It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #4

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

The gang get together to discuss White House plans to make Donald Trump king, house migrants in a prison James visited in Panama, and Make America Healthy Again by making it harder to access medicine. We also catch up with Elon Musk, as apartheid's favorite son continues his rampage through the federal government.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast. Whatever. Covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. It's not about dick stuff. Sponsored by hims. Not yet. Hopefully one day.

I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, and Robert Evans, who never knows the title of the podcast that he's on. In my defense, I'm on a lot of podcasts. I was going to say that just because Robert Evans lives in like a constant podcast. This episode, we are covering the week of February 12 to February 19. Let's start with a brief Eric Adams update or as I call it in EU.

That's the Turkish for Eric Adams update. So in response to the calls to drop the Turkish corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, eight top federal prosecutors have resigned in protest. Then we had four deputy mayors leave office. The New York governor is now considering removing Adams from office, which somehow is something that the governor of New York has power to do, by the way. And also the city council speaker has called on the mayor to resign. There's a judge doing a hearing on Wednesday as we are recording this right now on whether

to appoint a special prosecutor to continue prosecuting the charges despite Trump's effort to have these charges dropped to help Adams make sure that ICE raids can continue in this city in a very very clear quid pro quo. So this is a developing story. We will continue on the Eric Adams front as this changes. By the way, people could miss it the first time. Like a few months ago, we did record an entire episode about the things that he actually did, which are unbelievably funny. So go listen to that.

We're not going to talk about them here. But it's very, very funny corruption. Yeah, if you didn't get the turkey joke, we explain it in detail there. I'm sure people are familiar with with the turkey situation in general. All right. Next, on a related note, on Tuesday, President Trump instructed the DOJ to fire all Biden-appointed US Attorneys. Now, usually these types of appointments do resign at the end of their president's term, but Trump just immediately going out to fire all of them is new, unique, and noteworthy.

And Trump has done some other noteworthy things to expand executive power. And for more on that, I will turn to Mia Wong. Oh, boy. So yesterday on Tuesday the 18th, Trump signed an executive order that effectively is just him saying the words I am the law over and over again. The actual sort of content of the executive order is convoluted. But basically what he's saying is that the presidency, like him specifically, is in control of all government agencies. And this is an end to a very, very longstanding practice of, well,

an attempt to end the longstanding practice of there being independent regulatory agencies, which were set up by Congress. And what Trump is doing here is claiming that, you know, this is the thing called the unitary executive theory. There's a whole history of this Republican party. This is the most unhinged unitary executive theory thing we've ever seen, where he is just straight up claiming that he should be able to run all of these things, that none of these independent regulatory agencies, and this includes stuff like the FCC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, stuff like that, actually all just directly answered to him and not to, you know, Congress or as, you know, function as independent bodies like they were set up to be by acts of Congress.

It states that everyone's legal opinions that come out of these things like have to agree with legal opinions of the presidency. And it basically sets up a reporting thing where all of these things have to like report any major policy decisions that they're going to make to Russell Vought, who's like one of the co-authors of project 2025. Yeah. Yeah. So in some sense, it's a codification of the stuff he's already been trying to do.

Yeah, ever since basically he got inaugurated again, they've been trying to push for this complete unitary executive power as like running the entire, not just running the entire executive branch, but all of these agencies that they want to rope under the authority of the executive branch. Yeah, and there's a number of sort of alarming things about this. One, this is a, like even by the standards of like peak war on terror,

Bush administration shit, where they're just like grabbing people off the streets, like this is a, a unprecedented sort of seizure of executive power too. And I think this is also worth noting in the context of a bunch of the shit he's been saying over the past week. Like last week he had the, the he who saves his country does not violate any law, which is like, I think a fake Napoleon quote. It's a fake Napoleon quote from a movie made in the 1970s

in the Soviet Union. I believe the name of the movie was Waterloo. That rules. It's famous because they had some massive thousands and thousands of actual soldiers set piece battles. But yeah, that's where the quote, I think the quote may have another origin, but that's the famous origin.

It probably was never said by Napoleon. Well and earlier today, the official White House account tweeted about abolishing the New York City congestion pricing with basically like a magazine cover style image of Trump wearing a crown With text that reads long live the king Yeah, then again that was the off that was the official Twitter account of the White House which has also been doing something like unhinged posting including like ASMR deportation videos. Yeah, it's like really dark stuff, like viscerally upsetting. Yeah, it is like the opening credits of a disaster movie,

the White House Twitter feed right now. Yeah, it's the stuff like you used to not be able to talk about being a king in American politics pretty recently. That's kind of the whole point of this country. There's a state where the whole motto is six simple tyrannous. Yep. And the unit of the United States military. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I want to come back onto the thing for a second and talk about one of the things that probably will be the crucial legal fight, which is that

he's claiming the ability to be the person who interprets the law. And, you know, there's a whole bunch of sort of legal fuzziness about that and about to what extent these things are supposed to be independent, but probably isn't the culmination of his attempt to literally rule the entire country by executive fiat. But this is like- It's just a big step.

Yeah, this is a massive step towards that. And I think, and again, this is one of these things where we literally have no idea what the consequences of this will be because we are so far into the great beyond that shit is happening that a year ago, if you proposed it, everyone would have thought you were completely out of your mind. Yeah. Well, and this is stuff that, like, Robert's been talking about for a long time.

There's been a lot of people talking about the Heritage Foundation's push for the Unitary Executive Theory, stuff that Curtis Yarvrow has been talking about. Like my article last week on Shatter Zone underlines where they are going with this. And yeah, the consequences are so vast and unknowable because we've never had an executive that is kind of this successfully or this focused in his attempts to seize like total executive control over the entirety of the federal government. Yeah.

Yeah. And I want to end with like one of the other really chilling parts of this, which is that if you read the executive order, the underlying logic of it is that like the president is like the physical manifestation of the will of the people. Yeah. It's just the fear of principle. Yeah. Yeah.

Never been done before. Like that. And and also specifically then Napoleon quote about like he says The country's not violent me like that is literally the legal principle that Carl Schmitt developed like specifically to put Hitler in power as the fear Yeah, so this is great I mean and Musk and Trump had been saying stuff akin to that Yeah in interviews like being asked like how is doge allowed to do this sort of stuff? Musk and Trump have been saying, well, the people voted for this. Like we are we are enabling the will of the people. Even if that like, you know, goes past like our technical authority, it's what the people wanted.

So we're going to remove all of these bureaucrats that ordinarily would try to stop us because we have like the consent of the governed. The mandate of heaven. Even if that just completely bypasses Congress, even if that denies the courts, which we'll talk about more later, they are willing to go as far as they can. Yeah, and no one stopped them yet, right?

Some of the courts are trying, but trying isn't good enough. There seems to be an open violation of that, though. They were told to keep paying USAID stuff, and they just said they won't. More on that later. Mm-hmm. Let's touch on immigration with James and then we will have a quick break. Yeah, perfect. Okay. So what I want to talk about is this, it was first reported by the New York Times.

I've since confirmed it was sources on the ground in Panama. The Trump administration is detaining migrants that can't deport to their home countries in Panama currently. So currently these are places where the US doesn't have good relations with their government, right? There'll be Afghans, there'll be Iranians, people like that. The US seems to have found a way to deport Venezuelans using an airline that was sanctioned until the day it apparently landed at the US military base to take Venezuelan people back to Venezuela. If you want to hear about people leaving Iran and why they're leaving Iran, you can listen to my episodes I did in the Dalyan Gap.

They came out late October and November of last year. But right now they're being kind of corralled in a hotel in Panama City, from what I've heard, and just this morning the transport to San Vicente began. So the New York Times kind of mischaracterizes the detention center at San Vicente. I'm guessing this is because they haven't been there, and I have. They called it like a detention center that's being built, quote, close to the jungle. It looks close to the jungle if you're looking on Google Maps, I suppose. It's off the Pan American Highway, actually.

You literally take a dirt road off the Pan American Highway and you come across this huge prison facility. It's all big, modern white buildings. The old facility that was there burned down and it's been rebuilt. Largely, I'm guessing with money from when the Biden administration was funding deportations from Panama in 2024.

It's a vast detention facility. At the time when I went there, my fixer, Daddy Anela and I weren't allowed to access the facility, but it was very clearly like too big for what its stated purpose was. Its stated purpose was people who had warrants for their arrest and had been found to have warrants for their arrest when they entered Panama and were being deported back to the countries where they had warrants. I've spoken to half a dozen to a dozen people who were detained there. And I just got one quotation I like to read and then we can talk about this. They treated us very badly, verbally and psychologically.

We all had to do our business in the same cell. They threw food on the floor for us to eat. And we were all in handcuffs. Jesus Christ. So is this a result of like Rubio's negotiations with Panama? Like how is this like logistically operating in terms of like the US dropping people into a totally different country that like

they also just don't have citizenship to? Yeah. So the reality of taking someone to a third country is a little unclear. Of course, the United States has done this. Well, Guantanamo Bay is technically American soil, I guess, but they've also, they've done it in other places around the world that are not Guantanamo Bay throughout the war on terror. This is not the same as the El Salvador plan. The United States Department of Homeland Security, the Secretary for Homeland Security, attended

the inauguration of the new Panamanian president. DHS and the Panamanian executive have a very close relationship. Got it. The US was funding deportations from Panama under Biden. They claimed that these were only people who had warrants for their arrest in the countries they were being deported back to. When I spoke to those people, I was there when they literally took the families apart, put the people in a truck, sent them off to San Vicente and deported them.

And these guys, if they had warrants for their arrest, it seems very odd because when they arrived back in Columbia, they were not detained or arrested. And like, if you, if you have a warrant for someone and they get handed to you, that's when you're going to detain them. Right. And none of them were detained. They just released back to their day to day life in Columbia. So like, there was definitely precedent for this set by the Biden administration,

but what's happening now is a degree worse, right? Taking people... I don't know what the long term plan for these Afghan and Iranian people is, right? Were they going to live in San Vicente? Like, whose custody are they in? Yeah, like, is this like a DHS black site? Like, is it a... Yeah, no, absolutely.

Are they on US soil in San Vicente? Certainly when I was there, it was secured exclusively by Panamanian authorities, not by US authorities. So like the legal process, I'm guessing, like, I don't know if there is one beyond like we can't deport these people back to their countries we want to... Number needs to go up, right? There's been reporting that Donald Trump is upset that his deportation numbers haven't hit the numbers that Biden did.

Yeah. And so they're doing things like this, which appears to be move fast and break things, I guess. Like I don't really know how to describe it. I mean, it's the entire motto of the new Trump term in general and things are being broken. Yes, they are. Yeah.

Including lots of human rights conventions. As we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon, I just heard from a friend in Panama that 300 people were transferred to San Vicente, and it looks like 179 of them have no sort of clear path to be deported back to their home countries, no accepted place to send them. So those are the people who seem to be in legal limbo right now in Panama and San Vicente for a matter of time that we don't know in a status that we don't yet know or isn't clear. But yeah, this is pretty bad.

Like I say, I've been on the ground. I don't have many other reporters who have been on the ground in San Vicente. We're very well sourced in Panama and among the migrant community. So we're going to continue reporting on this. I've already sent some requests for comment out. So I would expect us to have something out on this in the next couple of weeks, hopefully. All right. Let's go on a quick ad break and come back to talk about RFK Jr. Have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered who or what was flying around up there?

We've seen planes, helicopters, hot air balloons, and birds. But what if there's something else, something much more ominous that appears under the cover of night, silent, unseen, watching. They may be right above your car late one night as you cruise down the road or look like mysterious lights hovering above your home. Drones. Or are they? We used to wear a drone because it was comfortable to other people. One minute it was there and one minute it wasn't. Oh, that is beyond creepy.

Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically? Yes, absolutely. Listen to Obscurum, Invasion of the Drones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The More Better the Merrier, title of your podcast. All your old Brooklyn Nine-Nine friends are appearing on your favorite podcast, More Better. Don't miss Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars

and show hosts Stephanie Beatriz and Melissa Fumero as they welcome their friends and former castmates back to laugh about old times and swap some stories. This week, it's Gina Lanetti herself, the talented Chelsea Peretti. Remember when we were in that scene where you guys were just supposed to hug and I was standing there? Oh yeah! So I was like, can I also hug them? Then next week, the 9-9 nonsense continues as the more better amigas sit down with Joe Lattrullio, aka Detective Charles Boyle. There'll be more laughs, more conversation, more stories from the set, and more, more

better. Don't miss a minute. You felt safe enough to throw out a bad idea, right? I mean, that is the key because you're definitely not throwing out good ideas all the time. I mean, that's just not how it works. Listen to More Better with Stephanie and Melissa on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Lari Santos, and to welcome the new year, my podcast, The Happiness Lab,

is releasing a series of happiness how-to guides to help you in 2025. I'll distill the wisdom of world-class experts into easy-to-digest actionable tips. It's about never feeling good enough. I feel like I'm always failing. You'll learn how to handle relationships, how to be inspiring, and how to find your purpose. We make it this big pie in the sky thing and then of course we're all frustrated because no one

knows how to get there. Struggling with tough emotions? We have a how-to guide. Worried that you're not enough? We got you. Self-obsessed and want to get over yourself, there's a guide for that too. The ability to approach somebody and make them experience desire for you in minutes or even hours is a rare and rather unnecessary skill, historically speaking. The Happiest Labs how-to season starts January 1st. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Catch Jon Stewart back in action on The Daily Show and in your ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices

of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top of what's happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners, like in-depth interviews and a roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we are back. I need to take off my plate carrier. As James takes off his plate carrier that he's wearing for some reason. It's company policy that we all wear body armor while recording because of an accident

that occurred several weeks ago. We don't need to get into it. Garrison, please continue. Did Garrison say something rude or offensive when I had to take my headband off to take off my plate carrier? Yes. So last week, RFK Jr. was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is one I thought there might be a slightly more pushback on, but oh, oh how naive I was.

Oh yeah, no, they are beaten into a corner. I didn't put up much of a fight. On February 13th, Trump signed an executive order establishing a commission to make America healthy again. In the third paragraph, the order states, quote unquote, concern over the, quote unquote, staggering increase of autism. And the next paragraph takes aim at ADHD medication. Not great, Not ideal. And the order continues to be pretty bad. I will do a direct quote here. Quote, this poses a dire threat to the American people and our way of life. To fully address the growing health crisis in America,

we must redirect our national focus in the public and private sectors towards understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease. This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments, and effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety." Fresh thinking. Yeah, like, one of the types of guys who I've run into when I'm out in the mountains is people who have very reasonably assessed that people in the United States don't have access to the healthiest food, especially if they don't have a lot of money, and that that is

impacting their health, right? That's a fair enough assessment. Sure. To go from that to like, I just want someone who will do something about it, so I guess this RFK guy is okay. No. No. Everything in this order has the most like dog whistly language.

Oh yeah. That not only like directly targets life-saving medication, but it can also be used to target like vaccines. Mm-hmm. And like it's really worrying. And there's a measles outbreak right now, right? In Laredo, like in Texas. 300 people last I checked in Laredo, around Laredo, yeah.

There's been an increasing number of measles outbreaks the past like five years in this country. Yeah, if you're not aware of how devastating measles outbreaks can be, I'd really encourage you to look into the outbreak in Samoa and the absolutely heartbreaking consequences of that. Yeah, which RFK Jr helped to cause by pushing a shitload of anti-vaccine propaganda here. Something like 80 people died.

Most of them children. Jesus. Yeah. They ran out of child size coffins and had to ask for people to send more. Well, which leads to a separate problem, but you know, uh, if you go to child coffins.com and put in the promo code, it could happen here. Uh, anyway, 10% off. Yeah, RFK gets you 20% off.

It's a good business to be in. Speaking of, section two of the order calls to quote unquote aggressively combat critical health challenges, such as quote, the rising rates of mental health disorders and diabetes. So RFK has made a number of statements that are worrying, which is just a blanket statement that I can make, but specifically talking about how to treat diabetes with lifestyle changes and changing your diet habits and a whole bunch of extremely worrying stuff. Section 5 of the order states that with 100 days, this new commission made

up of the heads of 13 various agencies and chaired by R.F.K. Jr. is supposed to submit their findings that quote, assess the threat that potential overutilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain other exposures pose to children, and assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight loss drugs." The idea that we're going to be trying to take away people's anti-psychotics while also making handguns more available across the country. Yes, more children with handguns, less children on antipsychotics. But like this is targeting like depression medication, mood stabilizers, meds for ADHD,

like antipsychotics and then also lines about certain chemicals absolutely being like an anti-vaccine dog whistle. Also, we have to mention too the diabetes part of this. Yeah, where That is An unbelievably alarming Thing for him to be saying. Yeah, it's pretty bad It's like the thing about diabetes is you don't have you like your body can't like literally can't physically fucking process shit You can't actually solve that with exercise like Yeah, and like I'll just say like I've worked in diabetes education in the past right and in various like nonprofit capacities

Not that kind of doctor But I have seen the people who have died because they have been subjected to this kind of bullshit like I know the people who? have lost children and loved ones because of this and it is Heartbreaking to think that somebody, normally it's somebody trying to make money, would lie to someone about their health, right? And the people who are most vulnerable to this are the people who are also already struggling

to access healthcare and access medications. And it is disgusting to see the government pushing this. Yep. On Tuesday, RFK Jr. made his first official statement since being confirmed promising that quote, nothing is going to be off limits unquote in his quest to make America healthy again, telling Health and Human Services staffers quote, some of the possible factors we will investigate were formally taboo or insufficiently scrutinized unquote. And then according to Politico, R.F.K. Jr. suggests that he would

direct HHS to investigate anti-depression drugs, ultra-processed food, electromagnetic radiation, and the herbicide glyphosate. So that seems to be some of their first targets. 4G, 5G cell tower shit. Great, great.

Yeah, no, no. I am excited for people to both not have food and also not have Adderall. Uh, that's really going to make quite an interesting mob. Our economy is going to crash. If they remove Adderall, this whole country is going to cave. No, we are going to see stockbrokers leaping out of windows

at rates unheard of. It's... Bad stuff for us. We are going to see stockbrokers leaping out of windows at rates unheard of Simply going to move to an economy that is entirely based on the consumption of cocaine and meth like One of these is going to happen. That's true. Adderall is going to be worth more by weight than gold people Five hands will be the new legal currency I'm gonna start storing them like peppercorns. I bought a house with two months of vivans. Yeah. Jesus. Lastly, before we go on break,

border czar Tom Homan has been on a crusade against AOC and others for holding know your rights trainings, specifically informing constituents, including legal citizens who are being harassed by ICE, that you do not need to open the door if ICE knocks on your door. You can ask them to leave, you can stay silent, you don't need to share personal information, you have the right to speak with an attorney, and you do not need to sign anything or hand over any documents. So there's been, you know, like webinars and trainings informing people of their rights, and this has really upset Border Czar Tom Homan, who last week went on Fox News to accuse AOC of impedement, which is not a real word, and

he announced that he has directed or has asked the DOJ and the Deputy Attorney General to investigate AOC for interfering with ICE actions by simply educating people about their rights. I have a clip here I'm going to play in the podcast with Homan on Sean Hannity. When does it cross a line into aiding and abetting law breaking? Would it have to have direct involvement by her in helping people to evade ICE? That's exactly the question I posed to the Deputy Attorney General. I asked him to look into it.

I said, I know through my career someone steps in front of you and the person you arrest and they're repeating, yeah, that's a violation. But at what point do you cross the line on saying you're educating people versus you're teaching them how to evade ICE arrests? So I've asked that question to the Department of Justice for clear guidance, so I can share that with the officers of ICE. So we're looking for that clear direction so we can start taking action on people who want to evade, who want to help educate these people to evade ICE. So hopefully any day now we get that guidance sent out to the field. Let's turn this over to discussion. James, I'm sure you have some thoughts on this. Yeah, this is like kind of foundational to the constitution, right? It's the access to an attorney,

the right to an attorney. And it's again, something that like, even under Biden, the DHS have been taking a swing at. Specifically, we've done an episode last year about transferring been taking a swing at. Specifically, we've done an episode last year about transferring detained people in ICE custody away from their attorneys. In most cases, it was people from California, specifically San Diego County, because San Diego County had a program that funded some attorney access and moving them to Texas. So you're either going to bleed that program dry, flying attorneys to Texas or have them do it over a phone call. But a lot of these people who are detained because they come from dictatorial countries

don't feel like phone calls are secure. And so they're not really gonna feel comfortable talking to their attorney on a phone call. We've done a whole episode about that. You can go back and listen to it. And like, this is very basic Fourth Amendment stuff. And this applies to you, whether or not you are a citizen, this applies to you if you are in this country.

Yeah, you have these rights. And it is within ISIS and Tom Homan's interests to make people not realize that they actually do have rights, regardless of their immigration status. Yeah, absolutely. Like, they're not going to tell you necessarily what rights you have. No. They're not going to tell you they don't have the right to enter your house. Police want to enter your home. And if you open the door, they will.

But you do not need to open the door. And this is very basic stuff of informing people. Really getting on Tom Homan's nerve. He's been on news five times the past week to specifically complain about AOC. He really wants her to get arrested for this thing that's not a crime. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what they're going for throughout, right? But like, I know for instance, in California, lots of universities have these

like Know Your Rights cards accessible that you can have them in your lectures and give them out to students so they can take them regardless of citizenship status. Right. Uh, which is generally the way to approach this, right? With a, with an agnostic approach to citizenship. Correct. You don't certainly want to be holding a, if you're undocumented, come to this thing at this time and we'll give you a know your rights session.

Like, like that's not, that is not a smart way to approach this. But yeah, like immigration, agnostic, know your rights trainings. They're kind of foundational to like constitutional rights. That they're pretty much front and center of things you're allowed. Do you know what else is front and center? Advertisements. That's right. It's in there.

Article 22. Do you know what else is front and center? Advertisements. That's right. It's in there. Article 22. It's like they can't put the soldiers in your bedroom unless they're sponsored by... I mean, look, depending on the soldier. Have you ever looked into the night sky and wondered who or what was flying around up there? We've seen planes, helicopters, hot air balloons, and birds. But what if there's something else, something much more ominous, that appears under the

cover of night, silent, unseen, watching? They may be right above your car late one night as you cruise down the road or look like mysterious lights hovering above your home. Drones, or are they? We used to work drone because it was comfortable to other people. One minute it was there, one minute it wasn't.

Oh, that is beyond creepy. Do you feel like this drone was targeting you specifically? Yes, absolutely. Listen to Obscurum, Invasion of the Drones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The more better the merrier, title of your podcast.

All your old Brooklyn Nine-Nine friends are appearing on your favorite podcast, More Better. Don't miss Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars and show hosts Stephanie Beatriz and Melissa Fumero as they welcome their friends and former castmates back to laugh about old times and swap some stories. This week, it's Gina Linetti herself, the talented Chelsea Peretti. Remember when we were in that scene where you guys were just supposed to hug and I was standing there? So I was like, can I also hug them?

Then next week, the 9-9 nonsense continues as the more better amigas sit down with Joe Lattrullio, aka Detective Charles Boyle. There'll be more laughs, more conversation, more stories from the set, and more, more better. Don't miss a minute. You felt safe enough to fill out a bad idea, right? I mean, that is the key, because you're definitely not throwing out good ideas all the time.

I mean, that's just not how it works. Listen to More Better with Stephanie and Melissa on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Lari Santos, and to welcome the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Lari Santos, and to welcome the new year, my podcast, The Happiness Lab, is releasing a series of happiness how-to guides to help you in 2025.

I'll distill the wisdom of world-class experts into easy to digest actionable tips. It's about never feeling good enough. I feel like I'm always failing. You'll learn how to handle relationships, how to be inspiring, and how to find your purpose. We make it this big pie in the sky thing, and then of course we're all frustrated

because no one knows how to get there. Struggling with tough emotions, we have a how-to guide. Worried that you're not enough? We got you. Self-obsessed and want to get over yourself? There's a guide for that too. The ability to approach somebody and make them experience desire for you in minutes or even hours is a rare and rather unnecessary skill, historically speaking.

The Happiest Labs How-To Season starts January 1st. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jon Stewart is back at The Daily Show and he's bringing his signature wit and insight straight to your ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition Podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports, and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondents and contributors. And with extended interviews and exclusive weekly headline roundups,

this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are back. Mia, it's time for Tariff Talk. Yeah, time for Tariff Talk. Tariff Talk! Dan, I'll insert a little musical jingle here for Tariff Talk. Dan, I'll have not been an editor on this podcast for years, but sure.

Tariff Talk, Tariff Talk, talk about Tariff. Tariff Talk with Mia Wong. There we go. I thought Garrison said turf talk in a Canadian way. No, it's like a- Very different podcast. No. Much more cursing. Why not? Mia, Mia, terephtalk.

Okay, okay, I got a through line, which is that Trump is announcing that he's going to maybe sign an executive order to put into effect more terrorists. One of those is pharmaceuticals, which would actually, would actually, like, possibly impact transgender health care. So there's my tie-in. Okay.

But the main thing is auto imports, like computer chips and pharmaceuticals are supposed to get, we think in April, like a 25% tariff. It's again, unclear whether these will go into effect. Right. But I think it's worth noting this because and this is something I haven't seen anyone put together for reasons that are absolutely baffling to me, but I actually think that a big part of the pharmaceutical like tariff threat here is specifically to threaten Denmark into selling Greenland because one of Denmark's largest companies is Novo Nordisk who would get absolutely colossally fucked by this.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so we sort of have to look at all of these in the context of like what kinds of negotiations are going on. The chips one is pretty obviously like a China Taiwan one, although the cars, the auto import one I think is pretty specifically, it's all auto imports. I think it's pretty specifically targeted at Mexico because there's a whole bunch of US auto like like full car imports from Mexico, but Yeah, 25% tariffs. We'll see exactly what happens with this round of negotiations

But who knows they might go into effect. This might also be part of the push to the US to seize Greenland This is also less of a Trump thing, but I think it's worth noting the sort of seriousness that both the kind of the people around Trump and also like the media in Canada is taking like a potential US attempt to just like seize Canada. Like, they might really do that. Oddly enough, this push from Trump

might actually help catalyze the anti-conservative movement in Canada, which has kind of been trending conservatives the past 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. And Trump's actions have really upset the country, even the conservative factions. Yeah. You are seeing support for the liberals as well, which has been like in like rapid decline for the past five years. So it's actually causing a pretty big shakeup in Canadian politics right now, which I'm sure I'll do an episode on in the future. There's even I don't know if it'll it's going things are going to change enough

to have a big influence. They probably won't on the next German election, but AFD saw its first drop in support in a while after J.D. Vance endorsed them. So funny. Yeah. Still doesn't have any juice. Quick, send him to the UK. We could kill reform now.

Send him to the UK. God, I would love to see that. I wish. To get back on the war on woke front, I'd like to talk about attempts to purge DEI, gone wrong. Specifically in OSHA, who has now trashed workplace safety guidelines by banning and removing like 18 workplace like training and safety publications per

popular info. Now some of these documents have been removed for just containing the word like gender. Oh wow. Like in one case about how patients might need different treatments based on their gender or age. This list of banned documents also includes a document from 2009 that instructs employers on how to quote unquote, protect their EMS responders from becoming additional victims while on the front line of medical response.

The alleged reason for removal is because the document contains a sentence about how EMT workers work under quote unquote diverse conditions and that EMT agencies have a quote diversity of state specific certification training and regulatory requirements unquote. There was also a special education program dedicated to helping young adult special ed kids transition into the workforce that got cut and the suspicion is because it was a child program that included the word transition. Like we're not going to know for a while the precise reason, but all of this lines up pretty well. Well, I mean, I'm sure it would also be removing programs with the word disability, frankly.

Like, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, and they're doing that elsewhere too. I just, yeah. And this is affecting a huge number of agencies, right? Like we could do and we probably will do full episodes on this I've been collecting a whole bunch of resources in a document called the war on woke which eventually I will turn into an episode This is manifested in other ways as well There's now disclaimers on the target HIV and the CDC website which now reads the CDC's website

it's being modified to comply with President Trump's executive orders. And specifically on pages related to sexual health, there is a big, like, a top banner reading, quote, per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 1159 PM, February 14, 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female. The Trump administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children

by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, wellbeing, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality, and therefore the administration and this department rejects it." Unquote. So even though they've been ordered to have these web pages is still online They are basically defacing the web pages with these with these notes from the Trump team Yeah That also by the way and the extent to which this matters is basically zero because they don't give a shit what the courts say But like that's also a violation of the court order pretty much

They did not put up the website as it was at the time when it was specified for. They have put new bullshit into it. Like, ugh. But speaking of violating court orders, the Trump administration told a judge in a Tuesday court filing that it will not comply with the TRO directing USAID and the State Department to resume foreign aid funding, stating that, quote, USAID intends to terminate instruments that the administrator determines are inconsistent with the national interests or USAID's mission. And it tries to argue that this is like in line with USAID's lawful ability to operate. So they are just

like blatantly defying a judge's order, as we've talked about how they seem to be wanting to and continuing to do for the past four weeks. More on that in the weeks to come as this situation escalates through different appeals courts and will eventually probably reach some kind of final showdown with the Supreme Court. Now, long time social security official Michelle King has quit the agency amid fights to prevent Doge from accessing sensitive information. The Washington Post quoted Martin O'Malley, the Social Security Commissioner under the Biden administration, and a former Maryland governor, as saying, quote, at this rate, they will break it, and they will break it fast, and there will be an interruption of benefits, unquote.

Social Security is just one of the agencies that Doge is either gutting or has already gutted. And it's leading to kind of a mass resignation, not only of like, you know, probationary employees and like deferred resignation, like letter employees, right? Everyone who's receiving that fork in the road email, but also just like top ranking like officials who've been doing this their whole lives, who are quitting because now it's impossible for them to like do their job with Musk's Doge basically running all of these departments and determining who can be hired, who should be fired. In late January, David Lybrick, the highest ranking civil servant at the Treasury Department, was put on leave and then quit

his job after trying to stop Doge from accessing data at the Bureau of Fiscal Service. The head of the FDA's Food Division, Jim Jones, resigned last Monday citing Doge as inhibiting his ability to run the department. And at least four deadly plane crashes have happened this past month. Actually five now, considering one this morning. And then there's also that whole upside down Delta flight from Minneapolis to Toronto. And this is all happening, admits the Trump admin's mass firing of several hundred probationary employees at the FAA, an already understaffed agency. And this past Monday, a team from SpaceX arrived

at the air traffic control headquarters in Virginia to begin the process of overhauling the control system. Great. Cool. Luckily, SpaceX has had no notable incidents, and so I'm sure that will be fine. No, they didn't just hide a rocket going off. There's good news. There is good news on this front, which is that President Trump is very very mad that his new Boeing plane is like his personal plane for like I think is like another Air Force One or something isn't coming fast enough.

So he's now encouraging them to like do a rush job on it and like let people in and don't have the right security clearances so so this whole thing Critical support to Boeing Uncritical support to Boeing you motherfuckers you have one job that is to produce an airplane at your normal quality and standards Similar to that on February 13th an Air Force plane carrying Secretary of State Mark Rubio was forced to turn around en route from Washington to Munich. After the aircraft, a converted Boeing 757, experienced a mechanical issue 90 minutes

into the flight. So, they were forced to turn around. So, again, critical support to Boeing. I only wish them the best in securing more and more government contracts. Absolutely. You know, I think we, well actually we should probably call it as an episode before I make any more jokes about air travel. Which is increasingly scary.

I flew so much last year and I am less willing to now. I do not want to now. That said, it is worth noting, I think there's two things that are worth noting. One is most of what people are pointing out as like scary crashes are crashes that the same number happened to this point last year when it comes to like small aircraft.

Yeah. Those are much more dangerous than cars, like tiny personal aircraft, which is why I always enjoy it CES when they try to sell even less regulated flying cars. Oh yeah. But I also think from a political standpoint, no, we should actually absolutely every single plane crash,

even if it's a tiny plane crashing and not tied to the greater shit with the FAA, all of them should go on Trump's head. It's not about what's true, it's about what you can use to make political hay. And this is something that you can hurt Republicans with. Every time someone dies in a plane crash, lay it at their feet, right?

Like, what do you get from being honest? And it has been one of the more deadly months in aviation history. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Specifically for like American soil. They're definitely going to get people killed. But like, the way that you do that is not wait until, okay, this is finally the one that it's fair to attack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You make it you make every time this

gets in the news, you make it on their head, you know, it's certainly not helping right that like the FAA was already understaffed. Like as you as you said, people are already dying in plane crashes, taking stuff away from the FAA is not helping like like, no, can't isolate that from every crash that happens. And like, it's not just that, it's also like the continued hiring freeze. Largely, air traffic control operators have not been affected by the firings. Other support staff have, which are still just as crucial. But it's also preventing them from hiring more air traffic controllers,

which they need to because it's so understaffed, which actually does lead to an increase of these like small plane collisions. And this is like a similar pattern across all departments though. The USDA announced on Tuesday that over the weekend, they accidentally fired several agency employees who are working on the bird flu response as a result of the Trump Doge mass firings. And now USDA is trying to rehire them. Have we explained the provisional employee firing thing that they're doing for all of these on here yet? You should explain what a probational employee is.

Well, yeah, it's employees that have been hired for less than a year and have different protections than other career employees. And part of Doge's campaign to do massive, massive layoffs across all government sectors is by targeting, first of all, probationary employees because they're easiest to fire, and then move on to career employees. And this is just the first batch of mass layoffs because they're the easiest to do. They don't have union negotiations. They can't appeal the firing. So this is like the first step in a larger series of events that will lead to a severely reduced government workforce. And like the

situation with the USDA is very similar to the situation with the nuclear strategy employees who the government is struggling to rehire because they lost contact information with them after firing them. They fired the nuke police! They fired the guys whose job is to transport and make sure no one steals nuclear weapons. The one kind of cop we can all agree we need as long as we keep having those things. This is one of these things where it's like, I've been saying, not even really as a joke that millions of people are going to die from this, but like, if these people are not stopped, Oh, we'll have a broken arrow.

We are like two months into this, this is the second time they have tried to fire the nuke police, and they actually succeeded this time, right? Like, millions of people are going to die. And they lost their phone number? They can't even call them back They don't have the numbers of the security like these people must be stopped from doing this or we are going to see a Cataclysm that is going to make the fucking pandemic look like a fucking joke Like we're all going to look fondly back on like the year We spent in lockdown and the million who died as like the fucking like smoking remains of seven American cities. I have an episode on this that I'll put out at some point, but you're getting to a thing

that I've been worried about for a while, Mia, which is we are every day getting closer and closer to a nuclear January 6th. And what I mean by that is an incident in which a nuclear weapon gets, either gets utilized or gets out of the control of its proper handlers in a way that is dumb in the same way January 6th was. So I'm not talking about you have like an actual military conflict between Russia and the United States. I'm talking about something really fucking stupid. Like I'm talking about something incomprehensibly silly.

And yeah, millions of people will at least potentially die. Well, what another uplifting episode of It Could Happen Here. It Could Happen Here. Stop them now, they're weak right now. Before they do this. They can only get stronger. Yeah, well, until someone else gets a nuke,

then general pets are off. Like I said, well, until someone else gets a nuke, then it's all better off. Like I said, if you are someone who has been fired from the federal government, and you're transporting a nuke, I have a large backyard. And Cool Zone would love to become a nuclear power. Also, unrelated, we have a tip email, James, we're gonna talk about. For legal reasons, this is a joke.

We do not want any nukes. It is coolzontips at proton.me. You can contact us there. It is proton mail is encrypted. That only means that the mail is encrypted if you send from a proton email address to a proton email address. None of that means that you are necessarily 100% secure, but it's the best option that we have for right now. If you'd like to reach out to us, please feel free to do so. CoolZoneTips at proton.me. 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. What would you do if mysterious drones appeared over your hometown? I started asking questions. What do you remember happening on that night of December 16th? It actually rotated around our house, looking as if it was peering in each window of our

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Hey man, what are you into? I have the hookup. The hookup? The hookup for into? I have the hookup. The hookup? The hookup for what? I'm solving a mystery through sex and haven't made a private dick joke until now? Poppers? Why are there so many poppers?

All roads lead to... The hookup. You think it's causing people to turn aggro? I'm gonna rip your arms off and use them to... Yeah, that's a word for it. -♪ Listen to the hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. -♪

This is John Cameron Mitchell, and my new fiction podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter as Karen, a wellness influencer who launches a rehab for the recently canceled. In the future, we will all be canceled for 15 minutes. But don't worry, we'll take you from broke to woke or your money back. Cancellation Island's revolutionary rehab therapies like Bad Touch Football, Anti-Racism

Spin Class, and Mand mandatory Ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the cancel to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing. Kieran, where have you brought us? Cancellation Island, where a second chance might just be your last.

Listen to Cancellation Island on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.