It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #38

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

The gang discuss misleading reporting on ICE acquisitions, Trump's Argentina bailout, the Republican nazi group chat, celebrations of the Marine Corps 250th birthday and all the news from the past two weeks.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. So you can push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors.

For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist,

my new true crime podcast from Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer. That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet stand. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating, this high-speed rollercoaster we call reality. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn. And on my new podcast, here we go again. We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high?

Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CoeurZone Media. Welcome back to Ajectural Dysfunction That's the worst one yet That's the worst one yet folks

We did not think it could get worse And yes, here we are I knew it could get worse Can always get worse Oh quitting night jobs today This is, it could happen here Executive Disorder Our weekly newscast covering what's happening

In the White House, the crumbling world And what it means for you I'm Garrison Davis Today I'm joined by Ejaculator in Chief Jesus Christ Wow Wow. Garrison. That's much worse. You made it way worse.

How many of those videos have you not watched Garrison? I think we're all pretty behind on the required trainings. My labor conditions are intolerable. Robert Evans, James Stout, and Mia Wong. This episode, we are covering the week of October 15th to October 22nd. And a little bit of the week before, because we were off in honor of the government shutdown. We ourselves took a week off. Because the CIA stopped paying us. That's right. That's right. I've always considered us a branch of the U.S. government, you know.

Yeah, you and half of the anime people on Twitter, Robert Evans. We're back. I don't know. It feels a little bit weird to be doing this White House weekly episode, knowing that there's actually less White House than usual. There is. Trump has begun demolishing the east wing of the White House to build a privately funded $250 million ballroom. And I think we should all have a moment. of silence for the East Wing.

Oh, I was going to say a moment of celebration, because now James' people can finally shake hands with the United States government in destroying large portions of the White House. Yeah, I saw it was a Volvo excavator, too. So we also got these Swedes on board, I guess. Sure. Couldn't even find an American excavator, sad.

We don't make things in this country anymore. Yeah, that's because we're still waiting for the tariffs to get fully enacted. Yeah, yeah. once we get that Swedish tariff on. We are almost four weeks now into the government shutdown, and there's not really a clear end in sight.

And SNAP benefits, food stamps, are set to run out in a little over a week on November 1st. Mia, did you want to say something on this? Yeah, so we've been seeing sort of tech start to go out to people who are on food assistance in various states. There's one circulating from Minnesota

that is saying that the food part of SNAP benefits are going to shut down in a few days on November 1st when the funding shuts down. This is a critical lifeline for food for an extremely large number of people. And this is also coming in a period where food banks are already being stressed by just the other cuts to SNAP and other food assistance programs that have already taken place. So, yeah, we're coming to a very very critical moment in terms of wide scale food insecurity in this country for a whole bunch of

the most vulnerable people in the country and yeah this is a good moment for if you have actual access to food which is a very very bleak thing to be saying but you know something is going to have to try to pick up the slack or a bunch of people aren't going to eat

Right. And that's probably going to have to be us because it's sure as fuck not going to be the government. Yeah. Well, and yeah, it's just the people's need to eat is inelastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to put some numbers on it, like Snap in 24 was 41.7 million people, which is about 12% of the U.S. population. Yeah. This is a massive cliff. I mean, it's particularly bad in certain states.

For example, Oregon, you know, where I live is set to lose about three-quartered. of a million people's SNAP benefits. There are like four million people in the state. Yep. Yep. And it's also, like, those people are also disproportionately non-white and disproportionately queer and very disproportionately trans. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is something that if straight up the shutdown continues and we don't see SNAP benefits pay out, this could also be a major source of instability because, you know, the thing that happens very quickly when suddenly 40 million people don't have food is bread riots. What is going to happen with that is deeply unclear, but yeah, we are heading into an extremely bleak time. If you're looking at predictors of violent instability in countries, mass starvation is about top of the list. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Particularly bread riots usually are, in sort of the modern era, happens with 2 or 300% increases in food prices. usually as a result of sort of IMF structural adjustments, but if there was going to be another one, this would be it. Yeah. Yeah. So it's worth sort of being prepared on both ends in terms of feeding people and also, yeah, with whatever was going to happen, if this cuts out. Yeah.

Meanwhile, during all of this, during the shutdown and during snaps taking clock, Trump wants his Justice Department to pay himself 230. million dollars in compensation for damages coming from past investigations into him. Seems fair. Trump claims that he will give this money to quote-unquote charity. Seems real. Unclear what that means, what charity that will be, how that will really qualify as a charitable donation, but he is currently seeking $230 million of government money to be paid back to

himself. In the end, it will be him making the final call on this, which he says he feels strange about. Okay, well, it's good. He's an honest man, you know. It's great, yeah. Yeah, we've just fully entered the looting the storehouse as part of the regime. Yeah, yeah, they're taking a very British approach. Luding is, is putting this too mildly. Yeah. Did any of you see the article about the plans to let AI companies apply to get old weapons-grade plutonium to fuel the nuclear reactors? Seems good. Seems fine. That's what I trust Sam Altman, which is weapons-grade plutonium. I feel like he's going to use that

safely. Yeah. Hopefully the AI bubble collapses before they get weapons-grade plutonium fights. You know what a great attitude to approach having weapons-grade plutonium is move fast and break things. Oh, God.

This is great. This is this week we're announcing the start of Cuds Force AI. Yeah, there we go. Bring it on. Oh, God. Breaking, breaking news. U.S. sanctions have been placed against two of Russia's largest oil companies in an effort to pressure the Ukraine-Russia peace deal, which Putin just backed out of negotiations from, as there was plans for him and Trump

to meet. So that just happened. Sexy. Not sexy. So I think one of the first things we want to cover right now, just because this is maybe the number one thing I'm seeing people talk about on social media right now is there have been articles written about ICE's new weapons budget. Famously, their budget is increased by something like 700%. A huge amount of that's being spent on, you know, bonuses in order to get people to join, cash payments and whatnot, as well as retention bonuses, but a lot more of it's being spent on weapons.

And right now, the number one thing I'm saying people freak out about is the supposed idea from these documents that ICE is purchasing guided missiles and chemical weapons. I have heard people say this is ICE, which is obviously Trump's SS, you know, making their own Vofan SS, which were the armed units of the SS. I'm seeing a lot of shit like this spread. And as James is going to tell you, none of that's true.

Yeah, I mean, the fact that ICE has a massive increase in budget and is buying a shit little weapons is true, but they're not guided missiles. Ice doesn't have heat guided missiles. Yeah, we're not getting a death head ice unit. Come on. At the next Canal Street, ice raid, they're going to be launching heat-seeking missiles into China Town.

I'm not saying this isn't a problem, but it's not what people are saying it is. Yeah, sorry, James. All right. The source of its claim is a substack page called Popular Information, run by a guy called Judd-Lygum, and he has claimed in this piece, I'm just going to quote, that I has purchased, quote, chemical weapons, and, quote, guided missile, warheads, and explosive components. I guess the main thrust of the piece was looking at the fact that I spent $9 million dollars on Geisley AR patent rifles.

Border Patrol spent more than twice that. He appears to have missed that in his reporting. This reporting is extremely dishonest, to put it mildly. It's either deliberately misleading or massively incompetent. The piece in question doesn't link to the individual contracts, which, like on the face of its bad form, right? If you're going to be talking about contracts, your contracts are in the public domain, just link to them.

The piece doesn't do that. I went on USAspending.gov and I filtered by contracts that have been awarded by ICE. I gave a date range, the date range that pertained to the things being discussed in the article, and then I filtered by the product or service code for chemical weapons and guided missile warheads, right? Two different product or service codes. Product or service codes are like these four-digit codes that exist in federal procurement, right, to put things into buckets, basically. And I found the contracts.

The contract very clearly states the guided missile, quote-unquote contract, the contract with the guided missile product or service code. Very clearly states it is for multiple distraction devices. It's a contract with a company called Quantico Tactical. I did call them yesterday, something that, again, any competent reporter should do before publishing a piece that does not appear to have been done by the substack guy. they gave me an email I sent an email

more than 24 hours ago requesting comment or clarification I didn't receive a response at the time of us going to press if I hear back from them before we release this I will let you all know the chemical weapons it was OC spray

it was pepper spray right and a distraction device by the way folks this is something like a sonic grenade which sounds crazy but it's a grenade that makes a loud noise to distract people it's a bang a flashbang is also a distraction device when you use the way that they use in riots, you know, it's a little

bit of a different thing when you're using one to like breach bang and clear a door or something, but like when you're throwing a flashbang at a riot, it's a distraction device because the goal is you've got a bunch of people moving towards an area you want to stop them from, you distract them by an explosion, you know?

Yeah, and it's distracting, yeah. It's also, and this is, you know, one of the, one of the frustrating elements about this is that ICE has been using a whole bunch of these to blow down people's doors, and it's really horrible. These are problems. It's problems that they're buying all this. And no one is talking about it because everyone's focused on this.

When James put up their initial research just on Blue Sky and Twitter, I shared it. And people were like, it's still a problem they've got that they're getting all, buying all these new weapons. Do you not care about it? Yes, I care about that. You're not talking about that. Yeah, we care about the truth. You're talking about a fantasy. And like, it is bad that ice has flashbangs and pepper spray, right?

I have personally broadcast. Right. It's bad they exist. Like, you can go back only a few months and hear ice flashbangs on this podcast, like, recorded by me in person. We know they fucking have them because they were throwing them at me. Yeah, I've lost count of how many have hit me directly. Yeah, yeah. We've got at least 75% fucking federal government flashbang impact, you know.

Like, I want to take a second, I guess, to talk about incentives here because this really pisses me off. Yeah. And I think that the way we build trust in the media is through openness. And I think that we do that better than most, and I'm going to try and do that here. Just so you know, none of us make any extra money if more people download this podcast, at least not directly, right? We do not have a direct incentive to make fantastical claims that will lead to people downloading our podcast and being afraid.

That is not true for people who have these substick outlets, right? I mean, let me clarify, we do have a direct financial interest in there being traffic, right, because that is, that's how we make our money, right? Like, and that's how we justify getting raises and stuff. So like everyone in media, if more people listen to our stuff, like, we do have a financial interest in that. Over time. We're not checking week to week to see if we're getting, if what we're doing is bringing us

in more direct money, right? Like, that's just not the way our thing works. Yeah. And when people are on their own, they're doing these subs account. There is a very real incentive to do that, right? We also have a team here. We fact check each other. We do our best.

We fuck up sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, we fuck up sometimes, but we're honest about it when we do, right? We acknowledge it. Yeah, we acknowledge when James makes mistakes. Thank you, guys.

You're the least mistake person here. I'm just being an asshole. I'm extremely careful about that shit. Well, I've stood on my fucking pedestal enough about this, but it's bad, right? That things that ICE are buying, that ICE is really buying.

Yeah. are semi-automatic ARs, more clocks, a lot of soft body armor, red dot sites, quote-unquote crowd control munitions, right? It's a sort of spending you see from a special forces unit that a very not special like police agency, right? Like, they're just spending like they have an open checkbook. Like, ICE is continuing to buy the same weapons with which they have been hurting people the entirety almost of the 21st century.

And they're hurting more people now. and we'll be hurting even more people in the future because they will have even more money. And that's bad. And you don't, like, what would they even do with a guided missile? Yeah, it doesn't make sense on the face for it. It's 61 grand. Yeah.

What the fuck do you think you're getting for 61 grand from a company in Quantico? Have you tried buying guided missiles in this economy, people? It's just ludicrous, man. What the fuck they think they're going? Like Tomahawk, a, I don't know, like a strawberry picking facility. Like, it's ludicrous. It's fucking ridiculous. A chemical weapon?

I mean, you can talk about substack and they're being fucked up things about the company. But, like, honestly, I think that, I don't think it's overstated, but I think people focus on that to the extent of like, well, yeah, which of them aren't? Yeah. Where is the non-Nazi social media company that has any kind of reach, you know? Yeah, yeah. But that's really not even the point I care to make. What I will say, the problem here is not even just that, like,

When people are working for an audience like that, where week to week, however many people are donating and whatnot, kind of can incentivize you to follow certain rabbit holes and push certain things, I think one of the bigger problems is that what you have is a generation of very, of the most talented and successful journalists in terms of their skill of like writing and their ability to build an audience that follows them, those people have all moved to a platform where they, by default, don't have an editor. Yeah. And like every journalist worth their salt, I've had my fights and frustrations with editors at a variety of publications. And sometimes they're gnawing. And sometimes editors suck. And sometimes publications, a big part of what they're doing is just trying to water

down your shit. But that's not the only thing editors do. A major thing editors do is point out, hey, I get that you're really into this. And I get that you find this compelling. But as an objective observer, I'm seeing this whole. and this hole and this hole. And you need to, for example, call these people and make sure that this, because it doesn't look like this is actually a guided missile. It looks like somebody just fucked up putting in a code. Yeah. We need to check on this so we can state it to a point of

certainty. That's what an editor should be doing, right? Yeah. Even if they're responsible journalist, like, I wouldn't have submitted that piece to an editor without having checked that first. Like, sure. It took me five minutes to call them. I should add that the, The PSCs in question for grenades and warheads are one digit different, right? Again, which is what happened here. It certainly looks that way. Yeah. Yeah.

And again, this is why part of how responsible journalism is supposed to work is that you never have just one eye on a story because every journalist will inevitably miss things if you're doing that, right? That's why you are supposed to the idea is to have multiple eyes on a thing. so that, oh, hey, it looks like you skipped over this. Or, hey, it just occurred to me, I have this question that is not being answered, and you make a couple of phone calls, throw in another sentence, and then that's a thing that we're answering,

a thing we're accounting for. And if you don't have that, the work isn't as good. Yeah, no. Look, I'm not saying there are not things to be afraid of. There are. No one's saying, yeah.

But I want people to be afraid of the right things. Like, they're not going to halibre people. I don't think we're really going to be safe until there's an iron dome over every Home Depot. Garrison, I've been saying that for years, but that's also because I would like to start a limited missile war against the Home Depot Corporation. But I've been taking Lowe's money for years.

Yeah, on behalf of Lowe's. Yeah, I'm on Team Ace hardware, so I'll see you on the battlefield, Robert. At least we don't have any harbour freight people here. I'm actually a massive harbour freight guy. He just says have Harbor Freight finds, like literally behind me. I mean, the nice thing about Harbor Freight is buying one thing and then returning it exactly 11 months after buying it once you broken it and just having a perpetual whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Everything that I bought from Harbor Freight has started smoking. Everything breaks that you buy from Harbor Freight, but the return policy is amazing. Yeah, the question is, will it break before or after you've used it enough to justify buying something more expensive? And the answer is yes.

James, can you do a product and service code ad break? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. based on your investigation here. And, Adam, you can keep this in. You can show them how the sauce is made here. Yeah, it's just in terms of honesty. Here we go. Okay.

All right. Give me a second here. I've got to think of something good. You fucked it. I was just going to do talking products and services. And you ruined it, Garrison. If you are in the market for a distraction advice, guided warhead or chemical weapon, let's hope that you get an advert for one of those in this commercial break.

That's right, people. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. So you can push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E

and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, Here We Go again. We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies,

but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili, Sing and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong.

Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex in the City, or just the internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing? Where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good.

Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me. Actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital life forms. And we talk about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there too if I'm feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Yeah. Like when a kid says brad of me. And how they're navigating this high-speed roller coaster we call reality.

In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and f***-wise. Right. Hey, he's no train McDougall. This is like the comment section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved,

until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people. people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth

were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that you all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it. it on her. They made me say that I pour gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. you got what you wanted. Yes, this podcast is the only podcast entirely supported by the Ayatollah. And, yeah, praise him. The CIA and the Ayatollah have

finally united. The clasping hands meme over Robert Evans. Legally speaking, that is a joke. We are not funded by the Iranian regime. We're all monarchists. Speak for yourself there, James. Let's talk about the national, let's talk about the national,

card. Yeah, sure. On Monday, this past Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in favor of the Trump administration, halting a court order denying the federalization and deployment of the Oregon National Guard. They had two-to-one ruling on a three-panel hearing with two Trump-appointed judges. They called Trump's plan to deploy troops to the ice building in Portland, a quote-unquote measured response. Now, there is a second TRO preventing out of of state National Guard from deploying to Portland, and this appears to still be in effect, but its fate is unknown. The Justice Department has requested the original judge suspend the order, though the Ninth Circuit itself is considering whether a larger panel should rehear this

entire case. Currently, there is no immediate plans for Oregon National Guard to be deployed, but they do now have the go-ahead. But this is still a developing situation, but that's an important update there. Let's talk about the 250 celebration. Treal Singh, happy birthday. No. Happy birthday to the Marines. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, happy birthday of the Marine Corps. I hope today you guys get to eat a lot of crayons. They'll have a cake, which is shaped like a giant crown. No, it just is made out of giant crayon. And we all remove our Totenkov tattoos. That's going to be the Marine Party. Get rid of those scout sniper tattoos. You just lost it. But no, there was the Marines 250th celebration with J.D. Vance last week, where they did play Hell Diver 2 music during the celebration.

I want to wish you all a happy birthday and separate Fidelis. I'm still not clear what Hell Diver is. Hell Divers is a satirical video game that satirizes a fascist military that fights for, quote, unquote, democracy against other so-called fascists. Sorry, managed democracy, very important. That's true, it's true. Yes, managed democracy. You may have heard of it from the news headlines such as Charlie Kirk shot. But, yeah, it's basically like playing Starship Troopers music over the Marine Corps.

celebration party. That's kind of the caliber we're operating in here. Yeah, thank you for bringing that to my generational understanding. There you go. Yeah, I appreciate it. Talking to the Marine Corps 250th birthday, on Saturday, a 155 shells, a 155 millimeter howitzer shell, prematurely detonated over the five freeway outside of Camp Pendleton. Right. Nut stuff. Crazy shit. Damaging a cop car that was assigned to JD advance his security detail. It was literally as soon as they started talking about how Trump wanted to shoot a missile into fucking Camp Pendleton and like immediately, yeah, they fuck up and blow up a car attached to fucking the vice president's security detail. Amazing stuff.

They did a dress rehearsal on Friday in which they managed not to detonate any shells over to five. Gavin Newsom decided to shut the frive on Saturday. Probably a good call. Yeah, he might be complaining about things shaking. Just if you're like, if you're if you're not familiar with the layout there. I would say that in most places, as you go to Camp Pendleton, there's a large area that is used by the Marine Corps for training. It has artillery ranges within it. The Five is the big highway in California. It's the highway that goes the whole length of the state. Yeah, you would call it the I-5 if you weren't from here, and then we would know that you weren't from here. We call it the Five. There's less than a mile of land to the West of the Five, right?

So shooting over to five, like pretty much shooting from the beach or near the beach, as opposed to the whole rest of Camp Pendleton, where they have artillery ranges, but they wanted to do it over to five. I think they were doing some kind of simulated landing drill, not quite sure what the landing drill they were doing. But this, yeah, resulted in the damage done to a CHP car and really fucked up traffic in probably the entirety of Southern California from most of last Saturday. I do just want to mention here that there is historical precedent in the United States for us accidentally killing the Secretary of State because a gun they were firing on a pleasure cruise on a boat on a Navy boat blew up. So this was in the 1840s, but we did kill the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of State. If any Secretary of War could pull this off, it would be Pete Hanksett.

I believe in him. There is a decent chance he will throw one of those axes straight into J.D. Vance's leg. Oh, yeah. I forgot about his axing. Yeah. Yeah. Vance, of course, a former Marine.

Oh, yeah. Wait, yeah. I totally forgot. Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps, I believe. He would say a P.A.O. Damn. Public affairs. Yeah.

I want to address DHS's claims about deportation numbers. DHS has been throwing out some really big numbers for deportation, claiming over half a million removed and 1.6 million, quote, unquote, self-deported. These are inflated numbers. These include things like people turned away at airports and Coast Guard interdictions, right? They are not removals of people from the interior of the United States who are residing here. Maybe if someone came with a visa and was turned around the airport, they're including that as a deportation, right? DHS has stopped publishing a lot of the data that we previously got under this administration, so we don't have a lot of hard numbers.

But the 1.6 million number, this comes from CIS, right? the Centre for Immigration Studies. We've talked about them before. This is a Tantan-funded quote-unquote think tank, which the SPLC has adjudicated as a hate group. The CIS data, DHS has been like sharing this since it came out, but it also seems to be weighing very heavily into whatever algorithm Musk has put into GROC recently. If you look for mentions on X, the Everything website of the 1.6 million number, nearly all of them are GROC repeating it. Oh, God. I don't know if they straight up just said, like, yeah, the CIS is your source for information when they were, you know, programming it to be less woke, but slightly more woke than when it called itself Mecca Hitler.

But it seems to be, the CIS seems to be, like, heavily weighed in the GROC algorithm these days, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, they did to get that GROC contract approved a few months ago. I think the DHS didn't get the number from GROC. I think they got it from CIS, but nonetheless, like, the reason that that number is still in the side guy, so I think is partially. because GROC keeps repeating it. Well, you know, it is Grocktober, as I've been saying. Garrison, we have fucking spoken about this. It's not GROCTOB.

Angry. The other thing I do want to mention on, I guess, not deportations, but the Department of State has announced a series of people who have had their visas revoked for posts surrounding the death of Charlie Kirk. The State Department Twitter account posted a whole. whole thread on X the Everything app listing various sentences and sentiments that resulted in visas being revoked. Quote, Charlie Kirk was a son of a bitch and he died by his own rules.

Visa revoked. When fascists die, Democrats don't complain. Visa revoked. It's from a German national, Brazilian national, said that, quote, Charlie Kirk was the reason for a Nazi rally where they marched in homage to him and that Kirk died too late. Visa revoked. there's like four other of these of people making statements

of that nature. Yeah, I think people get the idea. Yeah. Following Kirk's death, Rubio did announce he would be looking for visa holders who made statements following Kirk's death and he has followed through

on that promise. In some other Charlie Kirk news, a few weeks ago, Turning Point USA, officially announced that they would be producing an alternative halftime show after it was announced,

that the Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny would be performing at the 2026 Super Bowl. The TPP USA show will be called a quote, all-American half-time show celebrating faith, family, and freedom. The website has a submission form where it asks which genres

should be featured during the show. The options include, quote, anything in English, Americana, classic rock, country, hip-hop, pop, and worship. I love anything in English as a genre.

Yeah, when I go to Spotify, that's what I put in. The crowd's going to riot when someone does Hotel California. We can really push anything in English, frankly. We could go to some pretty crazy places. Yeah, yeah. I didn't think they've really considered the breadth of that genre. You know, I will say how they could get me back on board is if in addition to a separate halftime show, they had a separate Super Bowl in which Ben Shapiro

faces off alone against the Philadelphia Eagles. Oh, that would be so fun. Yeah, yeah. I would let Ben Shapiro bring some friends. No, no. I want to see Jalen Hertz physically pick up Ben Shapiro and see how far he can pass him. Because I'm pretty sure.

Oh, my God. At least 60 yards. Yeah, that guy, like, that guy can, like, bench a small motor vehicle. Like, bench is, Shapiro. Yeah. More details and performers will be announced later, including how this will be broadcast, will be streamed online. Are they going to try to make a TV deal with someone like, you know, Fox, you know, unclear how this will be broadcast? But it is something they're going to go through on. Last thing we should probably talk about before the break, or I don't know, maybe we could combine this

with the section you wanted to talk about Robert on the infiltrations. But right after our executive disorder episode from two weeks ago. Literally like hours after, on October 8th, right-wing influencers gathered at the White House to discuss with Trump and cabinet members their theories and harrowing stories of Antifa at this big Antifa round table. Yeah. I'm going to play a short clip, like a few seconds from Jack Posobic. Yeah, get in there. Noted far-right extremist and poster Jack Posobic. Certainly noted poster.

It's the pizza game. guy. Antifa is real. Antifa has been around in various iterations for almost a hundred years in some instances going back to the Weimar Republic and Germany. Huh. I wonder why

it went back to the Weimar Republic in Germany. What else was happening at that time in Germany? It's very interesting to say that, Jack. Very interesting. Jack. What other opinions do you have on Weimar Republic, Jack? Yeah. So this is worrisome, right? The fact that these idiots are getting to speak this close to power about their theory, which is basically that everyone they don't like or who has said anything they don't like is part of a terrorist organization and should be put in prison or executed. Like, that's the gist of what all of the people at that roundtable believe.

A whole bunch of like, you know, post-millennial people, and, you know, that whole, that whole genre of like, you know, right wing and T. for journalist Twitter. It's pseudo-journalistic. Yes. Everyone I don't like equals terrorist. Yes. So that's really worrisome. And I just, I kind of wanted to make a note here to people that as a result of stuff like

this, in case you somehow have not been aware of this, we're going to be seeing a massive ramp up in, you know, not just attempts at prosecution, but at attempts to, like, infiltrate and get gotcha footage and audio of different left-wing and anarchist groups that are going to be used as pretexts for like further crackdowns. I would say it's just a time to be aware of that and be aware of the fact that any time you are speaking or at a public event where other people are speaking, you should assume that that's being recorded and that people will be pulling out the worst parts they can from it and trying to use that to destroy people. lives. And I bring that up because there's been a couple of, that just really broke today,

some potentially pretty high profile examples of this. One of them is that at a panel for Firestorm books, they had a speaker, a guy named Eric King, who was convicted of a firebombing. He's a left-wing activist. He spent almost 10 years in prison, had a horrific time in prison. I mean, just abused by the system in some of the worst plateways possible and is finally out. and Eric did a talk at Firestorm Books and he made basically his statement that activists need to hurt them where it counts saying we can force them

to shut the fuck up when it hurts their wallet enough or you can find other ways to hurt them. Now, that's not saying anything inherently illegal. Again, he starts it by saying we can force them to shut up when it hurts their wallet enough that's talking about like boycotts and stuff. But the phrase other ways to hurt them is vague enough that's pretty easy for these guys to cut stuff out

and I'm looking at a post by quote-unquote investigated analyst for the Manhattan Institute, Stu Smith, who's framing this as known Antifa Firebomber calls for escalation. And again, that's not necessarily inaccurate look at what Eric was saying, but it's easy to pull stuff out like this from something like what appears to have been a fairly open Zoom call that is not hard for someone to get into and record and pull something out of to try and make the case that someone like Eric should be back in prison or that Firestorm Books is a party, you know, providing material support to an extremist organization. And what I'm not trying to do is say like, and so people should not talk and gather in public because they're going to be doing this. But you need to be aware that anything said at something like this that's in any way open.

And even if you try to make it kind of more close than this, they will try to get people in. this is something that is increasingly going to happen. And so people just need to be, you can't just kind of hope that they're not paying attention. You have to be aware of the fact that they're out there and they're going to be trying to infiltrate any sort of thing like this they can to get pretexts for further crackdowns. And another recent example of this, Frontlines TPUSA, which is Turning Point USA's, I mean, it's their version of the actual front line. journalism show, but they did an investigation where they went undercover to the Oakland

in Seattle anarchist book fairs, right? And again, there's nothing wrong with doing those book fairs. I'm sure what they're doing here is pulling whatever quotes they could grab from people that sound bad out of context and using them to try to make the case that, again, these are violent extremist events that need to be cracked down on. And I will reiterate, I'm not saying, don't do book fairs. I'm not saying don't show up at events like this. I'm saying if you show up, be aware that stuff like this is going to be happening, that there are going to be people recording, that they're going to be people trying to find what

they can to destroy people who are at these events, and that that's something that needs to be in your threat model, right, in terms of how you dress when you go there, how visible you are, and what you're willing to say around people, right? Among other things, I guess what I'm saying is there's some jokes you should. shouldn't be making in public at events like this unless you want there to be a high risk of it coming back to bite you in the ass yeah i think that's that's perfectly reasonable yep during the uh antifa roundtable panel this guy named simus bruner shamus shamus it says seamus it says seamus that that is it sure doesn't

yeah garry yeah garry we're gonna have to stop you right there that's that that's a shame it says Seamus, the director of research at the Government Accountability Institute discussed his theory of how a network of NGOs are funding Antifa. This is a longer clip, but I think it's important to look at how they are approaching this, like how they are approaching this Antifa as an organization. This is not just a story about violence and chaos, as you alluded to, Mr. President. This is a money story. And at the Government Accountability Institute, my colleague and I, Peter Schweitzer, in my eye, and our team, we followed the money.

And we followed it to the top of what we call the protest industrial complex, riot ink. And we found a network of NGOs. It's not just the Soros network, the Open Society network. It's other funding networks, the Arabella funding network, the Tides funding network. Neville Roy Singham and his network, Foreign Cash. and it's also big left-wing funders. Some of them are not citizens of this country, Mr. Hans-Jorg-Vis of Switzerland.

They're pouring money into this entire ecosystem. And so I want to share three money facts with you about what we call Riot Inc. Number one, like any corporation, Riot Inc has many divisions. It doesn't just have the Antifa Boots on the Ground division. It has PR divisions. It has marketing divisions.

It has a very well-funded legal division to get these boots on the ground back on the streets as quickly as possible. But it does have those investors that I mentioned. Number two, we have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc. investors.

These would be the lawyer groups. These would be the groups that advocate for calling good, honest Americans, fascists, et cetera. And then three, I think the most shocking thing is that we have found that more than than $100 million in U.S. taxpayer funding has flowed into these funding networks, including at least $4 million to these very groups themselves, not just Antifa types, but there was an event in Atlanta called Stop Cop City. Over 60 rioters were charged with domestic terrorism. These groups received money for that from both the billionaire class as well as taxpayer

monies. Unclear what he's talking about in terms of taxpayer money. going to the 60 RICO defendants in Atlanta. But the structure is talking about how this riot ink includes not just like Antifa as in, you know, people wearing black hoodies on the streets at a protest, but like, you know, legal support organizations. Even like research organizations that, you know, advocate calling, you know, good honest Americans fascists, right?

This could refer to groups like Media Matters or like Southern Poverty Law Center who do make research into extremist organizations. They could be framing people like that as a part of this whole ecosystem and that's where they could be looking at for sources of money and funding and like tracking where that money goes is in groups like that, not obviously,

you know, your average black-clad Antifa protesters is not receiving payment for their presence at these events. This guy went on to claim that quote-unquote Riot Inc., funding network also supports decentralized crowdfunding platforms which fund organizations like the Elm for John Brown Gun Club and the Socialist Rifle Association. After he went on this like three minute long speech, Trump asked him and other attendees that if they knew anything about like

Antifa members, funders or the organizational structure to hand over that information to Pam Bondi or Cash Patel. And Trump reiterated this multiple times. during the roundtable, asking these, you know, policy guys or quote-unquote independent journalists to hand over their information to the authorities. Here's one version of him making this request. Do you know the name of any of the funders? Do you know the names?

Because if you do, I'd like you to give them to cash or Pam. Absolutely. Or Christy. Yeah, we'll do that. As soon as you can. That's all of you, because you probably know the names after a certain period of time. You tend to find out.

But these are people that do not have good intention for the country, and that's treasonous probably. So if you could, very important, if you could do that, it would be great. Nobody would know better than you. You'll figure it out. Ugh. Sure, man. Cool.

During this roundtable, Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, reiterated how Antifa should be treated like an organized criminal gang, and that law enforcement are going to, quote, unquote, take the same approach as it does handle. foreign drug cartels. It's a side note. The United States has... Maybe that's what those guided missiles. Has repeatedly launched missiles at what it claims are boats associated with foreign

drug cartels. I'll just say we have an episode next week about the ongoing drone campaign in the Caribbean. Speaking of funders, here's some of ours. For the Central Intelligence Agency. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed,

seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. So you can push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E, and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, Here We Go again.

We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast. host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lily Singh, and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing

outer space, things can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex in the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing? Where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture.

Daddy's looking good. Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me. Actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital life forms. And we talk about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there too from feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like when a kid says brad to me.

And how they're navigating this high-speed roller coaster we call reality. In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and f*** boys. Right. Hey, he's no train McDougall. This is like the common section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people. people, and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn, or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it. on her. They made me say that I pour gas on her. From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. All right, we are back.

Great. So nice to hear from the products and services that support this show. Brought to you by Safari Land. You're one. God, I wish we had. No, I don't actually. Sfarlight is some post-ironic meming that I should. I should curtail. S farlight is in fact bad. I will admit. They do make very nice, very nice bulletproof plate. I will say, talking of things that are very nice, this is a very nice song that I like to listen to in my free time. It's all right

It's all I did Rocking to Casbah Rocking to Casper It's Tariff Talk We're back, baby Yeah, yeah So literally Within 12 hours,

I think, of the release At Night of our last episode of this show We got the resumption Of the trade war Yeah

So specifically Trump has announced Effectively the full scale resumption of the trade war with China. This started kind of out of nowhere, with the Trump administration doing something that I think they didn't think was very provocative because I don't quite think they understood the magnitude of what they were doing. This basically started with the Trump administration massively increasing export restrictions to China by changing the rules of what companies are covered by what's called the entity list, which is a list of companies that American

companies are not allowed to sell goods and services to. The administration moved this to include any company that is 50% or more owned by a company on the export list. We've discussed on the show before that a significant part of the structure of Chinese corporate conglomerates are held together by a bunch of different companies, you know, having partial ownership by the same holding companies, which is what sort of binds companies and conglomerates together and integrates them into the management structure of the conglomerates.

This is how Chinese state-owned enterprises work. being state-owned enterprise literally means that you are partly or completely owned by a holding company run by SASAC, which is the state-owned asset supervision and administration commission of the state council because every name of the CCP is like that. So this shift to anything that's 50% or more owned by a company on this list is actually a massive export restriction, and the Chinese government took this as, okay, we're starting the trade war again. So very quickly, there's a whole bunch of tiff or tat things that we're not going to track the order because they kind of don't matter, but on October 10th, Trump made a Twitter post where he said

that he was going to implement a 100% tariff and also a software restriction thing we'll talk about later. Those are supposed to go into effect on the first. He's also been talking in the last week about bringing tariffs up to 150%. We don't have any kind of formal executive order on that. This was, to some extent, in response to China implementing massive restrictions on the export of rare earth metals. These are crucial to basically any kind of advanced manufacturing, you know, industrial manufacturing applications, everything from chips to electric cars to jet fighters. These are set to take effect on December 1st. I'm going to read this from the New York Times to get an understanding of how large these moves are. China refines 99% of the world's

dysprosium, a kind of rare earth metal that is used in chips to preserve magnetic stability even when they become hot. In the last few years, Nvidia and other semiconductor manufacturers have changed the materials used in electricity management devices called capacitors, which is a really funny way

to just grab a capacitor, by the way, but on chips to make them more heat resistant. The capacitors are made from ultra-pured dysprosium, which is extremely difficult to refine. A single refinery in Wushi near Shanghai produces the entire world's supply. So, Per of New York Times, these export restrictions include

any good that is produced with these rare earth metals and require foreign companies operating in China, like, for example, Samsung, or any of the sort of South Korean or Taiwanese chip manufacturers to acquire export licenses to, you know, like sell them to any other country that's not China. That is a absolutely massive restriction on export goods and also, again, a whole bunch of critical minerals that both the American military apparatus relies on and the American tech apparatus relies on. A.I. chips need a whole bunch of these things. So, you know, in the middle of this process, the U.S. also started charging Chinese-built ships for docking at U.S. ports, which China retaliated by imposing docking fees for American ships. I'm going

again read from New York Times here. The new rules are the most stringent for Chinese shipping companies, which for the most part cannot avoid the levies. H.SBC, an investment bank, estimated that Costco, not that Costco, different one, a large Chinese shipping line could pay $1.5 billion in fees next year, which the bank said could reduce Costco's operating earnings by nearly three-fourths in 2026. Again, it's worth noting that these shipping companies are the backbone of global trade. They also, their margins are not very good. And a significant number of them basically only didn't go under during the lockdowns because they effectively lied on their loan applications and were just sort of putting in their revenue as if the lockdowns weren't

happening. So this is all very, very fragile infrastructure that is being, you know, attacked. And these port fees are already in effect. Me doing gay cruising on my European trip. Yeah, I like global trade. All right. I continue. Oh, God. Okay. So we also got a report today. This is Wednesday, the 22nd this is being reported. So who fucking knows what will be happening by the time this episode comes out. But on Wednesday, we got a report from Reuters about the other, one of the other options that Trump administration is considering for these massive sort of trade attacks on China. So I said earlier when I talked about the 100% tariff, Trump also mentioned a software. export ban? So per Reuters, what's being considered here, and again, we have no, we have very few concrete details about this. This isn't been formally announced. My guess is that it's being leaked to Reuters by the administration, but I just don't know. But what they're considering basically is a version of the sanctions that effectively Biden applied to Russia after the invasion of

Ukraine, which restricts the export of any product made with U.S. software. this would be probably the most significant developments of the entire trade war and so these are all incredibly significant escalations a bunch of the stuff is set to go into effect on November 1st which is very very soon now in theory Trump and Xi Jinping are supposed to meet at the meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in South Korea but there's been no formal announcements of their meeting Trump said he was going to go to China early next year, but that's, again, next year, the American 100% tariff again

November 1st, the Chinese export restrictions on rare earth metals again, December 1st. And the other issue here is that the actual event starts on October 31st, and the first tariffs are supposed to go into effect the next day. Very spooky, very spooky indeed. Yeah, and so Trump is mad also about China refusing to buy American soybeans, the story we've been covering and he's complaining about the rare earth metal stuff

and he's complaining about he's still yelling about fentanyl but it's also worth mentioning one of the fascinating things is Trump is continuing to piss off even more parts of his base with this stuff so soybean farmers which is again a huge portion

of American farmers are really mad at him he's also pissing off cattle ranchers so both the soybean farmers and the cattle ranchers are mad at Trump for giving a bunch of money to Argentina and not giving them a bunch of money and cutting off their access to Chinese markets, because Argentina again is selling a whole bunch of stuff to China. One of the things that they sell to China is beef, because Argentina is a major beef exporter. So they're all really mad at him for giving Argentina

a giant bailout in order to try to save their failing economy under their unhinged anarcho-capitalist president who has annihilated the economy even more than it was before. And then Trump's response to the cattle ranchers being mad at him was telling them to low-eastern. their prices, which means they're even more mad at him. So he is systematically alienating two of what should be his most important basis of support. And like the cattle industry has been a base Republican support for, I mean, since time and memorial effectively. The lumber and vanity tariffs that we mentioned last week have taken effect now. There's been no rollback of them. And finally, I want to close on a story that we're going to be covering more

on Monday, which is the continuing escalation of a sort of conflict between Columbia and the U.S. after the U.S. murdered a boat full of what appeared to be Colombian fishermen. Yes, Colombia has recalled its ambassador in the U.S. has said that it is going to eliminate all foreign aid and impose a tariff the size of which they haven't given a consistent number for. and this is, you know, very much could look like a pretty massive reorientation of American policy around Columbia, which has traditionally been an American ally, and we've ran death squads out of there for a very, very long time. Yeah, and that has been the lightning round rapid fire trade war coverage because, oh boy. Yeah.

Yay, we've, we've tariff talked. All right. Before we close, I don't want to talk a little bit about one of the news stories this week about U.S. political figures being like Naziism. No, not the main candidate. And no, not that other Republican staffer who had a swastika in his cubicle. The Politico story that reported leaked messages from the New York young Republican telegram chat, which already tells you that it's going to be problematic. the fact that they have a telegram chat.

But Politico reported that this chat contained messages about putting political opponents in gas chambers, loving Hitler, as well as plenty of anti-Semitism, talking about raping their enemies, and hundreds of uses of homophobic and racist. There's the chair of the New York

State Young Republicans, Bobby Walker, allegedly called rape epic, and wrote in the chat, quote, if we ever had a leak of this chat, we would be cooked, unquote. New York Republican Elise Stephanic first denounced this chat after the report, though later called the Politico piece a quote-unquote hit job.

The Matt Walsh side of the online right condemned those who leaked the chats, neglecting to discuss the substance of the chat itself, while Vance largely dismissed the affair, writing on X the Everything app, quote, I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence, unquote. Vance falsely referred to this as a college group chat when key members were as old as 40 years old. A day later, while guesting on the Charlie Kirk show,

J.D. Vance continued to push back on the seriousness of this story and played defense by repeatedly referring to the grown men involved who are in their 20s and 40s as kids and young boys. Somehow they got their hands on something like 28,000 messages in some group chat of, I think, 12 people that nobody's ever heard of, but they decided to just publish every single thing in this chat, whatever they found that they thought was the most salacious. And I think 10 years ago, there would have been a very different response to it. But people are starting to learn from this, and the vice president is one of the reasons why. I'm sorry, focus on the real issues, don't focus on what kids say in group chats. But there's another angle to this that I just have to be honest about.

I mean, I'm like an old guy at this one. I'm 41 years old. I have three kids. You know, I grew up in a different world, right? We're not most of the stupid things that I did when I was a teenager and a young adult. They're not on the Internet. Like, I'm going to tell my kids, especially my boys, don't put things on the Internet. Like, be careful with what you post.

If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm. But the reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that's what kids do. And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke, is caused to ruin their lives. And at some point, we're all going to have to say, enough of this BS. We're not going to allow the worst moment in a 21-year-old's group chat to ruin a kid's life for the rest of time. That's just not okay. Like we live in a digital world. This stuff is now

Etzgen Stone online. We're all going to have to say, you know what? No, no, no. We're not doing this. We're not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat. And if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I'm fine with it. Right. Once again, most of these guys are like in their 30s. These guys are adults. You know, the New York Young Republicans is not a whole bunch of kids. These are young in like political, in political years. Yeah. Because everyone who runs the country is quasi-geriatric. Self-proclaimed theocratic fascist, Matt Walsh, said, quote, the right doesn't stick together. That's our biggest problem by far. Conservatives are quick to denounce each other, jump on dog piles, disavow, attack their allies. I said a few weeks ago

that we all need to band together in the wake of Charlie's death. And the answer I got back from a lot of people on the right was basically no. Well, okay then, guys, we'll just lose instead. The left will keep up the united front and defend their guys no matter what. Well, we keep throwing each other to the wolves at every opportunity. Great plan, unquote. Shapiro did beef a bit with Walsh on one of their daily wire group podcasts regarding the substance of these chats. Shapiro did seem more concerned at the growing anti-Semitic and Nazi fascistic element of the Republican Party, whereas Walsh is, uh, does not care about that at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, not a problem, fame.

Not a problem for self-reclaimed theocratic fascist, Matt Walsh. So that's, that's one side of, of this whole political story that I wanted to talk about. You should just read the political piece. I'm sure lots of people have. It got pretty popular a few days ago, but I find the sort of, I mean, I would have called it like the dissident right reaction, but when you have the vice president, as like, the guy leading the charge on this type of stuff. It's not really dissident. Like, there is a large number of Republicans who are condemning the contents of this chat, but you do

have the vice president of the country playing defense for it. Yeah. And for the people involved. And I think this is actually a very important thing about what the structure of the Republican party is right now, which is these kind of low levels like staffers, right, the young Republican people. And these are a bunch of people who are also making White House policy. You know, Stephen Miller is, you know, the guy who's doing a whole bunch of, a whole bunch of the sort of ethnic cleansing deportation policy right now are just Nazis. They're just Nazis. And every time one of these group chats comes out, it looks like this. And that's a really significant factor in why American politics looks like this, which is that like the people who are entering the Republican

party right now, who are like their sort of youth wing, quote unquote, are these people. And we're seeing their policies get enacted. And it fucking sucks. I mean, it's often baked in this, like, post-ironic, like, like, joking way where, you know, obviously the Nazis, some people in these circles will say, you know, obviously the Nazis themselves are bad. But we're using this as, like, a memetic signifier for, like, nationalism and for all of these things. Now, there is a fair number of people who just will straight up defend the Nazis. Absolutely. But I think it's, it goes beyond, like, like, this isn't German national socialism.

Like, it goes, it goes, it goes, yeah, it goes. It goes beyond to, like, they're using Nazism as a meme for their political project. And memes get used a lot in these types of safe spaces where people can joke around. So you see that very clearly here. But you also see it on, like, the DHS Twitter account. You see the same kind of, like, post-ironic stuff. Like a few weeks ago, they were fucking Moonman posting. You can Google that one if you want to.

We don't have time to explain. But that's a very old, like, an Internet Nazi dog was. and you know we I've I've talked a decent bit about uh my feelings on like focusing a lot on like the DHS Twitter dog whistles yeah but but yeah it is it is in invoking of this stuff for this like memetic like archetypal context that they surround themselves in yeah and then you know doing the actual thing which is going out and rounding up a whole bunch of yeah doing these ice rates now white people and right yeah like the ice recruiting ads are like the the clearest example of using this type of memetic imagery

for their actual political project and then to enact the thing physically. And it's very clear there because there's very little disconnect. It's an immediate transference. Yeah, it's a very straight line. Yeah. James, do you want to close this up on the great state of Alaska? Yeah, talking about something not so great in Alaska. We normally do a fundraiser at the end, so we wanted to put this here.

For those you who are not aware, because this has really got enough coverage. in my opinion, a massive storm. In fact, the remnants of a typhoon slammed into the west coast of Alaska, leaving more than a thousand people without shelter along the Yukon-Kosokwim River. These are Alaska native villages, and their inhabitants are now climate refugees. At the very start of winter, right, in the coldest place in the United States, these villages are very remote. I spent some time earlier this year in Alaska native village, not here in the interior, just in the Quijian territories, but these guys are really only accessible by small planes or by boats, which will make their recovery even harder, right?

They're people who have lived by the ocean or by the river for as long as people have lived in the Americas, tens of thousands of years, right? A few months ago, the Trump EPA canceled a $20 million ground for flood protection, which would have covered Kipnuk, one of these villages. Kipnuk now functioning doesn't exist. Houses were torn off their foundations, right? There are multiple videos of people's whole houses floating away. It's not just an instance of neglect or even a single failure here.

It's an example of decades of ignoring the voices of indigenous people, especially Alaska natives, when they tell us that the climate crisis is real and that it's already here, right? When the media looks at climate change, they tend to want to look at data they can measure in terms of numbers, right, according to the model of Western science. But I would argue that the experience of indigenous people who have lived on the land for as long as human beings have lived anywhere on this continent and have watched the changes and seen this disaster unfold, should be a warning to all of us that the climate crisis is already here. I reached out to some Alaska native friends to ask where to donate and they shared a page which will be in the show notes

for the shows if you're able to help I think that's a very important thing to do recovery for these people with this federal government with being as remote as they are will be horrifically difficult right now many of them are living in Anchorage right like I say they're going into the winter

and then they don't have a place to live it's a unmitigated disaster So if you're able to help, I think it would be very much appreciated. Before I go, I will say if you would like to email us, you can use our proton mail address. Coolzone tips at proton.me. If you send from a proton mail address, then it's encrypted from one end to the other end. 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, poolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can now find sources where it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock Elite Gaming Tech at Lenovo.com.

Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit, so you can push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming, upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking.

Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from Smartless Media, campside media, and big money players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer.

That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet stand. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture.

Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high-speed rollercoaster we call reality. Join me in my delightful guests every Thursday, and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends, like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg, to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now.

But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.