Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 5/12/25: Stephen Miller Plots Ending Habeas Corpus, Trump Claims Massive Drug Cost Reduction, Kanye New Song, Mayor Arrested By ICE

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Krystal and Emily discuss Stephen Miller plot to suspend Habeas Corpus, Trump claims sweeping drug cost reduction, Kanye's new song, Mayor arrested by ICE speaks out.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about,

call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right

that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com. So in recent comments to reporters, Stephen Miller floated suspending habeas corpus. Really take a listen to how he lays this out here because I think there's several significant things he says.

Let's take a listen. Well, the Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So I would say that's an option we're actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act,

which stripped Article III courts, that's the judicial branch of jurisdiction over immigration cases. So Congress actually passed what's called jurisdiction stripping legislation. It passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren't even allowed to be involved in immigration cases. Many of you probably don't know this. I'll give you a good example. Are you familiar with the term temporary protected status or TPS, right? So by statute, the courts are stripped of jurisdiction from overruling a presidential determination or a secretarial determination on TPS when the Secretary of Homeland Security makes that determination. So when Secretary Noem terminated

TPS for the illegals that Biden flew into the country, when courts stepped in, they were violating explicit language that Congress had enacted, saying they have no jurisdiction. So it's not just the courts aren't just at war with the executive branch. The courts are at war, these radical rogue judges, with the legislative branch as well, too. So all of that will inform the choices the president ultimately makes, yes. Crystal, I just want to say Stephen Miller is at war with the Trump administration there because the Trump administration stopped the invasion. Oh, yes, true. It's an amazing contradiction.

So are we being invaded or are we not being invaded? They are justifying this threat of habeas corpus on the idea that we are under invasion. And they're also touting that they have completely shut down the southern border. So these two things are absolutely in contradiction. I was supposed to be on the new media pool duty yesterday, but they called a lid. And that was the top question that I was going to ask, like, which one is true? Did you stop the invasion or can we have habeas corpus because we're being invaded? That is a fantastic question. And I mean, the key line there, which squares the circle, so to speak, is, or whatever. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Anyway, is he says

it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. So also the invasion, apparently, that would justify this depends on whether or not they like the court's decisions. In terms of the last thing that he lays out there about the court stripping provisions, et cetera, my reading based on other people who understand this stuff way better than I do is that he's really playing fast and loose with the facts there. And that, yes, there are court stripping provisions basically that push immigration law into immigration courts, but appeals into federal courts, as you would expect. And that is the process that's been playing out in the court system that we've seen. But, you know, when you hear him say this, of course, there's a question of, well, is this just Stephen Miller doing Stephen Miller stuff and, you know, trying to make a spectacle or raise some threat? But they're not really that serious about it. On the contrary, CNN at least has reporting that Trump has been directly involved in these discussions himself.

We can put this up on the screen. He's been personally involved in discussions inside the administration of potentially suspending habeas corpus, legal procedure that allows people to challenge their detention in court. While Trump has not explicitly mentioned habeas corpus in public, it was what he was referencing last month when he commented on steps he could take to combat nationwide injunctions against his actions on deportations, according to one of the people familiar with the talks. And we actually have that sound of Trump sort of vaguely alluding to what Stephen Miller is laying out explicitly here. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. You mentioned this last night in your speech in the column that we're facing an unprecedented situation where there's a lot of abuses of nationwide injunctions, sort of seemingly

designed to curtail your power, specifically when it comes to deporting these illegal, violent aliens that came in over the previous administration. Have you spoken to your team about ways to mitigate this and continue to deliver to the American people? Yeah, well, there are ways to mitigate it, and there's some very strong ways. There's one way that's been used by three very highly respected presidents,

but we hope we don't have to go that route. But there is one way that has been used very successfully by three presidents, all highly respected. And hopefully we don't have to go that way. But there are ways of mitigating that. So I believe, Emily, the three presidents he's referring to are Abraham Lincoln, most famously, I would say, Grant during Reconstruction to try to get the violence of the KKK under control. And then George W. Bush, wouldn't necessarily say, highly respect to that one, during the war. They're also taking the Iraq war plans. That's true. So I guess we're rehabbing George W. Bush with this administration. But yeah, so during the war on terror. And

effectively, look, what they want to be able to do is say whoever they want to designate as, you know, quote unquote terrorist, whether that's a cartel association or a tattoo or just because they say so. Or perhaps someone who harbors ill will against a Tesla or who said the wrong thing with regard to Palestine or Israel or who dared to protest in a hands-off protest or something like that against the Trump administration. I'm not making these examples up, by the way. These are all groups that have been floated as domestic terrorists by the Trump administration, by Trump administration officials, that they can just snatch them up and imprison them indefinitely without them being able to challenge that imprisonment as unlawful. That's what they are contemplating here. And I think most immediately they're contemplating it in the context of immigration.

And obviously their plan to use the Alien Enemies Act to effectively get around any sort of court challenges and just ship people into these foreign gulags where they've never been heard, where they can never be heard from again. That has been in large part blocked by the courts. They're very unhappy with the court decisions. And so now this is the next path to try to effectuate this same lawless outcome via, you know, a different legal patina that they're going for. Yeah. And I think some of this is Stephen Miller trying to ratchet up pressure on judges. I think, of course, whenever you see Trump or top officials, someone as powerful as Stephen

Miller flirting with this stuff in public, you have to absolutely take it seriously. If I had to guess, I would say that Stephen Miller's strategy here is ratcheting up pressure on judges and that he is not entirely serious about doing this because of what we were mentioning earlier, just that it would make it, you know, it would make it appear as though there's an ongoing invasion during the Trump administration, which is going to become an increasing problem

for their immigration crackdown period. As you mentioned, that's what they're justifying some of these deportations with, the idea that there's an invasion that is being orchestrated by the Venezuelan government through Trende Aragua, which even, I think John Hudson had this in the Washington Post, even the Trump administration's own intelligence undermines. It's not being orchestrated by the government of Venezuela. And a Trump-appointed judge said the same, said effectively, like, this is a preposterous invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. It fails on every level.

Yeah. Yep. The last thing I wanted to say on this is I think it is fair to point out that there have been some real abuses of the universal injunctions. And there's been, at executive functions, Jack Landman Goldsmith has been following this in a really interesting way and a way that's very critical of Donald Trump. Basically, you know, we were talking about this in our earlier corruption block. In general, there has been just a lot of norm sliding since 2016, as everyone kind of knows, or maybe backsliding. Norm backsliding is one way to put it. And it is true that some of this, so for example, administrative stays, he writes, the practice of administrative stays against executive action,

according to Christopher Moore, was basically unheard of before 2022. And he says that the Trump administration arguments against single federal judges enjoining programs on a universal basis are entirely legitimate, meaning there have been a lot of cases in this second Trump administration where judges are acting alone on a national basis with these universal injunctions in ways that are inappropriate. That said, obviously he goes on to say some of this is because the Trump administration itself is doing some unprecedented, is taking some unprecedented steps. So I think we're in one of those situations where it's like the answer to Trump's craziness might also be crazy. It's just sort of a question of how do you get out of the doom spiral? And that's pretty, like, that feels, I guess I feel very

pessimistic about that, Crystal. I do as well, Emily. I do as well. Yeah, it reminds me of, you know, one of the talking points that Trump administration officials and defenders like to say is like, no president has faced, no presidential administration has faced more lawsuits. It's like, well, yeah, because they haven't done as much illegal shit, just like wildly in less, you know, in 100 days or less as you all have. So there's a logical reason why you're facing so much trouble with the courts. And it's on immigration. It's on a lot of the Doge activity has been enjoined and, you know, ultimately will likely be struck down. You can see that there is, has been with this administration, I think, and intentionally, you talked about this as well. They just decided they don't really care about the law. They're

going to do what they want to do and then let the courts have to clean up the mess. Exactly. And so then when the courts come in and are like, you can't do that. And, you know, you can't just shut down the CFPB. You can't just shut down USAID. You can't just decide that you don't like this program. So you're not going to spend the money that was congressionally appropriated. You can't just ship people to foreign gulag, no due process. You can't admit that you wrongfully deported this person and then be like, we're not going to do anything about it, though. When they come in to clean up the mess, you don't get to you wrongfully deported this person and then be like, we're not going to do anything about it, though. When they come in to clean up the mess, you don't get to kick and scream about it because your whole plan was we're going to break a lot of laws

and then force the courts to have to come in and clean up the mess afterwards. So, you know, I think that is a kind of ratcheting up that is that they, I'm sure, anticipated was going to come as a result here. And so I think the significance of the Miller comments, like I think you have to take these things very seriously at this point because of the way the Trump administration has conducted themselves. And clearly they do have a goal of getting around normal due process and normal checks that have existed, you know, in this country since the founding and,

you know, going back to like the, you know, Magna Carta in terms of legal principles and aspirations of the liberal state. Let me get out my pocket Magna Carta here. You should sell Breaking Points branded pocket Magna Carta. Oh gosh, Sagar would love that. We shouldn't even speak it into existence because he'll— It'll be our baby gift to him. He would love that. By the way, if you're not following executive functions, shout out to them. They're pretty Trump critical, but I do find them pretty helpful. And just one more point from Goldsmith who writes, he's argued the administration has a legitimate complaint about universal injunctions and administrative stays that should ultimately be resolved by a Supreme Court or Congress. There is a pattern of mostly Democrat appointed district judges in joining Trump initiatives, just as there was a similar and indeed more extreme in terms of percentages mirrored pattern during the Biden years.

But to know whether the 2025 pattern reflects real or systemic bias, we would need to assess a whole slew of issues. And this is, I'm just going to list this out so that we know what to keep our eye on going forward. The influence of plaintiff forum shopping, the profile of judges who denied relief, and the abundant evidence that Trump 2.0 is not taking legal compliance seriously. So those are the things to follow, I think, going forward in this broader narrative of the universal injunctions and the stays. Yeah, because, I mean, some things, yeah, their extraordinary actions have required extraordinary actions as well. And even so, the courts can't really keep up,

you know, aren't really a match for, and the Trump administration to that point has just, in many instances, said, yeah, we got this ruling against us, we're still not really going to comply. Like, we'll do a little bit, or we'll pay some lip service, or we'll sort of like pretend that we read it a different way, et cetera. But, you know, in many of them, not the high profile like Kilmar, Brago, Garcia, but some of the decisions that have gone against Doge, for example, where they say, okay, you have to reinstate this funding and then they just don't. Well, yeah. And you're right. You mentioned this just really quickly as we wrap up. That's part of the strategy here is to throw as many novel legal theories at the wall

and see what sticks. That's very much the Alien Enemies Act. A lot of people in Trump circles would say, listen, what we're doing is taking this action while it works its way through the courts. And if the courts go one way, Trump has said this many times, he's like, we'll follow the courts. And that's because as dangerous as it is to even tell that line, the reason they're doing that is so that they can get as much done as quickly as possible. So it's not just a messaging flood the zone strategy vis-a-vis Bannon, but it's actually just about trying as many different strategies as they can to get things done while the courts go through the process. Otherwise, they feel like they won't have enough time to take as many dramatic actions. Doge is a really good example of this, just folding the CFPB, for example. Well, it's basically done. That's already happened. So, I mean, it's under, they've kind

of like truncated it and moved it. And to formally close it, have to go through Congress. But now, the Overton window has just been exploded. So, when the CFPB, if it goes to the reconciliation bill, if they're getting rid of it, it's less of a fight because we've gone through five months now without the CFPB. Creative facts on the ground. Yeah. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets.

Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker,

the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal,

and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other.

It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room.

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just really quick, I wanted to get this on the show because this is just wild. Put this up on the screen. So Trump has by and large suspended refugee resettlement with one very specific example,

which is white South Africans are not only being granted refugee status by Trump, but they're also being given, you know, funds and plane tickets and all sorts of assistance to relocate here. So, you know, this is a Elon Musk, Stephen Miller project, if you've ever seen one. So, you know, the refugees fleeing wars and persecution from any other place around the world, no, even ones who had been, you know, absolutely vetted people, you know, people in Afghanistan, for example, who had helped our own troops during the war, they're at grave

risk to themselves. And now you've got the Taliban back in power, their refugee resettlement applications being torn up, even though they're vetted, ready to go, that's not happening. But white South Africans, they're being, you know, given the green light and the red carpet rolled out for them to come here. Yeah, and part of the reason is that the Trump administration feels as though this is a really clear-cut contrast with some of the BS asylum claims. And it's not that they aren't sympathetic stories, but they are economic cases that people have claimed asylum, come up to the United States for claimed asylum. And in some cases, I think this is probably true with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but who knows? We actually asked his attorney about this a month or two ago about the legitimacy of his asylum claim that he made in 2019. So the administration feels like they have a perfect juxtaposition here of people who in

South Africa, it is a deeply uncomfortable thing to think about or talk about or explore. There is still high levels of racial violence. And that's where they think they have this clear-cut case. And they're trolling with this because there's a—Tucker did an interesting interview, actually, a couple months back with a South African civil rights activist. His name is Ernst Retz, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. And Tucker asked him about this, and he was like, South Africans, they don't want to leave.

So that's why I think this is a troll from the administration to say, here's what a real asylum case looks like versus here's what the economic migrant asylum case looks like. And South Africans are fighting for a reason. It's because they don't, like their family settled that land hundreds of years ago, if you listen to their point on it. So they feel like it would be the opposite

of what they want to do, to like flee to the United States. So it's just a troll, basically. Yeah, okay. It's a- I mean, it's, so the numbers are that white South Africans make up roughly 7 percent of the South African population and own roughly 73 percent of the individually held land. discrimination that their claims should go beyond those of, like I said, the, you know, interpreters who work for us in Afghanistan or people who are fleeing Democratic Republic of Congo or like Venezuela or Cuba. Correct. Yeah, that's that's right. Which, you know,

Republicans five seconds ago would have had a very different take on that view. And so all refugee resettlement shut down except for this group of white South Africans who Steve Bannon says are the most racist people on the planet. According to Steve Bannon, just quoting him. Just quoting Steve. Yes. So anyway, that Stephen Miller project is ongoing. One more piece here, which is, you know, some of this is breaking through with the public in terms of their views of Trump. We can put this up on the screen. This was a poll that was taken in the context of Trump's first 100 days that we didn't get a chance to cover.

But I wanted to, you know, make sure to highlight here. You have a majority of Americans now, 52 percent, who say that Trump is a dangerous dictator, whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy. That was the question here. And I think this was commissioned by Axios. So 52% of all Americans, 87% of Democrats, 56% of independents, and even 17% of Republicans, which is actually a little bit higher than I would have expected. Along racial lines, there's some racial divide here. The highest numbers are among Black Americans, 67%, then Latinos, 63%, Asian Americans, Pacific Islander, 58%, and white Americans, 67 percent, then Latinos, 63 percent. Asian Americans, Pacific Islander, 58 percent, and white Americans, 45 percent. So even among white people, you're getting pretty close to

a majority who say this guy is a dangerous dictator. And what I've been saying, Emily, is I think as his popularity declines, I think you will see more and more aggressive authoritarian tactics to shut down dissent. Now, I think what we're seeing this week, and this is very, we see this around our show, you've got the China quote unquote deal, you've got whatever's going on in Gaza, you've got the prescription drug thing we're about to talk about. I get the sense he realizes that his popularity is plummeting and he needs to do some stuff, make some announcements, make some things happen, get some good PR, get some good headlines to try to stem the, you know, the tide in terms of his plummeting approval rating. But in any case, you know, even as people,

of course, have responded, typically respond most to their own direct material interests, people are also, you know, in America, pretty opposed to dictators who threaten democracy. We're at least theoretically, ideally committed to having a democratic system here. It's something that people take a lot of pride in, in this country. And so I do think because his actions have been so extraordinary, so authoritarian and so rapid that the flip side of the, what is Bannon called, the days of thunder, the flood the zone strategy of doing so much at one time, you don't get to have that boiling frog effect where it's just ratcheting, ratcheting,

ratcheting. This hit people over the head. And, you know, I think there's a genuine deep concern among a lot of people about the direction that he's taking the country in. Well, yeah. And so this poll was February to March, and it was by the Public Religion Research Institute as part of this like gargantuan poll. It's a very interesting poll, actually, if you read all of it. And I mean, that's why I kind of thought the Buckele stuff was just playing with fire for the Trump administration. I think they had this idea that the Bukele stuff made them look cool.

I think to most Americans, it's like, there's nothing cool about Bukele. He's so sad. It's such a ridiculous thing that he's doing, calling himself a cool dictator. Maybe it flies in Latin America. It does not fly in the United States. It doesn't hit the same way here. Now, the poll juxtaposed that question that you just read with, so a dangerous dictator, also that he's a strong leader restoring America's greatness was the other option, that he's a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to

restore America's greatness. And then I think there was like a skip option. So it was 52 to 44 in that question. Interestingly, in that poll, he had a 43% approval rating, which means that there's probably some overlap of people who approve of the job he's doing and also see him as a dangerous dictator. Well, that's why I was noting the Republican numbers, 17% saying he's a dangerous dictator. I'm sure he probably, you know, his Republican approval rating is probably 90%. It's probably pretty high. So there's probably, you know, some percentage in there that are like, yeah, he's a dictator, but you do what you got to do. Yeah, that's probably true. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, that unfortunately is what we've learned throughout history is when democracy is unable to deliver benefits,

then guess what? People start to become dictator curious. And I do think that's where we are. It feels like desperate times. And I mean, if we don't even talk about this enough, nobody talks about this enough. Useless Congress has become just utterly useless. This is even if you're looking, if you were a Republican right now, you're looking at Republicans holding the presidency, the House and the House, and the Senate. And all they can do is muster a reconciliation bill because they're not confident in their numbers. There's no way for them to build consensus to pass major pieces of legislation. They have punted so much of their responsibilities to administrative agencies and to the president himself.

I mean, just to try to take back tariff power, they couldn't even get that passed. In part because a Democrat was, like, traveling overseas and didn't even care enough about the freaking vote. So Congress is just, it's a really dangerous situation how much or how atrophied the political process of like Republican government is. Although to be honest with you, I don't know that that is really necessary. Like we've talked about this in the context of immigration. This will be a good transition to the prescription drug piece. Yes. Democrats were ready to capitulate on all kinds of immigration things. Like if they had wanted to work through a congressional process to accomplish something, especially in the very early days of Trump's term, they certainly could

have done it. You know, I think it's just easier to put out an executive order. Then he doesn't have to negotiate. He can just be a king. He can just issue his proclamations and then, you know, kick it to the courts and make the courts stop him. And so I think he just prefers that to the messiness of having to get in the weeds or, God forbid, work with some Democrats on something that he would want to get done. They don't want to take votes. I mean, Congress doesn't want to take votes. They don't want to be held accountable when it's easier to go through the president. So it's just it's better for everyone. It's mutually reinforcing.

Yeah, because they don't have to take any tough votes. And he can just do whatever he wants. Right. Trade, war, trade wars, actual wars, all of that. I mean, we're just completely like Biden kept the Trump tariffs and that didn't go through Congress. Same thing with like we've had an AUMF for however long that bipartisan presidents have used. 2003 or whatever. Yeah, mutually.

It is mutually reinforcing. Yeah. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children was a dark underworld of sinister secrets. Kids were being pushed to their physical and emotional limits as the family that owned Shane turned a blind eye.

Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. In this eight-episode series, we're unpacking and investigating stories of mistreatment and reexamining the culture of fatphobia that enabled a flawed system to continue for so long. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame

one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son,

even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago.

Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back, or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well, to hear the explosive finale,

listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. Voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be

voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships. I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room.

You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to VoiceOver on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Huge news yesterday that could turn out to be ultimately kind of nothing, or it could turn out to be, I guess, sort of significant. And part of that depends on Congress, Crystal. Yeah, as we were saying.

So we can put the first element on the screen. This is Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon talking about prescription drug prices on Truth Social. And I'm going to read this. For many years, the world has wondered why prescription drugs and pharmaceuticals in the U.S. were so much higher in price than they were in any other nation, sometimes being five to ten times more expensive than the same drug manufactured in the exact same laboratory or plant by the same company. Question mark, question mark, question mark. After a few lines of all caps there, if you didn't get it from my voice, I'll just let you know that's what it is. Now we're going to lowercase. It was always difficult to explain and very embarrassing

because, in fact, there was no correct or rightful answer. Rightful, interesting. The pharmaceutical drug companies would say for years that it was research and development costs and that all of these costs were and would be for no reason whatsoever borne by the, quote, suckers of America alone. Campaign contributions can do wonders, but not with me, he says, and not with the Republican Party. Interesting on the same day, Crystal is the cutter plane announcement. Yeah. So we can go to the next slide. Yeah. So he says, therefore, I'm pleased to announce that tomorrow morning. So today in the White House at 9 a.m., I will be signing one of the most consequential executive orders in our country's history. Prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices

will be reduced almost immediately by 30 to 80 percent. They will rise throughout the world in order to equalize and for the first time in many years bring fairness to America. I'll be instituting a most favored nation's policy whereby the U.S. will pay the same price as the nation that pays the lowest price anywhere in the world. Our country will finally be treated fairly and citizens of health care costs will be reduced by numbers never even thought of before. So, Crystal, this is a fairly significant announcement. I think probably more significant if momentum builds in Congress to actually codify this. So Roe tweeted actually late last night, 11.38 p.m., I am willing to introduce the Trump EO exactly as written as legislation to be bipartisan and get something

done for the American people. Any Republicans willing to co-sponsor? Let's then get Speaker Johnson to call a vote on it. So Congressman Conner, obviously a Democrat in the House of Representatives now calling on Republicans to take that EO text and pass it through Congress, pass it through the Senate, and make it law because an EO can get, again, as Roe says, challenged by big pharma. So I think the likelihood of this actually becoming law probably depends on whether Republicans are willing to get this through Congress, and that seems highly unlikely, especially the Senate. Yeah. Well, I mean, my top line reaction is that this is probably fake and attempt to generate positive headlines to distract from the fact that the big, beautiful bill entails giving a giant tax cut to the rich

paid for by, you know, cuts to health care for poor people. So that's my big day. And the reason I say that I would love to be proved wrong, by the way. The reason I say that is because he did almost the exact same executive order in his first term, and it got immediately blocked by multiple courts. So maybe something will be different. Maybe there's a different legal strategy. It's 9.09 now as we're recording this. I don't know if he's released it yet, but we haven't seen all the details. But the way he describes it in this Truth Social is pretty much identical to the executive order in the first Trump administration, which immediately got blocked and struck down. We also know that he had been talking to the Republicans about including something like this

in the reconciliation bill, and they all balked at it. So, you know, the Republicans are not willing to go along with it. And he hasn't shown in the past that he was actually, like, committed to following through in order to get something accomplished. And what I mean by that is, look, if you're going to—if you are going to do something like this, it really can't be done through executive order. It does have to go through Congress. So if he wants to accomplish this, he would take Roe up on his offer here. He would, you know, steamroll Republicans and make this as much of a priority as it would take it being as much of a priority as something like his immigration policy is. And I see no signs of that. So until

I'm proven otherwise, I have to think that this is an attempt to grab headlines and distract from many of the very indefensible and unpopular things that are happening with this Iraq reconciliation bill and with his administration in general. This sparked another billionaire on billionaire war, by the way, civil war in the billionaire class, because it seems as though Bill Ackman popularized this idea in Trump circles. He was kind of bragging about that. It was he posted an idea that looks a lot like this on March 7th of 2024 and kind of took a victory lap yesterday. Then Mark Cuban jumped on and said the manufacturers aren't the big problem, Bill. They could sell brand meds for far, far less and in some cases lower than other countries today if you take the big PBMs.

So pharmacy benefit managers out of the middle. And you are part of the problem, Bill. I'll bet you signed a pharmacy benefits deal with a big PBM. Tomorrow call them and ask for a list of your claims and the net drug price paid for each. Ask them for a net price list after rebates that you can verify. Let me know how long they laugh at you, he goes on to say. The issue is that CEOs have no clue about their pharmacy or healthcare benefits, so they work with the PBMs that cause this mess, assuming their consultants are doing the right thing by them. He said this EO can have a huge impact, but it has to be built around transparency and removing the middlemen.

So the PBMs are obviously a part of this problem. Actually, there's going to be some conservative backlash to this. We've seen that before, too, because it's price fixing and they're in the pocket of big pharma. There will be some completely ideological and sincere conservative disagreement with this because they see it as price fixing. And we don't need to open up that can of worms necessarily. But whether this actually gets through Congress, that's the problem is Republicans partially are in the pocket of big pharma like many Democrats. And then partially also have this ideological aversion to anything that looks like price fixing. So good luck with that, Mike Johnson and Roe, sadly. Yeah. Well, and I mean, on the merits, it is absolutely unjustifiable that Americans pay

so much more for prescription drugs than anywhere around the world. Trump is right that we are expected to foot the bill for their overhead and their quote unquote research and development. Now, the other thing that this is wildly at odds with the rest of the Trump administration plan is every single new drug molecule that has been developed over the past several decades has been funded by public research. It has not come out of industry. It has come out of public research dollars, the very dollars that are being completely slashed and gutted by the Trump administration currently. So the actual innovation that has pushed for an advanced science that is under assault and that would inherently actually push more into the into private industry. And, you know, we would have to rely more on private industry. And a lot of the quote unquote R&D that private industry does is more

about trying to extend their patents, you know, reformulate something they already know works and is popular in order to extend their patent life. That is what a lot of their research and development funds ultimately go into. And yes, the American taxpayer and the American consumer have been forced to front that research and development through these extraordinarily high prescription drug prices. The place where it's most egregious is with Medicare, where we're banned, have been banned from negotiating, even negotiating with

drug makers to lower drug prices. That's something the Biden administration took some tepid steps in the direction of fixing. I believe this is part of the Inflation Reduction Act, where they had a list. It wasn't all drugs, but a list of certain top drugs that now Medicare is going to negotiate on. And that is, you know, a small but quite significant win. Those are the sorts of things that you would need to do to actually get this under control. So we'll see where things where it goes from here. But, you know, color me skeptical until I see some actual, you know, actual commitment to this and action beyond what, again, he did in the first Trump administration with literally zero effect. Fair enough. Should we move on to Kanye? I know you're tramping at the bit to get to this segment.

Yeah. So Kanye West is out with a new album. I believe the album title is Cuck. I believe is the name of the album title. And one track in particular has garnered quite a lot of attention because it is the whole chorus of the track is basically just Heil Hitler. It's yes.

It's N-word comma Heil Hitler. Yes. That is that is the chorus of the track. Now, Spotify and Apple and a bunch of other, you know, a bunch of other outlets have banned distribution of it. They've really tried to block it, but it hasn't mattered because it's gotten millions and millions of views on Twitter and other places where it's been allowed to go. So we have a little bit of a censored version of the video just so you can get a taste of what this is all about. Let's go ahead and take a listen.

Some of the other lyrics, Emily, according to Grok, are, man, these people took my kids from me. Then they closed my bank account i got so much anger in me got no way to take it out think i'm stuck in the matrix where the f's my nitrous referring to nitrous oxide yes i am a cuck i like when people f on my b word the shit that i'm posting on twitter they're telling me hey don't say N-Words can't see me in public? I'm driving an off-road Maybach, so get some, you know, classic wealth porn in there as well. With all the money and fame, I still can't get my kids back. With all the money and fame, I still don't get to see my children. So I became a Nazi. Yeah, bitch, I'm the villain. That is some of the sampling of

the lyrics of someone who's clearly like, I mean, I don't know what to say. He's clearly in the midst of a mental break. Has been for a while. Surrounded with people who are not going to intervene. And, you know, in a way that is incredibly destructive to himself, obviously his family, his kids, his relationships. Apparently the only people he's surrounded with are, you know, yes men who just will, will hype him up and tell him everything he does is great and glorious and brilliant. And with, you know, damaging impacts on society as well, I think you have to say. Can you read the last lyric, by the way, those last two lines?

With all the money and fame, I still don't get to see my children. So I became a Nazi. Yeah, bitch, I'm the villain. Yeah, this is like profoundly sad. Yeah. The point of the song, so like there's been this understandable reaction to the song as though it's like Kanye West embracing, which he's done in other formats, by the way, white supremacy and like. Being an overt Nazi. Being an overt Nazi. And celebrating Hitler. Yes. Right. What he's saying in this particular song is that, and this is very Kanye West and just an absolute torture genius and extremely profoundly sad.

He's saying that he's been pushed into this basically because he's so desperate. This is a cry for help that nobody is helping him basically. And so he is now turning to the most taboo subject in this country and in the broader West just to get attention from his family and just to get help from his family. And it's like one of the saddest things to witness. And John Legend has said that he's like, they used to be friends. And he's like, this is incredibly sad to watch. I think we all feel the same way, this is incredibly sad to watch. I think we all feel the same way.

It's incredibly sad to watch. And the song is interesting to me because it's his turn into extreme, extreme right-wing, like fascist, race science, disgusting Nazi bullshit. I think, I have no idea what he believes. I don't think he has any idea what he believes because he's in the throes of this horrible mental illness. It's crazy that it also sounds like, subconsciously at the very least, he's starting to grapple with the fact

that this is a cry for help. And that is just incredibly sad. The song concludes with a sample from a 1936 Adolf Hitler speech. If you consider the work I'm doing to be right, if you think I have been diligent, that I have worked, that I've advocated for you this year, that I've spent my time honestly in the service of my people, then cast your vote. If so, then stand up for me like I have stood up for you so including uh you know a little sampling from hitler himself into the song i mean i don't know i struggle to have as much empathy as you do at this point emily because it's not like there haven't been people who have tried to get

him to um he obviously needs medication yeah%. He needs to be probably institutionalized. And not nitrous. And not nitrous. He probably doesn't need the nitrous, yeah. And, you know, it's a very difficult situation, but even in the throes of mental illness, there is still some level of agency. I mean, if you're able to pen a song

that people would, you know, parse as some sort of cry for help, then there's obviously some level of agency there. So, you know, get yourself on a trajectory where people who actually care Ken Klippenstein who said something too that is another really difficult aspect of this story, which is there are, for very good reasons, you know, a lot of guardrails in place against people being institutionalized against their will. Yeah. Right. And I totally get that. Right. And we understand where that comes from and we really respect it. But also you look

at what he's doing to himself, let alone to his kids who now don't have the benefit of a relationship with their dad who, you know, I'm sure, I mean, obviously that's a really important thing for, for any kid and the estrangement from his family. And then, you know, even as you and others can, can parse this and say, oh, this is a cry for help or whatever. We also have to acknowledge that the way it's being landing in society is just as a celebration of Hitler. And because he has so much fame and power and cachet and the tortured genius, blah, blah, blah. That is, that furthers a lot of extremely ugly, racist, horrific ideologies where, you know, it's just like, oh, this is now,

this is now on the table. I think it's also a demonstration of the, of the doom loop spiral that society is in as well, where there's rewards just for saying the most provocative thing you possibly can. And I think that's part of what's going on here very intentionally with Kanye as well, is like, this is the ultimate third rail. Yeah. There is nothing more horrific that going to instantly win the race in terms of who can be the most outrageous and the most provocative. And I think he understands that too. So it is also a reflection, not just of, you know, him in throes of mental illness, but it's also a reflection of the things that are rewarded in our society. Right. And increasingly, no, I think that's true. I mean, he absolutely has agency on the point that you just made, let's roll E3 on the screen because that's how this is. We have video basically of how this is landing with some people who I think, you know, they're crystal.

This is one of many examples of music that people are doing, like just full listening to the song, doing just full Nazi salutes. If you're if you're listening to this and not watching, that was a video. Those are Roman salutes, Emily. Oh, the Romans. They're throwing their heart out to Kanye West. You know, this is a throwback to another debate that we had. But yeah, definitely not Roman salutes in this case. 100% not Roman salutes in this case.

Because they are literally saying, Heil Hitler, singing Heil Hitler. I imagine they're dropping the N-word in there as well. And yeah, it's... Which is also something that's being apparently celebrated on the right currently, at least as aimed at five-year-old autistic children. Well, and this is to your point that, yes, Kanye West absolutely has agency. And the people around him who are indulging this have agency as well. And the reason that he is able to make these music videos and produce this music is because there are people around him who think that they can continue profiting off of this extremely sad situation, both monetarily and by the you know, the actual, like, proximity to fame that they have with Kanye West. Or who are in his spell, in a way. Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. Who believe that he really is the victim of this elaborate conspiracy, and he really is this, you know, this world historic genius, and it's eccentricity, not mental illness. You know, this world historic genius and it's eccentricity, not mental illness.

You know, he he I don't know anything about him personally. I've never been around him or whatever. But, you know, he he may be one of these people who's able to create this sort of like reality distortion field around him where you couple that the, you know, those sort of like powers of persuasion and to distort reality with the personal self-interest of wanting to be close to someone who is rich and famous. And you end up with a crew of enablers who are, you know, in it for what they can get out of effectively exploiting a person who is deeply mentally ill in a way that is very damaging to him, himself, his family, and the culture. Yeah. And the culture the culture yeah I think that's an important point though the last I'll say is I mean the the the song is obviously awful it's out

there now and I can't dismiss that it's also such a horrible insight into the the mind of Kanye West which is that in this sense, in the song, there's this recognition, and you mentioned this, there's this recognition that this is the ultimate taboo and that this is an awful, or that this is an extreme place to find yourself. That's the, like, he's acknowledging that and clearly conscious of it in the song. And I mean, how sad is it that in some sense he recognizes other people want to hear this for reasons that are different from his own in the song, which is, I can't get my kids, so now I'm going full Nazi. There are other people out there who just care about the full Nazi part. And that's just like, I mean, again, he does have agency.

I don't want to dismiss that at all. But it's just so sad that there's room right now for that to be powerful, for that to be something that gets a lot of attention, views, that people see something so cathartic in gravitating towards like overt racism and Holocaust denial and whatever else they're going towards. I mean, maybe not Holocaust denial, Holocaust celebration. And it depends on who you're talking to in those like fringe, fringe, awful circles, whether they're outright denialists or celebrationists. But yeah, it's in the song. It's like baked into his sort of admission here that he's going full Nazi is this idea that other people, they want that. And he can sort of get some type of attention for doing it. Yeah, no, that's true. But it's like, listen, if you want to see your kids,

take your meds and get well. You're going to have a much better chance at seeing your kids. And if they, you know, if you have the chance to see them about them having an actual like healthy relationship with you as well. Horrible. Yeah. All right, guys, I was able yesterday to speak with the mayor of Newark, who also, by the way, is running for governor of New Jersey.

He's in a pretty packed Democratic primary against some leading lights of the Democratic Party, like Josh Gottheimer. That's one example. In any case, I do get in a question to him at the very end about that, about that race for New Jersey governor. He was arrested on Friday. He and three Democratic members of Congress had gone to this ICE facility. Apparently, the Democratic members arrived there first. There is a law in place that was passed during or after the first Trump administration to permit any member of Congress going to inspect a federal facility. So they were availing themselves over that opportunity in the law to conduct this inspection and oversight. He joined them. He's told to leave. He does leave.

And then he's arrested for alleged trespassing. He denies that he did anything wrong or broke the law in any way. In the context of him being arrested, and I'll show some of the video in this segment, there was a very, we'll just call it a very chaotic scene that plays out. Now the Trump administration is threatening also those Democratic members of Congress with arrest as well. So in any case, I had a chance to record this interview. The mayor was on his way to, I think, a Mother's Day event or something of that nature, but got some good insights on his side of the story, at least, of what unfolded. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy

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DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily, it's your Not the Father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon.

This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. Now I find out he's trying to give it to his irresponsible son instead, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back.

Hold up. So what are they going to do to get those millions back? That's so unfair. Well, the author writes that her husband found out the truth from a DNA test they were gifted two years ago. Scandalous. But the kids kept their mom's secret that whole time. Oh my God. And the real kicker, the author wants to reveal this terrible secret, even if that means destroying her husband's family in the process. So do they get the millions of dollars back or does she keep the family's terrible secret? Well,

to hear the explosive finale, listen to the okay. Storytime podcast on the I heart ready web, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm hope Woodard, a comedian,

creator, and seeker of male validation. To most people, I'm the girl behind VoiceOver, the movement that exploded in 2024. VoiceOver is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's more than personal. It's political, it's societal, and at times, it's far from what I originally intended it to be. These days, I'm interested in expanding what it means to be voiceover, to make it customizable for anyone who feels the need to explore their relationship to relationships.

I'm talking to a lot of people who will help us think about how we love each other. It's a very, very normal experience to have times where a relationship is prioritizing other parts of that relationship that aren't being naked together. How we love our family. I've spent a lifetime trying to get my mother to love me, but the price is too high. And how we love ourselves. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Voice Over on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mayor Ross Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, was arrested by mass federal agents on Friday after attempting to accompany three members of Congress, Democratic members, on an inspection

of an ICE facility that had opened over his objections and which he says is operating illegally in his city. I'm going to let the mayor lay out the timeline of exactly how these events unfolded, what his goals were for this action on this day, what occurred, what led to his arrest. But I can show you right now a quite chaotic scene that unfolded outside of this ICE facility as they did attempt and eventually successfully did arrest Mayor of Newark, Ross Baraka. He was released several hours later and he was charged with trespassing. The mayor says that these charges are false, that he did nothing wrong. Here, take a look. So the mayor is there at the center in the red is Representative LaMonica McIver. Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman is also there in the midst,

an 80-year-old woman in the center of this action. So the Trump administration claimed that these members attempted to storm the ICE facility. This is not backed up by the video evidence and the eyewitness accounts on the scene. They have also now said that they are looking at potential charges against the members of Congress who were there to perform that oversight on that day. So in order to get a breakdown of everything that unfolded, the plans for the day, what the timeline was, the differences between what actually happened

and what the administration is claiming unfolded is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Ross Baraka. I want to start off by getting your reaction to Tricia McLaughlin. She is the Trump administration's assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS and her characterization of the events that unfolded leading up to your arrest. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Thanks, Victor, for having me. I'm glad I can be here to actually give viewers the facts. What happened is that these members of Congress, including the mayor as well, and a mob of protesters, as there was a bus full of detainees going through the gate, they stormed the gate

and actually entered the first security checkpoint. This put law enforcement at risk, and this actually put the detainees as well at risk. If any official, including these members of Congress, want to enter the facility and take a tour, DHS is more than accommodating. But just because you're a member of Congress does not mean you can break the law, trespass, put law enforcement at risk, and storm the detention facility. I have yet to hear anyone on this network actually talk about who is in this detention facility. There are members of MS-13, known terrorists, murderers, child rapists. There are some of the worst of the worst in this detention facility.

And I'm still very confused why these Democrats are so hellbent on getting these heinous actors out of this facility when we have the proper permitting. And actually, in that press conference, those members of Congress actually noted the great conditions of this facility that our enforcement officers so bravely operate. So, Mayor, what is your response to her allegation there that you and these members of Congress stormed the facility? Either she's misinformed because she wasn't there or she's just flat out lying. I mean, it's insane how these people behave. Like they lie over and over again and they figure if they lie enough, people will believe it. It's the truth. The reality is nobody stormed the gate.

When I got there, the members of Congress were already inside. They were in a booth. They didn't go all the way in, but they were in a booth. So they were there waiting over an hour for Homeland Security officials to come to give them a scheduled visit that they had through the building. So no, but they didn't have to storm. They were invited there. Right. So that, that right there is a flat out lie. You know, all of this stuff about being assault assault, assaulting people,

all of it is wrong. I mean, either she's misinformed or she's just lying. So you arrive, the members of Congress are already there inside the gates and then what, what happens from there? They're already in a booth. I don't even see them because they're in the building, in a waiting area, waiting to get the tour.

There are people outside who are there every day. There are protesters outside who are there every single day, by the way. They're there today as well. So, I mean, outside of the Congress, people outside of me, they're protesters. They're not going to be there. They have a right to be there outside of the gate. I arrived there waiting for the press conference that is supposed to happen after that. She alluded to there's a scheduled press conference that's supposed to happen at one thirty outside of that gate. But obviously it didn't happen at that time because these people never arrived when they were supposed to.

They charge you, obviously, with trespassing, which I know you dispute. Right. So can you lay out for us, you know, what happened in terms of your entry and, you know, an exit from the facility? I didn't break any law. I was, first of all, if I'm on the property, somebody let me in the property or invited me in the property. That's what happened. I walked in there. I didn't kick, push, shove, run.

I sat in there with ICE agents for over an hour. ICE agents were in there with me for over an hour. They didn't do anything to me. They didn't say anything. They didn't ask me to go. I just sat there. It wasn't until the special agent in charge showed up, who probably was giving orders to approach me. And that's what he did. He approached me. The Congress people responded,

trying to stop him from harassing me. I left the gate. He told me to get out. I left and went out. They came outside of the gate and proceeded to try to arrest me outside of the gate after I already left the property. The Congress people and, you know, people that were standing by got engaged in it because, I mean, they were being very, very, very aggressive, you know. So obviously, if you come outside of the gate, that's what's going to happen. And that's what they did. They took me. And these are the ones that dragged me back onto the property in cuffs. You know, they cuffed me and dragged me back into the property and arrested me for trespassing. So I'm sure you know, Mayor, that the administration is now threatening those members of Congress who were there with you with the rest as well. And they are sharing some body camera footage that they claim shows some of these members of Congress, in their view, assaulting these officers, masked officers who were there. Let me just go ahead and show you a so it's clearly it's extremely chaotic that's uh representative mciver in the

red i believe can you just tell us what we're looking at there and what, from your perspective, was happening? What you're seeing is them assaulting me, grabbing me, trying to lock me up. They were holding on to me. So they were pushing them off of me. If you see the whole video, there's several videos out there with all kinds of viewpoints. Several people were thrown to the ground. Several bystanders were thrown to the ground by agents. They were pushed.

They were shoved. If you see people being pushed, it is them pushing the Congress people. You can hear people in the background saying, don't touch them. Keep your hands off of them. You're not supposed to touch them. They're members of Congress. Mayor, one thing that I think has disturbed a lot of people is the use of masks by these federal agents in this situation and many others that we've seen with ICE arresting immigrants across the country. What do you make of the significance of this widespread use of

masking to obscure the face of these federal agents? That's pretty strange. It feels like they're on a real military special ops mission. I don't know what's happening there. The excuse is that ICE agents are under attack, and they have to hide their identity because they're under attack. I mean, our police officers in Newark can't go to places like this. They have to always be visible. The body camera footage has to always like this. They have to always be visible. The body camera footage has to always be on.

They have to be visible. And they face harrowing and difficult and dangerous situations all of the time. I don't understand why this is happening, but the reality is their behavior and the things that they're doing to people, in my mind, is extra legal and beyond the Constitution. What is your objection to this ICE facility in Newark? So our issue is with GEO. It's not even with ICE. It's not an ICE facility that they changed, are in the process of trying to change because a contract they just got from ICE to house some detainees. Same kind of contract they gave to El Salvador. They gave it to these people here locally, $63 million, over a billion dollars over a period of time to house detainees.

Our contention is that they need a certificate of occupancy. They argue that they have one. They have one from 20 years ago, which we think is outdated, and it needs to be updated. Updated to explain what the use of the property is now. Inspectors have to go in the building and inspect everything from fire code inspections to health inspections to electrical inspections. Now, they're playing with that and not allowing people in. We went up there.

We go there regularly. We're in court about this. And they have a right to dispute what we're saying. If they don't think they need a certificate of occupancy, if we think they do, in America, these things are settled in courts of law. That's where we're at. We're in a dispute with the court. ICE doesn't settle that.

The president doesn't settle that. Homeland Security nor ICE settles that. Judges settle these things. These are disputes that are settled by judges, not by authoritarianism. And so while we're going through this, they make a decision to go forward anyway, to do what they want to do, despite our effort to get this redress in court, which we believe is beyond the scope of their capacity and they don't have the right to do this. So we're pushing back against this. And it sets a terrible precedent. We allow them to do this.

Anybody can come in here and set up whatever the heck they want and say they don't need to listen to the city's laws. We allow these people to do it. So we're going back and forth with them about this. ICE has interceded and have decided to do what they're doing today. Mayor, I'm sure you know that for years, activists have contended that ICE is a lawless rogue agency that should be abolished. Do you agree with that? Well, I think that there is some use for homeland security.

Obviously, there is use for us to have law enforcement. But at the end of the day, I think what they're being weaponized to do is wrong. I think what the president has weaponized these agencies to do is far beyond their scope, right? Now they're weaponized to attack anybody that speaks out against the president of the United States, anybody that's against the policies of the United States, whether they're documented or not, whether they have a student visa, you know, whether they have a green card or whether they undocumented. And frankly, they're not just this lie about the places. Everybody's every place is filled with like child rapists and murderers and gang members. It's just a flat out lie. These people are attacking everybody, right? Everybody in America that's going through the process to become documented is not documented yet. And sometimes it takes seven, eight, nine

years. So in that process, any of these people are eligible to be deported. They will come and grab these people and deport them, which we think is unfair, unconstitutional, lacking of due process, you know, and, you know, should be pushed back against, and people all over the country are. And so my position against ICE, my contention with ICE, and really my contention with the, you know, with the Trump immigration policy is different than my contention with GEO. Those are two different issues, right? And we have the right to fight those issues

on different fronts. Last question I have for you, Mayor, I know you're busy and I appreciate you taking the time today is you're running for governor and you have a pretty crowded Democratic primary field that you're up against. Do you think that you would interface with the Trump administration as governor of New Jersey in a different way than your primary opponents

would? Do you think that that's an aspect that sets you apart? Well, clearly, you know, everybody is saying that they are going to do, are going to fight Donald Trump. That's the buzzword of the day because he's become so rogue. I mean, violating the Constitution, undermining people's democratic rights, taking away Medicaid, you know, attacking Social Security, veterans benefits, attacking diversity, equity, inclusion. I mean, it's just all out attack on working people. You know, obviously, we're going to have to defend ourselves in New Jersey. And I'm going to do that. We have to unite with other states that are pushing back to do that. And we're going to do that clearly. But we're also trying to build a democracy in New Jersey, one that, you know, all Americans can be proud of. And obviously, we think that if the president of the United States supports that, then fine.

If he doesn't, our ideas and the thing that we create will be opposed to that. I mean, we're not building a New Jersey that's centered around Donald Trump or what he's for and what he's against. We're building a New Jersey that's democratic and that's supportive and available of what we believe in in this state and create a pathway for all New Jerseyans. All right, Mayor Ross Baraka, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. All right, guys, that is the show. Emily, pleasure. Three lady shows in a row.

Discounting Friday, I mean, Friday we had Ryan in, but Friday's like a little bit different. So I'm talking about the main shows. Yeah, main shows, three in a row. So you guys will get your fix of the normal man-woman dynamic, I guess, tomorrow and Wednesday, because Ryan and I will be in on Wednesday. And Crystal, I'm really excited to watch you

host with Tim Miller tomorrow. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It'll be interesting. I got some questions for him. I'm actually listening to his book to hear his explanation of his major ideological transition. And, you know, he did a fair amount of self-assessment about his sort of like culpability in the trends that led to where we are now. So there's a lot of tea in that book, too. Yeah, there's a lot of tea. Definitely. So I'm probably as a Republican reading it like someone on the right reading it. You probably picked up on even more of the tea or some of the interpersonal dynamics. Well, yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting book and I've actually recommended it to people before who want insight into how Washington operates.

And people can dispute Tim's—and maybe I'll talk to him about this tomorrow—but they can dispute Tim's motivation for writing this. And he might actually even come out and say this. But, you know, as soon as he was kind of, I guess, ostracized because of his views on Donald Trump and could no longer kind of operate in that space, he wrote the tell-all about it. And again, question the motivations by all means, but I think for Tim, he did have a pretty sincere conversion away from the GOP orthodoxy that he really was aggressively pushing and making money off of for a long time here in D.C. So what you get in that book is a glimpse, a really, really, I think, detailed and granular glimpse of how the sausage is made here by consultants and lobbyists and all of that. Yeah.

Well, he talks about how the compartmentalization that he was able to deploy as a gay man who was working for politicians who were anti-gay in the context of a party that was overall very anti-gay and still is, that that compartmentalization is in some ways the very same skill that other operatives who previously may have been, you know, disgusted with Trump and opposed to what he stood for, et cetera, how they're able ultimately to just sort of cope with it and go along with it. Yeah. So it's somewhat, at least, you know, so far, a few chapters into the book, it's somewhat self-deprecating about how he recognizes in the Trump justification, the very same justifications

that he was using in the context of working for John McCain or John Huntsman or other Republican politicians or for this group that basically would fund AstroTurf organizations to bolster whatever conservative billionaires wanted them to do. No, and I knew Tim back then, and even just talking to him now, I'm really excited for this episode tomorrow because he, he's I think has a lot to say about it. Like he's willing to talk about it. And I think that's really helpful because it's very rare that you get someone who's fully willing to kind of divorce themselves from the previous their previous life in Washington. And he's also like really funny.

So it'll be it's it's a he's a good messenger for the past life. Excellent. Explaining it all. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you guys so much for watching it. Thank you so much for supporting the show. If you are a premium subscriber, we're going to switch over and do a premium AMA. If you want to be part of those in the future, make sure to subscribe at breakingpoints.com.

I'll see you back here tomorrow. Well, Sam, luckily, it's You're Not the Father Week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, My father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success.

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