Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/11/25: Trump Preps Insurrection Act, Tanks Roll Into DC As Trump Threatens Protesters

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Krystal and Emily discuss Trump preps for insurrection acts, tanks roll into DC for military parade.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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But then I see my son's not moving. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen 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 Murderline 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 Good morning Crystal if viewers were watching this what they actually just got from the overhead shot was Saugers booster seat You could see it in the overhead shot. So Yeah, welcome to breaking points everyone where we sit on booster seats so that we can be at the big kids table What longtime viewers know I have an exceptionally long torso

So everyone has to you know, literally up their game in order to equalize with me. So it's really my fault not soccer's Yeah, it's all about Crystal's torso Start the show this morning We do have a big show though because the protests are continuing, not just in Los Angeles now. They're spreading around the entire country. New York is seeing some protesting. Atlanta is seeing some protesting. We have some video clips, both from Los Angeles and around the country, to start the show

off with today. And we'll break down the updates, the latest updates in the clashes between those cities, particularly again between Los Angeles, California, and the Trump administration. Because Crystal, this new cycle is not slowing down. Yeah, not at all. And I'm interested to get your thoughts. This will be your first chance on the show this week to weigh in. Trump also gave a rather disturbing, in my opinion, speech in front of troops at Fort Bragg yesterday. And it's all kind of part and parcel, building up to this big military parade this weekend that happens to be on President Trump's birthday. We've got tanks rolling into DC.

We've got some footage of that. And widespread protest plan for that day as well. Trump saying that those protests are going to be met with force, really not making a distinction between whether they are violent or peaceful protesters. So extremely ominous developments that we can report on this morning. We've also got, speaking of ominous, strange video that was put out by Tulsi. I'm curious your take, Emily, on what is going on there behind the scenes, but she's warning, rightfully so, about the

dire consequences of nuclear war. And of course comes at a time of dramatic escalation between Ukraine and Russia. So that will be an interesting one to get to. Yeah, I mean, what's happening right now in Ukraine is also just sort of being buried, I'm not saying wrongfully, but in the domestic news cycle. We have a really crowded news cycle. So we have updates actually on some more deadly attacks

that we will cover, especially in that block. And Crystal, Stephen A. Smith on The Daily Show. We have a clip that everyone is definitely going to enjoy, but if you hear Stephen A. Smith on The Daily Show, then you already know that you're going to enjoy the clip in all likelihood. And some more updates from Zara Mamdani's race in New York City.

Yeah, looks like he has all the momentum. Will it be enough? Big question there, but some interesting new poll numbers. We've also got updates out of Israel. We've got some comments from Greta Thunberg in the wake of her being, what President Trump calls, kidnapped, which I think is accurate, by Israel and detained there for a while.

Some of the other activists are still being held in Israel, but she's speaking out. We also have some new video of the aid, you know, horror scene and new reporting about another aid slaughter. Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee, who is our ambassador to Israel saying, hey, we're not too big on this whole two state solution thing, really significant change in official U.S. government policy. And we're going to be joined this morning by Taryn Steinbrickner-Kaufman. She is an AI expert coming at it from the sort of liberal perspective. And so I wanted to get her take on a bunch of developments in particular.

Meta is ponying up a massive amount of cash to try to win the race for AGI or artificial general intelligence. These are extraordinary developments that could upend literally all of our lives. So interested to see what Taryn has to say about all of that. Crystal, we should also mention that BP free, not free gasoline, but that free monthly trial is still going on. If you go over to breakingpoints.com,

you can try out the premium experience of Breaking Points as a premium subscriber free for one month. That means you get the second half of the Friday shows and all kinds of other good stuff. The show hits your inbox early and with no breaks every single morning. So if you've ever been curious about trying it out, now is a great time because it's free.

Yeah, absolutely. And thanks to everybody who has availed themselves of that offer. One last news update before we jump in. We don't have this as an element in the show, but apparently, Elon, I don't know, sometime late last night tweeted out that he regrets some of the things that he said about President Trump. So I don't know what's going on there. I don't know what time zone he was in, but it came at 3 or 4 in the morning. And he said exactly what Crystal just mentioned. I regret some of my posts about President Trump last week, so I guess we'll stay tuned for more. Yes, more intrigue there and I'm sure we will continue to cover it. All right, let's go ahead and get to these ICE protests,

anti-ICE protests that really at this point are spreading across the country and we've got some video we can put up on the screen that shows all the different places where these protests are now going on. You know, to be fair different places where these protests are now going on. To be fair, there had been protests prior to this moment, but they've certainly exploded in size and scope since things kicked off in LA and since President Trump decided to send in the National Guard and now also deploy the Marines. Word is that the Marines are supposed to actually arrive in LA today. This is some of the images from LA from yesterday.

We've got New York City, you saw Chicago earlier. I know Atlanta had protests as well. I think there are additional protests planned for even more cities today and going into the weekend, including places like Minnesota. You can see Boston here as well. My understanding, Emily, I don't know if you saw anything different this morning, but that LA was relatively quiet last night. The mayor

imposed a curfew in the one square mile area of the downtown where the protests had been located centered around that federal government building. So she imposed a curfew. I think anyone who tried to defy it basically got arrested. And I think that's mostly what went down in LA yesterday. Here you can see protesters, I think, blocking a thoroughfare in Los Angeles from yesterday. And we also can show you, fairly disturbing, you're starting to get some of the videos from the police response here. And remember, this is LAPD, this is not the National Guard, and they have certainly had an overwhelming show of force. I heard Sagar and Ryan talking yesterday, Emily, about how difficult it is to tell actually between the ordinary police and National Guardsmen

or Marines because the local police departments are so kitted out with all of this military gear. This really happened in the wake after the war on terror and the war in Iraq. All of that military equipment started to come home and basically every major police department throughout the country now has looks like they're going in ready for battle. So in any case, I'm going to go ahead and show you this video that is really going viral, showing a woman who reportedly just like lives in the area of where this protests were and was trying to get home

and approaches a line of the LAPD cops who were there on the scene doing crowd control. And they pretty much shoot her with some sort of non-lethal projectile probably rubber bullet point blank. Let's go ahead and take a look at a little bit of that. They're telling her to move but that's a public sidewalk. They're telling her to move. Watch if they shoot her. Holy fuck.

They're gonna shoot. We're moving! We're moving. Stop. She's injured. Come on, we gotta get across the street. So, she'd her point blank and she said, I'm just trying to get home. We've seen a few incidences that are like that. We also showed you previously on the show that

reporter from Australia who was also hit with a rubber bullet and yeah, they're not going to kill you. They're less lethal, I think they call them, Emily. But they can do some damage. I've been seeing the injuries come out. In any case, before we get into the latest from Gavin Newsom and Trump's speech and all of that,

just wanted to give you a chance to give kind of top line thoughts about what you make of the situation and how this is all unfolding. Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, I think, I tend to think people have, from a political perspective, a hierarchy of priorities. And I think that a lot about Trump, when we're analyzing Trump's decisions

to do various different things, whether it's deporting people for anti-Israel op-eds, students for anti-Israel op-eds or attempting to deport people for anti-Israel op-eds, students for anti-Israel op-eds, or attempting to deport them for anti-Israel op-eds, or turning the screws to Harvard in novel ways. I tend to think that sometimes it's the people don't like the way that Trump approaches the situation, but they still, and this is a mistake, I think that some mainstream Democrats make, the average American still though doesn't like

what the actual status quo policy is less. So it's not that people really, really are on board with Donald Trump militarizing responses to protests, and they just love it and all of that. I mean, I think a lot of average Americans look at that and really don't like to see the militarization of local law enforcement where to the point that you were saying Sagar and Ryan were discussing, it looks like they're in Fallujah when they're policing regular demonstrations and far better for me to defend the LAPD which I'm not surprised at all by that video that we just showed

which I think was sourced from reddit of a woman just getting popped by a rubber bullet which As she's trying to get home doesn't seem to be a threat to anybody isn't with a crowd So yeah, I don't think anybody likes to see those scenes. I Honestly personally think that when we have tens of thousands, I mean, I pulled up this Homeland Security report from last year of the non-detained people on the national docket for ICE at the time, so this was July 21st, 2024, 62,000 people for assault that were non-detained,

convicted criminals, convicted of assault roaming the country. Same thing with dangerous drugs is how they classify it. Sex crimes, homicide, 13,000 people. So I think for a lot of Americans, they are probably more similar to me, aligned on that question of like, there are tens of thousands of people who are not detained, who are convicted criminals, who came into the country, even if they're dropping the

bucket for, you know, I agree with that. I think actually like the Cato Institute statistics are probably correct. The pro-immigration statistics are probably correct that the average migrant commits crimes at a lesser rate than the average native where I don't take any issue with those statistics, but I think there are a lot of dangers. I see sanctuary city policies, sanctuary state policies, California basically is a sanctuary state. I see those as subsidies to the cartels, which allow people to go into the country and not

be detained, not be, well, I shouldn't say detained, but not be deported. And that allowed a lot of trafficking of people across the border and cartels made money off of just about every single one of them. So I don't like how Trump is approaching it. I also really don't like, I think I like less how California has approached it over the course of the last decade, but we likely disagree on that crystal. Well, let's be clear. You are at odds with Stephen Miller on that. Yes. Yes. What he explicitly said and has implemented through ICE, he explicitly

said to the leaders of ICE, why are you going after criminals? Go to the Home Depot, go to the 7-elevens. Go to the Home Depot, go to the 7-elevens. So the priority is not on dealing with criminals because the problem is that yes, of course, there is some number of undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, been convicted of crimes, been accused of crimes, et cetera. It is not the millions of people and it would not provide the mass show of force

that Stephen Miller wants. So you will find very few people, including myself in this country, who say, yes, we wanna keep the convicted criminal, undocumented immigrants. The approach that they're taking will make it more difficult to remove the actual dangerous individuals

that you're speaking about. And instead, they are targeting the kids, the elementary school graduation, the day laborer who's out just trying to get a job and has no criminal record whatsoever. That's who they're actually going after. And that is what sparked these protests in LA in particular, which have now really spread across the country. The big picture for me here is we now have a stack of truly authoritarian, terrifying actions being taken here by the Trump administration. I mean, to bring in a national guard over the objections of local law enforcement,

to handle some pretty run of the mill protests, the type of thing that you see after like, a football team wins the Super Bowl or a basketball team win the NBA Finals or whatever, like that's where these things started, to call in the national guard over the objections of the governor insane, unprecedented, truly in terms of these dynamics, to bring in the Marines is utterly

deranged. Then you have this speech that we're going to show you some clips from here in a moment in front of active duty troops, getting them to cheer for, you know, calling Gavin news, a new scum and going after the fake news. I mean, it's just a hyper partisan speech that you're getting active duty soldiers behind you that you handpicked by the way, to make sure that they, you know, had the right politics to be behind you to cheer for. Then you add to that this military parade plan for his birthday for this weekend, where he says any

protestor, not just my own person, any protestors are going to be met with force. And you know, the pattern is pretty clear here. And then you mentioned some of the other actions that have been taken, whether it's the arresting students for writing an op-ed or the attacks on universities. All of this amounts to an extraordinarily dangerous authoritarian power grab. There is nothing, and I'll play the Gavin Newsom sod in a moment where he makes this, I believe he makes this point in this sod as well. There is nothing that limits this federalizing of the National Guard to just LA or to just California or to just sanctuary cities or sanctuary states or wherever it is that you have a policy issue

with them. There is no limiting principle on it. And so it certainly seems like part of the goal here is to normalize the idea that it requires the US military in order to just enforce the law. I mean, we showed you the clip of the LAPD. They're not coming in all like hugs and cuddles. They have thousands of cops. The Republicans are supposed to be the ones who are all about law enforcement. They are the ones who are actually supposed to be trained to deal with people who are lawbreakers.

And so the notion that you have to bring in Marines who are trained for combat to be deployed against American citizens is something is, I think a red line that every it's truly un-American and as a red line, in my opinion, that absolutely no one should accept. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club,

the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you.

Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages

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I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. This could get worse because to the point that you're making, there's protests now popping up all over the place. There is no, there's just not necessarily a limit on the Trump administration's interest in

expanding around the country if anything. I mean, I think that the Trump administration is eager to have that and it's because I think the reason, like the political explanation for it, and I don't think we disagree on the politics from the Trump administration's perspective, but like they want to look like they're leaning into this. They want to look like Gavin Newsom, they hope Gavin Newsom gets as much airtime as he can. And we actually have a clip of Gavin Newsom giving a prime time television address last night. And it's gotten a decent bit of play

just over the last 12 hours or so. So let's actually go ahead and roll EX3 to get a taste of how Gavin Newsom addressed people last night. This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.

Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. And Crystal, before we get to the Fort Bragg speech, which we also, as you mentioned, have clips from, I just want to say my frustration with that is the sanctuary state policies are why it's hard to get the tens of thousands of convicted criminals, not even people with charges, but just convicted criminals. That's why it's actually hard for law enforcement to do it, is that they're able to be in in California and in these places.

Like it does genuinely make it really hard. And so I feel like what would be really de-escalatory is for Gavin Newsom to do what like Muriel Bowser has done here in DC and start walking some of those policy policies back. But now it's just everyone's kind of has dug in because the Trump administration responded in a way that Gavin Newsom politically is responding to in this way and not entirely with without reason. They're calling it for his arrest so you can see why Gavin Newsom would react as he did,

but we're absolutely no closer to solving the legitimate problem. And many such cases, I guess, that's such as the nature of American politics in 2025. Well, I'm pretty sure Texas is not a sanctuary state. Correct me if I'm wrong. And they're using the same type of tactics there. The same type of protests are being sparked.

And there is a- A couple cities are, I think like Houston is, but yeah. And there are quite a large number, relatively equivalent population, you know, per capital number of undocumented immigrants in Texas as there are in California. So, you know, fine to debate, sanctuary city and sanctuary state policies. I disagree.

I think it's important and actually is good for elimination of crime and violence to make it so that immigrants feel like they can go to the authorities without fearing like they're going to break up their family and be deported out of the country. Fair to criticize, you know, to have a debate about that legitimate policy argument, not legitimate to send in Marines against American citizens who are protesting at a time when, you know, the, the governor, when their protests are relatively limited, not out of control in some way that the LAPD can't handle. And again, zooming out as part of a broader authoritarian crackdown and power grab against dissent overall in this country. And I think part of the reason why they're now using national guards,

so these active duty soldiers with semi-automatic weapons, they're using them in ICE raids now in California, I think is to present an image of criminality. Because when you see this force coming in, you assume this must be for some super bad guy, super villain, to create that impression, even though who you're really going after is like, again, like a day laborer at Home Depot or a mom with an American citizen kid and those types of more sympathetic cases. So by militarizing the response and having that look of the masked ICE agents

surrounded by the kitted up national guardsmen, you can create a perception that these must be hardened criminals they're going after when that is, we know, not the case. I mean, even the guys they sent to CICOT to rot in a slave labor camp for life, the vast majority of them were not criminals in any respect, had no arrest record whatsoever. And you have to assume the reason that they did that is because they just have, they just, they're just aren't the number of undocumented criminals that they want to project to the

nation. So, you know, I think Newsom, who I am no fan of in general, has actually done an excellent job and a very, you know, most Democrats are so slow on their feet in terms of responding and engaging and they only going on the mainstream outlets and only doing these pre-packaged things. He gave this prime time address, which I thought was relatively effective, but he's also been out there mixing it up on Twitter. He's done a bunch of different podcasts. He's been very aggressive

about combating narratives in real time in a way that, listen, I think his star had really fallen. I think he'd really misread the moment early in Trump 2.0 and there's just no doubt that this is hugely elevating for him with the Democratic base and definitely makes him more of a contender. Not that that's the most important thing right now whatsoever. But we've mentioned now a couple of times, Trump went to Fort Bragg and gave this speech in front of the, you know, the active duty soldiers that are there, hyper partisan, hyper political, typical like Trump rally speech, which, you know, I know nobody cares about like the way things used to be or the norms, but this is

something that would have been completely, completely unthinkable out of bounds whatsoever. The idea of soldiers even overtly expressing partisan political beliefs was something that was completely out of bounds until really the Trump moment. Let's go ahead and take a look at some of how that went down. Before going further, I want to say a few words about the situation in Los Angeles, California. Have you heard of the place where I've deployed thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to protect federal law enforcement from the attacks of a vicious and violent

mob and some of the radical left? They say, Oh, that's not nice. Well, if we didn't do it, there wouldn't be a Los Angeles. It'd be burning today, just like the houses were burning a number of months ago. Generations of Army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home, like is happening in California.

As commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It's never gonna happen. In Los Angeles, the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles, they're incompetent and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists. They're engaged in this willful attempt to nullify federal law and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders. That's what it is.

Very simply, we will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean, and safe again. It's happening very quickly. But they proudly carry the flags of other countries, but they don't carry the American flag. They only burn it. Did you see a lot of the flags being burned? They weren't being burned by people from our country or from people that love our country.

People that burn the American flag should go to jail for one year. That's what they should be doing. That last piece there, something he has repeated multiple times, it has been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but I'm sure if you pull it is fairly popular to criminalize the burning of the American flag. But in any case, Emily, what do you make of the dynamics of the president there giving this hyper-partisan speech and, you know, eliciting cheers and boos from the active duty soldiers there at Fort Bragg? I mean, I agree with what you said as we were queuing up the video that it's something you've

if Barack Obama did it, if even John McCain did it, nobody would be happy. To some extent, because it's Donald Trump, it's something that we're numb to, and I also think not without reason, because he's still, at least for now, an exception to how he handles a lot of these situations. I mean, even, I can't envision J.D. Vance

doing anything quite like that. I can't envision J.D. Vance doing anything quite like that. I can't envision a Democrat who I think would do anything quite like that. But we don't really know what happens to these norms after Donald Trump is no longer president. So it's just one of the things. I don't know if this is something that we are still in this like temporary Trump moment, or if this is something that continues afterwards. I think that's a good point because perhaps at this moment, he's the only one who can get away with this. Treating the military as his own personal army effectively.

And that's certainly the way that he wants them to behave. That's certainly the way people want to perceive them. And maybe now at this moment, because he's so outrageous in so many regards, he's the only one who can even remotely get away with that. But once that bridge is crossed and that approach to the military and deploying the military against

U.S. citizens and routinely using, you know, Marines for law enforcement in American cities. Once that sort of thing becomes normalized, then it doesn't just stay with Trump. There's a bridge that's crossed and a genie that's out of the bottle that's very hard, if not impossible, to put back in. And I think that's what is so incredibly alarming to me and others about this moment. It just give you a little bit of backstory. Jane Costin was able to obtain the sort of like, you know, memo that went out about how they picked these guys to be standing there behind Trump. She got this note that says they need everyone seated by this time soldiers sitting in the bleachers are to be fit and not look fat. Classic. Soldiers in the bleachers will not be allowed to have water so they must hydrate, no colored patches.

If any soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience and they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out, basically they don't want soldiers in the audience rolling their eyes or shaking their head in disagreement, et cetera. So they basically put out like a casting call here to get the guys with the right political views are gonna be loyal to Trump who aren't gonna be rolling their eyes

or shaking their head or not enthusiastic enough, not cheering and laughing and applauding at the laugh lines and the cheer lines, etc. And so that was how they, you know, were able to create this, this moment, this authoritarian strongman moment for President Trump, where it appears like the military is serving as his personal marching band, cheerleaders, his force directly rather than the servants and protectors of the American people. There were also, I mentioned before, he's got this military parade coming up this weekend in DC.

That is going to be a very, that's going to be a very, you know, that's going to be a troubling moment because he announced in the Oval Office yesterday that those any protests, which there are already protests planned for Saturday for that day, that any protests will be met with force making no distinction between peaceful and violent protesters. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. They be there a little bit, but it seems to be getting less and less because they're going there and they met with a very heavy force. And if they weren't, you would have that city right now would be on fire.

It would be burning down the rest of it. What's left over because the other fire was started because they wouldn't allow water into LA. They wouldn't allow water into California because they had it all shifted out to the Pacific Ocean. wouldn't allow water into California because they had it all shifted out to the Pacific Ocean and I turned it around, called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he's doing a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death. If we didn't send out the National Guard and last time we gave a little additional help,

you would have Los Angeles would be burning right now. The reaction to these large-scale ICE operations in Los Angeles, should people expect to see similar operations in the rest of the country? And will similar protests see similar responses? As you know, we're moving murders out of our country that were put here by Biden or the auto pen. The auto pen really did it. A very simple rule of engagement. If they're dangerous, if they're throwing concrete or bricks,

if they're spitting in the face of the police or whoever's in front of them, if they're punching people, if they're doing all of the things that you see done for the last three nights, that I would say is engagement. So that was actually more specifically about what's going on in California. I think we have the, um the sought for the next block about the military parade where he says, you know, protesters will be met with overwhelming force. But you know, he's making these claims that, oh, LA, California be on fire if we hadn't sent the National Guardsmen. The reality is most of the National Guardsmen that have been sent, I think it's like 4,000 at this point have not been given orders are not really doing much of anything.

In fact, local law enforcement, LAPD is having to divert resources to protect the national guardsmen who've been given no orders and nothing to do, which underscores the fact that even Trump himself has said that things have quieted down in LA. Of course, he wants to take credit for it, but underscores the fact that as Newsom and Karen Bass have been saying, the scope of the protests, which were largely within one square mile, a few city blocks in downtown LA, were well within the capability of the LAPD to handle. And bringing in the National Guard did nothing but inflame tensions and make the protests much larger than they would have been otherwise.

Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off.

I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast,

Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country, begging for help with unsolved murders. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murderline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, Crystal, about where this goes from here, let's put A2 on the screen. This is an indication that the protests are going to continue to spread to other cities.

This report from NBC News. We should also go through here A3. This is Jennifer Griffin of Fox News noting that the 700 Marines ordered to help in LA have not yet arrived to help control the riots. The Marines will remain at Seal Beach south of LA and will be undergoing training for a few more days which, Crystal, a few more days of training in a situation like this sounds like a delay that's intentional to make it look like the Marines were involved without ever actually putting the Marines in the situation

because after a few days of training, which is already rather nebulous, I don't know that they actually are going to find a situation where they put the Marines in Los Angeles. So that's an interesting one to watch as well. It almost is like Pete Hegseth wanted to respond to Donald Trump's suggestion and said, okay, we've got the Marines on it

and they're undergoing their training for civil unrest. And then, well, the riot's over. Yeah, well, I mean, the reporting I saw is they're supposed to arrive today, so we'll see. I hope that your analysis is the correct one. It also just underscores the case, like, Marines are not trained for crowd control. They are trained for offensive combat missions, not to go in and act in a law enforcement capacity against American citizens.

So like I said, what I saw is that they're meant to arrive today. We'll see what happens there and what use they're put to. And if they're already arriving after the mayor has implemented a curfew and things are quieting down. A curfew and the protests have basically quieted down. Now I do think there's another major flashpoint this weekend with the protests and, you know, ice raids are continuing. What I read in the LA Times this morning is they're actually expanding outside of the city into more rural areas, you know, going after farm, daily farm laborers and things of that nature. So, you know, the ice raids are not going to stop. So the provocation that originally sparked

the protests are not going to end either. So, you know, certainly the, the conflagration, I think it's way too, way too early to say that that is over. There's a lot of reasons to still be really concerned about where this is all headed. Now there has been some, some legal action that we wanted to update you on Gavin Newsome put this up on the screen filed an emergency motion to block Trump's, I believe, and I, he agrees, illegal deployment of Marines and National Guard in LA. He was asking for this, a decision to be made on this and a TRO to be issued within two hours. The judge said, no, we're not gonna issue a TRO

in the timeframe that you want. Instead, a hearing is set for Thursday to consider the merits of the lawsuit here. And, you know, in terms of the legality, Trump has not invoked the Insurrection Act, which would give him much more broad powers. Instead, he used these, it's called Title 10 powers that seem on their face to require the consent and for the governor to actually be the one that issues the order to federalize the National Guard. I mean, the deployment of the Marines, I don't even know what legal pretext they are using

to justify any sort of use of the Marines in a law enforcement setting in LA. So that seems to be to be even more tenuous, but we'll see what the courts have to say about all of this. Well, Chris, I was going to say, actually, we have a five. This is the next element to put on the screen. This is from the San Francisco Chronicle reporting that says, we obtained a memo from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asking DOD Secretary Pete Hagsat to grant soldiers the authority to detain or arrest, quote unquote, lawbreakers in LA.

This would be a step towards the Trump administration invoking the Insurrection Act, experts say. To the question that you just raised, are they trying to pave the path to the Insurrection Act with some of this, I think is an open question as well, especially with the reporting and actually what we saw last night about expansions into other cities. I think it's quite likely in 86, Stephen Miller has been really leading the propaganda charge. And he says here that this is the definition of insurrection.

LA and California leadership demand the right to illegally import unlimited foreigners into America to control America's entire immigration policy by fiat. And if they are not so permitted, they will allow mobs to target ICE within Pune. I mean, this is just absurd. First of all, you know, we we've had court rulings at this point.

Stephen Miller is always using the language of invasion. We've had multiple courts rule at this point in the context of Alien Enemies Act. This is not an invasion. This is, you know, absurd. Like this is way beyond the bounds of what that language would imply. It's not like Newsom and Bass were standing in the way of ICE rates. He makes it sound like they were blocking law enforcement, the ICE from doing anything and going in and deporting immigrants. That's just not the case whatsoever. But I think the important thing here is the

use of the word insurrection and the attempt to lay the groundwork, the rhetorical groundwork to build up to an invocation of the Insurrection Act, which I've been pointing out on day one, Trump had signed an executive order saying, hey, check into, it was Christy Dohm and a couple other, I think Heg Seth, I don't remember, a couple other officials, hey, do an analysis and tell me whether I should invoke the Insurrection Act now. So he's been looking for an excuse to do this. They've also got reporting now that he's been from the jump looking for a pretext in order to send in, federalize National Guard, send in troops, potentially invoke the Insurrection Act.

So I certainly think it is very likely that we are building up to exactly that, especially as protests build in cities, in blue cities across the country in particular. You pulled out this quote from a Wall Street Journal report yesterday, this is A7. That basically it shows, this is, read it.

In Coral Springs, Florida, at least eight agents in tactical gear, shields, and rifles surrounded a home with guns raised to arrest a father with no criminal history. In Irvine, California, ICE agents drove a phalanx of military vehicles in the Orange County suburb to arrest a person, though not for illegal immigration. They were seeking a resident's son who had allegedly posted flyers alerting neighbors to the presence of ICE agents. Crystal, that goes to the point that you were making earlier in the block about actually whether some of these excessive and arguably incompetent instances of trying to subdue

either non-criminal aliens or American citizens. Does that actually hurt ultimately the effort to take convicted criminals out of the country, for the Trump administration to take tens of thousands of convicted criminals out of the country? It's certainly a hell of an anecdote there from the Wall Street Journal. Yeah.

I mean, posting flyers is clearly protected First Amendment activity. And so you're sending in a phalanx of military vehicles to go after someone's son who posted some flyers. I mean, this is insane. And I think the first instance was with regard to, it was in Florida, again, not a sanctuary state, but they felt that the numbers, Stephen Miller felt that the numbers were too low when they were largely focusing on trying to find criminal undocumented immigrants. So they are taking much more aggressive tactics. As we've discussed before, part of the plan here is to be so insane, so cruel, so over

the top that you scare people into self-deporting themselves. That was the point of CICOT. There are also plans now that have been reported out to send thousands more immigrants, largely actually European immigrants to Guantanamo Bay. And so, you know, this is the goal and it ties in also with the quote unquote big beautiful bill, which would provide vastly more resources to ICE, both in terms of manpower and in terms of partnering with private prison contractors to build out these mass detention facilities. So, you know, these shows of force are very intentional, even though they are in certain

instances unconstitutional and wildly, wildly unnecessary. Again, I do think part of that is when you have this show of huge numbers of agents coming in fully kitted out in military vehicles, with their military gear, the public perception and assumption is that they must be going after a criminal, even when it's a dad with no criminal record, even when it's a son for posting flyers.

So this imagery and this approach, it's all very intentional. I also find it really disturbing the way that they, the ICE agents have taken to oftentimes wearing plain clothes and fully masking and obscuring their face. And I think that is, you know, deeply un-American and deeply disturbing. And it's led to some instances already,

there was a, there've been a couple instances I've seen where people have posed as ICE agents and in order to themselves commit crimes. The other thing that I think it's important to note is they've diverted resources in the FBI and other law enforcement agencies within the federal government to this mass deportation

effort, which takes them off of the ability to go after other criminal activity. So back to your original point about what you would like to see happen and how you'd like to see this focus on getting people who have committed crimes and who are undocumented immigrants out of the country, that is not at all. They do not at all have a focus on criminals, whether it's undocumented or otherwise. Instead, the focus really is on creating the sense of terror and horror among the entire immigrant community so that people will themselves self-deport

so that their base will get the red meat that they want. And also, I think partly to trigger a reaction from the public that justifies even more of an authoritarian crackdown, which is exactly what we're seeing unfold right now. It's a very frightening state of affairs because I actually am sympathetic to a lot of these agents, like our run of the mill, and we likely disagree on this, a run-of-the-mill ICE agent who has a family, is trying to provide for them and is getting videotaped and shot all over social media, all of that. But it's part of the job at this point. And so it's one of the frustrating things I think about the Trump era in general is

that the responses to a lot of, I think, and problems with you know I would say like sympathetic at least from my perspective on the right problems the reaction is it does go and sometimes like you use the phrase anti-american yeah I mean I do think having masked law enforcement officers pull people off the streets is and some of them have been citizens by the way we've seen videos of that so of that. So it's a frightening state of affairs when you have people who are in the country illegally, not even wanting to show up to the court hearings because they're deporting people at the court hearings, which again, is another sort of like, I get it if it's your job to deport people who are overstaying visas and are in the country illegally,

but then people don't even participate in the process anymore because they're afraid of being deported. So it's setting up as a response to a very legitimate crisis, I think, created by the Biden administration, it's setting us up for a lot of unrest. I feel like actually, Crystal, this really is just the beginning, but we've earned a laugh, so I think we should watch the Waymos fleeing. Yes. Waymos are exiting L.A.

Here they are. Waymo cult service in downtown L.A. amid ice protests. The Waymos are fleeing the scene. After a new and novel protest tactic of summoning Waymos I didn't even realize to be honest with you that way Mo use was as widespread as it is in California, but to be honest, that's that's kind of interesting in of itself So the packet tactic is summoning the way most to the left like them on fire So yeah, kind of funny it is kind of funny on fire. So it's kind of funny. It is kind of funny.

It's kind of funny. I mean, what I said, what I said, I don't know if this was on air or off air, but what I was saying is like, listen, if we have an organized war against the robots, I'm here for it. Like, yes, let's do that. But if we're, you know, just doing this as like, I am one who not particularly sympathetic to like the usefulness of setting a Waymo on fire and jumping on top of it with a Mexican flag.

Look, I get it. I'm not like it's not a moral issue, but I don't think that it is. You can see the way the Trump administration has like jumped on these images and absolutely loves them. So it's not the most helpful thing in the world. No, but the Waymo's fleeing in unison, I think it's just helpful from a levity perspective because we could all use it at this point.

Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts.

Every week, I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or

passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for.

If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes,

but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself

to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the expected military parade here in Washington, D.C. on Saturday. So let's get to the updates on that story.

Massive presence here in Washington. There are lots of videos going viral. You can see it of tanks being loaded in, brought on flat beds into the city. Let's go ahead and listen to what Donald Trump had to say about this yesterday. We can roll B1. Celebrating big on Saturday. We're gonna have a lot of,

and if there's any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force, by the way. And for those people that want to protest, they're gonna be met with very big force. And I haven't even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force. All right, so estimated price tag between 25 and $45 million,

we can start rolling. Bring Elon and the chainsaw back, let's doge it. The chainsaw. Here's B2, you can actually see why the price tag is as high as it is. This is tanks rolling into DC, the Washington Monument in the background. This is going to be down, I believe, Constitution Avenue on Saturday between like 6 and 9 p.m. I think is roughly when it's scheduled to go for.

And this is, yeah, I mean, you're looking at tanks rolling down the streets. Now, Crystal, before we toss to whether the roads are equipped to handle this, that's a different question. Trump, the legend here, everyone remembers, Trump tried to do this in his first term after going to France, seeing a French military parade and wanting to bring it back to the United States.

People like Jim Mattis were uncomfortable with it in Trump 1.0, but now Trump is much more staffed by loyalists. Pete Hickseth is an obvious example of that. People were ideologically aligned with him and aligned with sort of going along with his mission or they're aligned with that sort of that loyalty to Trump, let's put it that way, and have really no hesitation about going along with this. There is a

scheduled day of defiance or a planned day of defiance for protests on Saturday. The Washington Post is reporting, this is B3. We've heard about this actually since Trump said he was going to do the military parade here in DC. We've heard that they're actually needing to put metal plates, and I've seen some of them actually. They're not fun if you're biking around, but they've had to reinforce the road with metal

plates to prevent damage. When you have 100 vehicles in addition to, as the Post reports, thousands of soldiers, dozens of tanks and more than 100 other vehicles scheduled for that procession along Constitution Avenue, the gross weight, so that the ones that are supported by the government, that can be supported by the government vehicles, would be 80,000 pounds. But the Abrams tanks each weigh about 70 tons. There's 28 of those planning, that the administration is planning to roll down in the parade, again, for the Army's 250th birthday, which I will say actually is on Saturday.

It actually does coincide with Donald Trump's birthday and Saturday in the summer Sort of I don't know crystal whether that's an unfortunate coincidence for Trump. It's clearly a fortunate coincidence But I think he would be doing something for the army's 250th birthday to be honest anyway He really wanted to have this military parade Maybe what would the what would the QAnon people say about that? Maybe there's something we're supposed to be reading into this. I've lost the thread a bit with where the QAnon people are at this point. I think there's splinter factions.

I know there are some who had turned on Michael Flynn, some who were still in league with Michael Flynn. So I've lost touch a little bit with where they are at this point. They're probably out there justifying Palantir taking all of her data and creating this giant panopticon as somehow fighting the deep state is probably what they're up to at this point. But trust the process. Listen, if this was a one off and you were just having a military parade and there wasn't national guardsmen who'd been federalized over the objections of the California governor in the street, Marines being deployed against

American citizens, a US congresswoman who was just indicted on charges that could get her 17 years in prison, by the way. If you didn't have Trump out there saying that we are going to meet protesters with overwhelming force, making no distinction between whether they were peaceful or whether they were violent. Maybe then you'd go, it's a waste of money. It's going to mess up the DC streets, which really don't need that. You know, DC budget really doesn't need the extra tens of millions of dollars it's going to take to repair the damage, et cetera. But is it the biggest deal in the world? No.

When you put all of those pieces together, it really does feel like you are building to a crescendo of authoritarian power grab, sorry, fascist imagery that is quite intentional and quite frightening and quite overwhelming. And that's not even to mention the things that we talked about before, the attacks on public universities, the crushing of dissent and free speech. The counter-terrorists are basically framing anyone who is a protester of any of these administrations' policies as providing material support for terrorists. The aforementioned Palantir database that seeks to surveil and compile all of the data on everyone who's in the country, US citizen and not, so that that crushing of dissent

can be wielded much more effectively. When you put all of these pieces together, troubling does not begin to describe it. And so I think this is a very fraught, combustible moment with potentially dire and far reaching consequences for the direction that this country goes in. And especially, when you do have large scale protests that have been pre-planned, which people should have the right to protest their government. That's a core American value. When you have those protests planned, when you already have Trump and Stephen Miller and others providing the rhetorical justification

to launch this mass crackdown, I think everyone, I don't care where you are on the political spectrum, I think everyone should be deeply concerned for what that means for your rights, for the rights of your friends, family, your neighbors, for your ability to dissent from anything this government or a future regime does as well. I think we're on very, very treacherous ground and that it will be difficult to walk back from some of the things that are being done right now in this time. Let's put before on the screen, this is a local news breakdown of the expected costs here.

So Trump has said on Meet the Press that the cost is, quote, peanuts compared to the value of doing it. But again, that number is potentially as high as $45 million. And they broke down even like 16 million of that could come from just repairing the roads afterwards, so They're also advertised really heavily in the area within like five hours of DC roughly five hours of DC Trying to get people to come to it. I think that's another open question about this what we can look at here on B5 is about this, what we can look at here on B5 is counter protests that are planned to spread throughout the country. And one of the things, Crystal, building on what

you were just talking about, I wanted to mention is these are being rallied, these are being organized under the banner of No Kings. And so if you look at the map here, there are planned counter protests all over the country. But No Kings, I think, is really interesting branding. And I think it's really interesting branding for a counter protest movement juxtaposed with the resistance movement of 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. Because No Kings is implicitly and inherently patriotic,

and I think appeals to the patriotism of the average American in a way that resistance never did. So I'm curious what you make of that, Crystal, because I think that's actually a very, for the left, positive development. Yeah, I think it is a smart framing. And I think Apt and the cat has just joined the conversation. I'm listening right now.

As you see behind me. No Kings except for Salem. Except for Salem. Salem is our, that's definitely the king in this household. But no, I think it is, I think it is intelligent branding and this is why, you know, I know Sagar and it seems like you feel like, Oh, the crackdown in LA, like this is going to play into Trump's hands.

And I, you know, I'm like really leery at this point of offering political predictions, because I think things have been so difficult to predict ultimately. But I don't, I think this is too much too fast, where the The fears of Trump and the worst, you know, worst concerns, the gravest concerns about how this man would behave if you gave him the power of the presidency again, are just undeniably present. You know, if you look at the polling, people are not crazy about the protesters. People are never crazy about protesters, although actually with the exception of the BLM protesters, they were overwhelmingly popular. But even if you look back at like the civil rights movement, you know, those protesters were also not popular. If you look at Trump's response to it, using Marines against protesters, wildly

unpopular. His ratings on immigration still okay, they're his best ratings, but he's barely above water if he is at all. That's in the best polls. Some of the polls find his deportation ratings even on things like deportations deeply underwater. Americans they don't want a king. I do think there is a reaction against this very clear power grab. And there is so much in the floods of the zone strategy that is hitting people in the face right now

that I would not be so confident if I was the Republicans that this politically is to their benefit. Now, maybe their plan is for it not really to matter that much what the American people think about it. Maybe their plan is to continue with their power grab such that dissent is crushed, that there is limited ability to voice your concerns electorally. I'm not talking like, oh, they're going to cancel elections or whatever, but you can see scenarios where the pretext of crushing protests is used to take control of some of the voting apparatus.

You could certainly, I mean, it's very easy to imagine situations where they just outright reject whatever the election results are that are unfavorable to them. So maybe they don't particularly care about the politics of it, but to the extent they do, I think this is much more treacherous than they imagine, especially when the reality of who is being deported and the way that it's being handled is staring people in the face. They're having to grapple with the pregnant mom who's married to an American citizen or the dad with no criminal record who has all the agents show up at his house, or the son who's just like posting flyers and is being met with this insane use of force.

Because the truth of the matter is, Emily, that there is no ability to do a mass deportation strategy that doesn't involve a massive police state that is going to impact literally everyone. And I think we've already seen that with the crushing of the, you know, the pro-Palestine dissent, because by definition, you have to sort out, okay, who is citizen and who is non-citizen. That means that you are going to have to, you know, inquire and have your surveillance state hit citizens as well. The money that's in the budget for the big, beautiful bill,

for ICE, for detention centers, there is no way to just keep that confined to whatever population it is. I think it's mostly like, you know, if you look at the polling, people are very comfortable as they should be with deporting like criminal and undocumented immigrants. You go beyond that,

the numbers actually really fall off a cliff. And when you ask specifically about people who have no criminal record, who have been here for a long time, I'm talking, it's like 75 25 that people feel like, why are you messing with these people? They're just like living their lives and not causing people any kind of harm. So again, maybe they don't care about the politics, which is, uh, what is the terrifying, I think in real possibility, but to the extent they do, I think, and real possibility. But to the extent they do,

I don't think they're on nearly as firm a ground as they feel they are right now. I mean, I think they care about the politics. I think they're also, some of them are very online. But I also still think on the narrow question of the riots, I do think it's, I do agree more with Sagar on that. I think it's helpful I do agree more with Sogern, that I think it's helpful to Trump

because people like Gavin Newsom still haven't addressed the problem that voters care more about in a satisfactory way. But that aside, the no-kings thing is really interesting to me because I feel like that's sort of, this man is having a $45 million, potentially $45 million military parade that happens to fall on his birthday and he is like in some cases encouraging snowflake-ery from like law enforcement that has to cover

their faces and anti-american like I think there's something that Dems can tap into that is almost emasculating but not in the way that the resistance thought that they had him by claiming there was a pee tape and you know having those disgusting blow-up balloons of him everywhere he went where he was like naked It was just weird didn't work and and Chris will you know this because you live outside of DC like there was something there is something very real for a lot of people who very real for a lot of people who maybe don't love Trump, but continue to vote for him and continue to sympathize

with him or agree with him over Democrats on some of these culture war questions because they do love America. They, people can disagree with this, but they feel like Trump loves America. And again, you could disagree with that. You can hate that. You could think it's wrong,

but that's something that people like about Trump is that he seems to like the country. And I do think that's a mistake that Democrats made in the resistance era, was not meeting so many people where they are on that question. And it allowed them to look unpatriotic and allowed the American people to think that they're unpatriotic, because they weren't kind of leading with that question in particular. And I think that's why the No Kings branding is actually very, very smart for the left.

Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think that it is an intelligent branding and especially, I mean, this is the way he behaves in everything, you know, even with the tariffs, wanting people to come and like bend the knee, you know, he wants to make it so that FEMA is, aid is dispatched at his bequest. You know, he wants to make it so that FEMA is aid is dispatched at his bequest. You know, this is, this is the way that he operates in every respect. And so when you

put the label on it, all these pieces fit together, including the use of the American US military as his own private force. Secretary of the Army actually called it Trump's Army or his army this morning on Fox News. So they really are pushing that and trying to normalize that sense that this is a force that should be wielded at the whims of the president, which is not the way that obviously that is fundamentally anti-American, un-American.

And that is consistent with the way that a king would behave, not a duly elected president of the United States. So yeah, I agree with you that I think it's intelligent branding. We'll see how widespread the protests are. We'll see what the crackdown is going to be. And last thing I'll say on this is,

I also think that there is just something deeply disturbing about watching all of these tanks being rolled into DC that hits on a visceral level as well. We talk about the optics of the protests and what people take from that, et cetera. And I'm not one that says, like, oh, that doesn't matter and we can't talk about it or whatever. But I think equally damning are the optics of tanks rolling into the nation's capital for a celebration of the president's birthday. That's just, with many people, that is just not gonna sit right.

Speaking of the terrorist brothers, tiny bit of news on this front, actually massive bit of news on this front. Trump has posted while we were recording, Crystal, that the deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me. Full magnets and any necessary rare earths will be supplied upfront by China.

Likewise, we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities, which has always been good with me, he says. And we are getting a total of 55% tariffs. China is getting 10%. And of course, he ends his post in my favorite sign off. Thank you for your attention to this matter. So, off. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

So Crystal, thank you for your attention to this matter. Yeah, well they apparently really, I guess didn't think through the whole rare earth situation kind of freaked out about that. So that is interesting. I'm sure Sokka and I will dig into that more tomorrow. I feel like we talked too long about LA and Trump. So maybe should we skip over Tulsi

and her weird nuclear warning video and jump straight ahead to Jon Stewart? What do you think? People can look up the weird Tulsi video. They should look up the weird Tulsi video. Maybe we'll talk about it on Friday, but there's some interesting stuff to dig into on it. It is a good Friday topic.

Yeah, let's do it for Friday. I mean, the response to it is probably even more unhinged video, but to me, top line take, this is like what happens when you have someone Let's do it for Friday. I mean, the response to it is probably even more unhinged than a video. But to me, top line take, this is what happens when you have someone who is an influencer put in a position of power they never really let go of their hold on the influencer world. My quick take is that Tulsi is freaked out by all of the deep state people that she works with now. And we should mention before we let that go, because we teased it up at the top, Crystal,

that there have been significant escalations in the Russia-Ukraine conflict that are getting buried in the domestic news cycle. The BBC headline this morning is record number of drone attacks signals dangerous, dangerous shift in the war. Large scale Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian cities are on the rise. There was a bombardment Monday night. And so this is not, we've covered this many times in the last couple of weeks, but this is not deescalating with the presidency that promised to end it in 24 hours, even if that was sarcastic or hyperbolic.

We're into June here, so about six months in. So nothing seems to, sadly, there does not seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, indeed, indeed indeed a very very troubling situation and series of escalatory actions that we've been watching unfold there, you know with the With the Russians but with the Ukrainian drone swarm attack inside of Russia and now Russia Responding with an aggressive attack directly on Keefe and tells theabbard's video, the connective tissue, is that she was talking, warning about the imminent threat of nuclear war.

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