Chapo Trap House - 963 - Distractions feat. Prem Thakker (8/25/25)

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Zeteo’s Prem Thakker joins us for a look at Trump’s takeover of Washington D.C. We talk about the impetus for the takeover, what day-to-day life in occupied D.C. looks and feels like for its immigrant communities, and the Democratic Party’s impotent response. We then look more broadly at Trump’s Fortress America, ICE’s country-wide renditions, and the continuing case of Kilmar Ábrego García. Finally, we talk about the destruction of Nasser Hospital in Gaza and the Democratic Party’s flip-flopping on the term “genocide.” Follow Prem on X/Twitter: https://x.com/prem_thakker?lang=en And be sure to check out his work at Zeteo: https://zeteo.com/s/subtext-with-prem

All right. All I'm going to be is they'll jump on. All I'm going to be is he'll jump on. All I'm going to be is there are trouble. We're in problems and pesos. Hello everybody. It's Monday, August 25th, and we've got some chopo for you. On today's episode, Felix and I are joined by the journalist Prem Tecker from Zetio. Prem is, we invited him to talk about the ongoing horror show in Palestine and Gaza, but I'd like to begin today with something a little

bit closer to home. And it's something that we have mentioned in passing on the show, but I think it's really worth opening up the show talking about it today. And that is the ongoing federal occupation of our nation's capital. So, Prem, beginning there, watching this from my computer screen or on television from here in New York, like so much in our present political moment, it seems like this is a mix of pure malevolence and absurdity. But from someone in D.C., like some of the videos I saw you post and some of what you're covering, what does this federal takeover of D.C. practically entail? Like, what was, how did it start?

And what does it feel and look like to be out and about in the nation's capital right now? Yeah. So being in D.C. is very, very weird. It's a mix of, I think, the essence of this is that I think people are kind of, of oscillating between whether this is a distraction or whether it's as you say just malevolent you know part part and parcel with how Donald Trump operates and I think it's a yes and like it's obviously like very convenient to distract from you know him being Jeffrey Epstein's pen pal um and every other reason he's incredibly unpopular but it's also like functionally materially

a disaster I mean there are real people being swept out the streets there's there's workers who are just trying to deliver, you know, food who are being shoved off their mopeds, people snatched out of their vehicles. We have no sense of why they're being targeted, how exactly they're being targeted, the sort of cooperation between the different agencies. A good example of this is so last week, me and my producer Liam, we were out doing interviews with residents in D.C. And we were kind of checking out all corners of D.C. seeing what it was feeling like. And we were out in Columbia Heights where there's a pretty large immigrant population and we were just getting done talking to a doctor who is describing how a lot of her patients now have to decide

between essentially, you know, picking insulin or risking abduction and how that's kind of just scaring a lot of her patients from even coming out. Like, so are the, our DHS FBI like ICE, who are the federal agencies who are policing? And when you spoke to that doctor, is she saying that like her patients, don't want to leave their homes because they're afraid of getting scooped up or they don't want to go to a doctor's office because they're being sort of staked out. It's both, yeah. I mean, it's because like some of these patients, like their family members might be at risk

or even if not, like their immigration statuses aren't full citizenship. They might have visas and so on. And even then, they're still being targeted. So anytime they hear of that happening in their neighborhood, they're just afraid to even go outside, just at all. And then there's the fact that, yeah, a lot of these agents, especially DHS, and ICE are sort of staking out at church parking lots in front of schools, clinics, in such way where it's like they're just always kind of looming.

And so right after this interview, like a minute after, my phone buzzes a bunch of times and I get these texts that you got to come to the metro station in Columbia Heights. So we run over and there's this really bizarre scene where there's like three or four agents in their camouflage fatigue is kind of just walking around. the entire city block is full of people screaming at them telling them to buzz off and so me and my producer

Lee and we kind of get into the fracas and we follow these agents down the escalators into the metro station and we're trying to ask them questions like what are you doing here? Why have you been brought out here it looks like you're just kind of walking around and it's a mix of Homeland Security FBI and just

other agents in police vests like amorphous police vest there's like four or five of them Were these federal law enforcement agents Were they masked or did they haven't done the identification of any times? They were they were all masked. So they were masked. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They were all masked?

And so where were you asking like, you know, what's up? What are you doing? A lot of the residents are in their face asking them to just, you know, why are you here, get out of here. And these agents are, it's, it was really comical. They were just kind of aimless. They didn't really know what to do because they just kept getting yelled at. So they went up and down the escalators twice, just kind of back and forth because they

didn't know where to go. Finally, they decided to stay down in the metro station. we follow them into the metro station and we emerge on this really just crazy scene there's like 12-ish 10 to 12 agents scattered around this this man um in the in the metro center uh metro station entrance and it's it's unclear what's going on there's there's no danger at all they're all kind of just holding on to their vests just twiddling their thumbs we go up to one agent's we ask them you know what are you doing here what's up he just kind of glares at us then we go up to a police officer, a police sergeant who's kind of, I guess, responding to whatever's happening to.

And we're like, what's good? What's going on? And he's like, uh, traffic stop. I'm like, what's the traffic stop for? He says, uh, fare evasion. He like, kind of pauses. It says fair evasion. I'm like, okay, so why is the FBI and DHS and HSI responding to fair evasion? And we get in this really crazy back and forth where this cop just starts debating me, essentially, about how they're just trying to keep people safe. Um, I don't know what it's like to be the victim. of gun violence, like all the, this very crazy sort of straw man, where I'm just asking him, like, why are there massed federal agents responding to a fair evader? And he keeps kind of deflecting because he doesn't really know what to say. He eventually just ends up saying,

you know, we're all supporting each other here to keep D.C. safe. And I think that scene kind of stuck with me because it's this weird, unclear power sharing arrangement where there's National Guard in the streets. Most of them seemingly don't want to be here. And now they're being forced to be armed and carry guns. They all are just kind of walking around, kind of really avoiding much of the chaos. They're kind of just in really random locations, postouts out at a union station, posing with big humvies. There's the DHS and ICE agents who are much more active in carrying out these arrests.

And then the police who are kind of, it's unclear where they all stand because they're obviously supporting all of it. And they're often at the scene of these arrests, if not helping and carrying them out. but sometimes it's just not clear what their directives are, what their jurisdiction is relative to these ICE agents and DHS agents, and even Secret Service that seem to be much more active in policing the city than the actual local PD at some points. Yeah, it reminded me a lot of, I don't even really think you could call it a test run because that implies that they're figuring out do's and don'ts and the most efficient way to do whatever it is they're trying to do. But we saw a prototype of this in Los Angeles earlier this year. And it was the same sort of thing where there were Marines, there were National Guard and then, you know, a combination of state troopers and local PD. And between the Marines and the National Guard who just really did not seem like they wanted to be there.

I mean, with the National Guard that is kind of more of what you signed up for, even if it would usually be way less half-hazard and stupidly planned than that. But the Marines especially didn't want to be there. The cops seemed really confused. This seems, I mean, I would say they didn't learn anything, but that sort of suggests that there's any type of goal here. Anything. We've talked about this phenomenon before in reference to the first Trump administration, how, you know, this idea that that COVID was probably more advantageous politically for Trump than it was a disadvantage because there was this idea that the Trump administration, at least 2019, by that point, was not about anything. I think we're on a kind of accelerated timeline now with all that. I mean, can you evince any goal? here besides just trying to look busy?

No, I think that's a good point. It really does feel just libidinal and how committed it is to just, like, abject cruelty for the sake of executing it, if nothing else, or just looking busy. It's hard to determine, like, where one goal ends and the other begins, particularly because it seems like everyone around Trump seems so fired up by it. Like, of course, there's, like, all the hoggings. memes we see on Twitter from the DHS account

and like the different people kind of in the sort of like media sphere that are like close to Trump you know your Laura Lumer types and so on that are really really for it and then there's of course you know the mastermind of Stephen Miller and how this you know

is totally in line with the project we know of his it's just hard to examine how much of the motives stick with Trump specifically as a political figure and that's not to say like it's surprising he would carry this up this is the kind of thing he's been talking about for years.

He made no secret that this is the kind of thing he would want to do. But I think you're kind of getting at what's difficult here was that it's just very hard to determine what the purpose is here between ideology versus just this stupid sense that like, yeah, like this is the best way for us to feed the base, keep them leached on, and maybe expand the base in some crude and cruel respect. Yeah, it's this very depressed. final form of whatever this is,

where the sole duty of the executive branch at least is to sort of like create articles that then like, you know, your Laura Lubbers go, look how upset they are about the stupid thing we're doing. Isn't it great? And you

resort to that after you've done your big like, you know, austerity regime tax bill and like, you know, have had Galane finish a coloring book that says that you're not a pedophile. But it is, it is disheartening just how on the nose it is and that so many people are still like, isn't this great? Well, I mean, I don't know, like, I guess there is like the stated goal for why this is happening, which is that crime is out of control. And then like the stated targets, which are undocumented immigrants who are supposedly committing

crimes or, you know, evading fares on D.C. Metro and that's getting the FBI involved in this. But when I think about like this in particular in Washington, D.C., I can't help but think of like another motivation here being like a kind of theater of intimidation directed at civil government in this country or local government or just the residents of any major city in this country. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they did say one of their stated goals is to disenfranchise chant and disheartened and, like, destroy the will of civil servants. And obviously, that was first accomplished with all the Doge layoffs. And this just, you know, hammers at home.

Well, wasn't the inciting incident for this occupation of D.C., the carjacking of one of the Doge, uh, the Doge teenagers, big balls? Which seemingly has just like continually been undermined as to exactly what happened. Um, it's actually unclear how much of this was him just sort of innocently being targeted versus him kind of uh sort of instigating or coming up to two teens and and it's unclear exactly what he was looking for with two teenagers at that hour at night um i mean i can't say much more because i don't know the exact contours but it seems like that story has changed a lot since the initial uh report that he was just apparently saving someone from a horde of teens

a horde of violent teens. I think the story has changed a lot since then, which is perfect. But yeah, I mean, it's, what's been tough to is, like, I'm, like, talking to a bunch of D.C. residents over the past week, you know, some people who are newer here, you know, who have moved here in the past couple years, maybe because of a government job.

To people have lived here for their entire lives who, you know, are here just because they live in D.C., not because they have any connection to the government. It's just, like, so crazy how these people, in a very basic sense, have just never had any sense of equal representation or any sense of being equal to another person from, you know, Montana or Wyoming or California, wherever. They've just always been subject to the whims of someone they can't really appeal to. And now they're just the testing

ground for what will probably go to, you know, a city near you. And that's, it's bleak. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, and Trump has advertised that, you know, this is, you know, if Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, you're next, but you raise the issue of what makes D.C. separate from every other American city, which is that it is basically perpetually under a state of federal occupation. What are some of the reasons that, like, he can do this in D.C. that might be more difficult in a city like New York or Chicago? Or is there no reason to believe that there's anything stopping them from sending the National Guard or the FBI to police street crime in New York or Chicago? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's the basic, I think, structural difference of D.C. just not being a state such that even, for

instance, like, mechanisms of activating National Guard are different when you're not necessarily appealing to state governors to do that. Because, you know, for instance, like, the Vermont governor kind of, who's a Republican, you know, kind of tap the brakes on the idea of him mobilizing national guardsmen to go anywhere. So there's that aspect. There's like, there's just the path of least resistance of D.C. and being a place where, yeah, like, there is no, like, functional, like, legislative or, or, um, governor, like, governmental safeguard from, from stopping this in any sort of meaningful sense. Um, I'd be curious to see, like, for example, if he tries to mobilize to, let's say, you know, New York City or Chicago, like, what J.B. Pritzker or Kathy

Hoker are going to do. They both seem, like, at least rhetorically, Pretty against it and pretty, you know, fired up to stand against it. I think what's been interesting for me walking through D.C. And kind of talking to people and just watching every single day these operations happen is that, you know, right now Congress is out of session. That doesn't mean, you know, members of Congress can't be doing something. But I'm curious when Congress is back in session in September. Let's say Trump keeps us going and renews the sort of 30-day cycle of this happening in D.C.

Like, what are members of Congress going to do? when they're here in D.C. And they could conceivably do something about the fact that ice agents are just marching around the city that they work in and live in. That's why I'm kind of watching in the next couple weeks. I guess just like for some like historical context here, obviously like the National Guards are sort of mobilized by governors of states when there is like a disaster that is, you know,

beyond the capabilities of local law enforcement, like a flood hurricane and then also like riots which i guess like riot control is a form of law enforcement but like to have national guard troops essentially policing an american city like what is the historical precedent for that because like i'm trying to come up with an example and i can't think of anything other than the civil war no i think you're exactly right like i think uh the last time someone made a parallel to this was like king george really like it's just it's ridiculous. Like this kind of like, again, what I was getting at earlier is that these agents are seemingly sometimes supplanting or like going ahead of the local PD in terms of how they're

policing these streets. Like oftentimes, like you'll just see the agents alone kind of carrying out these operations or if PD are there, it seems like the Peter are kind of half-heartedly there or just kind of attached so there as a sort of local presence. Like it's very much Like, I don't think it's an understatement to say that DC is truly occupied when it comes to, like, Trump's directive here. And it's, it's so funny to see the headlines that it's, you know, Trump's mobilization of the National Guard as the sort of headline of the occupation when it's, again, the National Guard really are not that involved at all in the actual material aspect of this, which is these masked ICE agents in their camouflage fatigues, carrying out these operations. And again, arresting these people's in such a way that, like, we don't know any justification for why they're being arrested. We don't know where they're going.

There was one guy just the other day who was taken. His wife had just given birth. He was totally legally here. There was no evident justification for arresting him. And they had to release him the next day because they found it, oh, yeah, like, there's no reason to arrest him. He broke his hand. He now has a go-fund to me because of.

of the fact that his wife just delivered a baby, he just broke his hand because he was arrested for no reason. There's just no accountability mechanism for any of this. There's no sort of place to go to get more answers that any person on the street could. It's really just a matter of what information they wanna share, what information they won't, and what information gets leaked.

Like it's truly unbelievable. And I wanna communicate that to people who are not in DC, Because it is kind of hard to really communicate because on one hand, when you're walking in D.C., like, you can walk around. Like, it's not that there's an agent on every street corner. I mean, as far as you can tell, because so many of these vehicles are unmarked, I guess you don't know for sure. But at the same time, like, there's just this crazy atmosphere where I remember about three or four days ago, I was at a restaurant in Mount Pleasant, which is another immigrant heavy community near Columbia Heights. I was at a restaurant, and all of a sudden, this individual cop car puts its sirens on and starts to pull some. someone over for who knows what reason. Every single person in like a three block radius

immediately pulls their phone out and starts recording. And for like the next 10 minutes, everyone's just kind of on edge, what's going on. Turns out it was just a routine traffic stop. But that's kind of what it's like to be in D.C. right now where the second you see any whisper of a police presence, everyone is completely on edge, recording. And it's, that's terrible. It's also terrible because a lot of these immigrants are now afraid to go to the police if there is an emergency because they don't want to get screwed over. Considering the sort of hand in glove collaboration between D.C. police and the feds, is this making it more or less likely that any D.C. resident documented or not will call the police to report a crime? Way, way, way, way less likely. This takes me back to that episode in the metro station with that cop who I was sort of having a discussion with. about what's going on here, he was kind of airing his grievances to me, really, if nothing

else. It seems like he just was looking for a place to complain that, you know, all these people are yelling at us about ice this, ice that. Like, we're just trying to keep people safe, like, from gun violence, again, which was just kind of a very crazy deflection. But I was telling him, like, look, like, you are, are you with, working with DHS and ICE or not? If you are, these are masked agents sweeping people off the streets. And he just couldn't reconcile or accept that while we were discussing it and he kept sort of deflecting because I think he and most officers who maybe do have maybe good intentions in some respect understand that that is the case and I mean also it's been no secret before that this police department like many others has

definitely done in its own hand and brutalizing its citizens but nonetheless like it makes every aspect of this city less safe like it's it's there is no sense in which this makes anyone safer? Well, yeah, I mean, speaking of safety, we did get a little advertisement of the publicly stated reasons for this occupation from White House Obre Group and Furr Stephen Miller, who in a White House press conference today said of D.C. and of D.C. residents, quote, for the first time in their lives, they can use the parks. They can walk on the streets. You have people who can walk freely at night without having to worry about being robbed or mug. they are wearing their watches again.

So you heard that, D.C. You can feel safe to bring out the brightling again. But like, I mean, like obviously this is absurd. Like D.C., like every American city, has crime. It has homicides. But if you compare what the crime rate in D.C. is now or in the year leading up to this occupation to like, for instance, where it was in the 90s,

when it really was like the murder capital of the United States, like what are we to make of like the highlighting? Trump said something ridiculous the other day that, like, last week in D.C., there was not a single crime committed. Like, obviously, crime and policing is a problem in every American city. But, like, to what extent, like,

could anyone possibly believe that crime is at a level in D.C. that warrants a federal invasion of the city? I mean, we'll get to this with Israel, obviously. But it just feels like dressing for the sake of dressing. Like, it's so obviously not true in BS. Like, like you said, crime has gone down,

significantly in D.C. It was much lower this year than previous years as well, or it's on a continual sort of decline, I should say. But it's also like, it's also like the specific dressing that they're saying, like, oh, people can go to restaurants again, people can go to parks again, is hilarious because the other day when Trump was saying he's going to, you know, patrol D.C. to show, you know, presence with, with the beautiful soldiers. He, like, delivered some food to, like, one police base in Anacostia and then just one. went back to the White House and, like, did nothing else. And I remember I was staking out a location with my producer to try to, you know, try to

get a glimpse of him in D.C. And when he didn't come, it's like, obviously he's not. He's not going to come because wherever he goes, he's going to have thousands of people who live in D.C. telling him to fuck off. So it's like... I mean, that happened to J.D. at the, was it? Yeah, Union Station. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. It's like, it's just funny for him. specifically to say, oh, you can go to parks and restaurants again because it's like, well, you sure can't. No one in the city wants you anywhere near there. So it's ridiculous. It's also just, it feels so, yeah, like, who is this for really?

Anyone in D.C. doesn't believe it. There was a poll the other day that showed like 80-something percent of people in D.C. feel less safe or just don't support this occupation. It's funny. I mean, you guys live in New York, so it's like, you know, the classic sort of, you know, like when you're saying goodbye to someone, text me when you get home, whatever, let me know when you get home safe. Like, that's a, you know, normal thing you do in a city.

I feel people are doing that much more now in the past two weeks than before. People feel way more or less safe by these agents than anything else. Like, the amount of times that, like, I've been with a friend, they're like, hey, like, you know, just maybe you want to take a car, like it's, you know, nine o'clock. The agents might be out. it's like ridiculous how asymmetrical it is well i mean that gets me like as far as dc residents go i mean dc does have a city government how how do dc residents feel and how is you rate how dc mayor muriel bowser has responded to to this occupation i think just it they just don't feel anything

they don't feel any sort of support from any lawmakers from the top on down and i feel like it's tough because for a lot of DC residents it's like because of how disenfranchised they feel it's like the mayor is just a formality in some respects to them like they feel like to what end does it even help in the first place it sure would help to have a mayor

who's really really really fired up about it and sort of like constantly sort of making this an issue to the public who can't really see what's going on in DC they don't really have that in Bowser but I think a lot of them have felt that way for years which is you know really depressing sort of like expanding the aperture out from dc city government uh what do you make

of the response of the democratic party nationally to these efforts by trump because like i i mean you mentioned it briefly at the beginning of the program but i like the the sort of buzzword that they've just decided on with help from you know the david shores polling outfit uh was it blue rose, like they've decided that the most salient and successful line of attack on this is that these, the federal occupation of D.C. and the ongoing like just ice presence on the streets of every American town and city is, quote, a distraction. What do you make of that? And like, I mean, like, what should, I mean, I always never want to ask journalists like, what do we do about something like this? Because it seems so big and daunting. But like, what should we expect of leaders

and politicians who are asking for our vote when it comes to something like this. Like, is it like testing to see like how well something polls or like, I mean, like, it just doesn't seem like there's, things are adding up here. Because like, whether it's a distraction or not,

it's happening and it warrants a response. And like, maybe your response to that is politically unpopular, but like, you've got to say and you do something, right? Yeah, I'll preface this first by thinking about how often people in our space especially think about ways in which the Democratic Party or the ostensible opposition party behaves and how it often falls short and how often these conversations

devolve into, oh, if only Hakeem Jeffries did this or Chuck Schumer did this, I'm just prefacing this by saying that it seems like some of the things that you or I might think an opposition party should be doing is just fundamentally not something these figures might be doing. So I'm just going to start with that. I think a capable opposition party would remember what happened just weeks and months ago when a few Democrats decided to make the abductions of people like Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia and C caught a concern, which was that Trump's approval on immigration tanked by 20 points. When Chris Van Hollen visited the facility and he kept making it an issue, polls started shifting.

And I think it's not a coincidence that some of the most prominent, well-respected, popular politicians in America. You got Bernie Sanders, AOC, Zoran, Rashida Talib, Graham Platner, who's just made a splash running in Maine, all these people who, a lot of people just kind of have this sense of, oh, this person feels straight up to me in some respect. The reason they feel that way is because they, like I think you guys too, too, treat people like adults.

Like they treat people as individuals whose minds can change. And I think any opposition party would adopt that. That this, as you say, this is something that's happening, whether you like it or not, whether you think it's convenient to your current poll-tested political message or not. It's happening. It's either you can call the distraction, someone else who maybe a bit more sharp would call it an opportunity. An opportunity to not only expose this administration for as bad as you pretend it is, but also, to convince people that they could look at things another way, that this is not only horrific because it's sending masked agents in the street, but because it's the output of a specific way of looking at immigrants and immigration as this invasion.

Like, this is an entrance for Democrats to undercut what they assume as a Republican strong point, which is that Americans believe there's too much immigration or that there's an immigration problem. This is an entrance for you to actually say, you know what? Maybe that's not true. And this is the output of us thinking that. I hate that fucking thing where just like anything that happens is a distraction. It reminds me of backpack rappers who just they do the same thing.

Just like any event that happens. Kendrick versus Drake, it's a distraction. I'm in the studio getting traction. But yeah, no, that is a huge thing. I mean, that we've talked about, this idea of people condescending to voters, we will be the first to say that the average voter, whatever that fucking man's, the average person is usually not a fucking genius. But people, however smart or however stupid or however ill or well informed they are, usually know when they're being condescended to. I always think about that Ruben Gallagow thing where he said

oh we should we should do an ad where we say the Democrats are the party that's going to get you a big ass truck that's like two inches removed from Terry Cruz in idiocracy even if someone like I mean you know from what I've seen Americans love big stupid trucks

but putting it in such terms they are aware that you're getting down on your hands and knees and giving them a propeller hat and a lollipop. I do think I think that's a giant thing behind Sanders's continued appeal to independence and just people and just voters in general. That, you know, he has a lot of faults, especially on Israel over the last two years, especially. but he really doesn't condescend to people. Exactly. Yeah.

Like, these people just don't, as you're saying, like whether someone is a rub or not, and whatever you define that, if you treat them like one, they'll hate you. Like, why would you like to be spoken to like that? And I think, like, it's not just this idea that like whatever the public currently believes

is set in stone and we should follow that rather than, you know, leading or attempting to bring people along or seeing, you know, troubling events as an opportunity to articulate a different political vision for the country. But like going off what Felix says, well-informed or ill-informed contradictory beliefs or not, I think most people understand, have like a well-defined sense of morality and right and wrong. And like, particularly like, for instance, like on this deportation thing, it was very popular when people believed that, yeah, of course we want to

deport dangerous criminals who are in the country illegally and hurting people who would be against that. But it's become unpopular now that it's become clear that most of the people being deported by a large margin have no criminal record in this country. And I think like that the return to Stephen Miller here and like why I think what is like the, you know, subtly stated reasons behind all of this, this sort of theater of cruelty and intimidation and the show of force of the federal government overriding local law enforcement, is that like an immigrant who is in this country undocumented and has not committed a crime or any crimes for like decades and has a kid here and has a family who are natural-born citizens and work a job and pay taxes. That is the

crime that they are most concerned about. Like it may not be a crime legally, but for them it is a crime against their worldview and ideology and a threat to their safety. And this is what I'm talking about, this Fortress America ideology. And like going off of that, you mentioned Kilmar-Abrego-Gar Garcia, could you just give us an update of what's going on with his case? Because he has just been detained again and now they are threatening to deport him to Uganda. What is going on with that case is like as another very prominent case in which they got a lot of immediate attention, the Trump administration was very embarrassed over because multiple judges said that they deported this guy in error. They're obviously not backing down on this and like they want to,

I don't know, rectify the error as they see it and send this guy to Uganda. Like why Uganda? How did they come up with that country? Yeah, so you kind of laid it out perfectly. He was released, um, as the Trump administration continues to, to lose on pretty much all of these cases that they're challenged on, um, when they proceed, uh, through the legal system. He was released and he was notified that he had a routine check-in just days afterwards. He and his advocates kind of knew what was coming, which was, I mean, especially because ICE just kind of advertised that they were seeking to, to redetain him. Um, and as, as he and as, he and his advocates, he and he was coming, um, and as you say, send them out to Uganda, which is a country that's sort of among the few that have

agreed with the U.S. to be a sort of location of deportation. I assume they must be getting some sort of incentive from the United States government, like in terms of money or some sort of consideration for volunteering to take in people we're deporting. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's like a handful of these countries that are getting sort of strategic benefits. And obviously, as Trump's kind of going on this tariff rampage, a lot of these like smaller countries are interested in whatever sort of smidgen of diplomatic benefits they can get out of these countries. Some of these are also just temporary or momentary as well, but they're getting whatever they can out of Trump. And I mean, also some of these countries, just a side note,

you know, just kind of see this as a moment to kind of cozy up to someone that they view, at least for the moment, as a strong leader that's kind of getting whatever he wants. So, you know, these countries have varying motives for why they're doing it. But obviously, it's no coincidence that many of them are small or at least have like relatively less diplomatic power and they see this as like a way to hop onto the US but yeah so they agreed to be a location for people like Kilmar for now he is in this limbo of where the government is you know setting in motion these proceedings to deport him to Uganda his legal team has filed an emergency challenge a habeas case challenging the deportation at all.

And so it's kind of this repeat formula that we're seeing with all of these high-profile cases, including, you know, people like Mahmoud Khalil, where the government throws everything they can at these particularly high-profile cases as much as they can because, like, their whole argument kind of relies on these high-profile names. And if they can't even do that with Kilmar or Mahmoud, then it kind of invalidates every other one who's downstream of that. and so you see these sort of repeated legal motions in response to these repeated attempts to deport them and if nothing else you know as we discuss these high-profile cases

I always just want to return to how insane it is to imagine being Mahmoud or Kilmar being this you didn't ask to be sort of the the cardinal name of this mass deportation regime but now you are, now not only are you under more scrutiny than almost anyone in America, you're also subject to repeated attempts to dehumanize you, to send you, who knows where, in this incredible Kafkaesque kind of scenario not to just overuse the term, but it's ridiculous. I think it's always important to just kind of imagine how truly insanity-inducing it must be to be in the center of something for which

you're constantly and repeatedly targeted no matter how many times you might get a legal win. Yeah, and like that's something I've been trying to do myself as well is like try to imagine myself in a similar situation. And it's something I've struggled to even talk about on the show, which is essentially supposed to be funny and entertaining, because it is so horrifying. It's unimaginable.

So I guess like we've, I'm sure our listeners has, I know I have, we've all seen videos about like how an ICE deportation begins, right? Which is evil enough, right? You see people hassled on the street, they're asked for their papers, and they're disappeared into a van or something. But what can you tell us about what happens to someone after they're taken? Like, what can you tell us of that process and like what it actually looks like now? Yes.

So as you see, they're arrested often violently and brutally in the streets. any witnesses have no answers as to what's going on, why they're being taken, where they're going. They're placed into detention centers, checked in fully, processed fully, often have no... Often these detention centers are in completely different states from the ones they've been arrested it. So it's like a process of like, I think a lot of hotels are being used as well where particularly minors are being kept in hotels and unallowed to contact family members or legal representation as well, as they're sort of ferried from these, like, you know, different,

I don't know, like deportation zones. Yes, yeah, exactly. They're shipped off like cattle to who knows where. They sure don't know where. Any lawyer who might be attached to the family, if they're lucky that they already have someone sort of attached to them or where, sometimes they don't even know where their clients are taken. It can take days to get any clarity.

and in the meantime, ICE, DHS are slow to respond, if at all, to these sorts of inquiries. It takes sometimes a whole lot of legal pressure to get any answers. Finally, you get some sense of where they are. Then, you know, you'll maybe get some sense from the lawyer as to what the conditions are in these facilities, which are almost always horrific. There's bug infestations everywhere, the amount of daylight, some of these kidnapped people, is maybe a couple hours a day, if that. I often hear accounts that the air conditioning is turned up to, like, so it's like 50 degrees all time and that the lights are on 24-7.

Exactly. It's either freezing. So, like, you're freezing cold, like, and like, you know, halogen light, fluorescent lights are just sort of like bearing down on you. Like you're, you're hungry, you're cold, and you can't sleep. And there's like 60 people in like a cage. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's either way too freezing or if it's really hot,

they'll have no AC. Either way, it's extreme temperatures. You're made to feel as uncomfortable as possible. You're barely fed. And if you're fed, you know, the food is disgusting, garbage often the time. It's just like horrific in every aspect of it. And I think the thing to like, to underline about this is that like, if these are people who are arrested for murder, home invasion, rape, arson, you know, like violent, despicable, crimes. That sort of treatment of them would be an outrage regardless. But these are people who are being arrested for, like, not even having committed any crime, period. Besides, I don't know, being a misdemeanor, civil violation of being undocumented. 100%. And that's what really is, is so jarring is the fact that it seems like these agents are using whatever possible way they can, any sort of justification to detain these people, whether it's, you know,

know, traffic infractions, um, broken taillights, whether it's, you know, fair evasion, any sort of entrance to detain someone, um, up to the things that were dismissed or, or were, um, old cases that were addressed, anything at all to get someone off the streets, again, ship them to who knows where, stuff them into these devastating, dreadful facilities. Um, and then, you know, they'll be placed into removal proceedings in an immigration court. And again, immigration courts are not like regular courts. These are overseen by the government. So, for example, there's just much less chances for you to get actual justice in immigration court

versus a judicial court. Yeah, like, don't immigration judges essentially work directly for the federal government? Like, they're not independent. They're not like the judiciary as an independent branch. Yeah, exactly. And of course, that's a slight simplification, but functionally speaking, yes, they work within sort of jurisdiction of the government in terms of who they're subject to. And so, yeah, they're in some respects a stamp for what, you know, the attorney general might

already want. Well, we mentioned this at the beginning of the episode, but like one of the most disturbing aspects of all of this is that the federal agents doing this are masked and provide no identification, let alone a warrant. And what's sort of saying about that to me is that, like, this is justified by this idea that they're being doxed, that like, and you know, and you know what, a lot of them are being doxed and rightly so. And the thing is, when it comes to law enforcement, I felt like one of the most fundamental

ideas is that if you're empowered by society to use lethal force to protect the public or prevent crime or intercede in a violent situation, you have to have a badge with your name and number on it. And certainly, your identity is a matter of the public record because you are a public employee. And it's just specifically law enforcement, the idea that we can allow arrests to be happening, like forget having a warrant for an arrest, but arrest being carried out by men who are essentially anonymous gang members that arrest people and put them into a process of which there is no oversight and that of which the end of which, at least in some circumstances that

we know about, is the Seacott Prison in El Salvador, which of what we know of the people caught up in this dragnet, I'm thinking particularly the experience of the hairstylist who was sent there, Seacot Prison is a horror show of torture, rape, and murder. And then, like, when you begin to put all of those elements together and ask yourself, what does this look like? What does this feel like? I, like, you end up in a very uncomfortable place. It is not, I mean, like, we, I, I, But it's one that requires serious consideration on anyone who is willing to let their imagination go there. It's so dark. It's, it's this expectation, as you're getting out, of insularity and comfort for people who are allowed by our taxes to carry guns around is remarkable.

And I think, I just think to so many people in this country, whether they think of themselves as libertarians, as, as, um, liberals, or just as people who feel truly American in whatever they think that means. Have some self-respect. Have some respect. How do you find yourself comfortable with the money that you work every day for to go towards mass agents who get to just do whatever they want, to people who are your neighbors, to people who, by sheer lot of existence, you are not them? And I think that lack of self-respect that either is banged into us or just inculcated or we adopt for whatever reason, it's really sad.

I think every person in this country should be empowered to ask themselves if this is something they want to be a part of. And I think to your point, a lot of people, if they really had the opportunity given to them to really digest that question, would be like, yeah, probably not. probably not um and i mean one other aspect of this that's just like horrific that gets what you're talking about how dark what place this is is how many instances already we've seen of people impersonating ice agents or cops um and proceeding as it's you know trying to rob people trying to you know violate people um try to even take people away like it's it's crazy that because of the wide morass of how just depressing and scary this is, stuff like that, which is on its own crazy, is like barely a ripple. Well, this gets to hear my next question. I'm like talking

about like where I'm trying to like, where I'm willing to let my imagination go. Is it like I, like I assume a lot of people who listen to this show or a lot of people when they think about this sort of protect their own sanity or sense of security by saying, well, you know, at the end of the day, I was born in America. I am a full natural American citizen. I have a U.S. passport. And, you know, I have some profile or credibility. But I mean, like there does seem to be a movement. I mean, like you said, like most people, if they like take this into their imagination would say, no, I don't want to be a part of this. But a significant portion of this country does, in fact, want to be a part of this. And, you know, they think it's

great. And to that end, it does seem like there is a movement towards the end of birthright citizenship and even outright denaturalization. And so, like, how plausible would you rate, like, I mean, it's, it's like, certainly an openly stated goal of Stephen Miller, but, like, how secure should people who are born in the United States be that they won't find themselves the subject of this Kafka-esque, you know, ordeal? Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because there's, obviously, this would impact.

millions and millions and millions of people in a way that maybe previous incursions into immigration policy happened but at the same time almost no one at this point can feel fully safe when as you say these masked agents are going around they're getting to take whoever they want and ship them off to a gulag somewhere else and we can't really even ask questions there's even people who are in the streets right now in DC who are just recording who are now being threatened, if not actually being arrested, who are, for all intents of purposes, as far as we know, citizens. And so, as you say earlier, with regards to, you know, the aspect of people for whom, even if these terrible conditions of iced attentions,

even if violent criminals, let's say we're subject to them, that is still immoral, that is still a breach on our collective freedom, this is the same kind of thing. The second one person is allowed collectively by us to be targeted for whatever reason outside of due process by government agents for whatever reason that fundamentally breaks any full confidence we can have in anything and i i don't think that's like over dramatic because over the course of days and weeks like it has patently gotten worse every single day with regards to who is being targeted how they're being targeted, how much we're allowed to ask about this targeting. Like, it has certainly, undeniably gotten worse every single day. And so I kind of oscillate between the idea that,

well, you know, birthright citizenship impacts so many people. It's so, like, deeply codified. It would impact, I think, a good deal of conservative people, even if it's just, we're thinking about this cynically. But at the same time, some of that has been true up to this point, too. and so we're kind of reaching that threshold point where it's like it's really hard to tell like what is and is not sacred I mean you know a few years ago you would say that abortion rights in a certain respect are like at least in some aspect sacred or protected and even that's not true and so when you have like an entire governmental apparatus seemingly fixated only on immigration more than really anything else at this point kind of what Felix was saying

as, like, maybe their best bet to show that they're doing something. I don't know if you can consider anything, like, surely protected. Yeah, and, like, you know, I mean, just to bring it back to, like, to Stephen Miller and, like, who are the really, like, ideological apparatchiks of the Trump administration? You say, like, when Felix said, like, there's sort of the problem of, like, well, what is this administration about? Like, what's its guiding light? What's its North Star?

And you're right. Like, now that has become immigration. But I don't think that we should, like, settle for, you know, but I don't think that we should, like, settle for that euphemism because like whether it's 2016 to now, the gutting light of this administration and the political movement that they have fomented is the ethnic cleansing of America. It is the return of American, what we think of as American culture or American government to like the white man's country. And like, I don't know how else to put it. I mean, like, do you think that that's like anywhere close to the mark here? I mean, I don't think that's an

exaggeration. No, I think this is like the first time that I think Twitter is real life is like 1,000% true. And so far is like everyone who seems to be a decision maker or person of influence from like a prominent right-wing influencer down to like a random poster is on Twitter saying the exact things you're saying. And like on one hand, Twitter feels so out of, out of touch. I think not just optimistically, but really with a lot of America, it isn't out of touch with like the people in the White House.

Like it doesn't feel like that there's much of a distinct. between the two when it comes to policy at the end of the day um and that's horrifying because i mean as you guys know as as as active twitter inhabitants it's it's it's just a bunch of nazis there um and you know in the past it's like even in just a few years past it'd be like all right you know like maybe one random whitehouse staff or follows some of these guys but like whatever but now it's like no like this is just like daily reading it feels like insofar is like everything that comes out of the relevant agencies isn't really like dog whistling. Like, it's just like telling you what is what they want, which is what you're saying.

It's like at the end of the day, they want an America that looks different than the America we've built. You know, not to segue to an even more horrific topic. And I apologize both the Uprim and our listeners for the content of today's episode. But I suppose we should turn from the attempted ethnic cleansing of America. to the actual ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Prem, I woke up this morning and, like, I'm sure you and everyone else listening to this right now, the first thing I saw was this absolute atrocity

that took place at Nasser Hospital in the south of Gaza this morning that I found out about this morning, essentially a double-tap strike on a hospital that killed 20 people, five of them journalists, and this was captured on camera as the second strike hit the civil defense rescue crews that were attempting to, like, remove the body. or save anyone, you know, still alive after the first strike.

Just like, what can you tell us about what happened there this morning? Yes. So the Israeli military bombed a hospital, killing several people, including a journalist. And after about 10 to 15 minutes, there were some rescue workers, some civilians, some journalists that were all responding to the attack, trying to, you know, they were on the scene. And then Israel bombed it again. And over the course of a few hours, first they said, you know, oh my goodness, like we're looking into this. We're investigating what happened.

The Israeli prime minister's office issued a statement about an hour or two ago saying that they deeply regret what they call the tragic mishap that occurred today at the Nassar Hospital in Gaza. Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff, and all civilians. And again, I kind of just get back to this question of self-respect where it's like, to what end do people in any country complicit in this, no less the United States, feel comfortable with the idea that their taxes fund not only the bombing of a hospital, which was so unheard of, you know, in 2023, it was a blood libel back then. Not only do your taxes fund that, but then it funds a double-tap strike. That only happens after there are journalists and rescues that are clearly evidently there to respond to the scene. They're bombed again. And then your taxes just cherry on top funds the people who bombed them, telling you straight to your face that, oh, it was just, sorry, just a mistake.

Well, it's just such a, it's just such an obvious pattern that the only time that any, any Hasbaris, specifically, for the English-speaking world or Israeli military spokesman ever apologize for something where they ever, ever at midfault is when they are caught this red-handed from so many different angles, you know, live. And it's, that seems like an incredibly obvious pattern to me. Just you only apologize when you get caught beyond the. spin zone. But that would only really matter if they were capable of doing anything that would shame any of their Western sponsors. I mean, the New York Times news alert about this was

it was unclear what their target was. Was it? Yeah. What was it? I mean, yeah. I mean, like, this is not to say that like American public opinion has absolutely. no effect for, you know, the future of Israel's standing for, you know, what this means 20 years from now. But I don't think there's anything they could actually do that could cause, you know, people at the New York Times or the White House or people who used to be at the Biden White House to actually publicly admit that they were part of this horrific crime. to have any shame at all. Well, actually, Matthew Miller this week did come out and say,

yeah, it was Israel that was fucking up the ceasefire every time. Sorry, I didn't say anything like that when I was working with the State Department, but I can tell you that now. So, I mean, I think there is some positioning for like, you know, like I said, future. But that's like not because of anything Israel did. I mean, that's like the BTK killer is sending letters to the police. Yeah. No, that's just, I don't know, him trying like, him trying.

like him trying like not to get protested when going to that shitty chili dog restaurant yeah but no like Prem going off what Felix said like and I'm thinking of course like of the you know the assassination of the very prominent journalists Anas al-Sharif

last week probably the most prominent journalist who was in Gaza City and then now these these five journalists who were assassinated today at Nasser Hospital I mean I you hear that it's like the logic behind this is that like of course Israel is assassinating journalists because they don't want witnesses to their crime.

But like, this has happened so many times and they have never been held accountable that really does make me wonder why would they even bother to do that? Just out of spite. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think at this point, every action that we see from Israeli government, when you're puzzled by it, when you're wondering, oh, what's the motive? Like, there's always the common denominator that they just can, that any bloodlust or

bloodthirsty nature within the Israeli government can just be satiated. We have had 240, 250 maybe colleagues at this point, press colleagues that have been killed with truly no consequence at all. I think back so often to this big State Department report that was released last year that relates to weapons policy with regards to giving weapons to allies and whether they're in compliance with U.S. law and international law. That State Department report, under the Blinken State Department, said that they found that the Israeli government committed some potential violations

of international law with U.S. weapons, but at the same time, they really try not to. Oh, okay, good. there are instances of them blocking aid, but it seems like they're trying to do better. And so I think we're just going to err on the side of caution and make sure we keep arming them, which is like an insane formula to any layperson who knows the word caution. It's crazy. And I mean, going back to the justification, Israel, I think this actually underscores how much

they're kind of just laughing at us. anyone who thinks this is horrific, they said their justification was that they were trying to hit a camera owned by Hamas that tracks Israeli forces. But they accidentally bombed the hospital twice. They accidentally bombed the same location twice. What, did they not get the camera the first time? Which again, I thought the Israeli military was one of the most sophisticated, professional, impressive militaries in the world well yeah some oopsies are bound to happen either they're like

the most impressive military in the world and they're committing more crimes because they can see everything that they're targeting or they're just a bunch of bumbling idiots who are getting billions of dollars of American weapons with no caution at all and I'm not sure which

conclusion is better but that's kind of their equation here well to like again And this is reflected back to earlier in the show when we were talking about what are the Democrats' response to these iced deportations and occupations of American cities. One of the things we talked about over the last couple weeks is that, like, the issue of Gaza has gotten so, like, public opinion has shifted so much on this conflict. And I think like the vast weight of American voters and certainly Democratic voters are absolutely appalled by what they see and are furious at, they're the government for allowing it to continue and mad at democratic politicians like

Pete Buttigieg when he went on the Pod Save the World the other day, like he had to walk back his mealy mouth comments, which that seemed to imply it's a very complicated situation and we just need to like embrace our friend and tell them that, hey, maybe you've gone too far. But like there has been seemingly a rhetorical turn among the Democratic politicians and media outlets, but like not too much of a turn. And I want to talk about the example of House Minority Whip Catherine Clark, who the other week used the word genocide to describe. She says, there is genocide and destruction happening in Gaza right now. And people thought that, oh, hey, like, that's new. But within less than a week, she walked it back. So like, what does this tell us

about the fact that, like, what's happening in Gaza cannot be, you can't come up with the poll that says talking about this is a distraction anymore. So, like, are Democratic politicians are they attempting to use the correct words, like genocide in the hopes that that will shut people up? Or are they, like, doing that and now realizing that that's not enough and people actually want to change in policy? And they're like, well, fuck, we're not going to do that. Let's just go back to what we were saying before. Like, how do you regard this, like, this seeming rhetorical shift and then reshift again as it relates to genocide and war crimes being carried out by one of our allies with our tax dollars paying for it.

So I'm of a few minds. On one hand, I think it is patently true that in the past few weeks especially, it's been very clear that a lot of Democrats feel a huge amount of pressure to totally evolve how they think about Israel-Palestine. You've had a lot of politicians, even just in passing comments on cable TV,

kind of put much more culpability on Israel and its starvation of Palestine without, you know, also saying, and this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Hamas and so on and so forth. Like they've kind of been dropping these sort of previously presupposed sort of necessary caveats about Hamas and so on. Now there, I think a lot of them are much more comfortable blaming the Israeli government and not always just putting it on Netanyahu, but that is still a crutch for so many of them,

as our friend Adam Johnson has often reminded us of the one-man-year-old. theory. Right. At the same time, there's 15 members of Congress who have used the word genocide, which in some respects, man, like, that's great, you know, they're saying the word. At the same time, that's nothing when you think of the fact that it's so obviously clear that it's a genocide, when you think of how many people over and over and over again in every single poll, pluralities, majorities say either they're sick of this war, they're sick of funding it or that they themselves see it's a genocide it like with so many other parts of american politics and democratic politics is is very out of touch there's that aspect there's

also i mean i will say just one at one thing that is worth noting is that there have been a few members of congress that were specifically backed by apak who in the past few weeks have said that they support um stopping uh the transfer of weapons to israel which is not nothing but when it comes to, not public opinion, but elected officials, and their reticence to use the G word, like, obviously, I don't think it has anything to do with domestic political considerations, but like, I mean, but, but like, can it be divorced from the very clear legal obligations that, like, when a politician or represent of the United States government says a genocide is taking place, that immediately locks in, at least according to various treaties and U.S.

international laws not just like once you say it you can't put it back in the bottle right like it requires the United States to take action in a meaningful way to intercede or at least not be complicit in it right? Yeah and that's what makes Catherine Clark's

backtrack so incredible. I remember when we were reporting on it the day of I was talking to a collic and it's like well this is crazy because you know you can't imagine her backtracking on this because, as you said, like, you can't put it back. And then three days later, she says, I want to be clear that I'm not accusing Israel of genocide.

And so then it's kind of like, so are you saying a genocide is happening? And it just, like, fell from the sky. But in any case, you can't just say something that dramatic and then backtrack it. And again, expect people to take you seriously. Like, that is not a term you just throw around as a member of Congress specifically.

I think another aspect that kind of gets to what Felix was saying was that one, I think, hesitation for so many members of Congress to say it, even in, you know, Trump's America when it's supposed to be easier because a Democrat isn't in power anymore, is that if you haven't said that much before and you say it now, as you're saying, that means you are complicit. Because, again, Joe Biden was president for a vast majority of this up to this point. and a genocide ethnic cleansing was happening then and most of these politicians were funding it and so to come out now even in Trump's America when it's it's not Joe Biden anymore you can be more open you can't really be that much more open which I think is something that a lot of people

weren't anticipating when Trump was elected there was you know the classic oh you know look at all these Democrats they're going to be much more outspoken now no because they're still implicated um and i think i'm not quite sure what the calculus was with katherine clark i'm not sure if she just said it because she was just in a setting where it wasn't that public and she really does feel that way as probably most members do but then she realized oh i can't say that um or if she did want to make that the big place to say it but then she got a few phone calls it's not quite clear um but in any case it really shows how there's so little expert from the people in power, even now, even as it gets worse, because so many of them are

complicit to where we got to in the first place. What do you make of, like, speculation, you know, from Pod Save and other outlets that any, that the nominee in 2028 for the Democratic Party is going to be someone who has bucked APEC? Do you think that that's overly optimistic, or is that a realistic, you know, realistic prognostication given how much public opinion on this issue has shifted? I think it's great that they're saying that. I think that alone, if not being an indicator, at least is pressure on members who might be closer to them. I think that's good. I think if we're going only on public opinion alone and nothing else, I'd say, yeah, for sure. Like, again, over and over again, the public has a very clear general view on this

war, on the idea of how many ways American society has been... impacted by the suppression and McCarthyism to make sure that support continues. I think a lot of people would agree with that. I think the question really is with regards to other aspects of what might happen in the primary, which is that right now it seems like there's a lot of liberal progressive groups that really do seem to suggest that they want a different kind of politician, that they want a different kind of politics when it comes to the democratic side of things. And that includes how they might view outside money, outside influence, including on APEC.

And so if those groups are really with it, then yeah, I think, I think for sure, because of how much influence those prominent, progressive organizing groups can have on the rest of the sort of media atmosphere on who is deemed as reasonable and popular and who is not. So I think it's a coin flip. It's up in the air. I think in terms of public opinion alone, for sure. of the forces that be, I think they're going to fight tooth and nail for that not to happen. Well, I mean, you mentioned a friend of the show, Adam Johnson. I'd like to give him a hat tip

today because I think he made the very astute point that like, while sort of cleaving oneself from APEC, as far as a Democratic Party goes, at least public gestures to that end, are certainly encouraging. I think the real test will be, are you willing to cut off J Street and Democratic majority for Israel, specifically if you were a Democratic politician? Because APEC is just is the largest and certainly most effective node, but there are specific democratic lobbying institutions as well like J Street and DMFI that are deeply entwined with the Democratic Party and just as complicit

in this slaughterhouse. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. I think it's also like even if A-PAC in name divests itself from a certain campaign, that does not mean the individuals associated with A-PAC can't just go ahead and donate as well. Yeah, absolutely. It really, I think it's a nice litmus test.

I think the real test obviously is just on policy. What do you say specifically, clearly on weapons to Israel? What do you say about funding them? What do you say about this agreement the U.S. has to just continually pump $3 billion to them every single year with no conditions at all? And even Pete Buttigieg himself and his sort of like walkback had to say, I'd take a look at that. I don't think that that's necessarily something we should be doing.

so that's the kind of thing that people are to be specifically looking for and not just whether they reject a PAC especially because how easy really it is for Democrats to say this is a Trump-aligned super PAC

I reject them and then move on and as you say and as Adam says just to collect pro-Israel money elsewhere Prim Tucker I think we should leave it there for today I really want to thank you for coming on and for your time if our listeners would like to continue to follow you and your journalism

or anything that you're right, where would you direct them? Yeah, so you can find me on Twitter, Blue Sky, TikTok, just look up Prem Tucker, T-H-A-K-K-E-R. I know it sounds kind of silly. You can find me there and then support us at Zateo. Zateo News. There's, as we all know, a very big gap in how the mainstream media, the mainstream media is covering this,

both immigration, Trump's takeover, and, of course, Palestine. So we're trying to fill that gap in as much as we can, and we appreciate all your support to help us do. that. All right. Well, before we signed off for today on what was an exceedingly bleak episode, and I do have to say, and I'm very thrilled to share with all of our listeners, some genuinely joyful and good news that I hopefully will be a pallet cleanser for all of the darkness over the last

hour or so. And that is that as of Saturday night, I am overjoyed to tell you that Chris and Molly successfully delivered their first child a daughter on Saturday night. Chris has passed along that both baby and Molly are doing great and they will be heading home from the hospital any minute. So I would just like to say on behalf of the whole Chappo family, welcome to this new person and that we are extending all of our love to Chris and Molly and their new family. Chris, of course, will not be producing the show as he is on paternity leave.

So if you notice a dramatic drop in the quality. and professionalism over the show of the show over the next three to four months, you will know that it is because he is now a proud and happy father. So once again, all our love to Chris, Molly, and their new daughter from us here at the Chapo Trap House family. And for all of our listeners, just, yeah, Chris is, don't bother Chris for the next couple months because he is going to be, he is on paternity leave. And like I said, all our love and congratulations to Chris and Molly.

That does it for today's show. Everybody, till next time, bye-bye. these guns and I bet he sleeps at night and I can stop shaking my hands won't stop shaking my arms won't stop shaking my arms won't stop shaking my mind my mind won't stop shaking I want to go Please let me go home Go home