Red, White & Bruised: Sinking Boats, Beefing w/Pop Stars, & Losing to a Cartoon Turtle

This week on Red, White & Bruised, host Robin breaks down another week of chaos from the Trump administration, from potential war crimes to beefing with pop stars to gutting protections for trans prisoners.

THE BIG STORY: Pete Hegseth's Boat Strike Scandal The Secretary of Defense is facing war crime allegations after reports surfaced that a second missile was fired at survivors of an initial strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. 87 people dead across 22 strikes. No evidence released. And Hegseth says he "fully supports" killing shipwrecked survivors. We dig into the Washington Post reporting, the congressional briefings, and why 75% of Americans want to see the receipts.

ALSO THIS WEEK:

• Sabrina Carpenter vs. The White House: The administration used her song for ICE deportation propaganda. She called it "evil and disgusting." The White House called her "stupid." Also, they pissed off Franklin the Turtle. Yes, the children's character. We discuss.
• Trump's National Security Strategy: Great Replacement Theory is now official U.S. foreign policy. Europe is the enemy. Russia is a partner. This is fine.
• January 6 Pipe Bomb Arrest: They finally caught the guy. Plot twist: he's a Trump supporter who believed the Big Lie.
• National Parks Go MAGA: Free admission on MLK Day and Juneteenth? Gone. Free admission on Trump's birthday? You bet.
• "Affordability" Is a Scam Now: Trump ran on lowering prices. Now he says the word "affordability" is a Democratic con job. The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking.
• Tennessee Special Election Results: A 13-point swing toward Democrats in a deep red district. What it means for 2026.
• Trump vs. Kaitlan Collins: Another day, another female journalist called "stupid and nasty."
• MTG's Revenge Tour: Marjorie Taylor Greene confirms Trump was "furious" about her support for releasing the Epstein files. "He said it was going to hurt people."
• DOJ Guts Trans Prison Protections: The administration quietly ordered inspectors to stop checking whether prisons protect trans inmates from rape. The cruelty is the point.
  
  
  
  Keywords/Tags: Trump administration, Pete Hegseth, war crimes, boat strikes, drug war, Caribbean, Sabrina Carpenter, ICE, deportation, Franklin the Turtle, National Security Strategy, Great Replacement Theory, January 6, pipe bombs, Brian Cole Jr., national parks, MLK Day, Juneteenth, Trump birthday, affordability, cost of living, inflation, Tennessee special election, Aftyn Behn, Kaitlan Collins, CNN, Marjorie Taylor Greene, MTG, Epstein files, DOJ, trans rights, LGBTQ, prison rape, PREA, political podcast, news podcast, left-leaning podcast, progressive politics, 2025 news, Trump 2025

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Sunny spaces, smiling faces, happy places. But every sunny space
holds a shadow. Behind every smile, our sharp teeth, and
every happy place has something sinister lurking just below the surface.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to We Saw the Devil, the podcast diving deep
into the chilling realms of true crime. Join your host
Robin as she unravels mysteries that have left investigators baffled
and armchair sleuth's obsessed. Be forewarned, Dear listener, We Saw
the Devil is not for the faint of heart. Our
unflinching exploration will take you to the darkest corners of

(00:41):
the psyche and through the unimaginable depths of human darkness
to unearth stark secrets. To the harsh light of day.
Nothing will be left untouched.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Are you ready? Are you sure?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
We Saw the Devil? Hello of One. You are listening
to Red White and Bruce. This is Robin Happy Sunday.
We made it. I don't know about y'all, but I
don't know if it's the weather, the news, what it is.
But I am just in a perpetual state of depletion

(01:15):
and exhaustion, no amount of sleep. I'm having a hard
time falling asleep. I'm having a hard time staying asleep
waking up. I'm over sleeping, and a lot of people
that I've spoken to are experiencing the same thing as well.
So I don't know about y'all, but it has been rough.
So this weekend I've just been trying to rest and

(01:35):
relax and not really do much of anything other than
hang out with the dogs and watch things. And so
far this weekend I have watched The Abandons while I
tried to watch The Abandons, the new show with Lena
Hetty and Jillian Anderson, which I'm in love with Lena Hetty.
Lena Hetty is an Irish immigrant who's over here and
she has kind of like a rat pack of kids

(01:57):
that she's just picked up along the way, and she
is more like an adoptive mother, can't have her own.
And then Julianne Anderson plays this incredibly like the richest
woman in town, and she and her family are at
odds with Lena Hetty, and y'all, I had such high hopes.
This show had such high hopes because the cast is incredible.
It is single handedly probably one of the worst things

(02:20):
I've seen in the past year, easily hands down. It's
almost an insult what they did to those women. I mean,
you had two amazing actresses and you completely waste them.
Any bad review that you read, trust it one percent,
and it's probably even actually worse than the reviewer is describing.
And then also, I did randomly try the Halo TV show.

(02:41):
Now everyone knows I'm a gamer, I've never played Halo
in my life, and the show is great. I seriously
sat on the couch this morning drinking coffee and watched
four episodes because it was just so good and not
at all what I was expecting. It almost gives do
you guys remember the original movie Stargate? It almost gives
like updated Stargate vibes, if that makes sense. But it's

(03:05):
really good, so I'm enjoying that. Obviously, anything that I
enjoy must be bad. So it was canceled after two seasons,
but I'm excited. I found something, you know, new that
I can waste time with. But let me know what
you guys are watching, what you're into if I'm missing
you know, a new true crime documentary or a new
show that you're loving, and let me know, because I'm
always looking for recommendations. Beyond that, y'all, I took a

(03:28):
one hundred milligram gummy about an hour ago. See, either
this episode is going to be incredibly insightful or I
am going to completely forget what country we were even
discussing halfway through. So either way, let's get some quick
housekeeping out of the way. If you're not already following
the show, it's on Facebook and Twitter at We Saw
the Devil and Instagram at We Saw the Devil podcast,

(03:49):
and there is also a Patreon if you want to
support the show. I don't know if you guys recall,
but I used to send out physical postcards depending on
what tier you were on, and basically it was kind
of like a hint for the Patreon only episode of
that month, and I'm actually picking that up again. So
if you are a Patreon patron and you're listening to this,
please check your account and make sure that your address

(04:11):
is fully updated if you want to receive a postcard,
because those are going to be going out soon and
I'm excited about this one. Also doing an AMA this month,
so if you are a Patreon patron, make sure you
walk in and check because I will be making a
post where you can drop any questions that you would
like for me to answer. I don't get super super
personal in the main feed, but the patrons are more

(04:31):
or less getting the unfiltered version. So ask me anything
you want, all right, So let's get into it first.
Let's talk about Pete Hegseth. Now he is the former
Fox News host turned a Secretary of Defense, or, as
he insists on calling himself now, the Secretary of War
because apparently we're just doing that now, we are just
renaming things to sound more ominous, very normal, much stable. Anyway,

(04:56):
So here is the sitch. Since early September, the Trump
administration has and conducting military strikes. Everyone knows this, right,
missile strikes. They've been doing this to boats in the
Caribbean and Eastern Pacific that they claim are carrying drugs,
you know, trash drugs, the drug mules, drug lords and
all that. And when I say military strikes, I mean
the United States military is literally blowing up boats with

(05:20):
missiles and killing everyone on board. The death toll as
of this recording right now is at least eighty seven
people across twenty two separate strikes. That's eighty seven human
beings obliterated by American military ordinance or or more officially,
what this administration is calling the war on drugs, because

(05:41):
we're just rolling out the oldies at this point, I guess.
But here's where it gets pretty fucked up. And I mean,
I say really, as if the preceding information wasn't already
a five alarm fire. The Washington Post broke a story
last week about the very first of these strikes. Now
that one happened on September second. According to their reporting,
after the initial missile hit the boat and killed most

(06:02):
of the people on board, there were survivors. Two people
had somehow survived the attack, and according to the Washington
Post sources, a second missile was then fired at these survivors.
Let me repeat that for those in the back. The
United States military fired a second missile specifically to kill
two people who had survived the initial strike and were

(06:26):
burned and clinging to their capsized boat. Now I'm not
a lawyer, you know. I do have a degree in
political science and I did get into law school that
I am just a mere podcast host who has very
strong opinions about true crime, music and the general state
of America. But even I know that killing shipwrecked survivors

(06:47):
is a war crime. The Pentagon's own Law of War
manual direct quote firing upon shipwreck survivors as an example
of a clearly illegal order that should be refused. It's
not ambiguous, it's not a gray area. It is explicitly,
specifically and unambiguously prohibited. And yet heg Seth initially denied everything.

(07:11):
He called the Washington Post story fake news and fabricated
inflammatory and derogatory reporting. Classic playbook, right, But then the
White House confirmed that yes, there was in fact a
second strike. They just denied that heg Seth himself ordered it. Instead,
they threw Admiral Frank everybody knows him as Mitch Bradley

(07:31):
under the proverbial bus. Bradley is the head of Special
Operations Command, and according to the Administration, he made the
decision to fire that second missile. Hegseth was apparently just
an innocent bystander who happened to be watching the whole
thing live on a screen and bragging about it on
Fox News afterwards, which, by the way, let's talk about that.

(07:52):
Right after the September second strike, Hegseth went on Fox
News and said and again I'm directly quoting. I watched
it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat,
and we knew exactly what they were doing. So he
watched it live. He knew exactly what was happening, but
somehow he had no idea about the second strike that
killed the survivors. So this past Thursday, Admiral Bradley briefed

(08:14):
congressional leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, and they did this
behind closed doors. They were shown the actual video of
the strikes. And this is where it gets really interesting
because reactions from lawmakers fell almost entirely along party lines.
I mean, go figure, professional shit bag. Tom Cotton, the
Republican from Arkansas, came out of that briefing and said

(08:35):
the strike was entirely lawful and needful. He claimed the
video showed two survivors trying to flip a boat that
was loaded with drugs bound for the United States. He
said they did this so that they could stay in
the fight. Meanwhile, Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on
the House Armed Services Committee, came out of the same
briefing and called Cotton's characterization and I quote, patently ridiculous.

(08:57):
Smith said that the boat appeared to be split in half,
and that there was no way they were turning this
boat back over. He said, the video is one of
the most troubling things I've seen during his time in Congress.
Same video, completely opposite interpretations, almost as if one side
is looking at evidence and the other side is looking
at how to justify evidence. But wait, there is more.
According to CNN's reporting, the video showed that there was

(09:19):
a forty eight minute gap guys, forty eight minute gap
between the first strike and the second, forty eight minutes,
during which time, according to multiple sources familiar with and
who have seen the video, the two survivors were waving overhead.
One source said this could be interpreted as either calling
for help or trying to wave off another strike. Either way,

(09:41):
they were clearly visible, they were clearly alive, and they
were clearly not a threat to anyone. And then they
were killed. Now here's another fun detail that got a
little less attention. According to Amiral Bradley's own briefing to Congress,
that boat wasn't even headed towards the United States. It
was headed for a country on the northeastern coat of
South America. So we are blowing up votes that aren't

(10:03):
even coming here, killing people we have no evidence who
are actually trafficking drugs, and then killing the survivors of
our strikes. This is the policy, and this is what
we are doing with military in the Caribbean. And through
all of this, Hegseth has been defiant. On Saturday, he
spoke at the Reagan National Defense Forum. He said, if

(10:24):
you're working for a designated terrorist organization and you bring
drugs to this country in a boat, we will find
you and we will sink you. Let there be no
doubt about it. And then regarding the second strike, he said,
I fully support that strike. I would have made the
same call myself. The wonderful Secretary of War is proud
of potentially ordering war crimes. Super normal, absolutely great. He

(10:47):
compared the drug traffickers to al Qaeda terrorists, which is
interesting rhetorical move considering, you know, al Qaeda actually attacked
the United States and killed you know, three thousand Americans
on September eleventh. Legal experts have been pointing out that
there are significant differences between the two situations, not least
of which is that we had actual evidence that al
Qaeda attacked US, whereas the Trump administration has provided zero

(11:10):
evidence that any of these boats actually contain drugs or
that the people in them were even affiliated with any
sort of narco terrorist organization. They just keep calling them
narco terrorists and expecting everyone to just believe it and say, okay, cool.
But there has been some bipartisan pushback, like Senator Roger Wicker,
the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, He's
pledged vigorous oversight. A few other Republicans have expressed concerns.

(11:35):
Senator Lindsey Graham, who is not exactly known for his
independence from Trump. Even lately, he even acknowledged that it
is a long held rule that survivors of a ship
attack are no longer combatants. But by and large, the
Republican response has been muted supportive mostly, but they do
currently have Senator Cotton out there essentially doing pr for

(11:58):
the strikes at the moment. And what about Trump? Has
he said anything? When asked if he would release the
video of the September second strike, he said, whatever they
have will certainly release, no problem. But then when Hegseth
was asked the same question this past Saturday, he refused
to commit to releasing it he said, we're reviewing it
right now, and in Washington speak, that basically means we're

(12:19):
trying to figure out if there's any way to release
this that doesn't make it look like we're committing horrible crimes.
In my opinion, I feel like if this is accurate,
you know, then we've crossed a huge line, not a
small one. Not a reasonable people can disagree on these points,
like this is a fundamental line about what the United
States military is allowed to do. We are executing people

(12:41):
without trial, without evidence, without due process of any kind.
We're just blowing them up and calling them terrorists afterward.
And it's happening in the open on the president's social media,
with videos, with press conferences, with speeches at prestigious defense forums.
This administration isn't even really hiding what they're doing. They're
bragging about it. Hegseth literally responded to a social media

(13:02):
post from a Turning Point USA spokesman who said he
wanted quote another Narco drug boat blown up and sent
to the bottom of the ocean. Hexeth responded to this
and say by saying, your wish is our command Andrew
just sunk another Narco boat. Your wish is our command,
like it's a fucking game, Like he's a magical genie
blowing up human beings, being a party trick to own

(13:25):
the Libs. And you know what, the pulling on this
is actually terrifying. A CBS News poll showed that fifty
three percent of Americans support using military force to attack
boats that it suspects are trying to bring drugs into
the US fifty three percent. And this is crucial. Seventy
five percent of Americans said the government needs to publicly

(13:46):
show its evidence that these are actually drug vessels. Even
half of Republicans said that. So Americans broadly do want evidence,
They want proof, They want the government to show its work.
The government has provided none of them, like zip zero,
not a The only evidence they've released is just grainy
videos of boats being blown up, no proof of drugs,

(14:07):
no proof of terrorists affiliations, just boats, explosions, and dead bodies.
And yet here we keep doing it because the president
says so. And I am not just talking about Trump here,
I am not just talking about this current administration because
if you guys recall Obama, Obama was the drone bomber king. Yes,

(14:27):
Obama got congressional approval for the majority of his strikes, apparently,
And so this is not just a Trump thing, this
is an American policy thing, and it is grotesque.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
I don't know what else to say about it. It's
one of those things where like the more you dig
into it, the worse it gets. We have a Secretary
of Defense in this country who is on record saying
that he would have ordered the killing of shipwreck survivors.
We have an admiral who actually did order it. We
have a president who is openly threatening to expand these
strikes to land targets insight Venezuela. Yes, Trump on Tuesday

(15:01):
said that we're going to start doing those strikes on
land too, and then he described it as much easier
than hitting boats. So we're moving from blowing up alleged
drug boats and international waters to what drone strikes inside
sovereign nations now like military operations on foreign soil. And
then where does it end. Where is this magical line
that this administration won't cross, because based on everything that

(15:23):
I've seen so far, I'm not sure there actually is one.
All right, So let's just do a quick palette cleanser
before we move on. And I use pallet cleanser loosely,
because this is still insane, but just in different flavor.
The White House social media team posted a propaganda video
this week celebrating ice raids. You know, just normal government content,
footage of immigration enforcement set to music. Except the music

(15:45):
this administration chose was Sabrina Carpenter's Juno and the caption
was a quote from the lyrics have you ever tried
this one?

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Bye?

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Bye? All? They thought that they were really cute with that,
Sabrina Carpenter, And I mean I'm saying this to her.
It came out swanging. She posted, this video is evil
and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music
to benefit your inhumane agenda. In the White House's response,
chefs Kiss, a Trump spokesperson, fire back and said, and

(16:15):
I'm quoting here, here's a short and sweet message for
Sabrina Carpenter. We won't apologize for deporting dangerous criminal, illegal murderers, rapists,
and pedophiles from our country. Anyone who would defend these
sick monsters must be stupid or is it slow? That's
the official White House calling a twenty five year old
pop star stupid and slow because she didn't want her

(16:37):
breakup song used as deportation propaganda. Very very normal, much professional,
so much cool. But not only Sabrina Carpenter. This administration
also managed to piss off the estate. I cannot believe
that I'm actually saying this out loud. This administration also
managed to piss off the estate of Franklin the Turtle

(16:58):
this week for and yes, I am talking about the
cartoon turtle, the one that's you know, for children. Pete
Hegseth posted a meme on x showing Franklin holding a
bazooka aimed at boats. The caption Franklin targets Narco terrorists. Now,
the Canadian publisher kids Can Press issued a statement condemning

(17:20):
the quote, denigrating violent and unauthorized use of Franklin's image,
noting that the character stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity. So,
just to recap this week so far, the Trump administration
beefed with both a pop star and a cartoon turtle
and lost both bites. That is fine by me. The
right wing and the conservatives can have Sidney Sweeney and

(17:42):
her whole I have good genes. I want to have
babies and cook for my man like and her entire
trad wife rebrand bullshit. They can have that because you know,
Sabrina Carpenter telling the White House to go fuck itself,
and a cartoon turtle with more moral clarity than Pete Hegseth, Like,
I know which side I'm picking. Also, this week, the

(18:02):
White House quietly released its new National Security strategy, and
fuck is it a doozy?

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Now?

Speaker 3 (18:08):
This is the official document that's supposed to lay out
America's foreign policy priorities, right like every administration is required
by law to produce one. Previous versions have been fairly standard,
you know, like identify threats, promote alliances, American interests, all
that jazz. This one, the one that just came out,
was written like a fucking xenophobic fortune cookie, y'all. The

(18:30):
big headline here is that the strategy explicitly targets Europe. Like, yes,
that Europe, you know, our oldest and most reliable allies.
This policy is targeting it basically as a civilizational basket
case on the verge of collapse. I'm not exaggerating. The
document says that Europe faces quote the stark prospect of

(18:51):
civilizational erasure due to immigration declining, birth rates and what
it describes as censorship of free speech and support Russian
of political opposition. The new policy accuses European governments of
loss of national identities and self confidence, and suggests quote
should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in

(19:12):
twenty years or less. Guys, this is the great replacement theory.
In an official government document signed by Donald Trump, the
document also calls for the US to cultivate resistance within
European nations, which is basically just a fancy way of
saying we're going to support far right parties that agree

(19:33):
with MAGA bullshit ideology. Meanwhile Russia, Russia is spared any criticism.
The strategy calls for strategic stability with Moscow and positions
the US not as a NATO ally to Europe, but
as a mediator between Russia and European states. So, just
to be clear, under this administration, our longstanding democratic allies

(19:57):
like France, Germany, uk all of them were calling them
more or less an existential threat to civilization and life
and liberty. But the insane authoritarian regime that invaded Ukraine
and is actively engaged in sabotage operations across Europe as
a whole, all European capitals. They're a potential partner for US.
Very normal, much sense that should concern every single American

(20:22):
and it's not. That is something that I have noticed
back when the war, when Russia most recently went into Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine have been at it for fucking decades.
But back when the war initially kicked off, the pro
Russia rhetoric started getting really high in the US from
the right wing. The right wing for whatever reason, started

(20:43):
proclaiming Putin as this great masculine leader who stood up
for Russia and took care of his people. And it's like,
what the fuck? Prison camps, people can't vote, the elections
are stolen, killing people, lots of assassinations, Like really, but
no American right wing has completely embraced Russia at this point.
And it's absolutely fucking mind blowing to me. In other

(21:05):
news this week, though, some good news, I guess. Remember
those pint bombs that were planted outside the RNC and
DNC headquarters back in twenty twenty one, the January fifth
and night before the Capital insurrection. That case remained unsolved
for almost five years, and they finally made an arrest,
and that was Brian Cole Junior. He was a thirty

(21:26):
year old from Woodbridge, Virginia. He was taken into He
was taken into custody Thursday night and charged with transportation
of an explosive device and attempted malicious destruction by means
of explosive materials. According to court documents, investigators linked Cole
to the bombs through bank records showing he purchased bomb
making materials in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty. There was

(21:48):
also cell phone data placing him near both RNC and
DNC when the bombs were planted. I guess not everyone
is smart enough to leave their personal electronic devices at
home when they're committing heinous crimes like this. Here, here's
the irony. Here. Cole told the FBI he believed the
twenty twenty election conspiracy theories and was supportive of Trump.
So for everyone who spent the last four years insisting

(22:10):
that the pipe bombs were some big false flag operation
like by the Democrats or the FBI or whatever, No,
turns out it was just a pissed off Trump supporter
who believed the lie that the election was stolen. So, surprise, surprise,
another far right winger being violent. The Trump administration, of course,
is taking full credit for the arrest, regardless of the

(22:30):
fact that they spent the last couple of years saying
that it was a Democrat. Attorney General Pam Bondi said
the investigation was languished until Director Patel and Deputy Director
Bengino came to the FBI Sure Jann And also that
is interesting because, according to sources who spoke to multiple outlets,
the breakthrough came actually came from evidence that was gathered

(22:51):
in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two. So what
that means is that the suspects could have been arrested
years ago, but sure Cash Battel gets the credit for this. Yes,
the lies are just astounding. I just too many to
talk about. The Department of Interior has announced changes to

(23:11):
the National Park Services free admission days starting in twenty
twenty six. You'll no longer get free emission on Martin
Luther King Junior Day or June teenth. Instead, you'll get
free emission on Donald Trump's birthday, which is June fourteenth.
I am not making this shit up, you guys. This
is real. The free days are now being called Resident

(23:34):
only patriotic fee free days, and this is also going
to include Theodore Roosevelt's birthday, because apparently we needed to
throw in one legitimate president to make the seem less
nakedly authoritarian. And then, in a separate but related memo,
the Interior Department ordered National Park staff to review all
gift shop items for DEI content and remove anything that

(23:57):
doesn't comply with the administration's anti day versity executive orders.
Like what in the absolute fuck you know? We're removing
free admission on days that celebrate the end of slavery
in the civil rights movement, We're replacing them with Donald
Trump's birthday, and then purging gift shop items about Harriet

(24:19):
Tubman and Jackie Robinson. Tell me, look me in the
fucking eye and tell me this is not about racism.
Tell me that this is not racist and just trying
to whitewash America. I dare you, absolutely disgusting. And then
in hypocrisy Land this week we have Donald Trump coming
out on a new tear saying that he's decided that

(24:41):
the word affordability is a democratic SiO. Now, I'm going
to play you in actual clip here in a second.
But first let me set this up, because the cognitive
dissonance here is just he. And when he ran, he
ran on the economy, you know, on prices, on how
expensive everything had gotten under Biden, eggs, guess groceries. He
talked about it constantly.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
You know.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
His closing argument was essentially, aren't you tired of paying
for so much? Aren't you tired of paying so much
for things? Vote for me and you won't be paying
for that highest shit anymore. And now that he's in office,
a political poll just showed that forty six percent of
Americans blame Trump for the affordability crisis. Twenty five percent

(25:22):
of his own voters say they blame him completely or
almost completely for cost of living problems. He's decided the
solution is not to make things more affordable. No, the
solution is to attack the concept of affordability itself. Roll
the tape, and what you're going to hear is old
statements and the new statements right after.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
Starting on day one, we will end in fleshing and
make America affordable again.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
But the word affordability is a Democrat scam.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
One of my top priorities will be too quickly defeat
inflation and make America affordable again.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
I don't want to hear about the affordability.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
We will make America affordable again.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
We're going to make it affordable again.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
You know, there's this fake narrative that the Democrats talk
about affordability.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Affordability is a kanjob.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
You know, this whole thing is they use the word affordability.
It's a Democrat hoax.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Affordability is now a Democrat scam, a con job. He's
calling the word itself fake news. This is a man
who literally during his campaign said, and I quote, we're
going to make America affordable again. He used the word repeatedly.
It was in his speeches, his ads, his tweets. But

(26:42):
now that he's president and prices are still high because
his fucking policies are driving people to bankruptcy and in poverty,
people are now noticing this. Finally, suddenly, affordability is a
made up liberal concept designed. This is designed to trick you.
It's the economic equivalent of I never said that, while

(27:03):
there's actual video of you saying that, and in this case,
there's video of it of him saying it. One hundred
fucking times. I mean, this gaslighting is so brazen it's
almost impressive. He routinely insults his own followers. He routinely
calls them stupid and in fors that they are stupid
and implies that they are stupid, And then he can

(27:24):
do a while saying I'll never do b be as bad,
be as bad, I'll never do that, never did it,
can go over and do be repeatedly like tap dance
the all over be and then his supporters will still
be like either denying that he did it or saying
that he did it for a reason that seems to
be that they're thing for everything. Now he did it
for a reason, I trust him. He did it for

(27:45):
a reason, like bro, what what? And in the last episode,
I did cover the Tennessee seventh Congressional District election, and
everyone knews that and everyone heard that I was really
rude for often being Unfortunately Republican Matt Van Epps won.
But I guess the good news out of it was

(28:07):
that the uh, the margin was more than concerning. Trump
won this district by twenty two points. Last year, Mark Green,
the previous congressman, won by twenty one point five points.
Van Epps won by just eight point six points. That's
a thirteen point swing towards Democrats in a deeply read
Tennessee district. Again, you guys, this district is like solid

(28:29):
red if you guys. Recall, Trump called her the AOC
of Tennessee, which fuck yes, I wish please, but I
wish we could have gotten a little piece of that,
because any woman, according to Trump, who advocates for affordable
healthcare is pretty much AOC now. But she ran on
a very simple message of feed kids, fixed roads, and

(28:50):
fund hospitals. She increased the Democratic vote share in every
single county in the district. And this is because of affordability.
A new political soppolsials that forty six percent of Americans
say the cost of living is Trump's responsibility now, including
twenty five percent of people who voted for him in
twenty twenty four. Trump's response, he called affordability a Democrat

(29:11):
scam in con job, which is quite the strategy when
thirty seven percent of your own voters say this is
the worst cost of living they can ever remember, but
I mean absolutely wild. Next up, let's talk about Trump's
ongoing quest to insult every single female journalist who dares
to speak to him or ask him a question he
doesn't like. Trump went to truth Social on Saturday morning

(29:34):
to call CNNs Caitlyn Collins stupid and nasty. Her crime
was that she apparently had the audacity to report on
the fact that his White House ballroom project, you know,
the one where he demolished the east wing to a
build himself a venue, that it's ballooned from an initial
two hundred million to over three hundred million dollars. Trump

(29:56):
claims the project as under budget and ahead of schedule,
which is if you roll the is a phrase that
he says about every single project he's ever done, and
that is historically accurate approximately never. He also misspelled her
name is Caitlin Collins with a C with an apostrophe,
for whatever reason, because apparently even insults require a minimum
of three grammatical errors from him to be official presidential communications.

(30:20):
And then in Delicious Drama News, Marjorie Taylor Green gave
a preview interview to sixty Minutes this week, her very
first since announcing her resignation, and she had some things
to say about her fallout with Trump. Specifically, she confirmed
that Trump was furious with her for supporting the release
of the Jeffrey Epstein files. She said, we did talk

(30:40):
about the Epstein files and he was extremely angry at me,
and I had signed the discharge petition to release the files.
He said that it was going to hurt people. Hurt people.
Interesting choice of words there, mister president. She went on
to say, I fully believe that these women deserve everything
they're asking. They're asking for all of it to come out.

(31:02):
They deserve it, and he was furious with me. So,
just to be clear, y'all, Marjorie Taylor Green, Marjorie motherfucking Green,
is now the reasonable one on an issue. She's standing
up for sexual assault survivors against a president who desperately
wants to keep these files sealed. We are truly through
the looking glass, folks. I mean one plus one equals

(31:25):
too right. Name any instance, any case where these files
should not be made public.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Name one.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Give me an explanation as to why Trump is doing
everything in his power to keep these documents from being released.
I'm not convinced that she is not so politically savvy
that she's realized that Trump's ship, his asses grass, his
ship is going to sink at some point, and that
she's trying to present herself as the other option early,

(31:57):
so she's trying to get out establish herself for an
another campaign run. I believe that she was talking to
Trump a couple months ago about running for senate and
or a while back about running for senate, and he
told her not to. So I don't know. I feel
like there is something going on there, but she when
she's the reasonable voice in something, just God help us all.
And then speaking of this administration's relentless campaign against trans people,

(32:21):
which absolutely heinous. It's absolutely heinous. So NPR this week
obtained an internal DOJ memo dated December second, and it
instructs prison inspectors to stop evaluating detention facilities using standards
design to protect transgender, intersex, and gender non conforming inmates
from sexual violence. Let me say that again because I

(32:45):
want you to really fucking hear this. The Department of
Justice has ordered inspectors to stop checking whether prisons are
protecting trans people from being raped. This is about the
Prison Rape Elimination Act called Priya. Now, that was in
two thousand and three with bipartisan support, because shockingly, everyone
agreed that people shouldn't be raped in prison. In twenty twelve,

(33:08):
the Obama administration added specific protections for LGBTQ and intersex inmates,
recognizing that this population is uniquely vulnerable to sexual violence
behind bars, and the data absolutely backs that up. A
twenty fifteen study found that LGBTQ prisoners are over six
times more likely to be sexually assaulted than the general

(33:29):
prison population six times, and experts say even that number
probably vastly undercounts the problem. So what does the Trump
administration do. They issue a memo saying inspectors should no
longer review whether facilities are housing transgender people based on
their gender identity, that they should no longer consider whether
sexual assaults were motivated by gender identity bias. They're essentially

(33:52):
ripping the teeth out of the only federal oversight mechanism
that exists to prevent prison rape of the most vulnerable inmates.
And the justification of this that they need to align
with Trump's Executive Order on Gender ideology Extremism, you know,
the one that declares the US only recognizes two sexes
and that anyone who disagrees is an extremist. This isn't

(34:14):
about protecting women, despite what they claim, trans women housed
in men's prisons are a catastrophically high risk of sexual assault.
This policy will get people raped, full stop. The administration
knows this, and they are doing it anyway because the
cruelty is the point. It has always been the point.
They cannot legislate trans people out of existence, so they're

(34:38):
making their lives as dangerous and miserable as possible, hoping
that they will just disappear. What I can't get over
about this administration is just the casual sadism of it all,
you know, issuing a memo that will directly result in
more sexual violence against vulnerable people and then doing it
in the name of combating extremism. And also, while we're

(34:59):
on the subject of this administration's obsession with trans people,
because apparently there's always more when it comes to this,
here's a fun little detail from the Department of Health
and Human Services. Admiral Rachel Levine, who served as Biden's
Assistant Secretary for Health, was the first openly transgender person
ever confirmed by the USNATE like historic right groundbreaking. Her
official portrait has hung in the hallway alongside all the

(35:20):
other former leaders of Public Health COREPS since twenty twenty one.
While during the government shutdown, someone at HHS took the
time to remove the glass from the frame of Admiral
Levine's portrait and replace her legal name with her dead name.
Let's just sit with that for a second. In the
middle of a government shut down, when technically no one
should be doing anything except just essential functions, some bureaucrat

(35:44):
decided that this was the priority. Not the public health,
not the opioid crisis, not the syphilis surge we're experiencing.
Changing a nameplate on a portrait to be cruel to
a trans woman that who wasn't even in the office anymore.
HHS defended the move because of course they freaking and
they claim that their priority is ensuring that information presented
internally and externally reflects gold standard science. They also said

(36:08):
that they're committed to reversing harmful policies enacted by Levine
and ensuring that biological reality guides our approach to public
health gold standard science from the department run by Robert F.
Kennedy Junior, the anti vaccine conspiracy theorist. He thinks wi
FI causes cancer. That's who's lecturing us about biological reality.

(36:28):
Adrian Shanker, who served as Levine's deputy, called it exactly
what it is, quote, a small act of pettiness and bigotry.
He noted that Abril Levine spent her tenure working to
end the HIV epidemic, respond to STI surges, and improve
mental health across the country, and this is what the
current leadership is spending their time on. Lavin herself declined

(36:49):
to comment extensively on it, saying only that it was
an honor to serve and that she's not going to
comment on this type of petty action, which honestly icon behavior,
because she's not giving them dissatisfaction and that's incredibly sad
that it even came to that. But let's be clear
on what this is, y'all. This isn't policy, this isn't governance.
This is a bunch of grown adults and positions of

(37:11):
power going out of their way to be cruel to
a single trans woman because they can, because it makes
their base feel good. And it's like bigots. Admiral Levine
isn't even in office anymore, and they literally went in
and took her name and then gave her dead name.
So gross. That is it for this week, you guys?
And honestly, that's probably more than enough. We are living

(37:33):
through a genuinely unprecedented moment. I'm tired of unprecedented moments.
To be honest, I'm exhaustic. Can we go back to
some precedented moments? Here's hoping one day soon. I hope
you guys are having a wonderful weekend. There is also
an episode of We Saw the Devil coming as well. Again.
If you're not following the podcast on Instagram, please do.
And this one account is for both Red White and

(37:53):
Brews and we saw the double episodes and that's Facebook
at We Saw the Devil, Instagram at, We Saw the
Devil p in Twitter at We Saw the Devil Again.
I will be doing an AM for the Patreon, So
as you're listening to this, guys, check Patreon because you
will see a post where you can leave questions for
me that I will answer. Again, nothing is off limits.
And if you're interested in signing up for Patreon or

(38:15):
just checking out the website or where you can follow
and listen to the podcast or drifle links to socials
as well. Website is Wesawthedevil dot com. In the meantime,
y'all stay informed. Stay engaged, stay angry, and please, for
the love of all that is holy, vote when you can.
I'm Robin. This is red, white and bruised. Until next time, y'all,