It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #22

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

The gang discusses the war with Iran, the Supreme Court’s decisions on rendition and trans people, and the New York mayoral primary election. Sources: https://www.gofundme.com/f/standingwithourfamily https://www.kpbs.org/news/faith-spirituality/2025/06/20/san-diego-faith-leaders-observe-deportation-hearings-on-world-refugee-day https://www.courthousenews.com/san-diego-bishop-tells-trump-to-treat-migrants-more-christ-like-after-observing-court-hearings/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/supreme-court-pauses-district-court-order-preventing-immigrants-from-being-deported-to-third-party-countries/ https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_l5gm.pdf https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/us/politics/justice-department-emil-bove-trump-deportations-reuveni.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare https://www.rawstory.com/nato-trump-its-fine-iran/?u=542aff7612c60e8389a41ed55365e166830b5d079afb43b9c9df6be67f6a7d2d&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Jun.25.2025_3.16pmSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I'm Jeff Perlman. And I'm Rick Jervis. We're journalists and hosts of the podcast, Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up. 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, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their

community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week I investigate a new case. If there's a case we should hear about call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember Vine? It changed the internet forever, and it vanished in its prime.

I'm Benedict Townsend, and this is Vine, six seconds that changed the world. The untold story of genius, betrayal, and the app that died so that TikTok could thrive. From overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming, we're breaking down what made Vine iconic. Listen to Vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If a baby is giggling in the back seat, they're probably happy. If a baby is crying in the back seat, they're probably hungry. But if a baby is sleeping in the back seat,

back seat? They're probably hungry. But if a baby is sleeping in the back seat, will you remember they're even there? When you're distracted, stressed, or not usually the one who drives them, the chances of forgetting them in the back seat are much higher. It can happen to anyone. Parked cars get hot fast and can be deadly. So get in the habit of checking the backseat when you leave. The message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. Call zone media. Oh, who's got ED? That's not how we start these episodes. Wow.

That's how we're starting this one, Garrison. It's already begun. Welcome to Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. Yay! That's right, motherfuckers. That's Robert Evans, I'm Garrison Davis, I'm also joined by Mia Wong and James Stout. This week, we are covering the week of June 18 to June 25.

That's right, a good week where nothing 18 to June 25. That's right. A good week where nothing but good things happened. Assuming you are someone who manufactures 30 pound gravity utilizing bunker busting bombs. 30 pound, that's quite a small one. 30,000, 30,000. That's a- 30,000, sorry.

Anyway, we're talking about Iran. We're gonna start with Iran. We're gonna start with Iran's nuclear program. And I think we should start. We need to start by giving the Cool Zone Media Cool Kids Guide for how to enrich uranium. Oh no. I don't want to get arrested, Robert. Now, Mia, it's not illegal to tell people how to enrich uranium. Google will do it. And I assume they're correct. Robert, it is legal for white people to do this I don't know if it's legal for me to do this

It's okay. It's okay. It's okay look if I've learned one thing It's that it's okay for white people to talk about any kind of bomb on the internet, so we'll be fine. I'll be fine That's what matters Robert. Do I have kidnapping insurance? We'll be fine. I'll be fine. That's what matters. Robert, do I have kidnapping insurance? Do we have an extraction team for me when I go to ice prison? No, we don't. We have an extraction team, but it's not the cool kind. Anyway, so let's talk about how to make nukes.

Because one thing you'll constantly hear whenever the US or Israel talks about Iran's nuclear program is that they're just three to eight months away, right? Or weeks away. Weeks away. This is what you'll hear sometimes. It's just technically, three months is a number of weeks away, whatever. And they've been saying this for longer than I've been alive. Yeah, for longer than Robert and I have been.

Here's the thing. It's technically correct. Not in a way that, like, is correct in the way they are trying to push it, but in a way that is, like, literally correct, which is that Iran paused their nuclear program in 2003. The current Ayatollah has not given the command to start it up again. There is no evidence that it is currently operative. Back in March, US military intelligence, the DIA, concluded that there was no indication Iran had decided or attempted to restart their nuclear program. That said, it has been true since 2003 that they are potentially about three months or so away from having a nuke because of the way that making nukes work.

So in order to make the standard kind of nuclear weapon that we're talking about here, you need a bunch of enriched uranium, right? And there's two kinds of uranium. There's 235 and there's 238. And naturally, they always show up together. And there's always a lot more 238 than 235. And 238 is fucking bullshit if you're trying to make yourself a bomb, right? You want the 235. And I'm not going to go into a ton of detail about like how you do this, but because of just the nature of how uranium-235 and 238 work, they're chemically identical, so you can't use chemical reactions

to separate them, right? So you can't use any of the easy ways that you would like separate one from the other in order to concentrate the kind of uranium that they want. The only way to actually do that is by using a centrifuge, which in short uses the magic of spinning in order to separate out the uranium that you want from their uranium that's not very useful to you. And Iran has a substantial quantity of like 60% enriched uranium, which is basically one step away from 90%, which is like what you need to actually build the bomb that they need.

And they've had a shitload of this uranium sitting around for a while, right? Because it keeps well. And theoretically, if they were to start their program up again, it would be theoretically possible to enrich it in fairly short order to the concentration that you need, right? And at that point, once you have a sufficient quantity, and you'll hear slightly different numbers, but generally agreed that they have a sufficient quantity of uranium that is fairly enriched, that if they were to finish the process,

they could make somewhere between like eight to 10 warheads with it, right? Like something, somewhere in that vicinity. And they could have a functional warhead within a matter of weeks after enriching. Because enriching the uranium is the hard part. Once you've done that, it's very easy to make a nuclear weapon, right? Sufficiently skilled people could do it

with like fairly minimal technology. If they had like getting the enriched uranium is the hard part. So it's technically true that Iran is that, you know, close to having a weapon. They have been since 2003. But the more important part of the story is that they have not been working on a weapon and there's no evidence, even for the DIA concluded in March that they were not actively working on a nuclear weapon.

So what's actually been going on here is that while the Ayatollah has not reauthorized the program in quite some time, pressure has been, it's been generally agreed by people watching Iranian politics that pressure has been building on him in order to reauthorize the program. There's a good CBS News article on this that notes that the US intelligence community assessment stated that there was an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public brought on by all of the pressure against Iran by Israel. In other words, the more Israel and the United States threaten and actually do bomb Iran, the more public support there is and the more acceptable it becomes to talk about restarting

the program. Because continuing to bomb and attack them makes the case very strongly that, well, we probably need one of these fucking things, right? Because otherwise they're simply not going to stop. And that's been the lesson of the 21st century, which is if you are a country that has beef with the United States or any other nuclear power, the safest thing to do is get a nuke and then get more nukes as quickly as possible. Right? So, that's the situation that we're in. Iran has not moved any closer to having a nuclear weapon over the last 20-some years, but because they've got this uranium, you can always technically say, well, they could

be months away. Right? So, this all leads us up to last week's strikes on Iran. These were using a wing of B-2 bombers. There was quite a few aircraft involved. Prior to the bombing attack, there was a lot of discussions like the United States preparing for much more extensive action in Iran because we flew all of these different refueling planes

all around the world and we're setting up very clearly this massive set of infrastructure to refuel and keep a bunch of planes in the air. Now the reality is that all of these refueling planes and whatnot were part of this bombing mission. And the bombing mission did not just include the seven bombers that actually struck Iran, but another wing of B-2 bombers that flew in the opposite direction as part of a faint, as well as fighter jets and recon planes that were necessary to help set up and protect the whole apparatus that we were setting up to get these seven B-2s to the target area, right?

Now the actual mission was about 37 hours, which is not the longest mission B-2 crews have flown. That was 44 hours and it was over Afghanistan in 2001. And keep a pin in that because we will be talking about how successful that mission was because there's some similarities between it and what was done in Iran. Now the B-2s that we flew over Iran were armed with these big 30,000 pound bunker busting bombs. And we'll talk about these as well in a while. But I found that there's a very interesting article on CNN Politics

by Michael Williams that interviews one of the guys who was part of the longest B2 mission, that mission over Afghanistan, who talked about what you have to do in order to carry out a mission like this. And I want to bring it up because in the middle of this very shameful episode for the United States, it reminds me of what makes me proud of this country. And what makes me proud of this country is our tendency to dose bomber pilots with massive quantities of amphetamines so that they can be absolutely spun off their asses when bombing a foreign country.

And that's exactly how you get bomber teams over to a country like Iran for 37 hours of flight time is everybody is prescribed amphetamines and they are high as shit, they are pissing in ziplock bags full of kitty litter They've got a chemical toilet in the back They're just spun off of their asses pissing into cat litter and that's that's how strikes like this are managed Which I think is beautiful. Yeah, except for the whole you know Trump starting a little war aspect of it Yeah, sure sure the massive civilian casualties are always a tragedy Yeah, the death of innocent people.

But you know, it also, it was from fighter pilots that we get a swinger culture, and it's from fighter pilots and swinger culture that we get popularized amphetamines in the United States. And without that, you know, I don't know. We actually probably wouldn't miss out on much that was very good. No. But the 70s would have been different. You don't think the value was lost? Might have been better. Yeah, yeah, it might have been better. I don't know. I feel like Jefferson Airplane wouldn't have been as good. No. But the 70s would have been different. Don't think the value was lost? Might have been better.

Yeah, it might have been better. I don't know. I feel like Jefferson airplane wouldn't have been as good, but. Maybe they'd have been called something else. Jefferson train. Yeah, maybe they'd have been called something else. So the primary munition that these B-2s

were supposed to be dropping over Iran and the whole reason why the United States was needed because Israel had carried out a bunch of strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. But basically Iran being intelligent knew that like, well, they're going to bomb these facilities like as long as they exist and it's very difficult to get like these centrifuges made. Right. Like that's the hardest part of getting a nuclear weapon is getting the

equipment that will allow you to enrich uranium. And so it's very precious and you can't, you don's very precious and you can't just remake it super easily. So Iran buried this shit, right? They had a number of different sites, which were hit by both the US and Israel, the most deeply buried of which was at a place called Fordo. And the actual facilities were buried underneath like the ridge of a mountain beneath 90 meters or about 300 feet of rock, right? And we have this tendency in the West in part because of generations of like military industry propaganda and in part because the air force really wants you

to believe this, that bombs are a lot more powerful than they are. Now bombs are great at blowing up buildings that are just hanging around on the surface of the earth and they're great at killing people. They're great at killing civilians, people who are not armored or defended against them. They're awesome at that. You know what bombs suck at? Is going more than a couple of feet below the earth.

They're terrible at it. Even really big bombs, even the scariest bombs we've ever made, absolute dog shit at getting through, especially like stone and rock. And so Israel was like, we don't have the capacity, we don't have the technology to actually like crack a facility like Fordow. The only thing that can is these bombs that can only be carried by the B2, which are these

30,000 pound bunker busters, right? And the question that comes up then is like, okay, well, this ford is 90 meters, it was beneath 90 meters of rock. How deep can these GBU-57s, these massive ordnance penetrator bombs, which had not been used in combat before, how deep can these fuckers go, right? That seems like a simple question. You will usually see most of the graphics on the news will show that it penetrates 60 meters, right, or 200 feet, and then it detonates, right? Which, you know, could do damage to a facility that's buried deeper, right? If you're detonating it like 60 meters down and it goes down 90 meters, that explosion could do enough extra damage that it could damage a facility that's just like another

30 meters below, right, theoretically. However, that doesn't tell the full story. And I'm very indebted in this part to an NPR article by Joff Brumfeld, who did actually like the math, right? So we figured out a long time ago when we started bombing things, there's like a mathematical equation to how far a bomb that's a given weight and dropped from a given height and has a given explosive payload can penetrate through different kind of substrates, right?

That you can just kind of plug that equation in. And yeah, I want to quote from Jeff's article right now because it does a very good job of like looking at kind of why this was sort of a dog shit plan from the start. I went back to take a look at the math from those early studies and I found it was actually straightforward. The so-called penetration equations have existed

since the 1960s and depend on a limited number of factors, including the shape of the nose cone, the weight and diameter of the weapon, the speed at which it hits the ground, and crucially the type of earth it gets dropped on. It depends enormously on the kind of rock, says Raymond Jean Laws, the professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the original authors of the 2005 National Academic Study on Earth Penetrators. When I ran the calculations, using a key equation from that study, I found that the GBU-57 could

go up to 80 meters underground if it was dropped in silty clay. In medium strength rock, things looked far different. The GBU-57 could only go around 7.9 meters beneath the Earth. So, that's not nearly the 60 meters that you're seeing claimed almost and it's nowhere close to 90, right? And there's a good amount of data we already have Trump obviously claimed as soon as we did this bombing run because we you know dropped a fairly heavy cluster of these bombs 12 on fordo and Trump's claim was that like yeah was completely destroyed His press secretary said when you drop 12 30,000 pound bombs with perfect precision on a target, there's only one result, complete destruction.

And that's not true even if you just like look at the past of us using these weapons. I mentioned earlier that 2001 mission to Afghanistan, that was us trying to blow up that purported like cave fortress that Bin Laden had. You may have seen the diagram. In Tora Bora. And we didn't. It didn't work. Cause it's really hard for all of our technological might.

It's very hard to blow up something buried under rock. Like it doesn't matter how many of these giant bombs you have we're shit at it, right? Now there's still some debate. The DIA assessment says that basically we did damage but it was at most maybe enough to knock them back by eight months and probably less than that, right? It's kind of debatable and we don't have perfect data on this, right?

I don't know that Iran has perfect data on this because one thing we can confirm is that the bombing sealed the entrances. So it's possible they can't get into Fordo quite yet, right? Like there's going to be some work needed to do to be able to get these facilities, if they were to do that, which again, they were not. Based on US military intelligence, we're not doing prior to the bombing. But based on satellite imagery,

it does not look like, there's not really good evidence that we did any kind of significant damage. There's some reports that some centrifuges were damaged, but those reports state that other centrifuges were intact. So it's one of those things where like, there's not any strong evidence. reports that some centrifuges were damaged, but those reports state that other centrifuges were intact. So it's one of those things where there's not any strong evidence. And in fact, the DIA's report suggests that the damage done was fairly minimal, given

the extreme cost of this operation and the brags that the administration has been making that they totally destroyed these facilities. We simply did not totally destroy these facilities. We simply did not totally destroy these facilities. Now, it's a little too early to say so precisely how bad is this, but again, that's kind of the early data. The DIA assessment says we set them back maybe a few months at most. One of the fun things about this is that Iran moved their uranium prior to the bombing. You can't really move these giant centrifuges or these big underground facilities, but you can take the uranium and you can just drive it places. And we don't know exactly where they hit it.

The head of the IAEA, which is the International Atomic Energy Commission, has already come out and said, like, I have no idea where Iran's uranium is. And it's the job, the IAEA's job is to account for every fucking gram of uranium held by every country in the world, right? They are supposed to know at all times where it is. And he's like, I have no fucking idea. Like we don't know where it is. And we don't know how much damage is done,

but we don't know where this is. There is at least one report stating that Iran's plan was basically load this up into the trunks of a bunch of cars and park them in public parking lots because they probably, they're not gonna bomb a public parking lot outside of like a store, which is really funny actually. To be fair, the US might do that.

Ace Rail will certainly bomb a parking lot. They hit a prison. But which parking, there's so many. Yeah, yeah. And they'll play a show game, right? Like they will send hundreds of trucks and vans from every location. Yeah, right. They'll send way more., right? Like they will send hundreds of trucks and vans from every location. Yeah, right.

They'll send way more. It's just the funniest thing. In terms of, it also points out how doomed efforts like this are where you're just like, well, with our technology and our fancy stealth bombers, clearly we should be able to figure this out. And it's like, nah, we're just gonna park. We need a hundred cars.

We'll bring in 600 cars and we'll park them randomly all around the country. Fuck you. What are you gonna do? Bomb every parking lot? It's very funny. Quote from parking lot bombed. What are you gonna do, bomb me? Yeah Anyway, that's uh What's going on with us bombing Iran and so again very expensive Yeah, probably did not do much. the Dove strikes again the peacemaker

They're calling them the peacemaker. Yeah, we'll talk about the peace bullshit after this. We should throw the ads first Thank you, Northrop Grumman for sponsoring this segment. 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.

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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. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie

Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you.

But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. 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 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. 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 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or seconds that changed the world. The untold story of genius, betrayal,

and the app that died so that TikTok could thrive. From overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming, we're breaking down what made Vine iconic. Listen to Vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We're back. So like the Fordo nuclear enrichment facility, Trump is between a rock and a hard place with this whole carrying out illegal strikes on a sovereign nation

thingamajig in that he came to power in large part by promising, I'm not gonna do a World War III. I'm not gonna, all these Democrats are crazy warmongers, but not old Donny T. You can trust me to be a peacemaker. And then he fucking bombs Iran, which is kind of a major escalation, right? So, and we're not gonna,

there's been people arguing, would this have happened under Kamala, yadda yadda? I don't give a shit I'm real shit. It's happening now. Fuck it. Fuck off. Like I it's not it's not worth talking about that We'll talk about what's happening, which is that this is a major escalation But Trump has had that he's kind of been hedging between like yeah Look at how fucking cool our weapons are we fuck them up so bad and also and now it's time for peace We have to stop the violence

Why don't you guys come to the table? Let's all be friends and getting pretty pissed at the Israeli government Yes, because he announced a ceasefire and Iran was like after striking back and hitting US bases In a number of countries was like, okay, we're done. Like we did the thing we had we did the face-saving thing We have to launch missiles after you bomb us. We can't not do that. Yeah, but we did it We got our strike off and we're not gonna continue if you guys don't continue right and Trump was like I did it I made peace look at look at how good I am and that Israel immediately starts carrying out more strikes and Trump is Are we gonna play the audio of him cursing on TV? Because it's very good Here's Trump being confronted about this like within hours of the Israeli strikes.

You know what we have we basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Do you understand that? So that's a pissed off man and he's pissed off, I do think people are generally wrong when they're like, oh, Trump's much better on Israel because he can confront Netanyahu. That hasn't really proved to be the case yet. But unlike Biden, Trump clearly doesn't care about, he's willing to be pissed at Netanyahu and he was really pissed in this.

Yeah. Like openly, like absolutely. Openly, very, because again, he's hanging a lot on nobody, nobody would dare go back to war when I said they were at peace, right? Like that's, this is like an ego thing for him more than anything. He certainly doesn't give a shit about the human cost of any of this. No, certainly not.

But yeah. And so that's where we are right now. Are we done? Will there continue to be more strikes and retaliation strikes? Something's got to happen. It's not done, right? None of it's done. No. But, you know, also Iran's not stupid, right?

This is a country that has been in these circumstances and in variations of this conflict for a long time, and they are neither foolish nor suicidal. So they're, they're not going to be completely reckless here, right? Like I think you're seeing, and what you've seen is pretty calculated responses where they are aware of How much they think they can push when and where right and so I you know I think we're likely to like I don't know that I think the escalation ladder is in like a runaway state I don't see that evidence right now, but this is not the end of this right? Yeah, so something we got news of today in the last, this is Wednesday, we got this in the last like hour or so,

is that Trump like said on TV the thing that you're not actually supposed to say, which is that the US and Iran coordinated to have the Iran shoot these bases. Oh my God. It's like, okay, like they literally went on TV and said quote You saw that working vessels were shot at us the other day and Iran was very nice They said we're gonna shoot them at one at one okay. I said it's fine Everybody evacuated about the basis like obviously the US has always done this but like we've never had the president go on TV And just say yeah, we let Iran shoot

empty military bases. Yeah, we worked it out with them. Yep, yep, yep. This highlights something that's so interesting. And when I, when I say this, I don't mean to ignore the fact that real people are dying like particularly in Iran. It's horrifying. But there is a massive degree of this at the, at the, at the nation state level that is

kayfabe, right? And that proves it. Like Iran is like, okay, look. Kayfabe with the cost of like thousands of lives. People will die. Yeah, it's dick measuring. The fact that Iran is willing to talk with the US about like, okay, what can we strike that's not going to escalate things for you?

And like, yeah, we'll pull, you know, whatever. And also that's to a degree that was going on with the strikes on Iran, right? Where they got enough of a warning that they were able to move their fissile material, right? Like, this is, which is not to say that things are copacetic and friendly, but everybody's got, everybody but Israel has like a vested interest in things not escalating too much. Even the Trump administration, right? Has a vested interest in like, there's a line we don't want to cross because we just don't see any like benefit in it, right?

And that is that is a part of what's going on here. Yeah Anyway, that's probably enough talk about Iran and nukes and stuff but anyway remember folks you too could be a nuclear power if you can just figure out how to make a functional centrifuge and Get a shitload of uranium, you know, it's not that hard. It just comes out of the ground. You have depending on where that ground is. Depending on where that ground is.

Should we talk about immigration? Sure. All right. I love immigration. Sadly, Robert Congress does not agree with you. I guess they rarely do. James, they rarely do. Yeah, that is one of the things they say about Robert Evans.

I want to start actually with a little disclaimer, rant. Almost every day for the past six months, someone has sent me a tip saying that ICE are raiding a hospital. This has happened almost every month for the past 10 years. I have received this tip thousands of times. To my knowledge, it has never been true. Nonetheless, this rumor persists, especially among people who might be newer to migrant advocacy or newer to observing immigration enforcement. What is happening in a hundred percent of these cases that I have looked into is that Customs and Border Protection or ICE

or some other immigration detention agency is taking somebody who is in their custody to the hospital and then that person is getting treatment and then they are released again to that immigration agency. Normally those immigration agents can't enter non-public areas of the hospital, i.e. treatment rooms, but they can enter public areas, i.e. lobbies. This rumor, which continues to spread, which I've seen people, including journalists, sharing on social media, kills people, right? I'm aware of one incident in which someone was having a medical emergency and didn't want to go to hospital, a medical emergency which could very well have killed them within hours, and didn't want to go to hospital, a medical emergency, which could very well have killed them within hours and didn't want to go to hospital because they had heard the

ice was at the hospitals. I understand that people are coming to this with varying levels of experience. It's cool. It's great that people are showing up for migrants, but people need to exercise caution around this because it is not harmless to spread that rumor unless you are absolutely certain that it is true. It hurts people and I keep seeing it. I think it's important to say something about it, including to other journalists. Okay. With that said, let's start with some good news about immigration. Ice agents in San Diego

scattered from the San Diego court when the newly appointed San Diego Bishop Michael Pham, who is himself a refugee, he was an unaccompanied minor from Vietnam, entered the court to accompany people to their immigration hearings. Bishop Pham was joined by Imam Taha Hassani, I hope I'm saying that correctly, of the Islamic Center of San Diego, and our lady of Guadalupe Church pastor, Scott Santarosa. They say they're going to keep doing this, quote, as needed. So like, this is actually one of the very few things, at least in courthouses, that

seems to have worked, right? We've covered this in previous weeks, that what is happening is that the government is dismissing the case against people and then immediately detaining them and forcing them to fight for their asylum while detained. This has been happening all across the country. San Diego is the only place I'm aware of where religious leaders from across the religious community are accompanying migrants to their detention hearings. We saw Brad Lander doing this in New York, right, a politician, but, um, this is the only instance I'm aware of where clerics are doing it. And it seems to have worked.

It seems to have in this instance or in these instances prevented ICE from detaining people. And like, I'm not a religious person myself, but I will say that I respect this. I think this is, uh, this is cool. I've reported before, I've spoken a lot about Jesuits in the Darien Gap and how impressed and in awe of their work with migrants I am. And I think this is another example of people organizing with groups who they might not normally organize with, but that having really beneficial results, right? Huge win for the

woke Marxist pope as well. It's always good to see. Yep. Hell yeah. Huge win for Marxism this week. Yeah, generally a big week for Marxism. In other news, a district court has ordered another man, Jordan Alexander Melgar Salmeron, returned from El Salvador. He's Salvadorian, but he was removed 30 minutes after a court order barred his removal and thus he was removed in violation of that court order, right? And the district court has ordered him returned. I'm not aware if he's being returned yet on Wednesday. We

shall see, I guess, because the Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration this week to continue removing migrants to countries which are not specifically noted on their removal orders, right? We spoke about this before in the case of the attempt of the DOJ to remove people to South Sudan. We've spoken about it in terms of moving people to El Salvador who are not themselves Salvadorian, right? This isn't really deportation.

I think rendition is a more accurate way to describe it. And it will certainly result in people facing hardship and more likely than not, people facing torture and probably being killed. It is a disaster. It was a very short and unsigned order and the justice, it wasn't a final decision, right? the Massachusetts District Court ruling, which had in turn paused the process. So the process is now ongoing again. It's worth noting that the Massachusetts District Court ruling didn't stop them doing it. It allowed them a meaningful attempt at expressing their reasonable fear of torture. Three justices dissented, Sotomayor, Keegan, and Jackson. Sotomayor wrote the dissent, I'm just going to quote from it here briefly,

apparently, quote, the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a district court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled. As she pointed out, the government was seeking relief from this order in the Supreme Court, but had also been openly flouting it, right? This flouting of lower court orders lines up with Erez Rouveni, a DOJ lawyer who was fired for, I guess, not following the DOJ line in the Abrego Garcia case. He filed a whistleblower complaint in Congress this week that the NYT has seen. You can read the whole article in the show notes,

but in there you can hear Emil Beauvais was he was Trump's personal lawyer in 2023. Trump has now nominated him to be a judge. But he tells DOJ lawyers that they need to be open to responding fuck you to court orders. The allegations in the whistleblower complaint are pretty concerning, right in terms of the ability of the courts to stop the DOJ doing anything. I would urge you to read it. It's going to be linked in the show notes. We don't really have time to summarize all of it here, but I think that I think the fuck

you comment summarizes it pretty well. Yeah. And speaking of things that you should buy, here's ads. 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.

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and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part, our this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne,

from Oakley, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name, Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February, 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving.

No headlines, no outrage, just silence. 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 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.

I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I have 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.

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 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember Vine? It changed the internet forever and it vanished in its prime. I'm Benedict Townsend and this is Vine, six seconds that changed the world. The untold story of genius, betrayal,

and the app that died so that TikTok could thrive. From overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming, we're breaking down what made Vine iconic. Listen to Vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We're back and since we've just done ads, let's let James give an ad for something that's not a product or a service, but is better. Yeah. For either of those things.

If you have any money left after investing in all the wonderful gold that our advertisers want to sell you, one of the people who we have interviewed on this show extensively, who came into United States through Hukumba and who provided us with a really in-depth account of his immigration detention has let me know that he is struggling to find a lawyer and pay for a lawyer. So far he's been taking care of all of his legal paperwork himself, which is very admirable, but obviously like many migrants, he understands that his chance of success will be much, much better with a lawyer. Something he himself is struggling to pay for right now,

whilst also supporting a family. If you would like to help the link for that is www.gofundme.com slash F slash standing with our family. It will also be the first link in the sources for this episode. So if you're listening on your podcast app, you can scroll down to the show notes, find it there, click it and help out if you'd like to. and help out if you'd like to. Well, I think it's time for Gare's Good News Roundup, and let's start with some actually, like, fantastic news. Mahmood Khalil has been released after 104 days in ICE custody. He missed the birth of his first child.

Was it his first time meeting his child, or did he get to meet his child? I think he'd gotten one Visits where he got to meet his kid if I'm if I'm remembering correctly I'm still kind of about two-thirds of the way through his detainment Yeah, but now he is back in New York, right as his case will continue This is a good step in the fight against disappearing people for political differences Like this is an important fight. This is possibly like one of the most important national pieces of news.

That's still a developing story right now. I've seen some responses that are like, yeah, so after 104 days of being illegally detained, you know, a guy finally got released, this is still a bad thing. And like, that's true. This is a bleak story, but like, it's actually kind of like foolish to not acknowledge this as a significant win, right? Like it's important. They did not want to release him.

They wanted to keep him locked up forever. They did not want to release him. Yes. This is good. This is a good thing. And it's proof that it is worth fighting because you can win. Yeah. Like every day he's not in jail and that he's with his family is a better day.

Yes, is a win. It's a victory. Yes. Also some good news in New York. It is so quaver. Zeron Mamdani won the Democratic primary for the mayor of New York City Tuesday night. This is quite exciting. I got to announce to a massive room full of trans people

that Cuomo conceded to Zoran, and I have not felt better in months. It was like one of the brightest rays of hope that we've had and a rejection of like the old Democratic Party establishment. Zoran had to beat like $ million dollars of Super PAC funding against him. He mobilized the youth vote in ways we've never seen before in New York. A quarter of early voters were first time that Democratic primary participants.

Zoran ran a very, very solid campaign with slick videos online and on TV, multi-language outreach, 50,000 on-street volunteers canvassing, door knocks, phone baking, and a distinct focus on affordability, including freezing rent, free buses, a pilot program for city-run grocery stores, free to low-cost childcare, raising minimum wage, and resisting Trump's efforts to use ICE to deport New Yorkers. Myself and Mia did a full episode yesterday if you want to have a more in-depth look at the New York mayoral primary.

Yeah. We should also note here that per a CBS New York interview with former Governor Cuomo, he has stated that he is considering running against Mamdani as an independent. So we'll see how that goes. We might get to see Cuomo lose twice in a year, which would be pretty funny. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I would be surprised if he actually decides to run in the general. A lot of, like, like Ackman is going behind Adams, it seems. They're certainly going to be targeting from, Republicans and maybe even some like establishments.

Oh, yeah, sure. Definitely. So like remove Zoran as a viable candidate. They're going to pull out some crazy like Red Scare communist shit from the 50s. Absolutely. They might try to remove his legal status as a citizen. Like they're going to pull out the stops. But this is like after the 2024 election, this is like the first first like clear look at what a new Democratic Party could look like. And right now is the face of Zoran. Yeah, that's all I have.

Yeah. And, you know, it's nice to see a win. Again, it's like the Mahmoud Khalil thing, right? It's it's nice. Absolutely. Like this is this is good. Things can happen. Now does this mean, is this a part of a fucking progressive wave that's sweeping the country? Does this prove that, you know, being pro-Palestine and pro-trans is the best electoral strategy in 100% of districts?

No. Like this is New York. We, like, this is one election. But it's like good news. I think there's a very solid possibility that we will see this as part of a growing trend that when candidates are actually left-wing and unabashedly so, when they don't try to tack to the middle, when they don't try to embrace a hodgepodge of like contradictory policies in order to please some sort of like farcical median, theoretical median voter, that they do better.

I do think that like maybe that's what we'll see, but you know, obviously one election in New York City is not a, one primary in New York City isn't enough to prove that like this is going to be the same kind of thing we see nationwide. I mean, but it did show how to mobilize like a huge number of young people. Yeah. Like a lot of young men, which the Democratic Party has been whining about for the past

few months. Terrible about. Yeah. And that's a big deal. Like how do we reach out to the young men in this country? And like, Zoran showed you how to do this. He's actually fighting for real things that make your life better. You can get people excited about your candidacy if you're standing for something.

Yeah. And getting people excited. It's even more important than just being like, well, this theoretically polls the best. Because if you do take all the positions that poll well, but nobody gives a shit, and you don't have any kind of excitement or the ability to build like a grassroots ground game, then you'll do worse. Like if you have that behind you, if you have all that enthusiasm, you can make less popular positions more popular. That's how politics works, right? Look at Trump, you know?

Like the whole, everyone's always wondering like how does he get away with all these things that were forbidden for so long? Is because he had a lot of enthusiasm behind him and that wave allowed him to push a bunch of boundaries and like that's how it works It can work the other way too. If you try if you're not just gutless if you're not a fucking Schumer So in less good news and by less good news, I mean really really horrible news terrible news Yeah, so last week we got the results of the United States versus Scrimetti I think most trans people have been expecting that this was going to be really bad But it was it was I guess technically not as bad as it theoretically could have been but this ruling Was there's a 6-3 ruling that upholds?

Tennessee's yeah ban on gender affirming care for minors that band is I mean just like hideously illegal it's like very obviously sex discrimination the Supreme Court gave genuinely like I had a friend described as like we're just in pure Calvin ball land like it's if you read the decision, it's fucking nonsense. It's gibberish. That also makes it hard to figure out what it's going to do because the legal reasoning is just so unbelievably nonsense. Like it leaves it.

It leaves in place the 2020 ruling on sex discrimination in the workplace for trans people intact, but it invents this new justification that you can discriminate against trans people if you're discriminating against gender dysphoria as a diagnosis, specifically not necessarily them being trans, but the ability to treat gender dysphoria. Yeah, it's really, really fucking weird. I'm probably gonna do a full episode Looking at like like bringing in actual legal people to talk about what the legal impacts are going to be. This is really bad

This means that like 25 states Bans on gender affirming care go into effect Yeah One of the worst parts of this right is that you know and this is this is a one of the biggest issues with like of this, right, is that, you know, and this is this is one of the biggest issues with like targeting trans kids in general is that just the structure of the family and of childhood makes it really hard to help these kids because they're significantly more isolated than trans adults, right? It's harder for trans kids to find community. It's harder for the community to find them. Yep. And because of the structures in place here, like they are denied the autonomy to keep living. And if

their parents decide to just be like, fuck you, we're just doing, we're going to do conversion therapy on you by refusing to let you transition. They can do that. And it's extremely hard to resist it. Yeah, the root of so much authoritarianism, I would argue like the absolute core of the fascist movement is the idea that parents own their children. Yeah. And that like that is the most, that is the single most important property right that exists is your ownership of kids. I was going to say it's bedtime if we really get to the core of it isn't it Robert?

Yeah it's- No, Robert's going full like no future queer theory like I agree with you. No he's right. No this is, I don't think this is even debatable as someone who was raised in it. It's this, and it's not a simple problem, right? Because, like, kids are not adults and shouldn't, like, have full autonomy about choices,

like, you know, because they don't understand the world fully. There's a degree to which kids need to be, like, guided. You should stop a child if they're going to walk into the street and get hit by a bus. Right. Yeah, like grab a fire. Or if they only want to eat candy for dinner, right? Like, there are limits. But the idea that, like, and so parents own their kids, they're like, that is just pure poison and it's killing us all. And like, more broadly, broadly like guys who hate their kids

Are the fucking forefront of fascism right now? Like yeah Elon Musk bought Twitter because he hates his daughter. Yes more more than if any other thing like it's yeah It's a repugnant ideology. It's disgusting. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we'll do some sort of more detailed Look at this that like that at some point, but I think we've yeah You know covered the news. Yeah. I mean, I think the last the last thing I want to say about that It's like if you're trans and I know this was a bigger thing in the immediate wake of last week, but keep living Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, stay alive Maybe get a passport because you can do that right now

There's a lot of benefit even if you're not going to travel if you don't have the right now. There's a lot of benefit, even if you're not going to travel. If you don't have the money to travel, there's a lot of benefit in having that ID. Yeah. Yeah. And we're all going to see the sunrise together. Like we are. And it's going to be beautiful. But do you know who won't is a man from Norway who will probably never be seeing the United States ever again. God, oh, my God. Okay. Garrison.

So, to finish this episode, we're gonna talk about the one deportation we're kind of allowed to laugh at. Not because the guy is bad. The guy seems perfectly fine. But the circumstances around the deportation are so bizarre. It's wild shit. And it affects Norway. So it's, you know, it's like, whatever.

Garrison. Anti-Norwegian action over here. No offense to Norway, I'm just saying, it's not like this it's like whatever. Garrison. Anti-Norwegian action over here. No offense to Norway, I'm just saying it's not like this guy's getting deported to a place where he's in danger. I love you Norwegians, even if Garrison doesn't. This is not a guy who's going to suffer. He's not going to South Sudan. Severe life threatening or whatever. He's fine. A Norwegian man was coming to the United States for vacation. And at the border checkpoint at I think Newark, he was questioned and handed over his phone.

On the phone, Porter agents found a photoshopped picture of baby JD Vance, sorry, of bald baby JD Vance. Yeah, yeah. And for this reason, he was denied entry into the United States and deported back to Europe Thomas country on earth Anyway said photo has now been shown in the Irish Parliament because we live in a it's beautiful the world's beautiful They're deporting Norwegians for JD Vance memes now. This is the level that we are at like the party of free speech deporting people who has

Have JD Vance memes on their phone like on the one hand I think you can make the argument that fascism has always been this stupid like Google Mussolini's headquarters and look at that building is this dumb Yeah, but like good Lord like I just oh my god a personal vanity There's such fucking tiny babies about it Like that's like that's like the really defining characteristic of this area of fascism Is that if you make fun of them the tiniest bit it is the worst consequences of ever suffered in their entire lives And they fucking lose their mind that everyone doesn't fucking love them

Yeah, they're they're fully like willing and like desire to use the complete might of the state to To step on anyone who dares defy their authority even even when that defiance is manifested through having a picture of Baby JD Vance with a bald head Like that that is too far. I don't know what else to say about bald baby JD Vance. You know, get a tattoo, get a full facial tattoo or like a Ben Affleck size piece. A bald JD Vance. Denaturalized for your JD Vance back tattoo.

They can't punish you. Not for a tattoo. for your JD Vance back tattoo. They can't punish you, not for a tattoo. No, it is funny how much Vance and the border patrol do not understand the Barbra Streisand effect. This picture is now everywhere. It shows how hurt JD Vance is by these photo shops, even though he's tried to laugh along in the past. Yeah, I'd love to know like how,

is there a directive that has come down? Like no Vance memes? Yeah, who made the call? Did some like office of field operations guy? Did they send it up to Stephen Miller? Yeah. With like, hey, Stephen, is this okay? It seems like no, no, no, it's not.

Did someone at the boiler take offense on behalf of Vance? That could be very likely. I think that is what happened. Like all of the data suggests that's what happened. Robert's talked about this, like working towards the furor stuff before, but like, we're seeing a version of that here, right? Like, oh yeah. I mean, like all of the current border agents are like Trump cultists, essentially.

Like they are the most evil people you will ever meet. I mean, of all the federal agencies, right? It's CBP that has had the lowest vaccination rate. They're playing one American news in their break rooms. Like, uh, yeah, they are more ideologically, sympathico with what's happening than I would imagine most other feds are certainly like ice, uh, pretty much in lockstep with the Trump administration. Yeah.

If, uh, you want to help Amos, I guess, don't send a JD Vines baby meme, but you can send your money again to gofundme.com slash F slash standing with our family. They'll be in the show notes too. And if you would like to contact us, you can do so using ProtonMail, which is only encrypted end to end if you are sending from an encrypted email address, like a proton mail address. And the way you can do that is by typing the email address coolzone tips at proton dot me into the two fields and sending an email to us that way. We do read them all. We don't respond to them all, but all of them get read. We reported the news. We reported the news.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend.

I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week I investigate a new case. If there's 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.

I'm Jeff Perlman. And I'm Rick Jervis. We're journalists and hosts of the podcast, Finding Sexy Sweat. At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple of years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up. 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. Do you remember Vine? It changed the internet forever and it vanished in its prime. or wherever you get your podcasts. Overnight stars to the fall that no one saw coming, we're breaking down what made Vine iconic. Listen to Vine on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If a baby is giggling in the backseat, they're probably happy.

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So get in the habit of checking the backseat when you leave. The message from NHTSA and the Ad Council.