silencing the
voices of these
you know, you hear people talking about when
they also talk about the protest situation with
the students that are being arrested. It's like
college is the time where you're exploring and
(31:07):
learning and expressing. I mean, they're thriving on,
your differences and how to, you know, how
to work through that so that you can
be a productive adult and and go out
to the workforce and go out into your
communities. And this is where you kinda you
know, the
the the the evolution and the growing of
our students comes from to be able to
be free thinkers and and, you know, not
(31:27):
a hive mind, so to speak. So it
yeah. It's really troubling.
Yeah. Everything
that conservatives,
take pride in as far as this lead
in academia and research and science technology,
having the best university system in the world
by far,
that will come to an end.
Conservatives,
(31:48):
seem to be on a path to destroying
that. And maybe that's the idea. They wanna
rebuild,
American academia in their own image,
as frightening as that may be. But it's
certainly not gonna be, best or we're most
well respected or the most funded, and people
are just not gonna come there. That's they're
not there's no plan in place. This they're
just going on vibes. Right? Yeah. This is
(32:08):
what we believe on believe in,
and, this is what we're gonna do. And
we don't know what's gonna happen, but we're
gonna do it anyway. Yeah. There's no place
there's no way to run a country. No.
And it's almost like going back to her
emergency room,
example.
It's like, you know, anytime you're gonna do
surgery, you have a treatment plan, and you
meet with all the specialists, and you plan
(32:28):
it out, and you're very strategic about, you
know, what you're gonna do with that, you
know, if you're doing surgery or a treatment
plan. But this is literally, like, hack it
off. Hack everything off.
Blow it up and and, you know, throw
throw something at it. And it doesn't matter
if you're, you know, when they attack like,
even when they attack, like, radiation for cancer,
(32:49):
you're always, like, the least amount of damage
around that tumor,
not blast the whole body with radiation. You
know, it's so that's you know, I wanted
to go go back back at circle with
your medical example.
Right. And, you know, I guess even even
worse is, like, taking this to really kind
of, carrying this metaphor even farther. It's like,
(33:09):
if you have cancer, well, you should just
be killed. Right? That will eliminate your cancer
for sure. Yeah. And then in the worst
way, let me just, like, let you suffer
and, you know, just slowly suffer and, hemorrhage
it out. So I know it's a little
graphic. Sorry, podcasters.
But but but it it's it's just a
metaphor of, like, how,
(33:31):
how, you know, people's lives are being affected,
and it's gonna it's it's you know, a
lot of people get hurt, their livelihoods,
you know, and and, also, you know,
it's just kinda putting in a little dramatic
metaphor on what we're talking about what's going
on here.
So moving on, to our next topic, and
(33:51):
that is,
Mike Turner's group chat party
as we've been come to know it.
So, wow,
highly, highly
classified war plans. Not just classified, but highly,
highly classified war plans.
You know, this is the this is the
highest level of,
classification you could have pretty much in the
US government are, you know, active war plans
(34:14):
and military plans of active operations.
We're leaked, of course, into,
an unclassified chat. People are very focused that
it's in on signal, and that doesn't matter.
You know, it's there's encryption into it, but
that's just a that's just a sort of
a facade or, you know, a general prophylactic
against whatever.
This is unclassified,
(34:35):
device.
Is it just a chat? I mean, you
know, people say signal, but, you know, if
you have an iPhone, iMessage is encrypted.
It doesn't mean anything,
if you're adding people, first of all, on
unclassified device and then adding under the chat.
It doesn't matter if it's encrypted or not.
It can be, certainly compromised in that way.
And so that was leaked, to a journalist
by mistake who was in on the chat.
(34:56):
They added this person to the chat, Jeffrey
Goldberg,
and included the
times of air attacks were to take place,
in real time. And,
and, journalists got a hold of that information
and, you know, responsibly withheld it too
until,
it was claimed that this information was not
classified.
(35:17):
And then he released it saying, oh, I
guess I'm good to go. It's unclassified. And
then we all looked at this chat, and
we were horrified
that it contained exactly what he said it
contained. I guess what we're saying here in
the podcast and but but some people would
say was that, well, Mike Turner wasn't on
that chat. It's not his chat,
but he is certainly carrying all the water
for it, as it turns out, and defending
(35:38):
it.
And he has many opinions about, you know,
people breaching national security
in the past,
especially when it comes to trumped up stuff,
that was, you know, cleared by the FBI,
like, charges that were cleared by the FBI
in the case of Hillary Clinton's emails,
which, of course, he went bananas over.
Right. And he wanted Mike Turner wanted an
(35:59):
investigation
of the FBI investigation
that cleared
Hillary Clinton.
That's how far he went with that. He
was very not concerned
about
Donald Trump's,
classified information,
storage,
in his bathroom and refusing to give it
back to,
the federal government. But he was very concerned
(36:20):
about a couple, classified documents that were accidentally
found,
they found that, by Joe Biden had taken
back,
and were immediately returned, voluntarily. But he had
so he has lots of opinions. But, you
know, when it comes to illegal activity involving
national security, when it's Republicans, it is an
entirely different matter. He's willing to let everyone,
escape,
(36:41):
escape
responsibility.
So, his opinions are ridiculous,
but he certainly
has them.
You know, and Mike's Turner take on is
that it happens. And, you know, what what
you know, who know? We'll find out what
happened. It's very complicated. Right? It's
so it's Mike's group chat now. Right? He's
(37:01):
defending it, and so, we wanna put him
right in there because he is, responsible for,
being on the,
the house select, committee on intelligence.
And so he, of course, was demoted from
that.
But now he's he's still, you know, a
pretty, high,
member
of the controlling party of that committee.
(37:23):
And
so, he owns this, like, in a lot
of ways. And if he thinks the vets
and members of the military and civilians here
in Dayton who safeguard classified information every day
should accept this,
He really needs to come to a town
hall and tell them that.
Todd, do you have any reaction to I
mean, you my company. Hit the nail on
(37:43):
the head. I mean, yeah, he I
he does have, he's going on national TV,
being interviewed, like, I think the today said
it was exclusive, you know,
with Mike Turner in the topic of discussion,
in the last his last recent interviews has
been this group chat
and asking his opinion on,
(38:04):
one,
is it classified or not? And if it
was classified,
should they be held accountable?
And,
you know, in all questions asked, he's pretty
much sidestepped,
you know, basically sidestepped to get giving an
answer, saying, you know, well, it's gotta be
it's investigated.
So my thing is, I hope that once
(38:26):
it does get investigated, that he will answer
these questions on what he thinks about accountability,
when they find out, you know, more details
about what's going on. But right now, he's
just kinda sidestepping and not really answering.
He said you know, he did admit it
is, you know,
signal's not a good,
way to communicate. So he
(38:46):
kinda went into, you know, some of the
things he thinks vaguely need to be done
about signal not being authorized to use at
all.
But, really, that seems like it's kinda deflecting
from the true hardly hitting questions that they're
asking.
So
even though we do get to hear from
him on the Sunday morning
talk national talk shows, we still have yet
to hear from him locally
(39:07):
on all of these subjects,
to his in front of his constituents or,
even even in
even in some type of written form, there
has not been a lot of
responses back from like like you said earlier
from people contacting him as his office. Yeah.
I think you're referring to the last,
interview he gave on Sunday morning,
(39:29):
talk shows, which we're recording this on Sunday.
So, yeah, literally just, had this interview just
hours ago.
And, this is his appearance on this week
with, Martha Raditz
talking about the, the signal chat.
So why don't we actually play that whole
thing? So, here it is. And I'm joined
now by Republican congressman Mike Turner, the former
(39:50):
chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who has
already called this very concerning.
You heard what your colleagues on the hill
were saying.
Is it a big deal? Well, Martha, thank
you for having me. Well, first off, off,
this was a very successful operations, and there
were no consequences. The operation itself was not
impacted, but oversight is working.
The Senate Armed Services Committee on a bipartisan
(40:13):
basis requested an inspector general
investigation
into this matter, the use of signal
and to the issue of whether or not
classified information
was used, the source of the information in
the single discussion.
And that's very important because it goes to
really
the the heart of the source of the
information
and really the inconsistency
(40:34):
across
agencies
as to the use of signal and the
appropriateness of the use of signal. So so
let me ask you specifically what I asked
senator Warner. Do you think
this that some of those messages, particularly ones
PTACs had sent, were classified?
Well, clearly, the subject matter that's being discussed,
the status of ongoing
(40:55):
military operations,
should be,
and considered classified information. And the and it's
surprising to find it in an unclassified
manner. To find it in this way is
is surprising.
It is not, however,
war plans and the Atlantic and and Goldberg
But is that sort of a word game
(41:15):
in a way? They were attack plans. I
mean, they said when the he said when
the f eighteens would launch. So is that,
you know, war plans, attack plans? They were
really attack plans. They really were on discussions
of ongoing military operations. But in that, the
Atlantic and Goldberg
really did oversell. They really did lose, some
some credibility. But beyond that, that does go
to the issue of whether or not, you
(41:37):
know, the White House has said that there
was no, classified
information
that's
there because this information
really
has at its roots
a classified
content. So so you would say it is
classified?
I would say that the White House perhaps
is being legalistic and that the
the individuals that are discussing this information certainly
(41:59):
have the ability to declassify the information.
And as they made the decision to enter
into a declassified
conversation,
it was perhaps declassified. And that's something I
think Why it goes to HEGSIF?
Perhaps. And that goes to the issue of
the of perhaps what we're going to see
in this inspector general
investigation
that the Senate
(42:20):
Armed Services Committee has requested, they've actually asked
both the to look into the the use
of signal across agencies,
but also the source of this information.
Was this information when it was given to
the individuals
classified in its in its nature? How was
it given to them? And then what decisions
were made? Because it also goes to the
issue of judgment. Was it classified when it
(42:41):
was given to them? Did they declassify it?
But also, you know, what decisions were made?
Should it have been used to possible. So
you're saying it is possible
that Pete Texas, when he wrote those messages,
it was classified.
And then since he said, oh, it's not
classified in everyone else, it had been declassified.
(43:01):
It he would been within his authority. It's
something the inspector general will will look at.
It also goes to the issue of of
judgment. Should this have been
discussed in a signal
content? Now
the director of NSA in the in front
of the,
intelligence committee of the house in response to
representative Crow's question did indicate as you've asked
the question
(43:22):
that,
you know, signal is a vulnerable platform, not
both China and Russia,
have a compromise at times, a signal, and
their their questions as to whether or not
they would have access to the content, especially
with the number of people that are there.
Even if a journalist hadn't accidentally been placed
in it, to have that number of people
and with that type of conversation happening, you
(43:44):
do have to wonder whether or not the
conversation would be vulnerable. Do you think there
should be some accountability, and do you have
confidence in secretary Hegseth and Mike Waltz going
forward? Absolutely.
Absolutely. I think they're doing an excellent job.
They're incredibly important to our our national security.
And certainly, there were no there was no
impact on this operation. It was a great
operation, and I think they're doing an excellent
(44:04):
job.
I do think, though, that that both the
Armed Services Committee, intelligence committees are taking up
this issue, and I think that there will
be a review going forward as to whether
or not signal should be used and whether
that these types of conversations should occur. Very
quickly, do you think lives could have been
lost if if it had gotten into the
wrong hands, as senator Warner said? I think
this is one of the discussions that people
(44:25):
will have as to whether or not the
signal should be used. I do think that
it is a a platform that that can
be compromised and that perhaps these type of
discussions should not be used. I personally do
not use signal because of the fact that
people, when they get into that platform, have
a a an assumption of privacy that it
just does not provide. Thank you so much
for joining us this morning. Appreciate it.
(44:45):
That was not a good appearance by Mike
Turner for his party. That was,
in for the people of The United States
for that matter. Just downplaying everything, telling,
you know, he's very adamant about how good
a job,
Pete Hegseff is doing as, secretary of defense
and how good of a job Michael Rubio
is,
at,
(45:05):
as secretary of state, which are banana statements,
of course, for a variety of reasons.
But, that just makes everything sound, even less
credible.
Of course, it was classified information. It was
never declassified,
and certainly not in real time. It's not
a thing. You know, people can declassify things,
but you have to,
(45:25):
of course, put the paperwork through. It has
to go through an entire government process
and could take weeks, months, or years to
get something declassified.
But that did not happen. They at least
leaked it into a chat trying to come
off and talk talk about, like, retroactively whether
this information was,
declassified.
Like, at the moment, it left his,
(45:45):
you know, signal chat is not a thing
that happens.
If it was anyone else in the federal
government, whether it was a contractor or an
official or a civilian employee,
they would not only lose their jobs instantly.
They would be in jail,
especially if it was a revelation of operational,
details.
They would be in jail for the rest
(46:06):
of their lives.
You know, twenty year jail sentence easily,
and people have gone to jail for a
lot less for leaking information,
that was a lot less sensitive than that.
So,
hopefully, folks don't take any of that as,
like, some kind of explanation.
He's saying that, oh, there's gonna be an
investigation by a senate panel or,
(46:26):
in other officials. They have made it very
clear they will not investigate this. Pam Bondi
has come out the attorney general has come
out and said that she's not gonna investigate
it at all. And I highly doubt,
this will get investigated by any kind of
senate committee.
Not until maybe, you know, Democrats retake the
house or something like that will any true
investigation be done into this. I feel like
(46:48):
we lived all this through the first Trump
administration.
There's no explaining this, but Mark but Mike
is just determined to carry water for it.
And so it's his chat. This is his
thing. And, you know, he should remember,
like, there you know, because, you know, Wright
Patterson Air Force Base is here. Wright Patterson
Air Force Base has
a lot of very classified programs with a
(47:10):
lot of people working on them in a
variety of different,
you know,
different areas, especially in research and development, for
instance.
Of course, NASIC is here. The National,
Air Intelligence,
group is here as well as the, the
equivalent for the the Space Command Disintelligence Group
(47:33):
is here too.
They're all handling
intelligent
very highly classified information and, they do so
with care. And for him to take the
stance is not going to wash at all
with those folks who who know better. And
and to be frank, those are there was
those were his voters.
Those are people who had voted for him,
and they're gonna think twice about it, I
would imagine, the next time. Sorry for the
(47:54):
long winded response to that. Todd, do you
have any other response to Mike's video? No.
You we've I think we've covered it. I
mean, it's, it's disturbing,
you know, kind of the nonanswers
and the not holding, you know, the accountability
or saying that people need to be held
accountable,
and kinda sidestepping that. So, yeah, I think
you nailed it on that.
(48:15):
Well, let's talk about the, actions people can
take over the next two weeks. We talked
about, like, things people can do that are
right in front of them. These things are
happening, you know, in their local neighborhood. Todd,
do you have anything that people can go
and do? Yeah.
Specifically, you know, keep doing what you're doing.
Just like you said,
find your people.
Whatever it is you're able to do, you
have the time for or the skills for,
(48:37):
plug in,
to your to your local
activist group, your local, organization,
ACLU, the League of Women Voters.
There's a lot of good organizations across,
the Ohio and across the nation.
But specifically with, something that's coming up on
April 5, it's Saturday. There's a nationwide
protest,
(48:58):
hands off,
protests that are coming up. And and folks,
we have several,
locally here that you can that you can
participate in.
So, hopefully, you can make it out to
one of those. It's just that it's basically
the campaign. It's called the hands off campaign
and or hands off protest. And their basic
demand is, you know, take millionaires or billionaires,
(49:18):
excuse me, take over.
We don't want them in our government, in
the Trump administration doing that what they want
the will.
They're demanding,
the end to slashing of federal funds for
Medicaid, Social Security, other programs,
working people rely on, and they demand an
end to the tax, especially on immigrants,
trans people in other communities,
(49:38):
you know, minority communities.
Those are kind of their big three demands,
but, really, it covers the whole gamut of,
like, just hands off,
our rights.
And so that's going on April 5. And
then, also, the next time and and the
we've said this in previous podcast was
every so many weeks,
is you'll see on the congressional calendar that
(50:01):
your representative is supposed to be in the
area doing district work. So the next district
work week is April 14 through the eighteenth,
which is Monday through Friday, and then
March or excuse me, April.
So, basically, it's like two weeks long
of a district work week. So once again,
we will see if representative Turner will have
(50:21):
something
publicly. I'm sure there's gonna be events and
going on in constituency,
his constituents,
trying to reach out to him, but we
encourage all of you to call,
email,
go out, visit the office,
like you said, fax if you have to,
not just during that time, but leading up
(50:43):
to that time to see if we can
find and push for a,
getting a public some kind of public forum.
Right. And if you're not,
in District 10, if you're, you know, listening
to this and you're, in another district altogether,
either here in Ohio or somewhere else,
it's district work week for everybody
in the house. So, you can do this
(51:04):
for your local representative,
no matter where you are. They're all they
all the they all have the same schedule
as far as that goes. Yep. Well, thanks
for all of that,
great information, Todd, especially that big protest,
happening at the beginning of, April there. That's
a nationwide protest. Right? I think it's also
going in in DC as well. Yes. Well,
we have lots to do,
to,
(51:25):
fight what's going on here. We have a
lot of pressure yet to put on Mike
Turner. I think he has only begun to
hear from his constituents in coffee shops and
places he's gonna frequent,
as well as his office as well, where
wherever we can find him. So, Todd, thank
you so much for, our second episode here
and, with all the great information. We really
(51:45):
appreciate it.
Yeah. Great to be here. Unfortunately, I wish
it was under better circumstances, like I've said
before.
Well, thank you for tuning in to another
episode of Mike Turner is a Terrible Congressman.
Stay tuned in, between episodes to our social
media. We have a very active our main
active account in social media is on Blue
Sky.
So if you go to Blue Sky and
(52:06):
search for Mike Turner Ohio,
you'll find us right there. We also get,
his mail occasionally because people are tagging him,
so it's actually kind of fun for that
too.
We also are on threads.
Mike Turner is a terrible congress,
and that's the same
handle on Instagram as well. We do have
an Instagram account, Mike Turner is a Terrible
(52:26):
Congress.
Special thanks to Franchesca Ramsey for letting us
use her awesome
song,
The Leopards Eat My Face.
She has a great, Instagram page,
and we'll be back,
probably in two weeks or so. Maybe we'll
have something like a mini episode between in
case something develops.
So, make sure you check out the podcast.
(52:47):
We are on all major podcast directories.
That's Apple, Spotify,
iHeartRadio,
the Google Play Store, all of that. You
can find us find the podcast there. We'll
have, links in the show notes to all
those podcast directory. Thanks, and we'll see you
next time.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com