It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #30

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

The gang discuss the Israeli cybersecurity official who bailed out and went home after being charged with sex crimes against children, the IDF's murder of journalists in Gaza, changes in USCIS guidance and Federal Agents opening fire on a California family. Sources: https://www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-journalists-hamas-hasbara/ https://x.com/IDF/status/1954652255199887516  https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/idf-press-releases-israel-at-war/august-24-pr/eliminated-ismail-al-ghoul-a-hamas-military-wing-operative-and-nukhba-terrorist/  https://cpj.org/2025/07/cpj-calls-for-anas-al-sharifs-protection-in-face-of-israeli-smears/  https://www.facebook.com/share/r/16tQckcrui/  https://www.icrc.org/en/article/international-humanitarian-law-protect-journalists-armed-conflict  https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20250819-DiscretionaryFactors.pdf https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1424&num=0&edition=prelim https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-alerts/08.15.2025-Restoring_a_Good_Moral_Character_Evaluation_Standard_for_Aliens_Applying_for_Naturalization-Policy_Memorandum_FINAL.pdf https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26054451-20-1/#document/p17/a2667744 https://www.wmtw.com/article/old-orchard-beach-maine-officer-voluntary-departure/65807962?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot https://edsource.org/updates/immigration-agents-alleged-to-have-boasted-of-1500-for-l-a-student-arrest  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/us/politics/ice-bonuses-immigrants-deportations.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcast. This is It Could Happen here, executive disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening. The White House, the crumbling world, what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis. This episode, I'm joined by Robert Evans, James Stout, and Sophie Lichtenman. Maybe. Maybe Sophie will decide to comment on some of this important news we have today. To bless us. And maybe Robert will decide to forgive you for jumping into giving the title of this show and not letting me say electile dysfunction or something like that, which I have not gotten over, livid.

Let's talk about a pedophile. It's time for your Friday paedophile update. We call it the Frida file minute. I don't like that. I think it's Frida Carlo. So on August 15th, 2025 at 836 Ano Meridian, that means in the morning, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Office of Public Information put up a press release with the title eight child sex predators arrested during undercover operation. Now, this was a report on a

multi-agency operation going after child sex predators that was headed by the Nevada Internet Crimes Against Children or ICAC organization, which is a joint operation that involves a mix of, there's some detectives from the Las Vegas Metropolitan to police, there's some folks from the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force, and then I guess the ICAC has its own task force. I've never heard of this group before. But there's, there's a number of other law enforcement agents involved, including North Las Vegas Police, Henderson Police, who actually posted Declaration of Arrest for the person that we'll be talking about. That's the Henderson, Nevada Police, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Nevada Attorney General's office. This was your

standard sting to try and catch people who are attempting to have sex with kids, where you have undercover agents who are online. In this case, they were using an app called Pure, and on WhatsApp. It looks like, as a general rule, these guys met the person that they thought was a minor on Peer and then took the conversation to WhatsApp to plan for an in-person meeting, where they then, they, you know, the whole, what's that guy who used to do the TV show where he would bust pedophiles and there were some ethical problems with Chris Hanson. They'd have their Chris Hanson moment, right? I'm not familiar with this. Oh, man. It didn't go well. All right. So the story that people have been hearing and that kind of went

viral out of this is that one of these eight people arrested was Tom Ardiam Alexandrovich, who was a high-ranking cybersecurity official. He was the director of one of the divisions of Israel's top cybersecurity agency. So, you know, an Israeli government official working in cybersecurity is one of the guys arrested. He was in town in Las Vegas for the Black Hat Convention, which is like a hacking convention. And like a lot of hacking conventions over time, it has turned from a bunch of guys who do not like the feds to just feds, right? I think that's why the guy from Israel's cybersecurity agency is at this thing hitting on allegedly 15-year-olds. So this guy is arrested, and then he posts bail at 10 grand, and he flies back to Israel, which gets a lot of people in an uproar.

Obviously, anything involving officials of the Israeli government is receiving heightened scrutiny right now, what with the genocide? And also, for a long time, there's a lot of evidence of special treatment being given to agents of the government of Israel by the United States government. And so people are like, is that what's going on here? Because this seems pretty fucked up. And I guess the first thing I should say is that it doesn't seem like he's being treated differently from anyone else in this sting. This is per statements made by the local government and by the attorney general's office. This is the standard bail amount for this crime. And when people post bail for this crime, which is the standard amount is 10 grand, there aren't

conditions usually on the bail, which means it would not be standard to stop him from traveling or returning home. He's due to return to the United States in several weeks for the court proceedings to go on. So the short answer to this seems to be that like, no, this is just kind of how the system works. And that might not be great, but he doesn't seem to have been given special treatment because he was an official of the Israeli government. Now, does that mean that that's going to prove to be what happens in the long run? No, because among other things, he might just not come back to the U.S. And if the Israeli government is a party to that and like there isn't any kind of like action taken to like force him to return to go through the legal process, then I'd

say, yeah, there's something to be particularly upset about here. But I think the broader thing to maybe be upset about here is that guys can get caught for this and then have a no condition bail that allows them to flee the country, which might be a flaw in the system, right? I'm a big innocent until proven guilty guy. I'm a big reasonable bail guy, but I'm also a big, I don't know, man, maybe if the agent of a foreign government gets caught trying to fuck a child, they shouldn't be able to fly back home immediately

after they bail out, I don't know. It does seem that it's a reasonable objection. Yeah. So, you know, this is a classic case of you've got the story, what actually happened here, then you've got how it's being interpreted online, and then you've got how it's being

interpreted online by the stupidest person in the planet. And In the planet. That didn't work. Oh, it would be good if he was, wouldn't it? In the molten cool? That would be nice. You've got how this story's being interpreted by particularly bad journalists.

Let's say that. That's the nice way to put it. And I'm talking about Michael Tracy. If you're not familiar with Michael Tracy, he is ostensibly a leftist and anti-authoritarian. He's the kind of guy who just sort of reflexively, if the U.S. is involved, whatever is the worst-case scenario for the U.S. something is what's happening. During the invasion of Ukraine, he alleged that the U.S. was sending troops into Ukraine, I think because he saw some guys outside of an embassy in Poland, some American soldiers. So the marine detail. It was like, we're getting ready to invade.

That did not happen. Now, Michael Tracy has a substack, of course. Many such cases. And he published an article titled, wasn't Israeli pedophile really allowed to flee the United States? and I can't tell he starts with like a whole paragraph about Jeffrey Epstein and I can't actually tell what his stance is on this and I don't really want that he's talking about how people are eager to prove him wrong about Jeffrey Epstein. I have no desire to know what this guy thinks about Jeffrey Epstein. This is probably a Jeffrey Epstein was a secret mizade agent type thing. Well, except for his whole argument here is that there's people are being incredibly unreasonable to think that this guy is guilty or to think that he probably did anything wrong. And the reason Michael Tracy suggests that Tom Alexandrovich probably didn't do anything wrong is that the terms of the app pure, which is where the authorities say he first got in contact with the officer pretending to be a child, requires you to be 18 years or older. And in this substack, he posts the terms of service to be like, see, there is even what

appears to be a rigorous age verification process to ensure that no minor gains access to the app, government-issued documents, must be submitted to ensure that only person's at least 18 years of older allowed on the app. And then he's like, does this mean the government was faking documents? Was pretending to be a child to this app? Yes, that's what they were doing. Well, they were pretending to be a child germany. Yeah, that's probably what they were doing. And the other thing, what's really funny about this is like, that's his whole point, is that the app requires them to be 18. So it's, you know, the authorities must have been doing something fucked up and lying to the app for this to have happened at all. And this is just an

example of Michael Tracy, not reading the Declaration of Arrest, which he links in his article. Because the Declaration of Arrest does say that, yes, this person got in contact with the undercover agent during the PIRAP. And then the same sentence says, and later, WhatsApp with phone number, dot, dot, dot, dot, and says that on WhatsApp, this is where they talked about the person in this case being a minor, and this is where they set up, like, to arrange a meeting. This Israeli cybersecurity official was going to take them to Cirque the Saleh and had them bring a Like, that's all in the Declaration of Arrest. Now, obviously, Alexandrovich maintains his innocence, maintains he thought this person

was 18 all the entire time. All I've got here is the Declaration of Arrest. I don't have hard evidence. But per the source that Michael Tracy cites, like, this is not just happening on pure. This is, as is often the case, by the way, when pedophiles go after kids, they meet them on whatever app and then take them to a second digital location, right? like that's just the way these things work and that's really all I have to say about this you know this this is the kind I mean maybe keep an eye on this in case this guy doesn't go back and the Israeli government does hide him but it's entirely possible that this will go the way court cases and this sort of thing are supposed to go there's one other funny thing considering this guy is a high-ranking Israeli cybersecurity official there's just like a list of you know statements about like what alexandrovich said to detectives when he was being interrogated you know the stuff like Alexander's alexander stated he did not know the numbers for the Israeli government.

Alexandrovich stated his family was in Israel. Alexander said it was important he'd get numbers for his flight. And then Alexandrovich stated his phone does not have a password, but uses his right thumbprint. Oh no. A biometric user. Cyber security expert for the Israeli government. They're not sending their best people. Oh my God.

Your fucking thumbprint, dude? Your fucking thumbprint? Okay. Yeah. It's a famous most secure. accessible access code. Anyway, that's all I've got for Petta Friday. Tune in next week.

We'll have another pedophile for you, I'm sure of it. Oh, yeah, here's ads. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been good. soon. You know how

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All right, we're back, and it is a pedophile free world. We can't guarantee that, I suppose. But we're hoping Peter FreeZone from here on it. Talking of things which are incontrovertibly crimes, Israel has deliberately murdered for Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza. Among them was Anasar Sharif, a prominent correspondent for the network in Gaza. The IDF also killed correspondent Mohamed Karika, cameraman Ibrahim Zaya, and driver in cameraman Mohamed Nafal. Al Jazeera has named all of these people. The strike also killed two freelancers. One of them was Mormon Aliwa and Al-Sharif's nephew, who was a student studying journalism.

For weeks before, the deliberate and premeditated war crime, it's a war crime under the Rome Statute and also a violation of the Geneva Conventions, because journalists are also civilians. The IDF engaged in manufacturing consent for the strike. They did this through a unit that 972 magazine has reported on called the, quote, legitimization cell. you're always doing great when you have a unit called the legitimization cell yeah that's yeah it's pretty fucked

to quote from the piece which I'll link below it has been assigned to identify Gaza-based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel's killing of reporters

you should read this article like it goes through instances where they have a very clear confirmation bias right And the case of al-Sharif is a pretty good example of how ridiculous this can be. They released this document. They tweeted it actually. Claiming he was in Hamas from 2013 to 2017.

The document clearly wasn't an original document. Like it was a PDF done up with like a navy blue background and stuff. Like it's laughable to think that they like captured this PDF somehow. It just doesn't line up. Even if we take that to be true, right, that he had been a member of Hamas until 2017. That was eight years ago. Like, isn't the whole point of the thing that they're saying that they want people to stop being in Hamas, like killing them because they want to do that and I don't believe them, it still doesn't make sense, right? They've done this in other cases with other jurists, specifically other Al Jazeera journalists.

In July of this year, the CPJ, that's a committee to protect journalists, if you're not familiar, warned that they were worried about an attack on Al-Sharif, due to the increasingly detached from reality smear campaign being pursued. against him by IDF spokesman Avice Adre. For example, on the 20th July, Adray accused him of being, quote, part of a, quote, false Hamas campaign on starvation, as he played footage of Al Sharif crying after seeing a woman collapse from hunger on camera. Speaking about the campaign, Al Sharif said, it is not only a media threat or an image destruction, it is a real-life threat. He said this in his interview with CPJ. He also said, I live with the feeling that I could be bombed and martyed at any moment. My family is also in danger.

And his nephew was killed with him, right, in the airstrike. When I think about, like, I have colleagues who I've worked with who are Palestinian who work in Gaza, right? I remember 23, October 10th, 2020, I was in Syria, in Rojava specifically. And I was sitting in a tea shop because the Wi-Fi in my hotel was nonexistent. And I wanted to check in on my friends. who worked there. And I remember this guy helping me translate one of these videos in which,

like, you see a dead person in the blue press vest, right? And I was concerned that it might be someone I've worked with before. So I was trying to work out it with them. And he was saying in this video, at the funeral people were saying that another journalist would take up the dead journalist camera and the flag jacket and keep reporting, which is very touching for me. But journalists and guys have been targeted by the IDF for a very long time. And this is one of many examples.

it's disgusting and reprehensible. That's about all I have to say on it. Should we turn to immigration for something equally despondent and sad? Yeah. All right. USCIS, US Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued a new guidance material to instruct offices in cases where they can use their discretion to look at whether the person has, quote,

endorsed, promoted or supported or otherwise espoused the views of a terrorist organizational group, including those who support or support or. promote anti-American ideologies and activities, anti-Semitic terrorism, I'm skipping a bit here, and anti-Semitic ideologies. This discretion can be used in extension of stay cases, change of status cases, reinstatement of F or M non-immigrant status, and certain employment authorization requests, they say in the memo. The USCIS Policy Manual also lists other instances where discretion could be used. These include TPS, temporary protected status, humanitarian parole, petitioned to classify an alien as a fiancé of a U.S. citizen, asylum, and refugee status.

So I looked up what the, quote, anti-American activities were. There's a footnote, right? The footnote links to INA-313A Immigration Naturalization Act. Most of the anti-American activities are things which already had a bar to naturalization, and most of those pertain directly to being a member of the Communist Party, like a literal card-carrying member of the literal communist party, right, capital C, capital P. The U.S. had a bar on naturalization for people who are members of the Communist Party for some time. I believe they still have a bar on naturalization for people who were members of the Nazi party.

Pre-visa waiver, I should say, not actually a visa. When people from Europe were coming to United States, you'd have to answer a short questionnaire. One of the questions was about whether you or anyone related to you, had been a member of the Nazi party. I remember, like, once being some German people in Europe, and they were telling me they'd had to answer this question entering the United States. So the anti-American activities is the one that's been getting the most attention,

but it does specifically footnote to the communist stuff, which is, again, something that has been a U.S. policy for a while. What I'm more worried about is stuff about anti-Semitic terrorism. Yeah, because that means, one, you've shared a pro-Palestanism. post on social media? Yeah, you said genocide bad. Yeah, that can mean so many things. As we've already seen, like, we've seen some of this stuff already be enforced.

This is new guidance material, but we've seen reports coming from people trying to enter the country or trying to get visas that show that this is happening for, like, months. Ever since, like, you know, like March, I started to see a lot of stuff regarding either pro-Palestinian statements or, like, posts or campus protests, that sort of stuff. Yeah, the F visa I mentioned there is this is a non-immigrant student visa, right, for full-time students. So, like, that is the one where we've seen students having to turn over their social media handles, a social media can't be locked. It's very easy to see how these two things line up. And yeah, and as I said, like people, they have always been able to use their discretion.

This is just guidance on how they should use it, but they have been using it for some time. The administration has also moved the goalpost for naturalization. So naturalization is becoming a citizen of the United States, right? There is a requirement that people who naturalize the citizens have a, quote, good moral character. Previously, the way they did this was there were bars for certain crimes, right? Murder, genocide, something called aggravated felony, which is something that only exists in immigration law. Going forward, they're changing to, I guess, a more holistic idea of what a good moral character might be. I'm going to quote again, going forward, USCIS officers must account for an alien's positive attributes and not simply the absence of misconduct.

in evaluating whether or not an alien has met the requirement for establishing GMC. That's a good moral character. The officer must take a holistic approach in evaluating whether or not an alien seeking naturalization has affirmatively established that he or she has met their burden of establishing that they are worthy of assuming the rights and responsibilities of United States citizenship. The worthy. What does that mean? You have to prove to an officer that you're a good person?

Yeah, that like, how so? Yes, by the officer's definition, I'm assuming. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is guys for like discretionary enforcement. So I don't like the word holistic here. I don't. Yeah.

I mean, there's literally asking them to take into account everything they know about this person and then just make a call. Is this someone you want to have as your neighbor? You know, like I don't know what the, uh, I mean, I can guess how this might be manifested. It's worth noting that as DHS goes, you know, U.S. CIS officers tend to be the least right wing, right? CBP and ICE has a much higher proportion of people who, like, for instance, they had some issues with getting people vaccinated and CBP, that kind of stuff, right, indicators that people might be sort of down this conspiracy pipeline. We also learned this week that Todd Blanche directed federal cops to arrest

Mayor Rasbaraka outside of a detention center in New Jersey in May. We noticed because of body camp footage, we don't have the footage, but the footage is reported on. on in court documents. In the footage, a DHS official says, quote, we are arresting the mayor right now, per the deputy attorney general of the United States. Anyone that gets in our way, I need you guys to give me a perimeter so I can cuff him.

So the agent talked on the phone and then gave this statement, right? So it seems that the deputy AG there was with the one who gave the order to arrest Raspuraka, right? ICE has also arrested a cop. This is a little moment of like a cop on cop violence. Cop on cop violence, yeah. John Luke Evans was a reserve officer for the old Orchard Beach Police Department in Maine. The police chief of Orchard Beach, who's called Elise Chard, said that the department had used E-Verify to check if he could work legally, right? Which is the thing that you are supposed to do.

E-Verify is a database run by the Department of Homeland Security. I think it's also in combination with another department that allows you to verify if somebody can work. legally in the United States, right? Trisha McLaughlin characterized this as reckless, which is weird because DHS, who she's speaking on behalf of, are the ones who put that information into the database. It's possible that someone entered at something wrong at some point, right? Someone put in a wrong number, they switched an O for a zero, something like that. This came to light because Evans attempted to make a firearm purchase, and he filled out his

4473, and the ATF then notified ICE that a non-citizen who wasn't eligible for firearm's ownership had attempted to purchase a firearm. And that was how ICE came to detain him. He is being allowed to leave the USA voluntarily. He's not being deported. He's not being charged with attempting to make the firearm purchase, which he could be charged with. And the city of Orchard Beach is going pretty hard in his defense. They've released some elements of his personnel file, but none of them that pertained to his immigration status. They're sticking by their claim that they believe he was eligible to work in the USA. ICE are claiming, or I guess DHS now are claiming, that his visa expired in 2023, which was

years before he began working at the police department. He was a seasonal reserve officer, and he had been working since earlier this year. Before we go on break, I want to do a quick update on the Texas Democrats who fled the state, to delay or prevent the gerrymandering. And after their two-week walkout, the Texas House has now reached quorum once again, and a vote on the new redistricting map, which would add five Republican congressional seats, is slated for Wednesday, August 20th, which is the day that we are recording. After Democrats returned to the Capitol from their walkout,

they were subject to 24-7 surveillance by the Texas Department of Public Safety. And in order to leave the House chamber, they had to sign what the Democrats are calling, quote, unquote, permission slips agreeing to surveillance in their just everyday life. Is that why I think it was Collier, slept at her desk? One person, I think a state senator, refused to sign the slip and stayed in the capital overnight. Fair enough. The Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu made a statement saying, quote, we killed the corrupt special session. stood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation, reshaping the entire 2026 landscape, unquote.

There's a very celebratory tone here, which is slightly odd to me because this vote is still probably going through. Yeah, they're going to lose. This is going to get voted in. Now, Wu has said that the Democrats are going to challenge the redistricting maps in court, even if they are able to pass through this House vote. And as we know, the courts are the last bastion for democracy and will save us all. We suspected that this whole walkout is more performative than anything else and would not actually lead to them killing this map.

And instead of remaining out of the state longer for an undeterminate amount of time, possibly until November, they have returned and quorum is in the chamber. so yeah it's it's like it's not nothing but it's like the next just it's one step up from nothing it's the most democrat thing to do yes yeah but why why only do half of what was necessary yeah sophy you you're asking this question because you didn't grow up in texas i went to the democratic national convention i i understand the half effort here's the reality texas democratic party exists to disappoint you that's why That's why all this is happening. I just feel like the entire Texas Democratic Party is just like a Beto O'Rourke.

Mm-hmm. Like not literally, but the concept of Beto O'Rourke. Yeah, not wrong. Yeah. It's all there. Never put your faith in Texas in any part of Texas, and you'll be disappointed less. I've been telling people this for a long time. Yeah.

It's like the second thing you told me. Every year, Democrats in other parts of the country, every couple of years, get, like, excited. It's the Charlie Brown syndrome where they're like, oh, my God, Texas might be about to flip or something otherwise good. Ted Cruz is going to get forced out. We're finally going to have something good happen in Texas politics. And every time, every time that football gets pulled away. Yeah. So it feels not great that minority leaders kind of patting themselves on the back for taking

basically a two-week vacation to Illinois and California and then returning and having this go through. So I don't know, we'll see this develops that California is promising to do their own redistricting to equal out the amount of

like map changes, both adding five more seats for the respective parties. It's annoying. It's just annoying. It's just annoying. Yeah, yeah. Nice piece of performance, I guess. You know what else is annoying things at?

I don't think they're annoying at all. I value each and every advertiser. Garrison actually personally vets all of our advertisers so you can reach out to them on social media. That was I'm called for. No, no, no. I agree. This is canon now. If you're ever unhappy with an advertiser, find Garrison's personal phone number and hit them up.

No, no, no. Oh, God. Yeah. Time to go into blocking spree. Mm-hmm. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.

The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely air. And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body, and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe,

starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Aberstown. Hey guys, it's AZ Fud. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a People's Princess. But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host.

Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out. I'll give you an inside look at everything. happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all, from my travels across the globe to to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me, but this show is the only place where

you can really fud around and find out. to fud around and find out a production of IHart women's sports in partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change.

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listen to shock incarceration on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts all right we are back Putin I guess Putin's a guy that's actually how I would describe the meeting between Trump and Putin

in Alaska Putin I guess yeah that's pretty much how it went they had they had a little meeting there are some insane conspiracy theories that he sent a body double oh wow yeah yeah it's one of my favorite things there's always insane conspiracy theories reported from BBC news actually which I find funny yeah I'm glad that BBC is is on the is on the pulse of of theory spreading online yeah yeah no and and people are just now figuring out again that whenever world leaders travel to foreign countries for summits at this level. They take their poop back with them. And yeah, I saw an article being like, is it true? Did Putin really take his poop back? And yes,

they all do, because they don't want it to get analyzed to find evidence of health issues. Like the president has his poop taken home every time he goes overseas. This is just the way things are. Frankly, I think if we're able to get the Putin poop, you can make a clone of Putin, and then that can be the body double that we use. Call it Putin. Yeah. Yeah. This is the fun stuff that It's like the 50s of CIA Still existed as If they still had that juice

It'd be a lot more fun Yeah, yeah, yeah We'd be doing We would have to get Hoover back up in there Really unethical human cloning project Where you have this like shambling Like undead corpse of Putin That we can prop off

But that's basically how the meeting went Sorry for derailing, my bad No, because the meeting is kind of a nothing burger at this point There was reports that Putin basically ranted to Trump about how Ukraine's always has been a part of Russia, and the meeting didn't really go anywhere. Putin ignored a question on if he would, quote, stop killing civilians. So, yeah, that's basically how the whole debacle went. And I think it's really indicative that, like, a day or two after this happened, Trump had the Zelensky meeting 2.0 in the White House, which went much better than the previous Zelenskyy. Zelensky meeting, and Trump was a lot more friendly with Zelensky lead this time around. Apparently, Zelensky's been going around other European leaders getting advice on how to, like, talk with Trump.

Yeah, he gave him a letter, which Trump really appreciates and likes. He started by thanking the First Lady for a letter as well. So there's all these, like, little polite gestures that Trump really enjoys. Yeah, he likes to be, like, honored and venerated. Yeah. So Zolensky indulged in that. wore a fairly, a fairly spiffy, all-black suit. I liked it.

It was a good suit. So it's, but it is, it is very indicative. If you look at like how the last Zelensky meeting went, and then after Trump was around Putin for like a few hours, how, how, how Trump's mood was noticeably different around Zelensky this time around. So we'll see. I don't think we're going to have any conclusion to the conflict in Ukraine any time soon based on how these two meetings went. there was there was reporting that they were trying to set up a meeting between Putin and Zelensky though that has since been denied it sits this constant like back and forth like like it has been the past like two through four years but trump is going to bring an end to the war he's the peace

president kind of get a Nobel Prize yeah yeah did you know that Trump's ended six wars seven six or seven wow wow six or seven it's I love it I love it when you can't keep track of how many wars you ended I got one other story I would like to discuss. I'm sure James will have some comments on this as well on a series of unfortunate ICE actions, including the first incident that I'm aware of where federal agents have shot their firearms

during an enforcement operation, at least as of the Trump administration 2.0. On Saturday morning, August 16th, in San Bernardino, a family was pulled over by massed federal agents in what DHS has since claimed, was a quote-unquote targeted enforcement operation. As customs and board of protection approached the vehicle, the family inside started recording on their cell phones and asked for identification.

When the family refused to roll down the windows of the car, federal agents smashed windows on both sides of the vehicle and reached inside. At this point, the driver pulled the car forward and federal agents shot at the vehicle three times before the car sped away. I'll play the video here for posterity. Yeah. What do you want? What do you want? Identification. So those three pops at the end were the three gunshots.

wild one. The driver told NBC, Los Angeles, quote, I had to protect my life and my family, unquote. Yeah. It's worth knowing and guess these agents, like, they're more uniform than some. Yeah. They have badges visible on plate carriers. Yeah. They did not establish much communication between themselves and the family as they approach the vehicle. There's a lot of like yelling back and forth. Yeah, you can hear the man telling his son there don't open it. Yeah, the father is telling his kids in the car not to roll down the windows, not to open the doors, as the federal agents ask for the car to be opened, and then they initiate force. Yeah. The man here is lived in the U.S. for 23 years and does not have legal status. His two adult sons who are in the vehicle are both

U.S. citizens, according to Javier Hernandez, the executive director of the inland coalition for immigrant justice who has spoken about this incident on behalf of the family to local press. Yeah. DHS gave a statement to NBC, Los Angeles, quote, in the course of the incident, the suspect drove his car at the officers and struck two customs and border protection officers with his vehicle, unquote, saying that because the driver tried to, quote, run down the agents a CPB officer was forced to quote discharge

his firearm in self-defense unquote. So that is the justification that they are using, is that this vehicle was moving in the direction of officers and officers acted in self-defense by shooting at the car. That doesn't seem to line up with the video that we just saw.

No, the cell phone footage from inside does not show officers being hit by the vehicle. It could be the case that you can see that one of the officers reaching into the car. You can see if the car was pulling away. His arm may have the door. The officers are standing next to the car. In the video, it's not clear that there's any officers placed in front of the vehicle. So. Yeah. His foot could have got run over maybe if he's like leaning, standing there close to the car. The car may have

bumped officers. It does not appear like this man. I was trying to quote unquote run over the police. In fact, he was driving away from them. Yes. The family says that federal agents refused to identify themselves and did not provide a judicial warrant. The DHS has refused to answer whether agents had warrants. And after the shooting, the driver called the San Bernardino Police Department to report that masked man pulled his car over, broke windows, and shot at him and his family. Police came to his house and spoke with the driver, but did not arrest the man because

California police cannot legally assist federal agents with immigration enforcement, according to a statement from the police department. DHS made a statement criticizing the police for not taking the driver into custody. Quote, this reckless decision

came despite the subject's outright refusal to comply and his wounding of two federal officers. Okay. It is yet another tragic example of California's pro-sanctuary policies

that shield criminals instead of protecting communities, unquote. This is what we're calling wounding, huh? Yeah. The severity of the two officers alleged

woundings, has not been specified. Police later returns to the home along with ICE and Homeland Security investigations, but the family did not let them enter as they did not have a warrant, though police made one non-immigration-related arrest outside of the home as community members rallied together in support of the family. As of two days ago, the DHS has said that, quote, the suspect remains at large. Jesus Christ.

This is a needless escalation. put people in danger like yeah what else is there to say though like it's bullshit this is not an excuse to discharge a weapon this isn't count as wounding these people should never been pulled over in the first place but you know what we are where we are this is the way ice works yeah then this will probably happen again i guess like i'm mildly surprised at san benedina police did not detain the man on suspicion of assaulting a federal agent which is something that they could detain him for, right? It's not an immigration crime.

Yeah. And that is an extremely broad offense. One doesn't have to know the person to federal agent, for example. So I guess, like, rare... We'll see how this develops. Yeah. It's still unclear what's going to happen to this man.

I'll check for an update next week. A few days before, on Thursday, August 14th, a man fleeing an ice raid at a Home Depot in Monrovia, California, was hit and killed. while attempting to cross the 210 freeway on foot. Local activists say that during the same raid, ICE hit someone in the leg with one of their vehicles, and that person was taken into custody.

This is tragic, right? Yeah. The reckless use of vehicles in L.A. was remarkable. And I've covered a good deal of protests and a good deal of places. the use of vehicles in an extremely dangerous way by police was notable when I was out there covering the protests, I think it was in June. It was something that it certainly was very concerning to me.

So it would not shock me if people have been hit by a nice vehicle. But yeah, this is a tragedy. And again, because the stakes are taking everything in someone's life away from them, we're going to see this happen more often, right? No, it can cause people to do brash or unsafe things, like attempt to cross a busy freeway. Yeah, the 210 is a very busy freeway always. No, it's extremely tragic. Yeah, this is, yeah, really sad.

So Ed Sorse are reporting that a student out of California, Benjamin Guerrero-Kruz, who had just turned 18, just began a senior year of high school, was detained by immigration authorities from walking his dog. One of his former teachers visited him and mentioned, that he had overheard, he had told her that he had overheard ICE agents talking about receiving a $1,500 bounty for making his arrest. Yeah, well, like, in some promotional videos from DHS and ICE, they've been boasting about bonuses not only for signing on for this big recruitment

drive that they're doing, but also like cash bonuses for immigrants getting arrested and deported. And there's been multiple clips of agents like talking about this or like, you know, talking about, I wonder how much of a bonus we're going to get for these batch of arrests. So this has been something noticed in multiple states. I've heard of this in Florida, and this sounds like it's in California, you said? Yeah, California, yeah.

Yeah. So this is a pattern. It's not even very glorified bounty hunting because it's not really glorified, but it's essentially bounty hunting. Yeah, that might be why we're seeing some of these, like, insane arrests, right? People who you would never normally expect to see. We reported the news here.

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, coolzonemedia.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. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. From IHeart podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, guys, it's AZ Fud. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as the People's Princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fud Around and Find Out, I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHart Women's Sports in partnership with unanimous media. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I work. I'm Maria Inojosa. I spent my career creating journalism that centers voices who have been historically sidelined. From the most pressing news stories to deep cultural explorations, Latino USA is journalism with heart. Listen to Latino USA, the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States, Wait, hear it on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive.

But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at tetherpaperceiling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. This is an IHeart podcast.