It Could Happen Here - Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #6

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

War on three fronts! The gang talks about Volodymyr Zelenskyy's public humiliation ritual, military deployment at the southern border, and Trump's flip-flopping global trade war. Sources: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4086787/pentagon-deploys-stryker-brigade-aviation-battalion-to-southern-border/ https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4086539/dod-statement-on-deployment-of-stryker-brigade-combat-team-to-help-secure-our-s/ https://www.northcom.mil/Newsroom/Press-Releases/Article/4086531/additional-troops-to-enhance-border-security-operations/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-ukraine-minerals-deal-trump-zelenskyy/ https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china-643086a6dc7ff716d876b3c83e3255b0 https://apnews.com/article/trudeau-trump-canada-tariffs-us-5d5ef8bd41c4567926d543a9526b2e84 https://www.mining.com/web/copper-prices-surge-as-trump-signals-25-tariff-on-imports/ https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/05/trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-says-its-ready-to-fight-any-type-of-war-us-wants-till-the-end.html https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china-lutnick-2b269614084027a4894aa14f3dc16227 https://www.kob.com/news/top-news/wipp-in-carlsbad-under-doge-cuts/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Garrison Davis. Today I'm joined by Robert Evans, Neil Wong, James Stout, and Sophie Lichterman. Tragically, we all have ED. All right, I got it out of the Yes, and Sophie Lichterman tragically. We all have Edie All right. I got it out of the way. We can continue the episode now this episode We are covering the week of February 27 to March 5 Number go down Public humiliation ritual of Vladimir Zelensky and the age of US global supremacy is over Welcome to the end of the American Empire. It sucks way more than I thought it would.

Yeah. Uh-huh, well, I mean, look, some of us have been saying this. Yeah. First is tragedy, then is farce, and then it's whatever the fuck is happening now. Yeah, we have crossed the tragedy farce horizon. We're well beyond anything Marx could have anticipated. Yeah, we're going, we don't need farce horizon. We're well beyond. We're well beyond anything Marx could have anticipated.

We're going, we don't need farce. Like I am upset about how landy and everything is becoming. Like I feel like you have to be almost forced into being an accelerationist now. Like there is no other way out. Did you watch the Democrats last night, Garris? It's like this non-consensual accelerationism. Yeah. That like people spent years trying to resist this accelerationist push that even see Democrats last night, Garrison. It's like this non-consensual accelerationism. Yeah, yeah.

That like people spent years trying to resist this accelerationist push that even now I'm seeing like analysts like embrace, like I guess we have to be accelerationists now, which is very bizarre to see. Yeah, as I've been saying, there is no more ideology called accelerationism. There is just acceleration of what you do about it. So fun hole we've gotten ourselves into. Yeah. Speaking of, let's start with talking about Ukraine.

A place which accelerated. And that Oval Office meeting that happened last Friday. That was a little bit odd, wasn't it folks? Harrison, say thank you. Thank you. Yes, I realize I've been under your employ for four years now. I've said thank you many times.

Each of you thank me. No, I'm kidding. Jesus Christ. Wow. Sophie has gone mad with power. I'm going to go court the EU because Sophie has asked me. Yes. So I don't know. I'm sure people saw like a two minute clip or something.

I watched the full 10 minute section, which is much more crazy. Yeah. And like in Trump's push to get like this ceasefire deal, Zelensky's hesitation has been because Putin has broken multiple ceasefire deals. So how can we be sure that he will respect this one? And that's kind of what jump-starts this extra combative exchange between Trump, Zelensky, and eventually little boy JD. I don't know, Robert and James, you're war understanders. Yeah, that's what it says when I go into my HR page.

The increasing story of, and this affects Ukraine, but is not just limited to it, the story of the next several years is going to be the mass rearmament of Europe and almost certain nuclear proliferation. France who has I think 295 nuclear warheads and extremely advanced first strike capability as well as a first strike doctrine is under Macron has just made a statement that he's willing to have France be the nuclear shield for the rest of Europe. The UK also has enough nukes to kill way more people than actually live there. Unfortunately, their nuclear defense system and reaction system is very tied into the US one. I expect you will see them sever it from the United States as the United States becomes more and more of a geopolitical adversary to England and to everywhere else in Europe.

I think you are going to see more smaller states in Europe get the bomb. I think in general, I'm shocked if in four years, there's not at least another four or five states that have, that have gained access to the bomb. Yeah. Because the overarching international lesson from Ukraine is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up a nuke and get one at all costs. Yeah. Famously the, uh, European national anthem will now be

because if it's not love, it's the bomb that will bring us together. Yep. Garrison, it's not great. Garrison missing that one. I don't like that, I'm not saying this because it's good, but it's also literally like if I was in charge of European security, that's what you would do.

My priority would be let's get as many fucking nukes out here as we can. I think we should say that this is how US diplomacy happens, that this sort of shouting out and humiliating non-US leaders is what the US does. The difference here is that Trump did it in front of the entire White House press corps and TV cameras. Yes. In the Oval Office for everyone to see.

Yeah. And it doesn't give Zelensky a place to back down, right? Like he's a leader of a country that is at war. He needs to show strength and like certainly sort of with the current understanding of leadership, he needs to show strength and to show strength, he doesn't have many places to go when he's been humiliated like that. Right. Well, and like, you know, Trump was yelling about, you know, World War III and then and then and then Vance chimes in. Yes, he's particularly incoherent. With his with his little like thank you know, Trump was yelling about, you know, World War Three and then and then and then Vance chimes in particularly incoherent with his with his little like thank you speech.

And I think Robert, I think I think you pointed out to me earlier, like why Vance jumped in on this the way he did in like a way to establish dominance when Vance and Trump have very little cards to play, because this is a guy who has been at war for years now. Uh-huh. And like they need to feel superior to that and that's why it's a public humiliation ritual because that's the only method they have right now. Yes. No, because there's nothing really like they play act at masculinity and their fans, especially Trump's face

really like feeds into that. But they definitely also have that deep insecurity that because of aspects of our culture and media, I think most men who have never been to war have a little bit of that. I don't think it's a natural thing for men, but I think it's a natural thing in our society. I think it is extremely common verging on universal.

I went to war in part because of that derangement. And by the way, war doesn't do anything to make you better. But what it does do, what it has done for Zelinsky and why he acted the way he is, is that like, he's literally been in the position of his entire family and him having AK-47 shoved into their hands because a Russian kill team was in the city Gunning for him and his family as bombs fell all around like yeah He's he's just he's I think he just has too much pride. Sorry pride's even the wrong thing

He's learned over the course of fighting this war when you are up against a strong man. You can't back down Like yeah, you'll just keep getting pushed back further and further if you do that. Because he wouldn't have gotten anything. If he had sat there and been nice and let them make fun of him, the ending would be the same. They'd made up their minds prior to that meeting. Right. And one of the things that Zelensky has going for him,

and there's a lot he doesn't have going for him, he's not a coward. And people have noticed that he's not a coward coward and that has bought him some of the support and like it has allowed him to remain in that position of leadership. A relatively uncontested, right? They haven't been able to have elections. This is something that the Ukrainian opposition have also kind of consented to. It's not like he's being a dictator here as Trump has alleged, but like his personal bravery and willingness to confront these strongmen is something that like people draw strength from in Ukraine.

And he can't afford to let that go. He actually was fairly submissive in this exchange. He was letting Trump talk way over him. Zelensky did not raise his voice. I don't frankly, I don't understand how people even deluded themselves into thinking this makes it like the Zylinski look bad or like he wasn't proper. Yeah, he handled it like a grownup would handle it.

Like he tried to point out what you're saying is wrong. This was clearly like a coordinated trap from like the entire White House team from like the press corps. Yes. Like talking about like why he doesn't wear a suit and like someone like Rubio, like a neocon that has more of this like geopolitics focus. Like he was like literally like sinking into the couch as this was happening. Like like Rubio was not thrilled at this. Yeah. No, no, because Rubio, he has no personal pride or backbone. So he is willing to try and remake himself as a Trumper.

But in his actual heart and soul, he's a Reagan Republican. Totally. Sure. Or maybe at least a Bush Republican. Definitely Bush. And I know, like, Zelensky was literally kicked out of the White House on Friday. He's now trying to find a way back into the negotiating table. On Monday, the United States suspended all military aid to Ukraine after Trump has continued to inflate the numbers in regards to the amount of military aid we have sent to Ukraine,

often by a magnitude of $200 billion. And I don't know, this was one of the first things that me and Robert noticed at the RNC, like how much Ukraine was like a top issue for them. Like people wouldn't shut up about Ukraine. And it took us a few days to like acclimate, be like, okay, why are they talking about it in this way? Like it was very odd. And Robert did a deep dive on that last year with front of the pod, Rudy Giuliani.

Garrison, I just wanted to update you. I've been talking with Rudy about the the album that you and I wanted to drop with him and he is on board. So we will be moving forward with that this spring. That's exciting. A little taste for all you listeners. forward with that this spring. That's exciting. A little taste for all you listeners. This is very much a part in my mind, a part of Bannon's push for like this quasi-Douganism, this idea of a multi-polar world of Trump and Putin with Putin expanding power into Europe, while Trump tries to seize control over more parts of North and Central America, you know, taking the Panama Canal, eventually Canada and Greenland. You know, like Arctic land that will be useful considering climate change.

Russia already has their fair share, so that's why Greenland is so essential for national security, like Trump talked about endlessly in his joint session speech. Mia, do you want to add something about this mineral thing before we go to break? Yeah, so I think one of the important things here is that this is the definitive break point. Like, this is the moment that people are going to point to when they look back on the moment the old American Empire died. And that empire, you know, the sort of post-World War II international order thing, right? The way the U.S. maintained its geopolitical and economic power was by a network and system of alliances with a bunch of the, you know, with their allies and sort of in places

like Japan, but also, you know, across Western Europe. They maintained a series of economic and political alliances that was able to win the Cold War, you know, make the US like the world's low in in superpower But in order for it to function the u.s. Has to like maintain the alliance system even as it's doing imperial power production and use its allies Well in like the u.s.'s power Primarily has always come from the fact that like or at least in this Century has been from the fact that we are the center of the global economy Yeah has been from the fact that we're the center of the global economy. Yeah. Right? And the second part of it has been its ability to wield power in international institutions, right?

Yes. The US seizing control of the IMF and the World Bank, and using sort of trade doctrine to sort of empower itself. And this is all fucking gone. The US is alienating everyone in the fucking globe, basically except for Russia. And now we're entering this really kind of Argentina maybe

See how long that government holds like But you know like and the thing that it's pivoting to now right is the stuff that used to be There there'd be a sort of like coalition right, is the stuff that used to be, there'd be a sort of like coalition thing and the American corporations would do this stuff behind the scenes is now just unbelievably explicit. The US is just straight up openly doing resource colonialism. Like they're straight up, they're demanding that Ukraine exchange its mineral resources for protection. Like it is straight up a protection racket. Yeah, the proposed way that it works is that there's going to be like a quote unquote development fund controlled by the US and Ukraine

like jointly but I mean it's just gonna be controlled by the US. I don't know why people are pretending that Ukraine is gonna like have a say in this. I'm gonna read from the proposed agreement. We don't know what the text of the final agreement is going to be. Zelensky has recently expressed that he's willing to sign it, but we don't know exactly what it's going to look like. Here's the quote from the document that we had. The government of Ukraine will contribute to the fund 50% of all revenues earned from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian government owned natural resource assets, whether owned directly or indirectly by the Ukrainian government, defined as deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable minerals

and other infrastructure relevant to natural resource assets, such as liquefied natural gas terminals and port infrastructure, as agreed by both participants as may be further described in the fund agreement." Another quote. The fund's investment process will be designed so as to invest in described in the fund agreement So what they're talking about here is not just like seizing control of Ukrainian mineral resources They're talking about like privatizing the Ukrainian state and selling it off and taking the profits from that They are talking about seizing ports, which I have I have seen no media coverage of I do not know

Why it is in the agreement. You can just read it there. I Notably on the show and not like I am well known as not a China supporter but I deeply remember for five years everyone losing their fucking minds about China doing this exact same fucking thing with with port lease agreements and they're just doing it now and this is this is just what the new international order was going to be is the US just very very openly instead of instead of working through allies instead of working through sort of like regime change operations it's just the US going to be going like, okay, like you are all going to die unless you give us all your money.

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["Syria"] All right, we are back. Robert, you want to talk about Syria? Yeah, Syria. I hardly know you. Okay. Anyway, I was sent a document by my good friend, Joey Ayub from the Fire This Time podcast. Sorry, the Fire In These Times podcast.

Joey's great. It's a document that the US is sending out to NGOs around the world. This one was sent to an NGO doing humanitarian work in Syria. And it's basically you have to fill this out in order to have a chance of retaining the funding that has been paused right now. Right? So this is part of the USAID pause. If you want to get that money, you have to fill this out and basically prove that you

are in line with the new executive orders and policies of the United States government. There's a bunch of questions on here that you have to answer. A lot of them are yes, no, but many of them are just like normal shit, right? Does your organization have a current risk management framework or policy? Yes, no. If yes, please describe the framework or policy, right? Not extreme or anything like that. You have to say that you're not working with cartels, narco human traffickers, but then

you have to say you have not quote, organized groups that promote mass migration in the last 10 years, which is interesting. And when you're dealing with like war torn areas that are helping like refugees escape is clearly going to be damaging to a lot of NGOs that have done very good work to save people. Yeah. Number five is does your organization encourage free speech and encourage open debate and free sharing of information? Yes, no. And then right under that does your organization have a clear policy of prohibiting any collaboration funding or support for entities that advocate or implement policies contrary to US government interests?

So free speech unless it's not stuff that we like, right? for entities that advocate or implement policies contrary to U.S. government interests. So free speech, unless it's not stuff that we like, right? Yeah, that's kind of always been the way, to be fair. Now, kind of the most, I mean, not kind of, by a wide margin, the most fucked up thing about this is that it then goes down, again, right after the free speech thing. First off, I should note number 11, after the free speech question. Can you confirm your organization does not work with entities that associated with goes down again, right after the free speech thing. First off, I should note number 11, after the free speech question, can you confirm your organization does not work

with entities that associated with communist, socialist or totalitarian parties? And then below that is a basically a question of like whether or not, and they frame it as like, does this project take appropriate measures to protect women and to defend against gender ideology as defined in the below executive order? And then it links to the defending women from gender ideology as defined in the below executive order.

And then it links to the defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government executive order. And then it asks, does the project take appropriate measures to protect children and links to the same executive order? So it is basically saying your organization has to support effectively transphobic policies in Syria in order to continue to get US money, right? Like, and the fact that that is never one requirement for aid organizations receiving aid worldwide now is deeply harmful. And it's also just like Syria was already transphobic.

Like, yeah, like the Syrian government is not really pro trans, but the fact that this is just being like- This is gonna be like across the board. Yes, everywhere. This is going to be everywhere in the world. Yeah, it'll be a standard agreement. If you want to get US funds to save human lives, to stop the spread of diseases,

you have to officially embrace transphobic policies. That's the stance of the United States government, that that matters more than stopping the spread of Ebola in the Congo. Oh, and this is particularly worrying for HIV preventative measures across the world as well. Most of the language that's used there has been heavily targeted.

We're just gonna get a whole bunch of people sick and die because of these actions. Yeah, until it starts getting people sick and dead in this country. But we probably won't stop then. Probably not. James, I pivot to you on our semi-regular border update. Yeah, it's me, the border guy. I was down at the United States border this weekend, the one with Mexico, not the Canada

one. When I got back from the border, I saw an announcement from the Pentagon, which announced the deployment of a Stryker Brigade combat team and an aviation battalion. So what's a Stryker Brigade combat team? You ask. Normally they're like 4,400 soldiers. In this case, they're sending 2,400 soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division based in Fort Carson in Colorado. The Stryker Brigade combat teams are based around Strykers. What are Strykers?

They are armored fighting vehicles with eight wheels. They're pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. I've hung out in a couple. A lot of them have fully automatic grenade launchers on the top. They have decent air conditioning, you know. Big vehicle outside, small vehicle inside, as with all military vehicles. Great when you're six foot three like me. But famously, not really something you can use for like policing the border.

No, honestly, a lot of arguments as to whether or not they were good at their stated role in warfare. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Bradleys have been having to come back in Ukraine, the Strikers not so much. What they're not good at is moving through incredibly rugged mountainous terrain, like stuff where I was on Saturday. This is something Chuds don't understand

because a popular thing among Chuds is to take their Toyota Tundras or their F-150s or their Jeep Gladiators and send them down to this company in Florida that adds an extra axle and two more wheels so that they have six wheels because they think it makes truck go better. They're just, why? Doesn't that just ruin the suspension of the truck?

It ruins everything. It's a horrible way thing to do to a truck. Yeah, no, the people at Jeep have actually been thinking about how to make Jeep better for quite a while. Actually, very amusingly, the place I was down at the border this weekend, there's a very rugged road that you drive down and then you get off and you hike. And I remember a few years ago, a guy, fresh, minty fresh TRD Tundra, straight off the lot.

And I've just negotiated this in a 1980s-era Toyota pickup with my friend standing in the back to counterbalance and add weight as we go. I offered a spot for this guy. He says, no, he doesn't need it because it's a TRD. Immediately destroys his oil pan. Oh yeah, beautiful. Love to see it.

So these Strikers are doing pretty good is what I'm hearing. Yeah, so we're excited to see the Strikers. Perfect vehicle for the terrain. But the other vehicles that we're going to see are UH-60 Blackhawks and Chinooks from the General Support Aviation Battalion who are deploying alongside them. There are also about 1,100 soldiers from sustainment units, right? People who facilitate the, in this case, infantry and aviation deployment.

There's some public affairs soldiers, there's people with logistics, people who are going to help make this deployment happen. In a press release, NorthCom, that's the North American command of the United States Army, said, tasks carried out by a second strike brigade combat team would include detection and monitoring, administrative support, transportation support, warehousing and logistics support, vehicle maintenance and engineering support. Personnel will not conduct or be involved

in interdiction or deportation operations. So this is the posse comitatus thing, right? They're not directly going to be doing cop stuff. They're just going to be helping the Border Patrol do cop stuff, supposedly. But this is still very different to the previous deployment we saw. The previous deployments were of like engineers and military police, right? So the engineers, the Marine Corps engineers, what they seem to do is get up every day and put razor wire on fence and then wait for someone to take photographs

and put razor wire on fence again, right? And Marines love putting razor wire up. It's not the job that everyone hates the most. Yeah, yeah, everyone loves razor wire. Handling razor wire is famously fun. Easy! Does it get you horribly cut the fuck up? Yeah, it's just what you're signed up to do, I think. What are the MPs doing?

They will be facilitating CBP operations, I'm guessing, like SIGINT, like helping with intelligence, that kind of stuff. Sure, sure. Probably anti-drone stuff. There's been a lot of talk about drones. I have not seen any small drones, most of the areas where I go in the border of federal wilderness or state wilderness, so drones aren't allowed there anyway, but I've never seen one.

What makes this different is that these are infantry soldiers, right? Like this is a concentration of troops. Everyone in the military either kills people or helps people kill people. These are the killing people guys and girls and well, no, they're not. And secret lays. Yeah. Yeah. Secret lays.

And the closeted they thems. Yeah. If you're a closeted they them in the military, best of luck to you. That's what makes it different, right? This is a significant concentration of troops on the border with one of our allies. This is coming as the United States has used drone overflights to pass information to Mexican authorities that resulted in the arrest of cartel personnel in Sinaloa, right? So it is a significant change. And I imagine,

based on what I've heard from sources, that we will see more of this. The US's deployable infantry troops will be coming to the border. It means that we might soon be seeing foot patrols. Soldiers on foot walking through the mountains to the border, because we ain't going to see striker mounted patrols out there if they want to keep their strikers. They're adding more helicopter assets right which can both move people to more remote areas and do more surveillance. Surveillance I would assume yeah. Yeah I mean like when a hiker was shot down at the border a few weeks ago and I was out there very quickly thereafter and they used a UH-60 first, well they actually

didn't evacuate the person in the UH-60, they went in the UH-60, evacuated them in a Eurocopter and then another military Black Hawk was kind of flying over after that and I'm guessing that was just to kind of provide cover for the first responders who were going there to, I think in that case they were investigating the scene, the person had been evacuated, but there are very remote areas of the border which probably are best accessed by helicopter. And so that's what they will be doing. But this does represent a significant concentration of combat troops on the border with our ally, which is not a normal thing to do.

And it's worth bearing in mind that as we're doing troop buildups on the Mexican border, there are a lot of people in the Trump administration who want to do just full on cross border US military operations in Mexico. They want to do invasions. They want to do like what they think of as like hell actions. So yeah, it's a lot of support for like drone strikes right now, which the terrorist designation does kind of pave a road to. But obviously it's worth noting for those not familiar that Mexico is a different country and you don't just get to drone strike other countries, that's

an act of war. Well, and speaking of they, thems in the military, I will do a quick follow up before we go on break. We mentioned last week about efforts from the Navy to house trans-naval members. Sailors, it's his the kids are calling them. I guess they kind of are sailors, aren't they? But basically, house them with people matching their assigned gender at birth. Same thing with access to intimate spaces like bathrooms.

This has escalated further to now a general quasi-ban of trans people from the military altogether, with a few implementation paths towards this, a form of like, don't ask, don't tell. We will report on this more in the future as a part of a larger piece on the Lavender Scare, currently happening across the government, but that did happen literally like a few hours after we record it. We we got word that they are seeking to disband trans people from the military altogether. Anyway, we will go on break and return to talk to Harris. 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 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 iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How goes lower? podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, I Heart Podcasts and Ember 20

comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. And Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously.

Mm, pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out of his element hero as he engages in a series of ill-conceived, investigative hookups. Mama always used to say, God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex. And as I was about to learn, no amount of showering

can wash your hands of a bad hookup. Now, take a big whiff, my brah. Listen to The Hookup on the iHeart Radio 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 mandatory ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the canceled to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing. Karen, 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. lead me towards success. Listening is a form of love. Find resources to help you support your kids and their emotional wellbeing at soundedouttogether.org. That's soundedouttogether.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and Pivotal. We're back. Hey, I wanted to note something I was unaware of because I have not changed my friend's name in my phone, but Joey now goes by Aliyah Ayub.

I apologize for the error there, but James corrected me. So we're good. Teamwork makes a dream work. And never changing people's names in my phone makes, well, actually I usually- I was going to say, I'm impressed you have a name saved in your phone. Well, Aliyah is a friend, so I actually have their name saved in my phone. 90% of the texts coming at me at any given time is just a series of unlabeled phone numbers. It's chaos. I'm just guessing that people are who-

That's crazy. Someone I should be in contact with. That's absurd. Well, there's no tariffs or butts about it, but the economy is in a bad spot. Oh, no. No. No.

Boo. Boo. Boo. I was going to do speaking of absurd, but no, no. Even worse. Even worse. Sector Garrison. God.

You know what, Gare? I'm proud of you. That's almost as good as my rock the casbah joke. Mia, do you want to do tariff talk? No, but we're doing it anyways. So, after those horrors, we have other horrors? Question mark? So, on on Tuesday Trump's tariffs on Canada and Mexico and also an additional 10% tariff on China went into effect. So these are 25% across the board Tariffs, there's some I think they're only like 10% on Canadian oil Canadian energy. Yeah. Yeah like energy stuff weirdly That's not also applied to Mexico even though we there's a shit ton of oil I don't know.

And at sort of the last moment, there was a kind of he got called by all three of the heads, the big three auto manufacturers who were like, if you don't exclude auto tariffs, we're all going to die. So he's he's like pushed tariffs out for one month. They're suspended on automotive imports. We still don't know what the fuck that actually means because it's unclear whether he just means like cars and trucks, whether it also includes auto parts, deeply unclear. There's also all tariff aluminum and steel imports he announced a tariff on in the speech. The copper one we knew about, I don't think we knew about the aluminum and steel imports, which new which are Also going to be sort of catastrophic. I I want to read this amazing CM quote from CNBC

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said that Trump's tariff will cause quote higher prices But he maintained that only some products would be affected and that price hikes would be temporary Famously price hikes are only temporary. Hold on, hold on, it gets better! We haven't even got to the good part yet. Lutnick insisted that those rising prices should not be considered inflation. Okay. As the president said last night, there's going to be a short period where there will be some higher prices on certain products,

the cabinet secretary said on Fox News. It's not inflation, that's nonsense. Certain products for a short period of time. He said Now now the definition of inflation and I cannot emphasize this enough is prices going up. So Great great stuff here There's also you know as this has been unfolding There have been reciprocal tariffs from Canada the first round of negotiations between Trump and Trudeau basically went nowhere Canada's putting tariffs on, and this is true of both Canada and China who have both done

reciprocal tariffs. They've been more limited. They're only targeting sort of specific sectors. The Chinese rates are lower. China's, yeah, rates are really 10 to 15%. The big one from China, and I'm very confused about this whole, the way everyone's talking about this because everyone only seems to be talking about Canada and Mexico And these even though the tariff rate on China is now up to 20 percent. Yeah, he did it over two steps, right? Like that. Yeah. Yeah, he slid under the radar, you know, obviously like yeah

Okay, so like like the US and Mexico and the US and Canada have the two largest trading relationships on earth however comma the Chinese reciprocal tariffs are really going to hurt because one of the big things that they're targeting is US soybean exports. Now we do $12 billion of soybean exports per year. This matters enormously though. It has an outsized impact regardless of sort of the dollar amounts here because Midwest farming, huge parts of it is based on yearly rotations between soybeans and corn to maintain soil quality, right?

Like the farm that I grew up near, like this is what they did, right? This is a massive portion of Midwestern agriculture functions off of this. Well, and it's just also just like soybeans and corn are like primarily what human beings grow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And rice, like those are really the big three you can't eat that corn Yeah, you don't it's part of your food. So then Chile it becomes a really. Yeah. Yeah But yeah, well corn syrup and also it's you know, what the animals be yeah, yeah when they feed it to cattle and chickens

Yeah, and so this is going to have a massive disruption on American agriculture. Trump has also been talking about imposing a tax on all American agricultural exports, some sort of weird like American autarky thing. So here's the thing, people are calling this a tariff. This is not a tariff. You don't impose tariffs on something that you are exporting. That's not how this works. You know, like you can go back to a basic, hey, division of powers, Congress has the power of taxation Wait, how is he doing? Who knows? I don't know. We're so far beyond that

But like the thing that he's hinting at here, right? Like if he really is trying to sort of like prevent all US agricultural exports This is apocalyptic. Yeah, and it's also worth noting. Um, this is something that's also been lost in the news But he's been talking about this. He's been talking about doing these tariffs to the EU 25% across the board tariffs to the EU Now what I think is important. So the markets today on Wednesday have been going back up They immediately tanked like Tuesday this week was nasty like Monday Tuesday was yeah red And what's happening here is that none of this shit?

None of the analysts know the people getting paid like fucking 30 million dollars You do to financial analysts rather the fuck like none of these people None of them thought this these terrorists were actually going to happen they all just assumed But they were oh, he's not actually gonna do he's not actually gonna do it. It's just negotiate that no no He was he's doing it. He was going to do it though probably will be like sector by sector negotiations to get temporary lifts on them. But none of this shit was priced in none of the financial analysts, like, no one was doing business planning or whatever, like none of this shit was supposed to be real. You know, and what's happening right now is sort of like, there's a latching on

to this thing with some of the auto tariffs being lifted for a month, again, one month, not not an actual lift, but one month, they're latching on to this, they're going, okay, maybe we can sort of reverse this but this is the first moment that the financial markets have actually had to grapple with the fact that Trump is going to do all of the shit that he says he's going to do and like like that afternoon Bloomberg had a guy on like calling Trump a dictator and saying he wasn't gonna have elections we are we are beginning to see capital flight from the US where investors are like are openly talking

about like pulling their fucking money out of this country and pulling it somewhere else because it's no longer stable. And this is something that you know, I think the next damn will be when the US is like credit rating gets downgraded. But we're starting to see the damn break on the financial class and all of these analysts and like people on Wall Street realizing that no, he is going to continue to throw bombs at the entire world economy in order to sort of carry out his like, I want to be like the fucking big man empire guy. Like Trudeau, I had a call with Trump on Wednesday, basically going, hey, what's what the fuck,

man? I thought I thought we had a deal. And Trump was like, well, I'm not seeing much progress on the whole Fentanyl thing. And Trudeau's like, what the fuck are you talking about? And Trump then basically pointed towards him not being satisfied until there's a new Canadian government. Like, he's not going to want to lift these until Trudeau is out of office, and ask Trudeau when the next Canadian election is, hinting towards the fact that he just is going to refuse to seriously negotiate with Trudeau and will wait until whoever the next guy is. Meanwhile, you have a post from the Chinese embassy in the US saying,

if war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end. Yeah, I will say, I will say, the guys they put on the embassy PR comms are dipshits. Like those are not the guys running the Chinese government. Those are like the fucking clowns they put at these administrative posts to like scream about wolf warriors or whatever the fuck. The reporting I've seen from inside the Chinese government is that they also were like, what the fuck are you doing? And they're trying to figure out like,

okay, like how do you negotiate with this guy? Yeah. And they're having real issues because like, for all of the Chinese government does, like this is a government of capitalists, they want to make money. And they're looking at a guy who is willing to just blow the entire thing up.

Here's my pitch for what we should do with China, right? You know how China has this border conflict with India that could end the world, but usually just involves two groups of people with spears that were originally made in the 13th century, having phalanx fights in the mountains? Yep. We should just send over a couple of thousand Marines

and do that with China. Get it all out of our systems, this whole, all this war talk. Just have a couple thousand dudes, have a big old spirit fight. We film the son of a bitch. We get some drones. We bring in, maybe we bring in Tarantino. He'd be great to film the fucker, you know?

We really just have a good time with it. And then we just go back to not Not doing stuff like this Look, I think if we if we get us and try to compete each other in the u.s Against each other in the u.s special forces games and we show this to donald trump And we have the chinese government take like a staged loss or something. We could solve most of our problems You can just edit it to be whoever like for both countries, right? Yeah, you have an America version and a China version So the last sort of serious thing that I want to talk about here is that this especially is the stuff he's talking about with You but also with sort of Canada

This has broken the sort of international coalition that all of these people have been setting up for a really long time, right? This whole sort of coalition of all the sort of world's right-wing governments like coming together in this like national thing and like they're really fucked now. Like the Canadian right was just like about to take power and they might not now and even if they do take power they're gonna have to like deal with the fact that they've all been like fucking maniac Trump supporters this whole time and Trump has just been like fucking their entire country and like these people are now talking about like again like shutting off power to the US and

This is happening all over the world with all of these fascist parties who've been allied with the US and are now having to grapple with the fact that the US Is just gonna it's just gonna fuck them weirdly the thing it reminds me a lot is like the situation you got at the end of the 70s in East Asia with the communists, where it was like, okay, so we have three nominally communist governments on the border with each other, right? You have China, you have Cambodia, and you have Vietnam, and I guess you have Laos. And then those three governments, instead of like forming a united bloc, like all go to war with each other. And that's like sort of what we're seeing with the fascists right now is like like because Trump has decided to just be like, fuck it, like we're just going to do tariffs on everyone.

It has, it is really starting to tear his coalition apart. And hopefully this rolls back a bunch of their gains everywhere else in the world. And yeah, they see bleach it. And the things Trump is using for like leverage here beyond even tariffs, like cutting out Canada from the Five Eyes intelligence group, halting Intel sharing with Ukraine. Yep. Very, very like drastic steps in terms of like national security and Intel sharing. I mean, it's, it's just deeply clear that what's happening is we're ending every

single thing the U S used to do that Trump does not see as a direct financial benefit. Yeah. And largely aligning ourselves with Russia against every state that does not have the physical power to stop us. Yep. Well, that does it for us today. I know on Tuesday night, Trump did a speech to a joint session of Congress. We have a whole episode on that that released yesterday because there was just so much to talk about. So if you want to hear our thoughts on that, you can check out yesterday's episode on his congressional speech full of a lot of a summary. Yes, because the speech was very long, focused a lot on trans people, focused a lot on the border,

talked about national security, really skipped over the economy because... Yeah. No guys are great. Because that's not really going too good. He keeps shooting holes in it. Really skipped over that, focused more on trans people as the single greatest threat facing this country. But yes, if you want to hear about that, check out yesterday's episode on the It Could Happen Here feed.

The shortest summary possible speech bad. Speech bad, yeah. Speech bad, the era of woke is over, would be the other summary I give. The era of woke is over where you're employed. If the era of woke has ended your employment and you'd like to reach out to us, you can using our proton mail address.

That doesn't mean that it's not, like, if you're not using Proton, that it's not end-to-end encrypted. If you are, then it's encrypted, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily totally safe. So you need to do what you think is best. It is coolzontipsatproton.me. If you don't work for government, but you do work for Elon Musk in another capacity, it would also be very funny to hear from you about what that is like. So yeah, coolzontips at proton.me.

Increasingly relevant considering that social security layoffs have started and they're now seeking to cut possibly upwards of 50% of the social security workforce. Yeah, and the IRS. So I'm sure that's going to work out great for government revenues. I'm sure everything will be fine and America will be back on top in no time. It is back. America is back. I learned that last night.

We reported the news. Yes, we certainly did. We reported the news. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio 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. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told.

This season explores women from the 19th century to now. Women who were murderers and scammers, but also women who were photojournalists, lawyers, writers, and more. This podcast tells more than just the brutal gory details of horrific acts. I delve into the good, the bad, the difficult, and all the nuance I can find. Because these are the stories that we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes or villains, or often somewhere in between. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mark Seale. And I'm Nathan King. This is Leave the Gun, Take the Canole. The five families did not want us to shoot that picture. This podcast is based on my co-host, Mark Seale's bestselling book of the same title. Leave the Gun, Take the Canole

features new and archival interviews with Francis Ford Cobola, Robert Evans, James Kahn, Talia Shire, and many others. Yes, that was a real horse's head. Listen and subscribe to Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? Ow, goes lower.

From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to The Hookup on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. our hard radio 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 mandatory Ayahuasca ceremonies

are designed to force the cancel to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing. Karen, 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.