It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #40

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

The gang discuss the election of Zohran Mamdani and California’s redistricting. Plus updates on immigration, tariffs, and air travel issues. Fundraiser: www.weallwegotsd.com/donate Sources: https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-287g-ice-trump-abbott/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71832522/moreno-gonzalez-v-noem-secretary-us-department-of-homeland-security/  https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71875910/1/tangipa-v-newsom/  https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/11/proposition-50-overnight-results/  https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115492361756063244 https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/11/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-strikes-deal-on-economic-and-trade-relations-with-china/ https://archive.vn/rR8Ix https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/522166327/202133199349305758/full https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/trump-tariffs-live-updates-trump-says-china-cant-have-nvidias-top-ai-chips-supreme-court-case-looms-162418765.html https://archive.vn/BFLOe https://archive.vn/uxkws#selection-799.0-808.0 https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5588695-abbott-tariffs-new-yorkers-texas-election/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/04/us/elections/nyc-mayor-results-precinct-map.html  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/05/zohran-mamdani-victory-speech-transcriptSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airlines. The most Texas story ever. Listen to Business History 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. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up.

Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio 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. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer. Chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians and bringing vital information about midlife women's health directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause. Even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it?

Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Am I introducing the podcast? Welcome to the podcast. 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 Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans. This episode, we're covering the week of October 31st to November 5th. One of the most exciting weeks in politics.

Yeah, because it's bonfire night. If you remember the poem, that's right. And that's not the only exciting thing to happen, but also not the only sad thing to happen this week. Because as exciting as Election Day was for people in New York, there was like a looming sadness throughout the day because earlier that morning, obviously, Vice President Dick Cheney passed away.

And that was rough, rough for many people. Not rough for many others. But that certainly was a looming. a looming presence over the day. Does anyone have any words to say on the passing of Mr. Cheney? Yeah, I mean, I just want to let everyone in hell know, this two shall pass. You know, you won't be stuck with him forever. Just try to grin and bear it. I know it's going to be hard for a lot of you, especially Saddam Hussein. But I know you can get past this, you know. He will get reincarnated as a Senate Republican staffer within the next six to eight months.

So you won't have to put up with him long. I guess this is also just your reminder that it's good idea to practice the four essential rules of firearm safety at all times. Don't shoot with Dick Cheney? If you see Dick Cheney while you're hunting quail, run. Do the kids even know about this now? Oh, the kids know. The kids know. Yeah.

Okay, okay. I'm glad, I'm glad. This is deep in the law, Mia. Cheney lore has permeated throughout generations of American culture. When I was a kid, there was like a whole thing where we all thought the song Jamie's got a gun was Cheney's got a gun? Wow. Because it's in perfect sense. Because it just lined up with everything you knew about the world.

What's funny about it is that my actual thinking on that shooting hasn't changed since I was a Republican kid. Like when I was a young right winger, I thought, wow, Dick Cheney's so cool. shot a man and got him and now as an adult on the left i still think that's kind of the coolest thing dick cheney ever did it's it is a it is a hell of a feat that man apologized for getting in front of his sights that's amazing now it is it is unfortunate that dick cheney did not live to see the election of Zoramam Dhani as the mayor of New York City, which happened... That would have been funny. On Tuesday, later that day, Zoran has become the first candidate in New York mayoral history

to win over a million votes since 1969. Nice. This election itself saw over 2 million votes. This is a million more votes than the last in New York mayoral election. Huge turnout. Currently, as of Wednesday afternoon, Zoran has 50.4% of the vote. Former governor and sexual assault enthusiast

Andrew Cuomo running as an independent has 41.6% and the bray wearing Curtis Silwa has 7.1. Not a spoiler candidate in many ways, nor would it be correct to say that all of Silwa's votes would have gone to one candidate. or another, but even if you do add all of his votes on to

disgraced former governor, Andrew Cuomo's total Zoron still comes out on top. Which was something that there was legitimately a lot of question about as to like whether or not Will Silwa staying in matter, right? And it's a really good sign that it didn't. It did not. Sliwa, so whatever. No one really knows how to pronounce the name,

including in the city. You hear it different pronunciation. were different people at different times. Sometimes it's slilwa, sometimes it's silwa, all I know is he got stabbed on the subway, right? Oh, and shot five times in the back of a cab. He shot five times in the back.

That's right. How did they fail to fucking kill him? Jesus Christ. It's harder to kill people by shooting them with a handgun than you might think. Yeah, apparently. Handgun ballistics are just different. Yes, and he does have 17 cats.

He ran on Republican. That's my favorite factor. Protect Animals Party. You can have some criticism for past ills that he has contributed to, but he is certainly mixed up for that in some way for being a fascinating character. He's a very New York kind of figure. And he was the only mayoral candidate to call and congratulate Zoran Mamdani last night. Both Cuomo and Mayor Adams did not call, Mom Donnie, but Curtis did.

which is kind of beautiful. It's kind of beautiful. He's a classy. Man, you don't get to wear a red beret like that unless you have some manners. The British Parachute Regiment would beg to disagree

about having manners and wearing red hats. Nope. My head canon now is that he is the British Paratrooper Regiment. Yeah, they just drop him in with 17 cats and he and he starts milling immediately.

Yeah, he saves that fucking mall in Nairobi or wherever it was. Tell you what, the Argentines wouldn't have fucked with the Falklands of Curtis. have been there. Now with all those cats. That's where he's going now

that he's been banished in New York. That's all islands and I was like, piss, guys. That's probably shouldn't take this. It's just an island of cat litter. Yeah, Staten Island. Which? You're a real New Yorker now, Gary. You shed on Staten Island.

Which is the only borough that went for Cuomo, where he was up 33 points. That was very funny. Momdani won every other beer. up 20 in Brooklyn, up 10 in Manhattan, of five in Queens, and 11 in the Bronx. From what this should tell everyone everywhere in the country about what is possible in politics,

even in times as dark as this, is that he was, what, 8% a year ago? 6% I believe. 6% in January. 6% in January. And he won, he didn't just eke it out because there were a shitload of guys. This isn't like an Arnold thing

where everybody's on the fucking ballot and it's like a crazy cartoon election. he legitimately came from nowhere and won. The most votes for a mayoral candidate in almost 50 years. Yeah. Nearly reaching the vote totals in this election for like a presidential election. Yeah. It's very impressive for like a mid-cycle, an off-cycle election turnout wise.

Yep. Specifically, he won a whole bunch of votes that he did not gain in the primary among some like black and Latino voters. You can see that in the turnout at like the Bronx. And these people aren't overwhelmingly, at least at this stage, folks who have been convinced of every aspect of ideology that Zoran has ever put out there. People who looked at who was available and were like, this guy seems like he genuinely wants to do something. Yeah, totally. The specific policies, they're not paying attention to the fact that he quoted Eugene V. Debs. They're listening to his policies on like creating municipal grocery stores and stuff, right?

It's about affordability, not ideology. And Zoron's strict focus on affordability, not running a campaign that, like, falls back on fear, not running a campaign about foreign policy when you're in fucking New York City. A strict focus on affordability was the key to winning this campaign. A strict focus on affordability while not pretending not to have the ideology, which is also really noteworthy, right? Where he's still, he's still, he isn't, he's not like talking around it, right? No, he's not apologizing or hiding the fact that he's a Democratic socialist. Yeah.

And this produced some super interesting results. If you refer back to the last election in 2024 and in everyone bemoaning, like, how come young men are so politically lost? Why are they all going so far to their right? 68% of men age 18 to 29 goes to mom, Donnie. 66% of men 30 to 40, 45% of men 45 to 65. Among women, 18 to 29 years old, 84% Mom Dhani. Fucking Saddam numbers, hilarious. This is like Bath Party election numbers like women.

Actually, Saddam Hussein Al-Tucreity did, in fact, vote, but he broke hard for Cuomo. Honestly, at the end, it was the sex crimes that did it for Saddam. Kempel them, yeah. Houda did vote. For Sliwa, though, that was kind of weird. I'm going to be honest with you. We're all trying to parse that one out. It's a cat thing.

Yeah. Like I said, like not hiding his political inspirations in any way, quoted Eugene Debs 10 seconds into his victory speech. Immediately, you understand, like, oh, this guy's, like, play it. He knows what's up. Eugene V. Debs, the socialist who ran for president from prison. Yeah. Yes.

Yes. To know who Eugene V. Debs is, like, arguably the most radical national candidate who has ever existed in this country. Yeah. And his speech was extremely poetic. It got a very strong positive reaction from the people who I watched this with in Bushwick, which was the district that was the most pro-Mumptani out of the entire electoral method of city. But he started by talking about how power has been kept out of the hands of working people, the hands that keep the city going by lifting boxes, by gripping the handlebars of

delivery of bikes and collecting burn scars from cooking food. Quote, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands, unquote. The whole speech was kind of a rife with little, like, metaphors and allegories like that. It was, it was very cute. He went on to discuss how the campaign toppled a political dynasty and gave one of the most, like, fine-tuned

dizzes I've ever seen quote I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life which is a

phenomenal quote but I hope I never have to say his name again or something like that but let tonight be the last time I utter his name

only the best in private life is astounding yeah I mean basically this is like he's not the originator of this particular kind of

dish it goes back a while but the gist It's like, everyone's mom. Don't be a family man. Get out. Go away. Repeatedly, MomDani has used the word mandate to describe this election and the results. Quote, New York has delivered a mandate for change, a mandate for a new kind of politics,

a mandate for a city we can afford, a mandate for a government that delivers exactly that. I'm going to play a short clip here. Thank you to the next generation of New Yorkers. who refused to accept that the promise of a better future was a relic of the past. You showed that when politics speaks to you without condescension, we can usher in a new era of leadership. We will fight for you because we are you.

Or as we say, on Steinway, anaminkum, wailakum. the uh the arabic there wild wild that we've moved this far in new york that's incredible wins you an election like that didn't win him the election but like they really tried the 9-11 shit rudy juliani posted today a crude photoshop of his own face in the fires of the twin of the burning twin towers yeah we we forgot written across it and that did none of that shit did anything yeah yeah The last month of the campaign against Mamdani, whether that's from people like Bill Ackley,

Bloomberg, or Cuomo's actual team, has used what people have been calling the 9-11 card incessantly, playing clips of 9-11 with like Zoron, like emblazoned like over, over-top, playing clips from Hassan talking about 9-11. But the Islamophobia that the Cuomo campaign has resorted to as a last-ditch effort to stop Mamdani has been despicable.

and the fact that this did not scare Mamdani into, like, hiding or, like, restricting that part of himself is incredibly admirable. Yeah, but they wasn't just 9-11, right? Like you said, it was the broad Islam. Like, they deployed, as they always do. Like, every urban area in Britain is now, like, the caliphate, like, this bullshit that exists only in the American conservative mind. And it failed, which is good. Specifically for the, for a lot of the speech, it was about juxtaposing, like, how we used to have good, things in the past. We have this idea that like good things now are always out of reach and juxtaposing this like idea of like hope or or like past exceptionalism that we just don't feel like we have access to anymore and showing that if you actually involve young people, we can actually do do good things in our city now. And I really liked the line about like

politics that speaks to you without condescension and how much this campaign was like ran by and four, you know, young candidates and young voters. Soren went on to thank the people who have been forgotten by the politics of our city and how they've supported his campaign. Quote, Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas, Zengalese taxi drivers, and Uzbek nurses, Trinidadian line cooks, and Ethiopian aunties, unquote. And he went on to mention the kind of people that this campaign is about.

And towards the end of that section, he talked about the hunger strike that he participated in, four years ago in order to win debt relief for cab drivers. And it's about people like Richard. The taxi driver I went on a 15-day hunger strike with outside of City Hall.

Who still has to drive his cab seven days a week. My brother, we are in City Hall now. That is the energy of of, like, the campaign and the city right now. Like, that, that sort of framing.

And that's the energy that people are, like, carrying through. I saw among the right-wing fever response responses to this, Mike Cernovich taking a clip from the election night party where one of the people who was attending Zoran's party made a comment about how, like, white people need to get on board with the idea that, like, our culture is multiculturalism in this country, right? Like, it's not anything else.

Like, that's, like, what has made, America. And Mike did not react well to that. I can't imagine. The Declaration of War. Sennovich Mad. Yeah. But no, like, especially in New York, out of like anywhere in the country, like especially New York. Like, the culture is made through the mix of immigrants that have built the city. And this is something that Zoran discussed throughout the speech. Zoran went on to thank the 100,000 campaign volunteers and specifically how their efforts, quote, eroded the cynicism that has come to define our politics.

I like that line. And then he asked New Yorkers to breathe this moment in. Quote, we have held our breath for longer than we know. We have held it in anticipation of defeat. Held it because the air has been knocked out of our lungs too many times to count. Held it because we cannot afford to exhale. Thanks to all of those who have sacrificed so much, we are breathing in the air of a city that has been reborn.

There are many who thought this day would never come, who feared we would be condemned. only to a future of less, with every election consigning us to simply more of the same. And there are others who see politics today as too cruel for the flame of hope to still burn. New York, we have answered those fears, unquote. And while we cast our ballots alone, we chose hope together. Hope over tyranny. Hope over big money and small ideas.

Hope over despair. We won because New Yorkers allowed themselves to hope that the impossible could be made possible. And we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now it is something that we do. Standing before you, I think of the words of Jawal al-Neru. A moment comes but rarely in history when we step out from the old to the new. When an age ends and when the soul of the nation long suppressed finds utterance. Tonight we have stepped out from the old into the new.

The line about politics not being something that's done to you. Yeah, that really outlines how politics has felt in this country for basically as long as I can remember. He then outlined what his central agenda to tackle the cost of living crisis is, including freezing the rent for more than 2 million rights-temporized tenants, making buses fast and free and free and delivering universal child care across the city, saying, quote, this will be an age where New Yorkers expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve rather than a list of excuses for, what we are too timid to attempt, unquote. Let's go on a quick break, and we will come back to talk a little bit more about the election. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. and some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business.

Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show.

We're going to have plenty of robber barons. so many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 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 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. 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. know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six 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 it. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured 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. 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.

Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. On this show, I'll be talking to top researchers and top clinicians, asking them your burning questions and bringing that information about women's health and midlife directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause. It can be such a struggle for our quality of life, but even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it? The types of symptoms that people talk about is forgetting everything.

I never used to forget things. They're concerned that, one, they have dementia, and the other one is, do I have ADHD? There is unprecedented promise with regard to cannabis and cannabinoids. To sleep better, to have less pain, to have better mood, and also to have better day-to-day life. Listen to Decoding Women's Health with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening now. All right, we're back. During the second half of this speech, Zoran turned to address Donald Trump, right? This looming thing across politics nationwide, but specifically New York, as Trump has

threatened to start to fuck with New York, even more if Zoran is elected. And people in New York know this. And about halfway through Zoran addressed Trump directly, which we will get to in a sec. But before he directly talked to Trump in this speech, Zoron, laid out what types of people the city government will be focusing on protecting from Trump's division and hate. In this new age we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another.

In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light. here we believe in standing up for those we love whether you are an immigrant a member of the trans community one of the many black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down or anyone else with their back

against the wall. Your struggle is ours, too. Specifically, I like this idea of, in the dark and political moment this United States is in, New York and the Zoran administration, and how that reflects New York in general, though, will be a beacon for the rest of the country. And naming, like, the trans community is, like, the second group mentioned there was heavily appreciated in the Bushwick trans watch party that I was at. Zoran went on to say that, quote, no more will New York be a city where you can traffic

in Islamophobia and win an election. This new age will be defined by a competence and a compassion that have too long been placed in odds with one another. We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent

to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them. As has often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour. They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long broken system.

Together, we will usher in a generation of change, and if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. I think this whole section is something very important, and this has been something that's been very consistent about Montani's entire campaign, which is there's been on the left for a very, very long time, a just interminable, intractable conflict between this idea of like purely focusing on class politics or talking about race, and, but I think what Mondami is doing here has been very effective, right, is you can just do both. And in fact, as the left over the last, you know, sort of since it's kind of, the re-emergence of

this kind of left in like 2015, 2016. As it's gone on, it's gotten less white, it's gotten more diverse, it's gotten more multicultural, and it's been able to fuse these two things together, and it's been able to fuse that with just, you know, like, being very, very openly pro-trans. And, like, there was, you know, there was also a pretty big response

that I saw from people talking about the fact that he specifically mentioned that it was black women who were being fired by the Trump administration, right? And you can just do all these things together and it works and it's worked the whole time and refusing to pit these things against each other like refusing to pit affordability against trans rights refusing to pit yes you know like fusing to pit the politics of like defending and this is something that like fucking Bernie is terrible at right where like Bernie like has been like has a whole rant about how Trump has been right

on like we have to reduce immigration right and you don't have to do that you can be pro immigrant you can be pro trans you can be pro black women you can be you know and and you can can also want everything to cost less. And you can be in favor of the fact that the U.S. is a multicultural society and can only function as one. And it's a winning form of politics. And I'm glad we're finally getting there.

Yeah. And it will be great if this New York City as a beacon can actually shine and not get stifled out in these next four years. Because Zoran is, unless things happen, Zoran will be the mayor

for the remainder of the Trump term, right? Like this is, he will be mayor after second Trump administration is over, barring any unfortunate incidents. So Ron, make sure your private security is really good and loyal and reliable. Well, you have a NYPD detail. Get your own guys. Yeah, it's by it'll be fun. But it also, it means like, like from, I guess a national perspective, it is likely that

Mamdani will become like the enemy number one of the Trump administration way they're probably Newsom or Prishkarah now, right? Like it's, it is easier because of the obvious bigotry that underlies a lot of the Republican Party to go after a brown dude. Yes. And that is what they are going to do and they're going to use. A brown Democratic socialist. Yeah, who stands up for trans people and migrants. Yeah, absolutely.

You saw how acceptable Islamophobia is in Cuomo's campaign, right? Like, he'd just go on to every mainstream network and say shit that it's fucking disgusting. Yeah. And so we should prepare ourselves for four more years of that, I guess. And I think he does a very good job of repudiating that. And obviously, the electorate in New York did too. But that is going to beat what we are going to see as a result of this.

Well, no. And like, so much of the resistance to Zoran came from this idea that if he wins, that means that This is going to be what people point to as a future for politics, specifically democratic politics. And a lot of people wanted to stop him because they knew that's going to happen. If he is in control of the biggest city in the country as the Democratic mayor, that's going to be influential for what Democratic politics will be after they got completely clobbered last year. And he's showing that a different type of politics is possible, even within the Democratic Party. And that's true, like altering what the party is fundamentally. Yeah. And I think it's, it is a cool little side note that Zoran voted for himself on the Working Families Party line. And in fact, not the Democratic Party line because of how the New York mayoral ballots work. I'm going to play one more clip from the speech of Zoron specifically addressing Trump. It's going to be a teeny bit longer. And I think we'll cut, we'll shorten some of the applause bits because some of the applause sections go on for quite long.

But this will be the last clip. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power. This is not only how we stop Trump, it's how we stop the next one. So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you. Turn the volume up. We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants.

We will put an end to the culture of corruption that has allowed billionaires like Trump to evaluate, taxation and exploit tax breaks. We will stand alongside unions and expand labor protections because we know, just as Donald Trump does, that when working people have ironclad rights, the bosses who seek to extort them become very small indeed. New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant. So hear me, President Trump, when I say this, to get to any of us, you will have to get through

all of us. The shit rocks. It's good. It's good. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool for a mayor-elects to say that. It didn't manage to get in the New York is the Ankara of America, which. I was hoping for, but otherwise great.

That's Eric Adams' bit. Yeah, yeah. Sad day for Turkey today, I guess. On an actual important note, I think it is really important that, you know, all of this energy against Trump, right? And against all the shit that he's doing that's so hideously unpopular, it's starting to be channeled into politics that can actually defeat him. Yeah.

And that are actually good. You know, and that he's like talking about specifically the fact that you have to destroy the conditions that created him so they don't create the next one. Like, this fucking rocks. This is good. yeah like it for so long like for i mean most of the 2016 to 2020 period and and for a lot of this year we've seen so many people turn the obvious disgust that people have of what trump is doing into grifts into supporting a politics which fundamentally allowed for the

conditions we are in now right and to see someone repudiate that and to see more than a million people turn out to support that yeah it is fantastic like it's genuinely hopeful it's something like Zoran has like acknowledged, it's like this is not like the end, right? This is a means, not the means either. Like this is this is a means to an end. And this whole campaign started as he's referred to it as a quote unquote

electoral project by the New York City DSA. Like this was largely an experiment and an experiment that grew wildly wildly kind of out of what I assume they kind of saw it as in the earlier, in the earlier days.

And now they're in this like moment and they have to keep rolling with it. But it is an experiment for a version of doing this. And he knows this is not like the only method or tactic to be utilized. But as an experiment, I think

it's so far pretty well done. Now, Zorn closed his speech by calling to chart a new path as bold as the campaign has already been, saying that conventional wisdom would claim that he is far from the perfect candidate. Quote, I'm young, despite my best

efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a Democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this. And yet, if tonight teaches us anything, it is that convention has held us back. We have bowed at the altar of caution. We have paid a mighty price. Too many working people cannot recognize themselves in our party, and too many among us have turned to the right for answers to why they've been left behind. We will leave mediocrity in our past, no longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great. Our greatness will be anything but abstract, unquote. And he concludes by saying that the greatness will be felt by rent-stabilized tenants who will wake up knowing

their rent hasn't soared, by grandparents who can afford to stay in their home and whose grandchildren live nearby because the cost of child care is not driving them out of the city. and by the single mothers who don't need to rush their kids to school because they can commute to work on a fast bus. Quote, most of all, it will be felt by each New Yorker when the city they love finally loves them back,

unquote. The stuff about, like, worshipping at the altar of caution for, like, the past, like, 20, more than 20, but especially the past, like, 20 years of, like, Democrat politics. And how he is also recognizing that, like, this is,

this could mark a fundamental shift in what the Democratic Party actually is because the people, Democrats included, who've been trying to stop this, have failed miserably so far, putting tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to try to crush this version of what

the future of New York Democrat politics is. And more people since 1969 showed up to deny that future. That's all I have for Zoran right now. It's literally less than 24 hours after the election.

But this was not just a New York City mayoral election. There were other races, including other things in New York. There was a Prop 1 amendment to the state constitution to retroactively authorize the winter sports facilities

on Mount Vennhovenberg, which is protected forest land, and would require the state at 2,500 acres of newly protected land elsewhere in the Adironic. That's how I'm saying it. Adirondack mountains.

There's another team. Yeah, I had a run deck. Which was passed, and this allows them to continue to build and maintain the winter sports facility. Propositions 2 through 6 were New York City Charter amendments. The 2 to 4 were housing reform proposals to fast track the approval process for affordable housing and simplify zoning reviews and establish an affordable housing appeals board. All of these passed, these will limit the ability of the city council to control and slow down housing development and empowered the mayor specifically

to build more affordable units faster in Prop 5, which also passed, creates a new digital map of the city. The only prop to fail, which was number 6, was to move local elections to be in line with presidential elections on that four-year basis. Basically, the ballot that Zoran filled out

himself was the one that passed for all of these proposals. Yeah, they call it a coattails effect in political science, right? Like the idea that the people who come up. his ballot that morning. He specifically did not. He didn't even announce it. Like a journalist asked him what he was voting on. He specifically did not advocate for any of these or try to dissuade anyone from any of these before the election. Yeah, for sure. But you get a generally aligned politically electorate, right, a relatively progressive in American terms, the electorate coming out to vote for him who will look at these things and say, that seems to make sense with the way I see the world. Absolutely. Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the governor of Virginia, flipping blue. Jay Jones, a Democrat candidate for Virginia E.G., also beat the Republican incumbent.

This was after a month of attacks for a series of text messages from 2022, where Jay Jones said that if certain Republican delegates died, he would, quote, go to their funerals to piss on their graves, unquote, and wish for the hypothetical deaths of a Virginia House Speaker. Todd Gilbert's children. Quote, only would people feel pain personally. Do they move on policy?

I mean, do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil and that they're breeding little fascists? Yes.

Unquote. That's also not wishing for hypothetical deaths. He did in a call with another Republican politician.

Then after the call they continued texting about it. So the proof is in these texts and he has admitted this. And basically he was like,

if these people's children were to get killed in a mass shooting. Maybe their opinions on guns would change. That's essentially what he's expressing there. And then he also, he also was, uh, uh, quoted in these leaked text text messages as saying, quote, three people, two bullets, Virginia host speaker, Todd Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head. Spoiler.

Put Gilbert in the crew with it. Sorry, I have to do. We think not just as an elected official, as an attorney general, someone going to be a cop that you put in the fucking text message. Spoiler, put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know, and he receives both bullets every time. It's insane. Obsec hero.

But that is the new attorney general. That's a new Democrat attorney general of Virginia. um who the right has been attacking for quite for relentlessly the past month because you really fucked up if you can't like no if you can't run attacks on that guy and you still lose all of those jokes about the white moms in the suburbs like wanting blood and like they're looking at this like oh hell yeah yeah give me forward bullets we'll put in this guy it's pretty crazy um it's it's It's pretty astonishing. Maine voted no, 63% on a voter restriction measure.

Voters extended the Democrat Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the California redistricting measure or proposition passed with 63.8%. James, do you have stuff on this? Yeah, so Prop 50 in California. California, it was like a one-issue ballot, right? You said the Prop 50. This would temporarily redistricting. I think people maybe have not been,

like often it gets missed and this is temporarily redistricting in California until re-establishing the non-partisan committee that does redistricting in 2031 for the 232 those districts will come back

or that they will return to a non-partisan districting in 2032 this is one of the most expensive propositions in state history 120 million was spent in favor 44 million against there was also outside money Newsom already called

New York in Illinois and other Democrat majority seats to do the same, right? It's going to likely remove about five Republican seats or those Republicans are going to struggle, right? One of them would be San Diego's Mountain Empire and East County seat, which is currently the 48th.

That seat has been redistricted a few times, right? It's moved around. It's currently Darrell Issa's seat. In response, California, Republicans have already filed a lawsuit. The suit was filed by Harmeet Dylan's law firm. Yay. Yeah.

Friend of the pod. Yeah. Dylan is in the Trump administration now. But yeah. Dylan is in the Trump administration and occasionally my inbox making threats. Fantastic. Great. It was Dylan's law firm that filed the case, right?

The case has claimed that California drew the new line. to quote, specifically favor Hispanic voters, which is a similar claim to the Louisiana versus Calais. I think it's Calais. The case, which is currently before the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court seems to be suggesting it might be amenable to this argument, right, that the consideration of race in redistricting is discriminatory. Yesterday, Trump truest, I'm quoting here. The unconstitutional redistricting vote in California is a giant scam that partisan block capitals, as is characteristic.

The rest is sporadically capitalized. I'm going back to the quote now. In the entire process, in particular, the voting itself is rigged. All, quote, mail-in ballots, where the Republicans in that state are shut out. It's under very serious legal and criminal review. Stay tuned. yeah, you know, fairly predictable. We talked about it last week. It's not entirely possible for me to pass out that second sentence. But I think we can see what direction is pushing in, right? This was predictable, but this was going to happen and we'll keep you updated on it. Also, predictable that we would have to pivot to ads again, which is what we're going to do now. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money.

And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever.

There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair.

Listen to business history on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. you get your podcast. 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 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. 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 over. unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know.

A story that law enforcement used to convict six 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 on her. They made me say that I poured 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. Michael Lewis here. My book The Big Short tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008.

It follows a few unlikely, but lucky people who saw the real estate market for the black hole it would become and eventually made billions of dollars from that perception. It was like feeding the monster, said Eisman. We fed the monster until it blew up. The monster was exploding. Yet on the streets of Manhattan, there was no sign anything important had just been. happen. Now, 15 years after the Big Short's original release, and a decade after it became an Academy

Award-winning movie, I've recorded an audiobook edition for the very first time. The Big Short Story, what it means when people start betting against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been, offering invaluable insight into the current economy and also today's politics. the big short now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. And we are back. A little bit of immigration news this week, as always. According to reporting, it's actually last week, but we didn't have time for it last week. According to reporting by CNN, Trump claimed he was, quote, very much opposed to his own administration's immigration raid on a Hyundai plan in Georgia.

which obviously this is what he's saying to try and get that foreign direct investment back in Georgia, right? Because it looks very much like Georgia is going to pay pretty heavily for that raid. Unfortunately, another man lost his life when fleeing ICE officers. Last week, he seems to have left a car that he was in and attempted to cross a freeway where he was fatally struck by another car. Yeah, that's the second time this has happened this year. Texas has signed an agreement with the federal government to allow local DPS officers to operate as ICE officers, or technically to operate under the authority of ICE officers, under the 287G program. So it's not the first law enforcement agency in Texas to do this. Lots of local agencies had, but the DPS is statewide, right?

So this would include officers of the Texas Highway Patrol. It has 5,000 employees. It will make Texas a markedly more hostile place. migrants. The authority allows warrantless detention under loosely limited, loosely phrased supervision by an ICE officer rights. It allows Texas cops to detain or question people who they suspect of being in the United States without documentation. Here in San Diego, San Diego's Border Patrol sector released a video with, I think it was like, I'll have to check what song it was, like some cringe kind of pop punk soundtrack of the diner.

dynamiting of land west of the Hocumba Wilderness. This is likely the construction that saw many environmental and cultural protections waived by DHS Secretary Nome earlier this year, right? And so we're seeing the beginning of what that looks like and what that looks like here. It's just a very unique landscape. I know some people who listen came out to Hocumbra a couple of years ago to help out. It is an extremely unique sort of high desert landscape and it's currently being dynamited. These are the areas where there were little gaps in the border wall

because construction there is very hard and the way that they're going ahead with the construction is blowing stuff up. Finally, on the immigration beat, a case regarding conditions in the Broadview Facility, which is in Chicago until earlier this year. It was only for very short stays, like not for 24-hour stays, has revealed some of the horrific conditions inside the facility. It confirmed something I've heard from multiple migrants

who have been detained or over the US, which is ISIS using the threat of longer stays in poor conditions to get people to sign deportation paperwork. Often it's literally in the overcrowded rooms where they're sleeping and staying, like at any point, you can just walk up to it and sign your name and you will presumably be removed from those conditions and placed into deportation flight as soon as possible. Reading directly from the lawsuit here, quote, people are forced to attempt to sleep for days or sometimes weeks on plastic chairs or on the filthy concrete floor. They are denied sufficient food and water. It cannot shower. They are denied

soap, hygiene items and menstrual products, and they have no way to clean themselves. They are often denied a change of clothes. Continuing my quote here, the temperatures are extreme and uncomfortable. Most nights are freezing cold, yet only some receive a thin foil blanket, sweater or sweatpants to try to retain warmth. The lights are typically on all night. People have also reported being denied water by agents, there being no running water in the places where they are held and variable food. We've reported on these conditions before. Some of this is standard, right? Lights on all night, freezing cold. You only get a very thin blanket. That has been the case. It was the case throughout the Biden administration, right? They call these places the icebox,

both in English and in Spanish. This has always been, the conditions of people have been held in in these facilities have always been inhumane. But some of this is particularly bad. People in Broadview reported being so crowded, they could not extend their legs. Jesus Christ. Yeah, so they had to sit like sort of fetal position. They couldn't sit down and extend their legs right,

let alone sleep. Disgustingly unclean conditions, they have lots of people have reported paperwork not being able in language that they read and write. Bathrooms there are not private, and the lawsuit alleges that people of other genders could see each other using the bathroom, which is pretty disgusting.

I've linked to the lawsuit. You can read it if you want to. Terra-Plock transition. Go! Ah, music to my ears. Oh, boy. Okay, a rough shift in tone. So we got a little bit more details on the sort of partial agreement that Trump and the Chinese government have sort of come to that has staved off some of the most disastrous of the new tradeware elements. Both sides seem to have gotten rid of the fees from ships, both docking at their ports and also on like the sort of complicated. shipbuilding stuff we talked about last year. The U.S. has paused the thing we talked about last

week, where they were using the foreign entity list to do anything that was like controlled, that was like 40% or more controlled by a thing on the foreign entity list couldn't be traded with. The U.S. is backing off on that for a year. China's agreed to buy more soybeans. There's also some discussion of China buying more energy products, but this is one of these things that we just, we have no idea what that is. It's possible by the time you're listening to this. There will be information. All we have is buy more energy. And the last thing that Trump said that didn't seem to be part of the negotiations between him and the Chinese government per se, but were definitely part of negotiations that have been going on between Trump

and his cabinet was that there's going to be restrictions on AI chip exports, although exactly what is not known. All Trump said was, quote, the most advanced. We will not let anybody have them, other than the United States. What this seems to be, and again, everyone is kind of mercily cobbling together whatever information they have. What it seems to be is Trump stopped Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI grade chips called Blackwell to China, which Nvidia has been massively lobbying for because they need to expand their market to continue the giant bubble that they've accumulated.

Trump has stopped them. It's unclear whether this is going to be made into formal politics. or if Trump is just going to personally intervene every time a CEO asked him to do this. But yeah, we also have, so today recording November 5th is the start of the Supreme Court case against the tariffs. I think it's worth noting that this court case against the tariffs, it's framed as like a lot of small businesses brought this lawsuit and they did. But also the reason it's gotten to the Supreme Court is because they're being backed by

a huge player in the conservative legal machine. almost the entire thing is being funded and paid for by the Liberty Justice Center which is it's a kind of libertarian right-wing legal thing backed by like the Walton family and the Koch network and this is I think one of the most direct and interesting actual oppositional moves we've seen from this wing of the libertarian business wing

of the party which is very very pissed off at the tariffs we've seen a whole bunch of amicus curie briefs from the American Android Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute and a whole bunch of other right-wing think tanks who are extremely angry about this. We don't know exactly how it's going to go but the initial arguments do not seem to be going well

for the Trump administration. So that'll be unfolding and we'll report on it more as we know more. This is literally we're recording issue the first day of trials. So and finally I'm going to close on a genuinely deeply baffling piece

of news which is that the day before the election in New York. Greg Abbott posted that there would be a 100% tariff on anyone moving to New York after the election? Yeah, how does that work? Isn't it moving to Texas from New York? Oh, I thought it was to New York. For me, it looked like moving to New York as well. I mean, it's certainly unclear because this doesn't not seem like a policy proposal. It seems more like a post. It seems like it's just a post. It's someone who's posting through it. Because this is... Moving from, moving from, from New York to Texas.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyone moving from New York to Texas? Interesting. I don't know. Tariffs are just posts now. That's not like a thing that there's law around you being able to do. No, it's so unconstitutional.

I think it's just a post. I don't think it is anything. Yeah, I mean, evidently it is a post. I think the interesting thing about it is, like, is the way in which tariffs have come to be seen in the Republican mind as, like, this is something you do to people you're mad at, which is a very new development in this is a this is a pure trump two phenomena effectively well absolutely yeah a marker of how intensely they're paying attention to this election like i mean abbott's said doing this because i'm sure it it'll show up sure up his local

popularity but it's a marker of like a change that has been going on that that has been really like supercharged in the trump era of no no you can't have local politics. Like, it's, it's all national politics and any kind of vote at a state or local level that goes against whatever the party wants is something to be punished, like, even if it's 2,000 miles away. And that isn't been as dominant in U.S. politics as it has been recently. We should probably talk a little bit about Texas's election night, because that was also pretty consequential. There were 17 ballot measures passed by the Texas legislature earlier this year by a two-thirds majority. And the way Texas law works is that once the legislature votes

for a ballot measure to two-thirds majority, it becomes a constitutional amendment after a simple majority of voters on a ballot support it. And there were 17 measures on the ballot in Texas, which is wild. Very few states add constitutional amendments that the rate Texas does. And all of them passed, which is nuts. And some of them are like, fine. There was like one to create like a $3 billion fund for dementia research with like, which is like, whatever. Nobody's got a problem with that, really. Some questions about implementation, maybe.

But there's some absolutely bug-fuck nuts stuff in here. Proposition 13 raised the homestead exemption from $100,000 to $140,000. It was passed by about 80% of voters. This lowers the taxable value of a home, which reduced. reduces overall tax bills on your primary residence. Per an article in the Houston Chronicle, the amendments will be especially felt by elderly or disabled Texans who are poised to receive a separate tax, a separate break that brings their total property tax exemptions

to $200,000. As a result, roughly half of seniors and people with disabilities living in Harris and Bayer counties will no longer pay any school property taxes. Jesus. I should have to say how bad that is for Texas schools. And in general, a lot of these ballot measures were about making heavy cuts and making it impossible to raise new revenue. The cuts that are just in these ballot measures are going to cost the state about $4 billion over the next two years, right? But that's not all that was done.

Several of the bills that were passed banned the potential to create new taxes, right? So it is now illegal in Texas to create taxes on capital gains or taxes on the taxis or taxes on the tax. the growth of assets like property and stocks or taxes on inheritance and estate taxes. Taxes on the operations of stock exchanges are now banned because several have announced plans to open in Texas, right? So you are looking at, I think the estimate here that I'm seeing in the Chronicles article is that the state's going to spend about $51 billion over the coming biennium to pay for the new cuts and maintain existing ones. Texas is a state that has had for quite a while a budget surplus, and they are basically lighting a lot of that on fire to appeal to rich

people and business owners and stock exchanges to take their assets to Texas. You won't have to help society if you come to Texas. We don't have a society in Texas, right? And that agenda did very well in Texas. Jeez. Anyway, good stuff. I guess the last thing I want to talk about a little bit, since we've got a couple of minutes here is the question on everybody's mind should I be flying anywhere for the holidays is that

going to be a good idea uh we're say I'm saying this a day after a horrific crash of a UPS flight over Muhammad Ali international airport in uh Louisville right which I mean I think seven was the death till last I saw nightmarish fireballs think I mean it hit nine this morning is it at nine Because the plane just, the engine caught on fire, basically, on takeoff. And normally, from what I'm reading from pilots, normally that should have been a manageable problem, but because it happened during the ascent, which is the most dangerous part of piloting a plane, and where you have the least control, they were not able to recover or gain any kind of control.

And the plane basically plowed directly into a UPS warehouse. And it was loaded with something like 300,000 pounds worth of fuel. because it was about to fly to Honolulu, so it was as full of fuel as a big plane can be, and just a horrific crash. Is this tied to the fact that you have a lot of federal employees furloughed? Is it tied more just to the fact that the FAA is not functioning the way it should be or used to as a result of changes the Trump administration made as soon as they came to power? I think it's too early to say that, but this is part of a pattern of pretty disastrous near misses that absolutely can be attributed to things like the air traffic controller

shortage and the fact that there's just a lot less safety precautions being taken. And this is something the administration is aware of and has become critical enough that they're no longer able to deny it. Secretary of Transportation's Sean Duffy on Monday said that all commercial flights might be stopped nationwide to protect public safety. And they were certainly going to need to cut off flights in specific parts of the country. at times as a result of the ATC shortage, right? Basically, there's different, like, kind of grids that the country is divided into, and you might have to shut down one or more of those at a time

in order to make the shortage of air traffic controllers able to handle the rest of the load, right? For an example of, like, how bad this can get locally on last Friday in New York's, in New York State, 80% of air traffic controllers did not show up for work. So this is a potentially pretty calamitous problem. There have been ground delays on Monday for three major Texas airports in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Dallas Love Field. And this is just in general a problem that's only going to get worse as the shutdown looms. Because I've seen some interviews with air traffic controllers where one guy was like, look, we're not getting medicine for my kid and she'll die without it. It's just not coming in.

How do you expect me to be a fucking air traffic controller? Right? Like the hardest job in the country that requires absolutely perfect concentration at all times without ever fucking. up or hundreds of people die. So I don't know. To answer the question of like, should you fly, be planning flights for this holiday season, you should certainly get the flight insurance and be paying attention the days before as to what's happening if the shutdown doesn't end.

Because right now we are seeing delays, the likes of which haven't really been seen since maybe like either the pandemic, like the pandemic probably before 9-11 was kind of the last time things were this completely fucked. Garrison can tell you how much of a fucking nightmare they had coming back. And it's not just in the United States, by the way. Multiple major airports in Europe over the last week and change have had to shut down entirely or partly because of unauthorized or unknown drone flights in their airspace. Yeah.

That's been ongoing. Globally, air travel is not doing well. Yeah, Russia's been probing Europe with these Orleans for a little while. Yeah, I think all in the end of Robert's flowing. Garris and I have flown this month, and it fucking sucks. Use a credit card if you can, one that has some protections. But maybe, maybe consider not flying right now. Yeah, just, you know, keep an eye on things.

I don't know what else to tell you. Yeah, it's great. Everything's going great. That is the slogan. Everything's going great. You know, there's been worse times. There's been worse times, you know? The blitz.

Yeah, talking of worse times, loves people are hungry, right? because we are, we're fucking with people's SNAP benefits now as part of the culture war. Lots of people are very worried about where their food is going to come from, right? And where we're entering a time of year, you know, kids are going to be off school. There are lots of places you can still get your free school meals, but it's a difficult time for people. It's a difficult time for people to feed their families. I wanted to plug, We All We Got, this is a San Diego group. What they're doing is helping people be able to rely on them by delivering groceries to them, right?

and the way that they most need support is for people to sign up to regularly donate a certain amount. I'm not going to tell you how much you can donate, but if you're able to, that will give them the ability to plan to secure groceries for people they're supporting. The way you can find their website is to go to we all we gotsd.com slash donate. Also, if you want to reach out to us and you want to do it in an encrypted way, you could send an email from your Proton mail address to our Proton mail address, which is CoolZone Tips at Proton.me. If you're a marketing person and you want your client to be a guest on our podcast,

don't email us. I'm just going to fucking block you. That's all I have to say about that. If you want to have to plug your product, I will also fucking block you. We reported the news. We reported the news. It Could Happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from CoolZone 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. 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.

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. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money.

And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline is. The most Texas story ever. Listen to Business History 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. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and see.

small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season, ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.