It Could Happen Here - It Could Happen Here Weekly 227

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Starting point is 00:02:45 but you can make your own decisions. Welcome to Akkadap and hear a podcast about unions falling apart and in this case how they're not being put back together again. I am your host, Bia Wong, and today we are telling a somewhat unusual story for this show. it's usual in the sense that it's a story about, you know, the replacement of democracy with bureaucracy, like the death spiral of business union of unionism. It's a story. It's also as much about the defeat of the workers movement as it is like Lamar Jackson's counting stats, a thing that it also bizarrely is about. And this is the story of the crisis of the NFL Players Association, which is the NFL's union.

Starting point is 00:03:26 And it is so unhinged that the only way that this can actually be talked about, about reasonably is to bring in someone who knows ball. And that is Charles McDonald of Yahoo Sports and the wonderful Football 301 podcast. Welcome to the show. This is going to be a trip. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Starting point is 00:03:48 I've listened to a few episodes. So I was excited when you asked me to come on. Love your work. And this is going to be a good rant because, and not even really a rant because, because honestly, like, when you start to peel his back, It is really like a textbook case study from what we know on like just straight up organizational decay. Yeah. Like you get such a clear picture on how just really a few people, in this case 32 NFL owners,

Starting point is 00:04:16 can just completely dictate the life of, you know, thousands of people who are literally sacrificing their bodies to try and, you know, escape whatever poverty they come from in their earlier life. So it's fascinating. it's sad. I mean, this is one of those areas that I have, obviously, because it's my, it's my job, but just like extreme cognitive dissonance sometimes. Like, I love football. You know, I played from the time I was seven through college. Obviously, like, I do this work. It's kind of giving me, like, everything. And then you have to deal with just so much bad stuff that comes with. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I remember, like, covering the Colin Kaepernick season, which was 10 years ago as of, this year. Right? 10 years ago. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:06 And just remember, like, seeing how alienating that was, just like, just writing like a column saying, hey, you know, Washington, like, they should work Colin Kaepernick out because they don't have a quarterback. And this guy is a startable quarterback. And you would get, like, hate mail over that stuff. But I'm still tuned every Sunday, you know? Lamar Jack's stuff. I was on the front lines for that, but still tuning in to get my race and slop every Sunday.

Starting point is 00:05:29 Yep. It's like the fundamental issue here. People will still do it. Admittedly, I am mildly proud that I wasn't watching that era, but I wasn't watching that era specifically because the Seahawks lost Super Bowl to the Patriots. And then I was like, I'm fucking out. It has off for like eight years. Well, I've been watching this stuff my whole life.

Starting point is 00:05:47 Like, I remember watching, like, college football with, like, my dad and his friends when I was, like, five and six years old. Like, I, like, legit just don't know anything else to do it. Like, I had to use this sport as, like, my vehicle to kind of explore the rest of the world. Like, once I got out of it. college. It's trying to figure my shit out. Yeah. And I think we have a good combination here to talk about this because you come at at this from the football angle and then exploring out of the like, oh my God, this is so unhinged. Everything is broken. And then I come at this kind of from the opposite direction, which is one of

Starting point is 00:06:17 things that's been really frustrating about the coverage of this is that like, like there's lots of very good coverage. Pobble Tori, who's done a lot of very good work about this. And it's like the guy who kind of instigated the whole like. Instigate is kind of put in it, is putting it lightly. I mean, he got the union president fired, basically. Yeah, he got the union president fired after it was revealed that he was using union money to go to strip clubs. Yes, yes. It's like, that's like the tail end of this story. Yeah, that's like the end of it.

Starting point is 00:06:51 That's where this is going. Right. But the thing that's been frustrating to me about this is like the people covering this and people have done a lot of good work, they're not people who cover unions at all? Yeah. And that's like what I do, right? And like, I don't know. Like I think as much as this episode is going to be us screaming about this union doing unhinged shit, like we're obviously like pro-union.

Starting point is 00:07:15 Like I had my union that I organized on my show to talk about our contract against shit. Yeah, I was a member of the first box union that launched. God, damn, that was almost 10 years ago now. Jesus Christ. I feel so old. And look, like, I believe in this stuff. Like, I, like, with the stroke of a pen, not to put it that simplicity, because obviously a lot of fight went to, but with a stroke of a pen, like, I was able to live in D.C.

Starting point is 00:07:42 After being very broke, you know, and it's crazy. Like, my salary went up to a livable wage and nothing died. Yep. Right? You know, no one died. Yeah, it's amazing. It was, it was business as usual, honestly. Like, nothing was weird.

Starting point is 00:07:57 So obviously, people who listen to the show, like, you know that these people with the money, like, they're out to get us, obviously, for their own gain. And it's so just brazenly clear through, like, this union story, especially through the past 20 years, which is where I think you kind of have to start it. I mean, just systematically stripped down. And the one thing that even Pablo on his most recent episode, like, because he's talked about it last week because J.C. Tredder was elected, executive director of the union. One of the villains of this story who they put back in power. Right. And, you know, one thing about, like, Pablo and Mike Florio, who have really been on this more than like any other national journalists is like, we still don't know a big component

Starting point is 00:08:41 of like the why and the how this is happening because, you know, we got to get into it. Because basically it feels like there's two, two or three guys kind of acting as liaisons to the owner while also trying to respect and, you know, run the union, which are our, obviously just two completely incompatible ideologies when you're trying to work that out. Yeah, I guess that's actually a way to start talking about this, kind of going back to, there used to be a time when the NFL union would go on strike. Like, they did pickets. Like, they fought scabs outside of the gates of football stadiums.

Starting point is 00:09:16 This was a thing that happened, like, regularly. Like, there's a whole bunch of stories of, like, UMWA guys and, like, guys from, like, the auto unions, like, on these picket lights with the NFL. players. And, you know, like one of the sort of upshots of this, God, okay, that's a terrible pun. I'm realizing now because this guy, okay. We got to talk about Gene, you know? Yeah. I'm talking about Gene Upshaw. Yeah, one of the guys who led this union was Gene Upshaw, who was a player for a long time and then was like ran the union for most of its history. And he's, you know, he's running an actual union. Like they go on strike, they organize,

Starting point is 00:09:55 they like do shit. And, you know, Gene, like, over the course of this runs into, like, they start losing strikes, which is just like a nightmare. And then he just, like, dies in 2008. Yeah. Like, it was this really horrible.

Starting point is 00:10:10 Yeah. So, like, not only, like, like, Gene was a Hall of Fame offensive linemen. Yeah. Like, when you think of the Raiders in the past, like, he was kind of, like, the start of that era, basically the only area where we still think of the Raiders

Starting point is 00:10:28 as like, you know, an entity. That should be respected. Right, right, not a joke. Because, well, because it was a different time in the league, like, especially when we see what the Seahawks sale ends up looking like. Yeah. And we've seen, like, the Broncos and the commanders get sold within the past decade. These teams are now being run by people who don't have football backgrounds.

Starting point is 00:10:52 Like, when you think of, you know, even someone as despicable, as Jerry Jones. You can't doubt at his heart that you know he loves this sport and will be an advocate to the sport even in ways that can be harmful to the sport at times. But now we kind of have like this influx of people who don't have football backgrounds, but they have the capital to kind of get in. And that that has also been a shift, I think just from an ownership perspective over the last a few years. But when you look at where Gene was coming out as a player after he retired, in the early 80s, he kind of set the standard for, you know, for he was elected, well, executive director of the union, I think, I think in the 80s. And he held that position

Starting point is 00:11:39 until he died in 2008. So, yeah, he died in office, like in the middle of it. That's a long time. And it's a lot of trust. And also, I think Gene kind of solidified the idea. which is important now, that players should run this union, which I agree with, you know. Yeah, that's what a union is. Right. That's what the union is. And I would say even just like someone who played football by self, like, it's kind of a cult when you're in there.

Starting point is 00:12:08 And you don't really, really trust the outsiders to understand, like, what is going on here on a day-to-day basis. And also, when you look at like the start of this union back in the 50s, training camp used to be free for the owners. They didn't get paid for training camp. Well, preseason games, they played six free preseason games. Yeah. And didn't get paid for training camp.

Starting point is 00:12:31 Unreal. Right. Unreal. Like, you can get serious. Like, people every single year get really, really seriously injured. Like, in trading camp and in preseason games. And there was no free agency. Right.

Starting point is 00:12:42 So, like, the team that drafted you, like, they own you until, you know, you're ready to call it quit. So they trade you somewhere else where they cut you. and you kind of got to figure it out, but the idea that you could just have this agency and leave and your contract expires, you can go sign with someone else. That was not a thing.

Starting point is 00:12:58 So obviously, when you think about where football is now, like what I tell people is like, when they ask, like, why should I care about this union? Okay, think about how bad it is now. It can get worse. It was worse. It was worse. It was significantly worse. But, you know, you have like this idea that,

Starting point is 00:13:15 and it's a correct idea because the players are the basis of it that this person in charge of the union needs to be a player. And Gene, like coming from his background with the Raiders, we were talking about a proud football organization, like the very like material basis of being an NFL player was extremely important to Gene. So, you know, up until he passed away in 2008,

Starting point is 00:13:39 I mean, he is, you know, like you said, he's leading strikes. He's fighting for more revenue. He's fighting for, you know, more benefits. fits on the back end after guys retire. And it kind of culminates in the 2006 CBA. I would say this is kind of like the Empire Strikes Back moment for the owners. Because in 2006, the players and the owners, they sign the CBA that on the surface granted the players a 60%, 60% revenue share against the owners 40% when you start actually digging through the numbers.

Starting point is 00:14:15 Yeah, that's not fake as fuck. Like it was fake. It was fake. Right. So I'll say this. It was fake in the sense that there was something called like a revenue credit or a revenue tax or something that the owners took off of the pie before it went down to like the 6040 split. Right. So, you know, and it started, you know, in 2006, like I think the first time they cut it, it was like, you know, $800 billion. And then, you know, within two years, they were taking well over a billion dollars before it got passed down. onto the players. So, you know, the players that got 60% of the total revenue, but by the time, you know, that they, the owners took a second look at that CBA and they used their opt-out clause in 2008, it was functionally like a 51 and 52% split in favor of the players, which the owners deemed completely unacceptable, right? Yeah. Like, and it's so funny because, like, this is, like, the first part, like, where you start to see, like, at least in this era of football, like, you get to see how greedy these people are, right?

Starting point is 00:15:16 where you're already taking a top off of like this quote unquote total revenue. And then you're pulling the clause in two years to get out of this. So in 2008, the owners say we are going to get out of this. And now the CBA instead of like the 10 year clause, it's going to expire at the end of the 2010 season. So they had two seasons to kind of figure out what was going to happen next. But unfortunately, in 2008, Gene Upshaw gets pancreatic cancer. and I honestly just deteriorates pretty quickly

Starting point is 00:15:47 and passes away right before the season. So, hey, listeners of this podcast probably know, what do billionaires do when they see a powder vacuum at the top of their labor force that they are actively fighting against? They pounce. And you have this vacuum of leadership, and then DeMoor Smith gets voted

Starting point is 00:16:04 the executive director of the NFLPA and the owners at the end of the 2010 season, they locked out the players and that's where things really start to get here. You're dealing with that amount of greed where they're already taken off the top and then they say,

Starting point is 00:16:31 that's not enough, so we're going to rip up the CBA. And the funny part was the 2010 season, like the last year of like the ripped up CBA, since they didn't have an agreement on the next year, there was no salary cap

Starting point is 00:16:43 for the 2010 season. And Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys, and Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington football team. Oh, God. One of the worst people ever, by the way. This is, we don't, we don't have time to do this, right?

Starting point is 00:16:55 But like, one of the worst people ever. So, like, if you played Madden before, you know, sometimes you might turn off the salary cap and what do you do? You spend. And because Jerry has always been like, it's my money. Yeah. I'm going to spend as much of it as I want to if I please, like, within the rule as the salary cap.

Starting point is 00:17:10 No salary cap. Jerry's going to spend. And the other owners punish those two with fines after the season. Yeah. For, you know, spending recklessly. That's how committed they are to, like, this consolidation of power. They will punish each other over it.

Starting point is 00:17:25 Which, which, by the way, is unhinged because, like, so one of, one of the fundamental, like, issues of the NFL is that it is a monopoly. Yes. Now, the way they get around this is, A, they have the union and B, the teams are supposed to be, quote, unquote, competing with each other, and they are not supposed to, quote, unquote, collude against the players. And it's like, okay, you, you fucking find guys for paying people, like, you find each other for paying people.

Starting point is 00:17:52 Yeah, which is like just unreal. It's just like the most obvious exclusion. If you look across like to the NBA, where like the Kauai Leonard and Steve Balmer stuff is going on. Another promulatory. Right, another Palletor exclusive. But hey, there's a reason why they are aggressively going after this, you know, because the other billionaires don't want people rummaging through their shit either.

Starting point is 00:18:16 So, you know, and hopefully they like the Microsoft guy being part of the gang. So yeah, they're not going to do anything. And that's when you see like, oh, wow. There's so much power here that these guys have. And, but going back to the NFL, I feel like the 2011 CBA is... By the way, CBA is collective bargaining agreement. This is the agreement. The collective bargaining agreement.

Starting point is 00:18:33 Right. Between the union and the league. Right. So if there's no agreement, then like, they can't play football games. Yeah. Because, you know, like you said, like the NFLPA, functionally just exists so the NFL doesn't get sued for like antitrust stuff. Yep.

Starting point is 00:18:48 Which takes us right back to the next point. So going back to 2011, the... players are trying to figure out, like, what are we going to do about, like, this lockout situation? Because they need to work, honestly. Yeah. You know, this is a career that you can only do for most guys, like, two or three years. And the idea of missing a season is not really feasible, which the owners, you know, they take advantage of all the time. Like, they know that these guys are on short, like, short clocks.

Starting point is 00:19:16 If you get to, like, year five of an NFL career, you are in a very, very small. group of players that like honestly like just represent the elite of the elite of people who have ever played football like in this country. And I think everything about this too is like that's really important. This is an unbelievably unbelievably skilled labor force. And in order to develop these skills, you have to devote your entire life to it. Yes. And then what you get from devoting your entire life to this thing that is killing you because you're getting injured constantly and you're getting head trauma from all of this every single time. Like from high school, you're starting to get brain damage from concussions and from like,

Starting point is 00:19:58 you're starting to get CTE. Yeah. And then you have a couple of years to like make money from having devoted your life to this thing. Right. So think about like it's March of 2011 now. Gene Upshaw has been passed away for a couple of years. We're in the, fully in the Dmore Smith, in the Dmore Smith reign of union leadership.

Starting point is 00:20:17 and the first move that the owners make, like now that the CBA is officially over following the 2010 season, they lock out the players, which, as we just said, if your career is two years, the idea that you would miss one of those years is kind of unfathom.

Starting point is 00:20:32 Yeah. Your earning power is just like demolished. And let's say you're 24 years old, you got to play two years in the NFL. You're walking out with, let's say, a million in your bank account. You still got to get a job, bro. You know, like you still got to find something else

Starting point is 00:20:47 to do. So, like, this isn't money that's going to set you up for the rest of your life for for most of these guys, even though it does give you, like, a nice cushion to fall off to, even if you're someone who struggled a little bit. I mean, shoot, I know when I was 24, I would have loved to have like $700,000 in my bank account. Yeah. Yeah. Things would have turned out, you know, maybe a little bit different. Probably still would have found some way like where I'm right here, but, but honestly, it's a good start. So what the union did was they decertified as a union. in 2011, led by Tom Brady and Drew Buries.

Starting point is 00:21:22 I'm a Falcons fan, and I will say this part has given me so much justification on my hatred. It went past the football into, like, the material realm of, like, real life. You guys messed up here. They tried to, you know, challenge the league by decertifying as a union and arguing, you know, that now that, now, This is in an antitrust situation. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We get down to August. It's the 2011 CBA in August of 2011.

Starting point is 00:21:55 So, like, this is a month, a month before the season. And the concessions that were made after, like, after getting locked out for, what, six, like, five months? Yeah. And you decertified that you go through all this work to try and get a deal done. And they gave up so much. So, so we said before. You had the total revenue split at 60-40, but functionally, it was closer to, you know, 51, 52% in favor of the players. That dropped to, like, 47% in the 2011 CBA.

Starting point is 00:22:29 So now the owners are back in charge, like a 53% revenue split in favor of the owners. So, like, you just gave them back, like, billions of dollars, like, over the course of really just, like, a couple years, but over the lifetime of a 10-year CBA, I mean, that, that's a great. Regis. And also... Unbelievable amount of money. Another thing that changed was Roger Goodell has now like full

Starting point is 00:22:55 autonomy over player punishments. I don't know why you gave that up either. That's unhinged. Right. That's like, that's a kind of thing that like the only kind of unions that would sign something like that are like,

Starting point is 00:23:09 like, I don't even think the organized crime unions would cite it. I think that's just like literally the fascist unions and the unions that are directly controlled, like the yellow unions that are directly controlled by a corporation or like the only ones that would sign that. Even those ones probably would want to still have like some involvement in that.

Starting point is 00:23:28 That's like unbelievable for a union contract. Just like nonsense. Right. And what's changed here is like these players are not willing to go on strike. Like to not play these games. To not have a situation like in the 80s where, you know, Donald Trump is built up the USF. and saying, hey, why don't you strike the players that come play over here?

Starting point is 00:23:50 And you had some guys who were like NFL Hall of Famers who had briefly played in the USFL during, you know, during the strike stuff. That doesn't happen here. And think about the timing. Yeah. August, what was it? August 4th, 2011, 132-day lockout. They sign this deal.

Starting point is 00:24:07 So, so I can imagine. And I'll like, I'll give them this. It's hard out here, man. Like, you're about to, you're looking at, like, the consequence of, you know, I'm about to not have checks and I maybe have a lifestyle where I am still should be getting, you these weeks will be paychecks. That's kind of a tough, tough draw. So I will give them like the small grace of saying at that point, man, okay, fuck it. Just let's just go.

Starting point is 00:24:34 Just get something signed. But what they gave up, I'm not sure. Like, they were fully aware of what they gave up here. And the part of the biggest thing that where they gave up was part of the biggest thing. after they, after I say, they gave the money back to the owners. They gave Roger Goodell. They made them dictator in terms of like the punishment. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:24:53 Workforce. But the rookie wage scale was a massive, holy shit. Massive concession to ownership. Yeah. Because they, they as in like Tom Brady and Drew Brees, more so Drew Brees from what I've gathered, kind of frame this as, hey, why are these rookies getting all this damn money?

Starting point is 00:25:15 like this is something that should be going towards the veterans. And ownership was like, oh, you see that? You think? Like, you think that's a good idea? Like, we can agree to that. And what they got back was like less practice time. So, you know, you don't have to have as many two a days. Man, that's worth billions of dollars, really?

Starting point is 00:25:34 Like, in terms of like what you guys can set yourself up with. And what the veteran players who were on board with this, what they thought was, oh, okay, well, if the rookie, wages, if the rookie wages deal, like if that gets capped at a certain amount, then that's more money for us. So like a prime example is, in 2010, Sam Bradford was the number of overall pick

Starting point is 00:25:57 to St. Louis Rams. He signed a six-year, $84 million contract. Though the next year, Cam Newton is the first overall pick to the Carolina Panthers. And after this lockout ends, his contract was four years, $22 million.

Starting point is 00:26:10 Fully guaranteed. She's correct. You lost $60 million in terms of value from a year before. So what the veterans, what the veteran players thought was, oh, okay, well, now there'll be his influx of cap space

Starting point is 00:26:23 to sign veteran players. What do billionaires do when they suddenly have access to a cheap workforce? They just loaded up on rookies. Right? So these veteran players, they sold themselves on, like,

Starting point is 00:26:36 the fallacy of trickle-down economics and got themselves replaced out of the league. So the only people that this benefited really was people, like Drew Brees, people like Tom Brady. People who don't need it. Right.

Starting point is 00:26:48 But also are so indispensable to their organizations that they can eat up the cap space that was left over from the rookies getting signed. So that's when you start to see like the quarterback contracts balloon up. Yeah. Where, you know, you go from like in 2015, 11 years ago, or 2016, I think, Cam Newton signed a contract that made him the highest paid quarterback in NFL history at five years, $100 million. Oh my God. You know, and now that number is what, like, I think, man, who's the highest paid? Is Joe Burrow the highest paid right now at, like... I feel like it's borough?

Starting point is 00:27:24 Yeah, that sounds right. But now, like, that deal is worth, you know, closer to $80 million, you know, $70 million a year than it is to anything, like, closer to 20. Yeah. So you gave up so much and you got this whole middle class of the league just decimated. And, and, like, that's still tangible today. You can just go on overthecap.com or spottrack.com and just look at like average money like per year. And there is a top and then the middle class is literally like a couple players. And per quarterback, it's like two or three guys.

Starting point is 00:27:58 Like you'll have like announced like a Malik Willis or a Daniel Jones like 40 like as crazy as to say like $44 million. Like that's outside the top half of what guys are getting paid. And then it's all rookies. Yep. Like all rookies and guys on rookie contract. There's no middle class. That's gone from the NFL. And with that, like, you lose some of, like, personally, this might be like, you lose some

Starting point is 00:28:22 of, like, the wisdom that comes with that of guys who have played in the league because now they get, now they're getting churned out so fast because the contract is so cheap. Yeah, I'm not going to extend you because, honestly, this game beats your body up so bad that it's better just to get a fresh body in there. And these people, they have no attachment to the sacrifices that have been built over a long time. So you kind of build this player force that doesn't know what's going on. And I say that with a grain of salt now because I used to be one of these guys like, oh, you know, they don't care what's going on.

Starting point is 00:28:53 And there is a good chunk that don't care what's going on. But I think now it's more clear there's like an obvious force stopping them from getting like information about what's going on with this union stuff, which is the meat of this, like the recent stuff is just like the ultimate just, fuck it. I guess we're, we're pawns of the ownership stuff, you know. I think the arc of this is like, it's the arc of sort of unionism in America. You know, you go back to like your early 1900s unions, right? And those unions, you know, they're unbelievably powerful.

Starting point is 00:29:39 They're extremely dangerous. You know, you get to a point where like the IWW will show up to a town and like the bosses in the town will show up with guns and shoot them because they're that well organized. They're that dangerous. they're that capable of striking, they're that committed, and they're that able to tap into all of their members and have everyone in the union be a part of the union and do things with the union.

Starting point is 00:30:01 And that's how you can actually do collective action. And you can watch this with sort of like with the ability of the NFLPA. Obviously, like that's a much weaker union than you're like, I don't know, you're like 1930, CIO or whatever. Yeah, yeah. But you can watch it like sort of decay into this sort of

Starting point is 00:30:19 you know, what you call like a service union, where instead of it being run by the players, there's like, okay, we have some people, they're going to go, they're going to do everything for you, they're going to sometimes talk to you about it. But, you know, like, they're going to be the runs, like managing all of the contracts and all of the negotiations and like, and as it like information circle gets tighter and tighter, you know, that makes it way easier for things to just get completely fucked. And then, you know, and this is one of the things that you see in the 90s is the complete dominance of business unionism. And we're just like, nah, fuck it.

Starting point is 00:30:50 We're a union. Yeah, right. Us and the employers actually have the same interest and we're going to work with them to make money. And it's like, how's that going for you guys? And then that's what this sort of turns into. And one of the issues here, and you're talking about this with like the information control is once you get into this situation where, you know, a really, really small

Starting point is 00:31:11 number of people, like we're talking maybe 30 people and then the executive committee is even smaller than that are the ones who are, you know, like one of the things that happens in the later part of this is, so J.C. Tredder, who's like the guy behind the scenes for, for like the executive, the search for like the executive director, the guy who like completely truly was like the most hideous guy I've ever had running this union,

Starting point is 00:31:35 he changed the process so that it was completely confidential to the point where the 32 guys on the board who were supposed to be voting for the executive director didn't know the names of the candidates until they walked into the meeting. Right. What the fuck? And to me, like, that point is, like, so crucial because that's why I shaped from, oh, it's not that you guys don't care about this. Like, they don't know what's going on.

Starting point is 00:32:01 Yeah. It's being hidden from them. They can't know. They can't know. And I will say, like, part of what makes this difficult if you are someone in there who does care and wants to fix things is there's just the truth that, like, even the bottom run players are comfortably living, like, off of their salaries. So when you start to get to guys who are veterans, like, man, like, even if you don't take

Starting point is 00:32:23 the best deal, shit, like, I'm still making $15 million a year. Like, ultimately, I'm still good. And that's what is hard to, like, get people galvanized about this sometimes. But I think that that part about, like, players not caring has kind of been overrepresented a little bit. Because I think if you're paying attention now, there's so much murkiness. And I think when you get to the recent CBAs, like in 2020, the COVID-year one, so now that's like DeMore Smith and J.C. Treter, who was playing for the Browns, then, he was the president of the NFLPA as they enter like this 2020 CBA at the end,

Starting point is 00:33:03 after the end of the 2011 10-year run where for 10 years, they locked themselves into owners just being able to extract, like as much value as, as it. seemed like they possibly could at the time. And then 2020 comes. And the owners are basically just like, hey, there's going to be another lockout unless you guys agree to a 17th game, which you should say that, okay, cool. Because there's no circumstance where you can walk to football and know how the horrible this game is for your body and say we are going to play more football without like major

Starting point is 00:33:37 concessions. Yeah. Because I remember when that was going on, you know, I was talking to some older guys who weren't in the union anymore, but they were looking at it like, man, like, if they're, if they're going to say a 17th game, like, we need something massive,

Starting point is 00:33:49 like giving back to us on the other hand because that's just straight up a revenue play to get more games on TV and make these TV contracts a little bit more lucrative and that didn't really happen, you know? Like, no. Like, they just gave up the 17th game. And they got, I think, one percent more

Starting point is 00:34:07 in terms of like the rev shares. So it got to like 48 or 49 percent. It's like, man. Like, that's it? You'll 1% rev share for adding, like, what, what's the percentage of games that added to the season? Like, right? And, like, there were some concessions made to, like, players made at the bottom rung of the ladder. So, like, the veteran minimum salaries, like, they got boosted.

Starting point is 00:34:29 The practice squads got a little bit longer. And now you got into the space where you see, like, veterans can be on a practice squad instead of guys who are within, like, three years of, you know, crude years in the NFL. But the 17th game, while still having inequity in terms of the revenue share, I mean, the owners, they'll sign up for that every single time. Oh, you, we got to throw your crumbs. Yep. And we still get to keep our billions. And they timed it up right. So that 17th game being inserted into the schedule was lying up with new TV contracts with ESPN and NBC and Amazon, everyone you see. Like, throwing cash is so understated. like, it's not throwing cash, like billions of dollars is going to the NFL through these TV deals.

Starting point is 00:35:16 Like, like, it's funny. I had a friend, you know, one of these, you know, Shador Sanders stands. He was arguing. He was like, oh, you know, like the Brown's like, they took Shador because they need the jersey sales. I'm like, dude, Shador could have the number one selling jersey in the NFL. And Jimmy Hasel doesn't care about that. No. That's a drop of a drop of a drop in the bucket for like where are the money he's actually coming from.

Starting point is 00:35:38 And that's the TV deal. So to get that 17th game is huge. And this term is for 10 years again. So in 2030, they can look at, you know, renegoti and trying to figure it out. But in the meantime, like, to even call this a union is so far away from, like, how it's actually functioning. Now it's getting to the part, like, where it's kind of murky on what's happening. Because obviously, like, if you're in a union and, you know, like my coworkers, like, they've dealt with J.C. Trader.

Starting point is 00:36:09 Like, I've seen him speak before. If you're in a union, obviously, like, you don't want too many people outside of the union to know what's going on. Like, it's just not good from a standpoint of, like, leverage and power. But J.C. Tredder, like, he plays off of that by keeping everything a secret, you know? Yeah. Which is a terrible idea. Which is a terrible idea. Like, yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:32 Well, it's good for him. Right, right. Right. Maybe you don't want to tell me a reporter, like, what's going on. But you should tell, like, the other people within your youth. union what's going on. So when you see like a lack of information about or any information about like what's going on with these elections, it's because no one's being told what's going on with these elections. And that's how you end up with Lloyd Howell, which is just, oh, God. Okay,

Starting point is 00:36:58 let's talk about Lloyd Howell, who is, oh my God. Yeah. One of the worst people to run a union I have ever seen. Yes, but it's purposefully bad, you know? Like, yeah, the Lloyd Howell, like, secret election, like, it's not even going to say, like, I was, you know, somewhat, somewhat of a secret, no, a secret of election, basically to get Lloyd Howell hired. Lloyd, what, what he's over for Booz Allen, man? Yeah, he was, he was the CFO of Booz Allen Hamilton. Right. But, like, his background was in Busting Unions. Uh-huh. Right. That's his background. Yeah. And, But this is where you get like a look at the ideology of something like J.C. Tredder, who also studied labor unions in college.

Starting point is 00:37:44 That's what you guys degree in. Labor relations and labor arrangement from Harvard. Yep. Yeah. You're not doing the labor relations degree to like be in a union. Like the people who like organized for unions are like fucking grad students who, you know, have like a, I don't know, like they have some random degree. and then they were like, fuck, and I organize my grad student, I'm going to go organize my field.

Starting point is 00:38:08 This is not what you go into that. You go into this to do union busting. Yeah, so, but so J.C. Tredder and, you know, the people around him, they viewed that experience from Lloyd Howell, like busing unions as a positive. Yeah. Because, you know, there's this train of thought like,

Starting point is 00:38:26 oh, well, you know, well, if we know someone who knows how to destroy us if we hire them, surely they will change their ways and they will start to help us. Like, we're going to get inside. knowledge on how to bus the union, so maybe we could weaponize that and turn it back the other way. Man, that's dumb as hell.

Starting point is 00:38:41 Why would you? Like, that's, oh my God. Right. And not only that, but Lloyd Howe, who is elected, the executive director of the union, is also a part of a hedge fund that is investing in NFL teams in minority sticks. Yeah. The Carlisle Group. Like, you, you're an executive director of the union works for hedge funds.

Starting point is 00:39:05 that are extracting value from these teams. Like, like, players, yeah. That's disqualifying. Like, it should be disqualifying. She's on camera. The union posted a video of him on camera talking about how he was talking to the owners about letting the investment group in. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:39:23 It's unbelievable. It's as close as I've ever seen outside of, again, a union that is literally run by the bosses to, like, my union guy works for management. Like, it's like. It's baffling. I don't know. It's like, it's like state-integrated CCP shit, right? Like, it's like...

Starting point is 00:39:40 Dude, yes. You have a corporate consultant. Yeah. Is your union liaison to 32 billionaires and Roger Goodell? Like, yeah. It's completely incompatible on like a basic, like ideological level. And then you start getting to like, well, okay, well, now he has like direct control over people's lives and the funds of the union. Yeah. Which, as ESPN and Pablo Torre found out, he was using to go to the guy.

Starting point is 00:40:05 damn strip club in Miami. Yeah. And to spend on other stuff. And also, he was sued for sexual harassment while he was at Booz Allen. So he's hidden like the checkmarks for everything you see like corporate sociopathie, right? Yeah. And they're like, that's our guy. That's our guy.

Starting point is 00:40:22 Once all this stuff comes out about how he spent his money and, you know, how he was misappropriating funds, that was what got him out more so than like the material practices that he exemplified while he was running the union. which involves, yeah, hiding the fact that the owners were colluding against them. It is completely unhinged. And unfortunately, the other thing that's unhinged is that's going to be all for today. However, there is more to this story tomorrow as we finish part two of this interview. And oh my God, holy shit.

Starting point is 00:41:00 Somehow, the worst is yet to come. So join us for part two tomorrow in, which question mark, there seems to be good evidence of the NFL paying a guy specifically to be able to keep control of the union? Oh dear. So if you want to find more of Charles McDonald's work, you can do so at the Football 301 podcast and at Yahoo Sports, where he writes the column four verts. It's quite good. You should listen to it.

Starting point is 00:41:27 And yeah, dear God, I don't know. Foreign unions, if you're in unions, that suck, make better ones. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

Starting point is 00:42:01 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Why hasn't a woman formerly participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age? What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever?

Starting point is 00:42:41 That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer. an F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on No Grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishap, scandals, and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A silver 40-caliber handgun.

Starting point is 00:43:25 was recovered at the scene. From I-Heart podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Worshack, murder at City Hall. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. Jeffrey, who did it? July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.

Starting point is 00:43:43 Both men are carrying concealed weapons. And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. Everybody in the chamber docked. A shocking public. murder. I scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. Those are shots. Get down. A charismatic politician. You know, he just bent the rules all the time. I still have a weapon. And I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was a victim of flat down. That may or may not have been

Starting point is 00:44:18 political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Roershack, murder at City Hall on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit Stick Season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image,

Starting point is 00:44:48 and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick. Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff. to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically

Starting point is 00:45:07 or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me.

Starting point is 00:45:21 Right now I need it more than ever. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to It Could Happen here, a podcast about the most unhinged union story I have ever covered. I am your host, Mia Wong, and in a moment we will return to my interview with Yahoo Sports Journalist, Charles McDonald. So if you have not listened to the last episode, you should listen to the last episode so we can get you up to the 2020s in terms of the horrifying and depressing story of the NFL Players Association's leadership

Starting point is 00:46:07 gradually selling out more and more of their players and in this episode we're going to really sort of get down to the brass tax of what's been happening in the 2020s and answering the question to what extent has the NFL paid in order to have a pro-management regime installed at the head of the union

Starting point is 00:46:30 a question that is really distressingly we have good evidence of this. But before we can get to that, we need to talk about one of the other absolutely horrifying things that this union regime has done. And that is the union covering up, as reported by Pablo Torre originally, a report by an arbitration judge

Starting point is 00:46:55 about whether or not the independent teams in the NFL, which are supposed to be businesses competing against each other, And I kind of emphasize this enough because this is a major portion of how the NFL's antitrust exemption is supposed to work, is that these teams are normally competing against each other, so there is supposed to be a labor market with competition. But this document that the union covered up from an arbitration process they were in is about, it has very good evidence of the league actively colluding in order to pay players less. And the union covered it up. So here we go, back to our interview.

Starting point is 00:47:36 Let's talk about this collusion thing, because I've been losing my fucking mind about this for a really long time. And I cannot imagine just literally having evidence in your hand that the owners are colluding against your members. Like, these are literally you. Like, this is supposed to be you. And you're just fucking hiding the report. Ew. Even like, okay, so even if you lose the arbitration, the fact that a judge wrote in a legal document

Starting point is 00:48:09 that it was like beyond the banished bit of a doubt that Roger Goodell and the 32 owners were colluding. We've seen text messages between the Cardinals owner and the Charter's owner talking about how much to pay Justin Herbert. Yeah. Lamar Jackson. Yeah. Okay, can we explain the Lowell Judge Jackson situation

Starting point is 00:48:30 and like explain who Lamar Jackson is for people who don't watch football so they can understand how unhinged this is. Lamar Jackson is a wizard is the best way that I could put it. Lamar Jackson, he is the franchise quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens. And I just think that anyone with the brain could have seen what was going on. Yeah. Right? Like with this situation.

Starting point is 00:48:51 So, so and even before Deshaun, even before Lamar Jackson, you have to take it back to Deshawn Watson trade out of Houston. Oh, God. The one trade we've ever come. covered on this show. Because fuck, holy shit. Dude. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:49:04 This is what got the dominoes rolling on this stuff. Where as terrible as Deshaun Watson is as a football player now and obviously as a human being. Yeah. Like, right. When he was in Houston, it feels like a different world. He was the man. Like, he was incredible. Like to the point where the Texans, I think his last year starting there, they went

Starting point is 00:49:27 four and 12. And it was like so obvious. obviously not his fault. Like, in terms of efficiency, like he was right behind Patrick Mahom to the top of the league. Like, he got an apology from JJ Watt that year saying, like, dude, we wasted an absolutely incredible year from you.

Starting point is 00:49:40 And then, you know, the 30 accusations of at best sexual misconduct, at worst sexual assault in some of those cases. Yeah. It's really hideous shit. Right. So then it gets to a point where he,

Starting point is 00:49:55 the testes that they don't want him there. He doesn't want to be there anymore. But you have what looks to be. be a franchise quarterback in his mid-20s available for any team to have, you know, with the trade. So my team, sadly, the Atlanta Falcons, they thought that they had a deal done for Deshawn Watson. And then the Cleveland Browns came in. And this is where the ownership, you know, feedback kind of gets broken where Jimmy Haslam breaks the ranks and says, I want this guy on my team so bad. You know, this is why, like nobody ever hits free agency in the NFL. Because

Starting point is 00:50:30 this is what it would look like in terms of like when owners actually have to bid against each other for elite talent. Yeah. Jimmy Hasam comes in and says, here's five years, $230 million. Every single penny will be guaranteed. No stipulations,

Starting point is 00:50:41 nothing like that. Which is, like, not how this works normally. Like, no one gets guaranteed contracts. Right. And because the,

Starting point is 00:50:47 previously, the actual first player to get a fully guaranteed the contract from another team was actually Kirk Cousins with the Vikings. When he left Washington, they gave him like a little three year, I think it was three years, 88 million dollars fully guaranteed.

Starting point is 00:51:01 But still, that ain't five years, 230, you know? Yeah. And what the owners were mad about was not that you would seek out someone with the personal background Deshaun Watson to represent your franchise. It's that you would pay any NFL player $230 million guaranteed. Because now that sets precedent. Because if you're Lamar Jackson,

Starting point is 00:51:25 whose contract was coming to an end at the season after Deshaun Watson signed this deal. You're like, I didn't touch those women. Yeah. I'm an MVP quarterback. I'm in my 20s. Why shouldn't I get a fully guaranteed contract? Yep. Right? Which is what he was doing. And the Ravens, they said, okay, fine, go out into the market. And I felt like I was going insane during this because, oh my God. There were so many arguments from talking heads about why teams shouldn't sign Lamar Jackson. So he was hit with what's called a non-exclusive franchise tag, which means the Ravens, I don't even know how,

Starting point is 00:52:02 the idea of the franchise tag existing is another labor elf. Hideously anti-labor practice. Right. So his contract with the Ravens is over. And they get him with an exclusive franchise tag, which means you will be playing for us next year. You basically have no say in it

Starting point is 00:52:19 unless we remove this or, you know, we work out a trade with somebody else, but you cannot go negotiate with anyone else, even though your contract has expired. And to be quote unquote fair, like the payment is a average of the top five, you know, yearly salaries of the position you play. So you will get paid like, you know, a top five player for one year at your position. It really only goes to to mostly valuable players that they're trying to extend. But they hit them with a non-exclusive franchise tag, which means they have right of first refusal on if another team offers Lamar Jackson a contract.

Starting point is 00:52:57 And that team would owe the Ravens two first round picks in order to sign Lamar Jackson. So, dude, Deshaun Watson just went for three. Yeah. And this rule is legally mandated. Yeah. That is two first round picks. And I'm sure the Ravens would probably ask for a little stuff beyond that. But I only have to give you two first round picks.

Starting point is 00:53:16 And I can just sign Lamar Jackson. He's like a generational quarterback. Like, right, right, right. At this point, we're talking about a quarterback who, what, is like 25 years old. He's the first unanimous. MVP, which he won in his first season as a starter, since Tom Brady. He's one of two players in, like, or, you know, I don't know if it's two, but it's less than five players in the history of the league that have been unanimous MVP.

Starting point is 00:53:39 Every single person voted for Lamar Jackson being MVP. And the Raven said, go ahead and negotiate with another team. And no one, no one even brought him in to talk to him, right? Like, it's unbelievable. I grew up in Chicago, so, like, I grew up with the Bears and my family are, like, my family or like a family of like Seahawks fans, right? Neither of those two teams have ever had a quarterback who's in the same stratosphere as this guy.

Starting point is 00:54:06 Like, this is, these guys never, like, ever come available, ever, ever, ever. And the people will, like, they'll bend the rules to things that aren't written where they'll say, oh, you know, the Ravens will just match. Make them match then. Yeah. That's a competitive advantage for you.

Starting point is 00:54:25 Right, right. I hate that my favorite team keeps popped up in this Atlanta, but Arthur Blank, he put his name on it. You guys saying, you know, the Falcons, like, they were trying out, you know, backup quarterback quality guys because after Matt Ryan left. Desmond Ritter, like, Jesus Christ. Marcus Marriota, dude. And I'm sitting there like, you're telling me that I can sign Lamar Jackson and I got to give up two first round picks for him. Like, dude, pay him 60 million guaranteed every year. He's worth that much.

Starting point is 00:54:54 Yeah. And Arthur Blank says, well, you know, Lamar Jackson, he's going to get hurt too much for us to sign him. So no team signs him. No team even talks to him. So obviously he goes back to the Ravens, doesn't get the fully guaranteed contract that the Sean Watson got. And that kind of put an end to it for a little bit until the power of journalism popped up. Paul Tori does his investigation. Here's about an arbitration hearing about collusion in the NFL.

Starting point is 00:55:19 And he gets his hands like on the documents that say that. that while Lamar Jackson was going through his free agency, basically rejection by 31 teams, when he would have been an upgrade for like 28 of them, 29 of them? Yeah. At the time? I would throw a number one,

Starting point is 00:55:38 like overall rookie quarterback that I just drafted with the first overall pick out the fucking window. Throw him away. To get Lamar Jackson. Right. You can be a part of this two first round picks we're giving you. Two first round picks plus, you know, at that time,

Starting point is 00:55:50 like it may have been like Kyle and Murray or something like that. Yeah. Take him. Like it's unbelievable. I cannot. He literally, like, the game of football is a fundamentally a different game now. Than it was when Lamar Jackson started playing because of him. And it's just like, he didn't take him. His influence on the NFL is so strong that we don't really do the black quarterback talking points anymore. Yeah. Because the league was like, oh, we can't let that happen again. Like when Lamar Jackson felt the 32 and everyone's talking about does he needs to play a different position. And in year two, he wins an MVP.

Starting point is 00:56:23 Yeah. And the year after he signs his deal with the Ravens, he wins his second MVP. Like that kind of cool the fans. Like when you get to see guys like Kim Ward going first overall or even Kylie Murray going first overall and there's no talk about how smart they are as players. Yeah. Like that's his influence directly. His success contributes to that. Like he is a Hall of Fame.

Starting point is 00:56:43 It kind of gives me chills. Like think about what he's accomplished considering like what has been stacked against him. Yeah. Like he is such an important figure for this. of football and really just the whole league like on the field and off the field like what he means like culturally in society for like for the chances that black man can get to play a position that deemed like they were deemed not to play smart enough because he was so good that they said we can't look that stupid again this player was available this player was available in his athletic prime every team could have drafted him every single team in the league could have drafted him and they fucking didn't the ravens passed on him it's like he was not even the first raven's draft pick that year no they drafted haydenhurst 25 overall before they drafts it, Lamar Jackson. Every single team passed on him. And he's won the M&P.

Starting point is 00:57:29 He's one of 11 players in the history of the NFL to win two MVPs. Every other player that has won two of more MVPs is either a Hall of Famer or actively playing. Aaron Rogers and Pat Mahomes. That's it. Like, this guy is a Hall of Famer already. And he should have won a third, by the way. Right. He should have won the third.

Starting point is 00:57:46 But either way. But either way. Like a near identical, like statistical tie for like a third one. So. Yeah. He's the three-time first team all pro. He's going to be a hall of fame. And the fact that nobody,

Starting point is 00:57:57 nobody called him in to say, what, what would it take? Like, what kind of contract are you looking for? That's where I was like, something, something is so obviously not right here.

Starting point is 00:58:07 The Colts traded two first row picks for a quarterback. Like, yes, right, precisely, precisely. And like, they're starting a guy who broke his leg

Starting point is 00:58:17 and then also sprinted to hear his kill. He's like, two years later, I just. Dude, Jalen Ramsey went for two first-round picks. He's a great play, but he's a cornerback. You know, it's not even the same thing.

Starting point is 00:58:27 This is the most important position in sports. Right. A first ballot Hall of Famer was on the market in his prime. Yeah. And nobody talked to him about a contract except the team that own, that, you know, own like the rights of first refusal. And it was so frustrating to see, like, my colleagues in the media say,

Starting point is 00:58:45 oh, you know, the Rams were just going to match. That's so disingenuous. Yeah. That's so disingenuous. Because you're stripping Lamar, like, of his, his agency as a player. One, like, he's better than every other quarterback that just about any team has. It'll be such a severe upgrade.

Starting point is 00:58:58 And you're also just, like, holding the line for what? You're not getting a cut of that money. Why are you lying for these people like that? Yeah. But Pablo, you know, Paula took back in his reporting, he found out that a judge agreed with the union that the players were being colluded against, like, actively. Like, there's text messages. And J.C. Treter and Lloyd Howell, they hid this from the union.

Starting point is 00:59:20 Bro, if you're a union and you have, even if you lose arbitration, you have physical note from a judge that says you were clued against. Take your megaphone to the top of the tallest mountain in the world and talk about this. Apply some pressure. Now, like, this is where I started to get curious. Like, why did this happen? Because that part, we still don't have enough information on. Like, I need to know, like, how much, like, if there's a kickback going back like J.C. treter. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:59:46 How much is it? And we do know that Lloyd Howell, part of the reason, also part of the reason why he was fired or had to resign was because he along with, he along with a former MLBPA union leader, Tony White, who was recently fired for banging his brother's wife, who he hired to work at the MLU. Oh my fucking God. Yeah. The NFLPA is so lucky that the MLBPA had a scandal that's almost as embarrassing in the Strunk Club. I mean, maybe more. But Lloyd Howell and Tony White, they were working together as part of an eight-man group of, like, Union parasites, like at the top of the corporate ladder in America to siphon money away from the Union into their own personal pockets. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:33 Like, this is what's running it. We know for a fact, Lloyd and Tony White, who's the, you know, baseball union head was because he no longer has his job or family. I mean, it's a truth. Yeah, bad day for him, but fucking, you, you brought this upon yourself. Right. He can't go home for Christmas. You know, like that, like, he's done. They were part of a small group that was siphing money away from union funds to line their own pockets.

Starting point is 01:01:10 Like, that is verified. They've been sued for that. So what else is going on here? Yeah. What is the incentivization for J.C. Tredder to push someone like that through? And then the backside is, J.C. He's brain as the union president expires while Lloyd house the executive director. And Lloyd makes a new cushy role for JC as like, you know, I don't remember what the role was called, but like, it's like, chief of strategy or something.

Starting point is 01:01:39 Yes, chief strategy officer. So something that paid him like $3 million a year, very handsomely. Thankfully, Lloyd was off, you know, blowing money at the strip club. And JC was kind of running like the actual day things because he's the one that has a connection to players. right? And now we've gone through a point where after Gene Upshaw dies, the two executive directors who followed him as, you know, the head of union, Demar Smith and Lloyd Howell, neither of those guys were NFL players. So you can understand how players might feel we've gotten a little bit too far from our roots. Like we don't have guys who are from our background interested in, you know, players and what we go through, which leads back to J.C. Tredder. who played for the Packers, played for the Browns. At his peak, man, he was a good player. I'm not going to take that away from.

Starting point is 01:02:30 He was a good starting center on a lot of good offensive lines in Cleveland that didn't win any games. But they blocked the hell out of people, man. Like, when you go back, you look at some of those lines, they had Joe Thomas and Alex Mack and Mitchell Schwartz, Joe Pettonia. They had some stars that were out there winning four or five games a year. So Lloyd Howell resigns in a mess.

Starting point is 01:02:52 J.C. is still the chief strategy officer to the NFLPA. I think he resigns eventually from there. Yes, yes, yes. After Lloyd HAL resigns. J.C. resigns too. So now we're up to last summer, summer 2025. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:03:06 Eight months ago, right? It's March 27. Eight months ago, J.C. Trader resigns from the chief strategy officer role that was cut out for him and says, he said in an interview to my friend Johnton Jones, I have no interest. in any leadership roles in the union moving forward.

Starting point is 01:03:25 He said, I have given this my all. I've given this everything I had. I'm going to go home and be a family man. I have no interest in this at all. And it seemed like it until this month, when J.C. Pouse back up as one of the finalists for the new executive director role. That's what was previously left by Lloyd Howe. Now, this is where it's murky.

Starting point is 01:03:47 I don't know, like, all the processes that go on with, like, how they decide, Like, who's going to, you know, do what? Like, apparently they had 300 candidates. It will have down the three. I don't know what's going on in the past couple weeks. They don't know, like, how, like, all this was selected. But they are presented with three finalists for the executive director role to vote on. J.C. Tredder, who has popped up out of nowhere, then the commissioner of the American athletic conference.

Starting point is 01:04:14 So, like, Temple and, you know, those East Coast schools, like, like James Madison or whatever, like, he's overseeing. that. It's like a college football commissioner. Yeah, like, college football, college football commission. Like, he's talking to, like, the president of Rice University about, like, scheduling games against Toledo or some shit. Christ. Right. So you have J.C. Treter, the American Conference Commissioner. Not even like the ACC, the AAC, right?

Starting point is 01:04:41 The state ass conference. It used to be the Big East. Like, they're stolen Big East Fowler. This guy was running against Jacey Treter. And also, the third was a former. Hollywood union exec, who didn't really seem to be that interested in the role in the first place. So we get down to the election day and we find out the American Conference Commissioner drops out. Oh, wow. On election day, he dropped out. Right?

Starting point is 01:05:08 Right? Okay. So now we're dealing with, we've had two executives of directors back-to-back, Morris Smith, Lord's Howe, not football players, didn't go well. J.C. Trener was a part of that. but he played football, right? So it's either J.C. Treter or this Hollywood guy who doesn't give a crap. I forget his name, but his background wasn't like always the cleanest in terms of, you know, actually getting things done in terms of, you know, being pro labor all the time.

Starting point is 01:05:33 Ultimately, as fucked up as it is, that's an easy choice if you're a player. These are my two options. I'm going to take the guy who at least has played football. So you had J.C. Trudder, who's now back as the executive director, eight months after he said he had no interest in being any type of union leadership. And like somehow this whole process has been like stage managed. He's like back again. Right.

Starting point is 01:05:55 But to me, this linchpin right here is actually the most fascinating part of what's happened. And this is where like if you listen to this podcast, it probably won't sound like conspiracy. If you're not thinking about labor relations in America, it might sound like conspiracy to you. But J.C. Treader, when he was the president, like his right hand man, I think it was like the vice president was jailing Reeves' maiden or was very important. He was a special team's linebacker for the lines for a long time. He became the union president after J.C. Tredder left and became like the chief strategy officer.

Starting point is 01:06:27 So he basically followed in J.C. treter's footsteps as the union president. So, you know, while all this shady stuff's going on, Jalen and Reeves Maibin is an underrated part as, you know, the new union president. Because Lloyd was executive director. J.C. had this new role as the chief strategy officer. But Jailen Riems-Maven is sitting there as the president. of the union. So obviously, he is involved in this somehow, right? Like, he is involved with, like, the cover up for the players. Yeah. Yeah. Not being as aggressive as you should be towards ownership in terms of gave up a 17th game, dog. Like, that's insane. And you've got nothing back for it.

Starting point is 01:07:06 Yeah. So there's a clock, though, in terms of how long you can, like, be removed from being a player and still be the NFLPA president. And last year, Jailen Ream, he had been. He had been, been out of the league. So his clock was almost up. I think it's within, uh, yes, two years, two years. Uh, so if you fall in the league, you're not signing a contract, like, no one's pursuing you, like, you kind of just get filed as retired, even if you're not, even if you haven't come out and say, like, I'm retired. Like, there's a bunch of players that never said, I'm retired, but nobody signed them like T.Y. Hildon, T. Y. Hildon just functionally retired, like, two weeks ago, he hasn't played in, like, five years, okay? But he, he has been placed in a

Starting point is 01:07:43 retired file in the NFL as far as just, like, labeling things go. And if you are, retired. If you are labels retired, you can't be the NFLPA present. Makes good, perfect sense. So, okay, this does not sound crazy to probably the people who listen to this podcast, right? If you are one of 32 owners, right, and you have this power structure of an organization that you negotiate against, the NFLPA, this power structure is very friendly towards you. You know, they've given you a lot over the past 15 years since you ripped up the 2006 CBA. Yeah. How much would you pay to keep that in place, right? Yep.

Starting point is 01:08:23 How much would you pay to keep it in place? And I haven't seen many people talking about this part of it, but the Chicago Bears signed Jalen Reeves Maybin this fall. Oh, my God. Right? To a veteran deal. When I looked it up, I think he played like 40 special team snaps for them this season. But that resets his clock.

Starting point is 01:08:45 Yeah. That resets his clock to be president of the union. So now we get to the end of the season. Yep. Jailen Riven runs again to be president. I'm not sure anybody ran against him. No one's told us who the other candidates were. Yep. If there were other candidates. And now he's the president of the union again. After he was

Starting point is 01:09:09 almost barred from it. Does any bearshare remember like any play? The Jailen Ries may have made? No. Right. Like, I watched every game of that team. I guess there were like two that I missed for those on planes. But like, no. Okay, but so think about it from this respect. If you are an owner and you have this power structure that is generating billions, capital B, billions of dollars back in your direction,

Starting point is 01:09:39 away from the people that they represent. Yeah. Would it be worth $500,000? Keep that going? And a little roster spot at the bottom? Absolutely. Now, that's the part that I haven't seen people, you know, bring up as much because we get stuck on Treter. But Treter's right hand, man, was almost ineligible to be the president of the NFLPA.

Starting point is 01:09:59 Yeah. And he pops up in this little role when it looks like his career's over. Like, they signed him late in the season to play special teams. Yep. You just bump with someone from the practice squad to go do that. Because because you want guys that you've already, you know, develop the relationship, guys you started training and working with to get those reps. some outside guy like coming in to play special teams that, you know, that's, it's unnecessary.

Starting point is 01:10:22 It's unnecessary. It's been out of the lead, too. Like, yeah, there's no reason to do it. Unless you as a power structure are interested in him having eligibility to keep funneling you money at expense of the players. Yeah. And I've really changed my tune like on players not carrying over the past month just from talking to guys. Like, because I used to cover the Jets and the Giants, like for a newspaper here in New York City. Like, this is what I've done for the past 10 years.

Starting point is 01:10:48 I've met a lot of guys. They are, like, curious. Because you're like, what is this mechanism? Yeah. That is allowing you guys to operate with so much secrecy where you have J.C. treter. I mean, shout out to, like, the people who ran against them or were there for a minute. But functionally, like, practically, he ran unopposed for the executive director role. And so you would have it out from 300 candidates to three.

Starting point is 01:11:16 Yeah. And one of them is J.C. Tratter. And the other is the commissioner of like the sixth most important college football conference in the country. And then a Hollywood movie, like, you need an exact guy? I mean, that's, that's functionally unopposed. And then with Jailene Reed-Labin, we don't even know if anyone ran against him. So these guys are just walking back into power. Yep.

Starting point is 01:11:39 And the question that I and players and other. have, what is that mechanism that is operating in the shadows that is allowing this to happen and how much is it worth? Because now we're coming up on a new CBA negotiation where they're probably going to get an 18th game. In 18th game, like you, you have gone from in 20 years, you've gone from a spot where you had revenue majority, even if it wasn't the 60%, it was 50%, it was 52, 53, that's better than 47. And like the literal death of Gene Upshaw. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:12:16 It like killed this union in a way that I don't know if it's recoverable from. Because you've sent a precedent over two CBAs, likely to be three, that you will give up anything. For what, though? Yeah, for nothing. But for what? Like Roger Goodell should never be coming out insane. I'm glad that J.C. Treader was named the executive. Like, J.C. Treter should be a pain in here.

Starting point is 01:12:39 His ass, man. No. And it just, it's sad to me. Like, as someone like who, like, I love the sport so much. And to see, like, what's happening to the union, it's horrible because ultimately, like, we're so short-sighted that, you know, what's happening from me, like, right now or today, it's the only thing that matters. But, like, there's going to be real consequences for these guys for decades.

Starting point is 01:13:04 And, man, like, my first year covering the Jets and the Giants for the Daily News up here in New York. was 2019. And the Jets had a legend's day. Like, we're a bunch of guys that came back and they were on it during halftime. It's what crappy teams do when you have nothing good to talk about men. Like, you talk about the good old days, right?

Starting point is 01:13:21 Yeah. But, you know, these guys, they come up and they were hanging out with us in the press box before they went down on the field of the halftime. These are, like, 50-year-old men, like on canes and stuff like that. Like, my dad's 60, and he still shoots hoops sometimes, like, at the gym. Yeah. These are, like, 45, 50-year-old men that can't walk without assistance

Starting point is 01:13:38 that are like, they're walking. around and they're forgetting, like, oh, what I just turn this corner to do, like, all the time. Like, you're talking to them and you have to keep reminding, like, refresh them on what we were talking about as if it's like chat GPT, you know, and it's sad. But when you see, like, the material restrictions that these guys have in their own lives post-playing, and these guys, like, they're not all rich. Like, they're just normal people. It's sad that this union has capitulated to the owners for such a violent job.

Starting point is 01:14:08 And sure, like, you can say, like, you know, no one's telling you be a football player, but that's the only option a lot of these guys have, like, to go be football players and to go put their body on the line just so their family can live in comfort for a few years. Oh, it's sad. Yeah, it's like, it's the actual poverty draft. And it hits way, way, way more people than the military does, like significantly more. And I think it's something that's really, really, really badly understood on the left because, like, people on the left had not to care about sports stuff.

Starting point is 01:14:37 but it's like football is a structural part of the entire American economy. It's a structural part of the entire American educational system. Like half of the educational system is designed to funnel people into this sport specifically so these people can make fucking money off of it. Yes. And that stuff shapes everything. And I understand like why lefties, like they don't care about sports. Like I get it.

Starting point is 01:14:58 But if the NFL were to cease existing tomorrow, that would be like a major collapse within the U.S. economy. Yeah. Like, I'm not joking. Basically, everything you watch, especially now, is subsidized by some NFL game, right? Like, yeah. That's why these companies exist. If you go back every single year and you look at the top 100 most watched TV shows of the year, 97 of them will be NFL games.

Starting point is 01:15:28 And you'll have, like, two college football games and, like, the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Yeah, maybe, like, maybe the World Series. Right, maybe the World Series. Right. Maybe the Oscars can't see, like, maybe the Oscars versus like Jets Bills, like week 12 that's not close. Yeah, like they're all shit on a Thursday night. Like, right, but that's how big this is. And I, I would implore people to not say, hey, who cares about this?

Starting point is 01:15:54 It's important. And also, like, there's also just like clear, like, you look at a game. There's clear racial divides. Yeah. And who has to play this game and who doesn't have to play this game? There are studies that show that, like, upwards of 80% of black boys who play sports want to be professional athletes. I mean, because that's it, really.

Starting point is 01:16:13 Like, it's that. Yeah. Or I'm going to go, do I don't fucking know. And those are really your options. And that's why I say, like, I've used the NFL to kind of figure out my way, like, through, you know, how I feel about things because there's such real, like, desperation. Yeah. From these people to get out.

Starting point is 01:16:31 And the problem, like, also with the union is, like, let's say, like, to some of these guys come from nothing. Like, the fact that they could figure out a way to get to a bus that would take them to a school where they could play football is, like a major accomplishment in their own. And the fact that you can go from that to making $300,000 in a year at 21, that will distort you as well because now you've made such an extreme jump so fast, probably going to be a little bit complacent. You might not be thinking about what's next because, and I say this for like a 21-year-old. old person, you spent the last 20 years of your life fucking fighting, like, just to get to the next day. I remember one of the craziest things was back in the day, like, when Laramie Thompson was at Ole Miss, like back when they got busted before the N.I.L. stuff going out, there's this text thread between Laramiemey Thompson's O'Line coach and his mom saying, like, hey, like, can you send

Starting point is 01:17:20 money for the light bill this month? Yeah. He's a five-star starter. Yeah. On your team that is generating millions of dollars. Yep. And you could get in trouble for sending his mom like $200. bucks to keep the lights on. Yeah. You know, there's a, there's a real, like, systemic, like, obvious extraction of value from these black men. And once it's over, they say, good luck, get fucked until, you know, we had, like, the CETE lawsuit where they have to pay out billions of dollars.

Starting point is 01:17:48 But ultimately, you just kind of come in and get discarded, which is why this union is so important. Yeah. And the fact that you can be J.C. treter. Use the trusts that you have earned through your own blood, blood, sweat, and tears of being an NFL player and good enough to stand on your own as like almost a decade-long NFL star, the fact that you would use that and turn around and like just capitulate to owners, like that's scum. Hideous.

Starting point is 01:18:12 It's scum. And it's sad. And just everyone here deserves better except for the people at top. Yeah. And there needs to be some answers on why are you guys doing this? They're not doing for no reason. There has to be something there. That's the part that we don't know.

Starting point is 01:18:28 One thing I want to kind of go back to you for a second is like how they're able to do this. I don't know the exact mechanisms of how they specifically have been able to do this because every union is structured like kind of differently. But there's something that's actually unfortunately like pretty common in even sort of like progressive unions where. Yeah. You know, like we've had people on this show a few times who were trying to dislodge this click that used to run. Actually, I'm not sure if they're still running it. but they used to run the big nurses union, like a huge portion of the country's nurses.

Starting point is 01:19:14 And so, okay, one of the problems here is that, like, union elections, even if they're well publicized, even if you were trying to get everyone to vote, have really, really low turnout. Members, unless they're really engaged, do not pay attention to it. Yeah. And that's not even really engaged in the sense of engage in union activities

Starting point is 01:19:28 because even most people who, like, are really engaged in, like, I want to go on strike or like, I want to, I'm going to show up to this, like, contract session, aren't voting in the union elections because no one knows it's happening. no one knows who any of the candidates are. It's like, no one cares. It's like, it's an even more extreme version of the problem with, like, no one voting in regular elections. And so with a really small amount of votes, you can just get you and your faction installed

Starting point is 01:19:52 for generations. Right. Like, there are admin caucuses in a whole bunch of unions. Like, and we're talking about, like, like, the Teamsters. And, like, unions on that scale were like, there was a huge deal when the Teamsters, like, finally ran out their Admin Caucus. But, like, these people are. in power for half a century. People are in power for like generations of these guys are able

Starting point is 01:20:13 to stay in these unions and they're able to do it because it's really, really easy to control union elections, especially once you're in power. And this is something like I've talked about on this fucking show. Like I've seen union staffers whose job it is to do organizing get fired for telling their own members to read a contract they were being asked to vote on because that was considered a threat to the power base. And the problem is is that once you're running the union, you control the jobs of all of the staff beneath you. And one of the things that actually came out in in Pablo Torres reporting is that they offered anyone who'd been at the union for more than seven years a buyout.

Starting point is 01:20:48 And so, you know, you can watch them do, like, they're doing a systemic purge of all of this stuff. And then, like, the moment Shredder is, like, leading the search, right? He's able to use his position, like, his very specific position in this bureaucracy, like, as a president of the union, to, like, go change the terms of the search so that it's no secret. And you can just keep using whatever, every position, you take over, gives you a little bit more sort of bureaucratic power that you can use to rat fuck people. And once they're in, it's like, it is possible to dislodge them. Like, I mean, this is something that happened with the UAW in the last, like, that was 2020, 2020, 23 they got in.

Starting point is 01:21:26 And they dislodge an admin caucus that had been in power and like doing similar shit to this for, like, decades and decades and decades. And so it is possible for, you know, reform caucuses inside a union to organize and drive the leadership out. But it's really hard. And the moment you start doing that, like every single person who's any way affiliated with you will get targeted for retaliation by the union. Yes, that's what has happened with J.C. Treter.

Starting point is 01:21:52 Again, Pablo Tori, he released an interview two weeks ago with a long-time security officer who was basically one of the people who was like, hey, what's going on here with this J.C. Trudder and Lloyd Howl stuff? And they fired him for that. Like the union fired the security guy who've been working. Like, he's been working there since like Dean Upshaw I was working there. So he's part of the old guard that is there for like the material like improvement of players' lives. Like as far as they can take it without, you know, dealing with the real bounds of like we got to kind of get this number for the season or our worker base is going to be harmed.

Starting point is 01:22:28 Like those guys don't really work there anymore. Yeah. Someone like Dominic Foxworth is. He's like he's on TV now, you know? And I know like he cares a lot about this, but. He's off doing different things. And I think another thing that that's tough, like, when you look back at like, okay, who is playing football? These are ultimately young men who, like, they enter this union without any knowledge of, like, how unions work.

Starting point is 01:22:51 Like, what are the finances behind any of this? You're geared to take, like, your high school free time and your college free time, especially now that these colleges are throwing out cash. Like, you are honed to care about football. and get football done. And, you know, once we get to college, like, we'll see what it is. Hopefully, you can get your degree and keep it moving. But most of the time, like, these guys, they don't know what any of this stuff is. So you have, like, this very uninformed, you know, labor force that's getting turned out two,

Starting point is 01:23:22 three years at the time. It would probably be pretty easy, to create a blockade of knowledge when the people who could be asking you about this are going to be irrelevant if you just hold the lines for a year, you know, it's sad. The other thing about this, right, is that these guys. guys don't have even the basic incentive that even like the UAW and their most entrenched had, which is like, if you fuck this up enough, there won't be a union. But these guys, there's always going to be something called the NFL Players Association,

Starting point is 01:23:51 right? Because the NFL needs it for cover, which means they don't even have to do the minimal organizing work or even the minimal, like, even the minimal, like, pretending to actually fight for the people who are supposed to be the union because it doesn't matter to them. Like, why the fuck would they, why the fuck would they try to onboard? new people into the union and get them involved with it. Why do they care? They can just fucking go home and cash their checks

Starting point is 01:24:12 and get whatever the fuck benefits are getting from the league for doing this shit. Yeah. Yeah. I want to know those benefits are? I just want to know. Yep, me too. I would love. Like really, because when it gets down to like,

Starting point is 01:24:24 how much is your soul worth, man? Yeah. Like, JC is one of those guys ultimately who has made enough money playing football where he doesn't have to do this. Yeah. You know, he doesn't have to go around like this. Like, it's, it's, it's,

Starting point is 01:24:36 a little baffling in that sense. And I know that like, I guess something like I guess I struggle with sometimes like, why are y'all doing this fucking shit? Like why? Like it's really like that, like a couple more bucks really means that much to you. Like you're really willing to sell out all these people. But the answer is yes.

Starting point is 01:24:53 Yep. The answer is yes. Personally, I can't reconcile that. Yeah. It's abhorrent. It's terrible. But it's just the truth of the matter. So hopefully they can figure out a way to kind of dismantle this.

Starting point is 01:25:04 But like, man, even the fact that like, Man, you got the bears. They signed Jalen Reeves Maven. All of a sudden, like, his clock's back, and now you have the same power structure as you hit another landmark where you're going to be negotiating for 18 games.

Starting point is 01:25:17 That's a tough thing. Top all over, man. That's a tough thing to get past. It's really difficult. Yeah. Eat at Arby's. Actually, don't do that. Arby's not good.

Starting point is 01:25:28 No, it's just... Well, I think that's a decent point to sort of... end on unless you have any, yeah, do you have anything else you want to make sure people know about this whole thing? I would say like,

Starting point is 01:25:42 if you're not watching football, you should. It's a great game. I, look, I say this as someone, football has, like,

Starting point is 01:25:50 materially harmed me. Like, my back is messed up. I've had two hernia dis my back. So I'm 17. I turned 32 this year. It's like half my life, you know?

Starting point is 01:25:58 Would I do it again? Fuck. Yeah. In a heartache. I don't know. I don't know. And like, this is where,

Starting point is 01:26:06 Like, my, my, like the people who know me, they're like, man, you're wired a little differently. But I think that's standard for football players. Like, it's a really complicated relationship. But, like, all my best friends are still, like, football related in some way, whether it's college or journalism now or, you know, going back to high school back the day, like, I still talk to so many people that I played football with. Like, I'm watching, like, I'm the guy watching these, like, crappy, like, Division 2 games, like, on a Friday night. It's awesome. So, like, you know, you should check out Lamar Jackson. Like, just go on YouTube, just look up a highlight.

Starting point is 01:26:42 And then, uh... He's great. It's just wild. Like, you know, when you, like, watch football or, or really any of these sports, like, they are just inescapable. I hate to even say microcosons of, like, American society. Because, like, this is, this is American society. Like, when you just look on the influence that football has, like, the economy.

Starting point is 01:27:05 me as a whole and the way that people who are less fortunate are able to be extracted and run into the ground and forgotten even by the people who are supposed to protect them. I think that's something that we see here just about every arena of American life. So I would just implore some of our fellow lefties. Don't be the who cares about sports because whether you know about it, sports is interacting and directly impacting your life in this country every single day. and I think it's important to kind of care about some of the labor practices that are going on, even if, you know, the labor practices are around.

Starting point is 01:27:42 Lamar Jackson getting paid, you know, $60 million a year, over $50 million a year. But it's still, it's still important. Yeah, you know, and I think there's two points I can make there. One is that like, yeah, I don't know. Like, it was the fucking, like, trans women in college sports thing was like one of the two avenues through which like, oh, wait, hold on, a bunch of us just don't have fucking rights now. Yeah. And, you know, and like, and that kind of like cultural stuff that comes out of places that we're just not usually.

Starting point is 01:28:13 Right, right. And just to tack on to that, as we've seen over, you know, the past few months and as many endangered and misrepresented and punched down communities have said to y'all forever, and I say this is a black person, if they do it to us, it will do it to you at some point. Yep, yep. It's just sad that, like, we've gotten to this point where, you know, you've been fighting and screaming for so long. Like, bro, could you just turn your head this way and just look? Yeah. You see, like, bro, like, we're the same, man. We're all just humans out here trying to make it.

Starting point is 01:28:50 That thought process is just so violently opposed by the powers it be. And it's just so ingrained in our society that, like, certain people have to get stepped on that you will let yourself get stepped on. And now, shit, we got videos of, you know, people getting. executing the street in Minneapolis and what's happened? Nothing. Just like every other police shooting, you know, of a black person or a trans person getting killed. Like, nothing happened and nothing keeps happening. And ultimately, we get to a point where that's just the norm.

Starting point is 01:29:19 So, shit, there's a lot of stuff to fight. But you can even see, like, how the NFL union has kind of followed that same, like, deterioration. Yep. Shit. You know, you go back to the 2011 CBA, you threw the rookies under the bus. And then what the owners do? They came and took your money too. Yep.

Starting point is 01:29:36 Right? And then when it came down to, you know, the 2020, CBA, you guys have set such a precedent of us running your pockets that we will set the hard, non-negotiable stance of an extra football game and you will capitulate. That's everywhere, man. That is everywhere in the corporate structure and life of America. So, yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:29:55 Sports inescapable. Check out Lamar Jackson on some days. It's good stuff. Yeah. I think the one last thing I want to say. is that, you know, the reform caucus taking over the UAW was something that was seen as impossible.

Starting point is 01:30:08 Like, it was, like, literally, I mean, like, every union has a reform caucus. They normally lose every single time. And then one day they won, and it, like, completely changed what the labor movement in America is. And, you know, the thing,

Starting point is 01:30:22 the thing about organizing reform caucuses is that, like, I know the people who organize these things. Like, they're just random people. Yeah. Like, anyone can do this. This is not something that requires, like, you know, an incredibly specialized skill set,

Starting point is 01:30:35 you can just do it. And it looks like actual teenagers do this shit. Watching people and how tenaciously they could fight and watching them win, that's how I get out of bed in the morning. I have seen the hope in how people can fight fights that are just unwinnable, that are so unfathomable that most people don't even think

Starting point is 01:30:59 there's a point in fighting it. And then one day they win. Yeah. And maybe one day. True. I mean, even if you just think about the basis of the NFL PA, because now it's an antitrust blocker, right? That's what it is now.

Starting point is 01:31:15 But the roots of it. Yeah. They were guys trying to get rights for, they're trying to get paid for the amount of time that they put into this job. One of the base complaints is when the league was smaller and you had like kind of other leagues, you know, that are defunct now or were absorbed by the A. or the NFC before it all merged the NFL. One of the basis is was the NFL owners would ban you if you played in another league.

Starting point is 01:31:40 Like if you spent any time playing another league, they would ban you for five years. Man, that's your whole career. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I don't know if this made the show or if we're talking about before the show, but one of the things that got the NFL PA like organized in the 50s was, guys were doing training camp and preseason games for free.

Starting point is 01:31:57 They weren't getting paid for it. But these are just regular men who are just like, fuck it. I'm tired of this. And sadly, it's been co-opted into something that does not represent what it was before. But, you know, this stuff is started by regular as people who are saying, fuck it, I'm tired of this. We've got to make a change. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:32:14 And I think on that note, where can people find your work? Yeah. You can find me on Blue Sky, Forverts. You can find me on Yahoo Sports Football 301 podcast. I'm trying to be found a little bit less these days. That's so reasonable. The Blue Sky is free to find it for the most part. Yeah, you know, just a little less.

Starting point is 01:32:35 I get it. There's a reason I'm not putting my handle in here. Yeah. But I will say, this is not necessarily a friendly blue sky count. I'm not one of those guys who's just going to let you pop off. We do clap back around here. It rocks. It rocks.

Starting point is 01:32:53 We do, in fact, love to see. Yeah. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their life. elected leaders and the world around them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark.

Starting point is 01:33:20 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in in over a decade. Think about how many skills they have to develop

Starting point is 01:33:47 at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory.

Starting point is 01:34:08 I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on No Grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals, and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A shot's five, city hall building. A silver 40-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. From I-Heart podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach, murder at City Hall.

Starting point is 01:34:54 How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest. Both men are carrying concealed weapons. And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. Now, everybody in the chambers docked. A shocking public murder. I scream, get down, get down.

Starting point is 01:35:23 Those are shots. Those are shots, get down. A charismatic politician. You know, he just bent the rules all the time. I still have a weapon. And I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was a victim of flat down.

Starting point is 01:35:39 That may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Roershack, murder at City Hall, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jayette. Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast, my latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit Stick Season, and one of the biggest voices in music today.

Starting point is 01:36:05 Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick. Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good.

Starting point is 01:36:36 Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now I need it more than ever. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everyone and welcome to It Could Happen here. My name is Dan Al-Kurd. I'm a researcher of Arab and Palestinian politics.

Starting point is 01:37:03 Today I'm joined by Molly Krabapple, an award-winning writer and artist. She's written three books. She's co-author of the book, Brothers of the Gun, and illustrated a collaboration with Syrian war journalist Murawang Hasham, which was a New York Times notable book, and long-listed for the 2018 National Book Award. And her memoir, Drawing Blood, also received global praise. Her most recent book is Here Where We Live is Our Country,

Starting point is 01:37:26 the story of the Jewish Bund. And it'll be out on April 7th. I've already pre-ordered. I'm very excited. So I wanted to talk to Molly today, given how relevant the history she outlines in her book is to this current moment, especially for the American Jewish community.

Starting point is 01:37:41 So thank you, Molly, for joining us. Thank you so much, Donna, for having me. It's my total honor to be here. So you describe in the book the Bun's philosophy of doyke, or heerness, as a rejection of the idea that Jews need. to seek a homeland elsewhere to find safety. How did you come to understand this concept personally?

Starting point is 01:38:03 And why do you think it was, at least from my perspective, so thoroughly erased from mainstream Jewish historical memory after the Holocaust? I mean, I came across dookite through studying the Boond, which I came across through the watercolors of my great-grandfather, Samuel Rothbord, who was a post-impressionist painter, who was a member of the Boond as a young man back in Russia. And what the concept of dookai or heerness means is it's a defiant assertion of rootedness in a place that wanted Jews dead. Jews had lived in Eastern Europe for over a thousand years, but in the 18th, 19th, and at the dawn of the 20th century, these countries were some of the roughest places to be a Jew in the world. In the Tsarist Empire, Jews were a racialized minority. It set it on their papers. They could only like live. in a certain area. There was military conscription for 25 years. It sucked, shall we say. And in

Starting point is 01:39:00 interwar Poland as well, the government was trying to use racism as a glue to hold this diverse and quite impoverished country together. So what here this meant is it meant that Jews had the right to live and not just live, not just survive, not just cling to life, but to flourish and have beautiful lives in their homes that they had lived in for. the last thousand years. And that even if European Christians thought that Jews were, you know, swarthy oriental aliens who needed to be forcibly deported to Palestine, which is exactly what the Polish interwar government thought, even if that's what those in power thought, Jews had a right to live and flourish in freedom and dignity in their homes, because that's the right that

Starting point is 01:39:45 every single human on this earth has. And in many ways, it almost reminds me of this precursor echo of the Palestinian concept of Samud, of the steadfastness to stay in your home despite the genocidal predations of the Israeli state. And I think that the concept of Heerness was crushed by a variety of things. I mean, first of all, as we all know, you know, there was a genocide in Europe that wiped out two-thirds of European Jews and wiped out 90% of the Jews in Poland. But it wasn't just that. It was also that after the genocide, countries like Poland were so psychopathically violent to Jewish survivors that it convinced the overwhelming majority of Polish Jewish survivors that they had to go somewhere else. There were about a thousand Jews that were murdered by

Starting point is 01:40:34 nationalists in the aftermath of the Holocaust, including dozens who were burned alive in this famous town called Kelze. Now, whether that somewhere else meant Palestine or whether that meant New York City, that was something that was very much up to the visa regimes of the era. The vast majority of Jews who survived the Holocaust did not necessarily want to go to Palestine, let alone to sign up to join the Haganah and throw themselves as cannon fodder into another war after surviving Auschwitz. The majority of Jewish survivors probably wanted to go live with their families in America and in other countries that had large Jewish communities. But the Western democracies, and tell me if this sounds familiar in the current moment, while the Western

Starting point is 01:41:24 democracies preached a language of human rights and universalism, in practice, they were quite content to let impoverished refugees rot in camps. Does that, I could see no other echoes. Of course not, no. No, it's only happened once ever. Yeah, yeah, definitely we've learned our lesson. And yeah, exactly. The world has definitely learned its lesson about the corrosive effects of hypocrisy. And so Zionist groups were able to take over camp administrations and use them as recruiting grounds and to convince and, in fact, sometimes violently coerce survivors to go to Palestine and in many cases to do the Nakhba. And I think that these are the concrete reasons, right, that the concept of dookite was so crushed, so erased, right? Like it was physically erased,

Starting point is 01:42:13 with violence. But there's something more than that, even, because, you know, there are many, many movements that are physically crushed with violence whose memories are vivid and alive and resonant. I think about, like, the Black Panther Party in America, you know, who were subject to the most brutal violence by the state, but who, you know, remain as legends. And I think the reason that the boons wasn't just physically crushed by the 20th century, but the reason that it was so ideologically marginalized was because they always opposed Zionism. From the very first days of their founding, they opposed Zionism as a capitulation to the same European racists that wanted to kick Jews out of their home. And not only did they oppose Zionism, because many Jewish groups opposed Zionism,

Starting point is 01:42:58 the Satmar Pacific community, where I live, also opposed Zionism. It wasn't just the Boone's opposition to Zionism that made Zionists so angry. It's that Zionism is built on. It's that Zionism is built on, on this very self-hating dichotomy. And that dichotomy is that there are diaspora Jews who were weak and that's why they were murdered. And then there are the brave, big-dict Israeli sabras who are strong and bravely oppressing and murdering themselves and that's why they live.

Starting point is 01:43:29 And what the boond did was it shows the lie of that because the boond were strong. They didn't just fight for their right to stay in Europe with graduate school seminars. They fought for it with brass knuckles and with guns, the statement here where we live is our country isn't something that has the same meaning as it would mean if I said it in New York City. Like, of course, New York is my city. It's fucking awesome. When they said it, I always felt like there was an implied motherfucker at the end,

Starting point is 01:43:57 here where we live is our country motherfucker, whether you like it or not. We are born here and it's ours. Right. It's so powerful. And I'm glad that you mentioned other kind of ideological resonances. Like the Black Panthers, they don't really exist in the same way anymore, but they're still resonant in like Black Lives Matter. It brings me to this next question, which is that especially younger Jewish Americans, they increasingly are questioning, you know, Zionist narratives, and they describe their solidarity with Palestinians, not as a rejection of Jewish identity, but as an expression of their commitment to universal justice, and as a rejection maybe of Zionism, but not their Judaism.

Starting point is 01:44:38 Do you think that this is a bundist inheritance, even if unconscious, or is it something new? I think that decent people of all stripes are seeing what Palestinian journalists and Lebanese journalists have risked their lives exposing. They're seeing a genocide live streamed on their smartphones and, you know, live streamed by these amazing journalists, you know, who are living in killing cages. And anyone who's a decent person, whether you're Jewish or not, will turn away from the ideology that is responsible for that genocide. So I wouldn't say it's a bunda's resonance that's making young people turn against, you know, Zionist institutions. I think it's just their basic humanity, the same as so many other groups of people are. And I credited a lot to the amazing work of Palestinians who have done so much work with so much grace at, you know, such huge risks to their lives to be able to tell these stories for the world to, you know, at least see. However, I think that there's something a little bit different going on, which is that, you know, young Jews are seeing the,

Starting point is 01:45:36 the Israeli mass murder machine for what it is. But if they've gone through like the standard issue, you know, like Hebrew school education, they don't really learn a lot about Jewish history. Like the way you would learn about it would be ancient kingdoms, the Park Okba revolt, maybe if you're lucky. And then like a big long, you know, 2000 year gap of horror and murder where nothing interesting or good ever happened and where you were just a victim of all of history. and then, you know, glorious creation of the state of Israel redemption. Like that's the sort of bullshit narrative you'd get. And when young Jews reject that narrative, as they should, you know, when they learn about

Starting point is 01:46:17 the reality of what Zionism means, a lot of them are left with a real hole in them because they haven't, like, learned anything positive about their own heritage. They've just been fed fairy tales that are meant to, you know, legitimize this state. And so, you know, there's like a lot of, a lot of, a lot of, shame, right, a lot of pain over that. And I think what a lot of young Jewish people are trying to do is they're trying to look back to like their own grandparents and their own great grandparents. And for Jews in America, like most Jews in America come from Eastern European backgrounds. You know, it's a different, different sort of demographic breakdown than in Israel. And that sort of like

Starting point is 01:46:54 Jewish socialism is something that's very, very, very present in so many people's family history. Not necessarily that your grandfather was like the greatest socialist revolutionary in the world, but just that he belonged to a socialist garment union and was part of like a socialist mutual aid thing because that was just the culture that so many American Jews swam it 100 years ago. And so I think there's this huge rediscover of the boond and of Jewish socialism that's inspired by the rejection of the sinus genocide. On the one hand, I'm witnessing what you're saying. You know, like we're all kind of witnessing.

Starting point is 01:47:40 Like you said, it's not specifically to the Jewish community, but because the Jewish community has been fed, you know, this idea that Israel is so integral to their Jewishness and to their safety and to these kinds of things, there is a very maybe specific way that they are metabolizing that or acting out against it. But at the same time, you know, we've seen a number of different polls, including most recently the Jewish federations of North America,

Starting point is 01:48:09 they put out polling results, where 37% identified as non-Zionists and 7% of their polling identified as anti-Zionists. But it was an interesting poll because it's like both people who were like critical of Israel and those who were supportive of Israel took it to mean that it, you know, confirmed their biases. Because despite the fact that the genocide has happened and is happening, that anti-Zionism component hasn't really risen very much. And then still a lot of polls show that, like, people presume Israel is vital to Jewish continuity. So how do you make sense of that contradiction? Well, that's one question is how do you make sense of that contradiction? But the second question is, like, do you think rediscovering Bundest like offers a way through it?

Starting point is 01:48:59 I do, actually. I mean, I think that, you know, people have not just but like been fed this idea that Israel is, you know, like essential for their safety, for continuity, but also that it's like an essential part of themselves. And I do think that it's very life-affirming and important to know that you have something better, that you can reject this shitty ideology. I mean, in terms of polls, I often feel like, I mean, maybe I'm, maybe I'm just wrong about Americans, but I sometimes feel like people don't even know what the hell they're signing on to with polls. Like, I will see something where people be like, we want strong borders and to like, you know, deport all the illegals, but also we fucking hate ice. And I'm like, you just, you just want like wildly

Starting point is 01:49:39 contradictory things. And I wonder like how, I don't know, like how educated people even are and how much like the framing of questions affects what people think. I mean, I'm trying to think of what to make of it. I mean, I do think, you know, very sadly, like, there are a large number of, you know, American Jewish people. And in some way, I'm talking like outside of my own experience because my own family is not Zionist. So this is more like my speculation type thing. But, you know, they're very progressive. They believe in, you know, like Medicaid for all. They believe in, you know, they believe that cops shouldn't be constantly murdering black people as they do in America all the time. They believe even ICE should be abolished. But they also have this like unthinking

Starting point is 01:50:25 emotional attachment to Israel, even if they literally hate everything that Israel's doing. And I feel like a lot of those people, what they'll do is they'll try to blame it on Netanyahu and not on the entire system. Like, I would see people who supported the protests, you know, over the judicial reform, but they weren't willing to like fully confront the absolute fucking horrors, not just of the occupation, but of Israel itself. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I've also, you know, obviously experience that kind of block, you know, where it's easier to blame a particular government than to maybe think about, I mean, the specificities of Israel's founding and Israel's ideology, but also like the violent nature of nation states. And like just kind of thinking through that, I think can be a little bit difficult for people. And as someone who works on polling, like, yes, there are so many contradictions. We take polling to understand the start. points, but that doesn't restrict our political imagination. Like, that's how I think of it. It's obviously also difficult for people to start to kind of maybe disentangle their emotional

Starting point is 01:51:39 commitments to the state of Israel, especially in this moment where there are, like, white supremacists and Nazis and neo-Nazis and all sorts of evil people regaining control of all sorts of, you know, state institutions and finding, you know, a great deal of legitimacy and a great deal of traction amongst the American public. It's difficult to tell, I think, some parts of the American Jewish community, like, hey, Israel's not a safety valve for you when, in fact, there's so much anti-Semitism now in the United States. I mean, I feel like it's a self-reinforcing loop, though. I mean, on one hand, you have Jewish institutions. who are literally sticking up this fucking flag of a state that is committed by the ICC of doing

Starting point is 01:52:30 genocide and, you know, waving that flag around and having soldiers from an army that's doing a genocide speaking there, like honored guests, and saying like, this is what it means to be Jewish. It's that we back Israel. And on the other hand, you have these wormy little neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes, who have always hated Jews and not because of Israel. Nick Fuentes also thinks all women should be put in breeding camps and all black people should be locked behind bars. Kate's Jews because he's a neo-Nazi who are seeing the rightful anger that people have

Starting point is 01:53:05 with the ongoing genocide. And they're seeing people's disillusionment with both political parties who are continuing to provide weapons and QN cover to Israel. And they're exploiting that. And that's something that fascism has always done, right? like fascism has always exploited issues that are popular. It will try to exploit the desire that people have for peace, for instance. It will try to exploit the desire people have for economic justice.

Starting point is 01:53:33 But instead of, you know, actually giving people economic justice, they'll just say, oh, it's the Jews, oh, it's the leftist billionaires, or it's George Soros. And, yeah, like, you absolutely see some of the worst scumbags on earth who are exploiting the anger that people feel over the genocide in order to worm their way into power and to warm their way into legitimacy. And I always think about this with Tucker Carlson. I mean, for me, like, okay, like he's like, you know, standard issue. He has anti-Jewish shit. That's like standard issue, Christian shit. But like for me, the thing that's so, I hate so much about seeing smart people boost Tucker Carlson is that Tucker Carlson advocates the ethnic cleansing

Starting point is 01:54:15 of the United States of immigrants. Ten months ago, he, he, was on Megan Kelly, reying about how he wanted one million people deported in Trump's hundred days. He was even saying, we don't have to put them in detention centers. We can just force a million people, a million people over the border into Tijuana and, quote, let the Mexicans deal with them. This is hardcore white supremacist ethnic cleansing, and it's not just a speculative thing. There are tens of thousands of immigrants right now in concentration camps in the U.S. And the fact that anyone, because he gives good clip on Palestine, thinks that he's their ally when he would happily support the same ice system that is locking

Starting point is 01:54:55 up Palestinians right now is insane. It's madness. And I just, I mean, I know that people are so traumatized and so heartbroken and, you know, even being like driven crazy by the ongoing genocide and by the American enthusiastic collusion with the genocide. But there has to be a certain basic level of solidarity with other groups who are also under threat, like all the other immigrant communities that are getting around and I've been putting in concentration camps right now. No, absolutely. I mean, there has to be a basic minimum level of solidarity and like a basic minimum level of like analysis. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The animating force behind Tucker Carlson is not love for Palestinians or like some, you know, desire for justice or or anything, you know, so it's like

Starting point is 01:55:43 the natural conclusion of a Tucker Carlson is something like the ethnic cleansing that he's asking for. It has been disturbing to seek and continue to see how people have really convinced themselves that this is something to try to capitalize on. I mean, Tucker Carlson went to the Middle East and people were taking photos with him and I'm like, this man hates you. This man doesn't care about any of these things that you care about. But like you said, it's just the situation is so bad that people are willing to forego solidarity and basic political truths to engage with someone like him. I mean, you've kind of mentioned it and alluded to it in your answers already about Jewish institutions like flying Israeli flag and things like that. Who are the forces today?

Starting point is 01:56:40 What are the institutions today that benefit from something like the Boond and like its philosophy not being revisited? And what do they stand to lose if these Buddhist ideas become widely known again. I mean, I feel like the vast majority of mainstream Jewish institutions, I mean, there's obviously like the ADL, right? You know, a ridiculous group that I almost feel like primarily exists to try to like terrify elderly people so that Jonathan Greenblatt keeps getting his ridiculously inflated salary and keeps getting to like prance around like he's important. There's, you know, like the campus halels, right, who claim that they're just, you know, a neutral thing for Jewish identity, but make it a prerequisite that you're Zionist.

Starting point is 01:57:26 There's just like a vast amount of institutional Jewish groups that are not democratic. They're not things that we vote for. I did not fucking vote for Jonathan Greenblatt to be appointed my spokesman. You know, I didn't, I didn't vote for these things. These are institutions led by very wealthy people that are in no way responsive to young Jews. They're not responsive to like ordinary people. and they want to keep having their sort of stranglehold on getting to be the like spokesman for these very, very, very diverse communities. And I think that, you know, as the boon and as other anti-Zionist forms of Jewishness are discovered and rediscovered that these spokespeople are terrified because, I mean,

Starting point is 01:58:15 the biggest thing that they want, that they're so terrified about is they're terrified about losing, the young people. The whole project, it's about, you know, like this Jewish continuity, they call it, and, you know, Jewish people like getting married to each other, you know, having kids, like, contributing money to their institutions, you know, maybe making aliyat to Israel. And if people are like, no, I reject this. I reject this state that's committing a genocide and I reject this ideology built on supremacy. And actually, it's like fine to live in New York City and to, you know, live and love and struggle alongside my neighbors, that's directly antithetical to their project. And I think that's why the Boond has not just been erased, but it's mere mention provokes such

Starting point is 01:59:00 anger. Like, sometimes I just look through my comments and it's just these endless fucking comments from people being like, Boondall died in the Holocaust, L-O-L. Like, what do you say to this, right? That's so the last days. Yeah, the Boond was all gassed, L-O-L. You won't use to be gassed, you Zionists are thriving. And I'm like, this is the most psychopathic, talk about self-hating, right, mocking people for being murdered in the Holocaust, you know. It's because the Boone's ideology of solidarity, cross-difference, of Heerness, and of socialism is profoundly threatening. And honestly, like, what thriving is happening? Like, people in Israel are terrified. There are

Starting point is 01:59:40 missiles raining down. Like, a garrison state cannot keep people safe. No such ethno-state can keep people safe. And I'm reminded also from your answer about Ariel Angel's article, I think last year in Jewish currents, we need new Jewish institutions. I think it's like they see the writing on the wall that this is something that's going to happen. And with books like yours, with kind of a revisiting of this history, it only hastens, you know, this kind of political project coming to fruition. My last question that I have for you is more about the memory project nature of it all. You write in your book about your great-grandfather. You've already mentioned Samuel Rothbert about how he painted these memory paintings

Starting point is 02:00:25 to kind of resurrect the vanished world of Eastern Europe. And you've also kind of written this book in the same way. What do you think the relationship is between this kind of recovery of erased history and building a politics for the present. Thank you. I mean, I spent seven years on this book. I learned Yiddish. That's wild, by the way.

Starting point is 02:00:47 I know, right? You know, I resented because I studied Arabic for so long, and I, like, had finally gotten, like, I don't want to say good, but mediocre at it. And then I feel like, Yiddish pushed it out of my brain. And I'm just like, no, I want my Arabic back. But, yeah, so I studied, I learned Yiddish. I went to, you know, all the countries that I could

Starting point is 02:01:06 that the boon was active in. I wasn't able to go to Belarus or Russia. but I went to like Poland, Latvia, Lithuania. I went to Ukraine during the Russian invasion. I translated so many books. I think I'm probably the only person who has read all five volumes of the terrifically boring a Geshechte von Bund official for history. And I felt like I was doing necromancy.

Starting point is 02:01:28 You know, I felt like I was in love with these rebel ancestors, these gun-toting seamstresses, these lovers on the barricades, these stubborn people who, who constructed whole worlds out of love and grit, even when society wanted to crush them. I just fell in love. And I didn't just want to resurrect them from a racial because their philosophy was opposed to Zionism, though that was part of it, of course.

Starting point is 02:01:55 I wanted to resurrect them because the boon were amazing, because they fought back against every single bastard of their age. They fought for an ethos that was rooted in human dignity and in human flourishing and freedom, but also in economic justice and leftism, I just fell in love and I wanted them to live again. And, you know, one of the things that the powers that B do is that they try to impose themselves onto the past. They try to say, because we won now, it was inevitable that we would win. It was always going to be like this.

Starting point is 02:02:28 There is no alternative, as Margaret Thatcher said. And what you do when you preserve these rebel histories is you show that that's not the case. It expands our capacity for fight. It expands our capacity for imagination. Things could have been differently and people still can change the world. Yeah, there's nothing inevitable. And you always have agency. I think that that's like the thing that, like I get goosebumps thinking about when I think

Starting point is 02:02:55 about these kinds of people because they give you so much hope in the present that things could be different. Thank you so much, Molly. This has been such an interesting and provocative conversation. And thank you so much for learning. Yiddish and for just sending all those books so that we can read your book and we don't have to do all of that. Exactly. So you do not have to suffer through the world's dullest socialist pros stylings. Yeah. No, you've done it for us and I'm so excited for the book. I'll put it in the

Starting point is 02:03:23 show notes. Everybody should read it. Thank you so much, Molly. Thank you so much, Donna. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the honest talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they

Starting point is 02:04:16 have to develop at such a young age? What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into to the under-explored pockets of the sport.

Starting point is 02:04:48 In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to no grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 02:05:05 A silver, 40-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. From I-Hart Podcasts and Best K Studios, This is Worshack, murder at City Hall. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.

Starting point is 02:05:35 Both men are carrying concealed weapons. And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. Everybody in the chamber is docked. A shocking public murder. A scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. Those are shots. Get down.

Starting point is 02:05:55 A charismatic politician. You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man. I still have a weapon, and I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was a victim of flat now. That may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Roershack, murder at City Hall, on the IHeart Radio app,

Starting point is 02:06:16 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah. the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit stick season and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick. Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was

Starting point is 02:06:54 ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be. unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now I need it more than ever. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For decades, people in northern Nigeria have been suffering the violence of jihadist.

Starting point is 02:07:30 groups in the region. More recently, following the lobbying of some questionable interest groups and figures in the United States, President Donald Trump has dropped American bombs on Nigeria and soil. What exactly is happening in Nigeria? Hello and welcome to Ikrappin here. I'm Andrew Sage, Andrew is on YouTube, and I'm joined again by... James. I'm glad we're doing this one. Yes, to talk about what's been happening in Nigeria since it has captured Trump's attention, and thus Western media interest as of late. So first of all, what or where is Nigeria? According to the Cyclopedia Britannica, Nigeria is a West African country with a diverse geography and an even more diverse population.

Starting point is 02:08:13 Hundreds of languages, hundreds of ethnic groups, several religions in the most populous country in Africa and one of the most populous countries in the world. Over 239 million people call Nigeria home and the Nigerian diaspora is well over 10 million strong. Like much of Africa, Nigeria is rich in natural resources, particularly petroleum and natural gas, but heavily exploited by international and local capital. Thus, much of its population, by some estimates over half of its population, is considered multidimensionally poor. Modern Nigeria was stitched together from the British protectorates of northern and southern Nigeria, and it gained its political independence only recently in 1960, and became a republic

Starting point is 02:08:59 in 1963. That north-south divide is particularly relevant because it continues to define Nigerian politics today. Nigeria splits almost evenly between its Christian population, which dominates the south, and its Muslim population, which dominates the north. Alongside ethnic, linguistic and other political divisions, corruption, and all the other baggage of a typical Neo colony has made Nigerian politics quite the powder keg of some time. There have been tragic and deadly episodes of political and religious violence throughout Nigeria's history, going in both directions, including the 1987 crisis in Kaduna State, and the early 2000s had several notorious riots and massacres as well, including the Yellow Massacre and the Joss riots.

Starting point is 02:09:43 Linking the show notes for the details on those. Since 2009, however, militant Islamist group Boko Haram has engaged in a protracted incurgency against the Nigerian government and terrorized the Christian and terrorized the Christian and. and Muslim population through bombings, assassinations and abductions, with the overall intent of establishing an Islamic breakaway state in North Nigeria. But for the past few months, there has been a concerted effort to paint a narrative of Christian genocide in Nigeria, a narrative that has long been co-signed by the likes of Donald Trump. So back in 2018, Trump had actually called out the killing of Christians in Nigeria, yet stopped short of calling to genocide. But according to an article by Ayula Babalula,

Starting point is 02:10:24 on the myth of Christian genocide, it was not long after Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shatima's September 2025 remarks at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, where he reasserted Nigeria's longstanding solidarity with Palestine, that the Western, largely

Starting point is 02:10:41 pro-Israel far right, began the campaign of claiming Christian genocide in Nigeria. In his address, Shatima did mention the problem that Nigeria was happening with extremism, but these commentators are running with a much more specific narrative. The same people who deny the Pastinian genocide and prop up the mythical white genocide in South Africa

Starting point is 02:11:00 have gone on to push this Christian genocide story. Bill Meyer, the guy who still can't prove the claims he made about October 7th, has gone on to tell people that what's happening in Nigeria is, to paraphrase, so much more of a genocide than what's happening in Gaza, end quote. In late October and early November 25, Trump tweeted that Christianity is facing a existential threat in Nigeria. Named Nigeria as a country of particular concern and announced the United States was ready, willing, and able to save our great Christian

Starting point is 02:11:35 population around the world. And for some reason, Nicky Minaj is out there back in Trump's Christian persecution narrative as well. Perfect. Why are you in it? Yeah, just to be clear for anyone, it's not the way. Nikki Minaj is not a person from Nigeria or with any particular insight into the situation there. She's also not turned out here and I just want to clear that up. Yes, her birth certificate is

Starting point is 02:11:59 from the Republic of a transatl vehicle, but we do not claim her. Since her statement about how COVID and the vaccine and her cousin's boils, like from that moment onward, people have been distancing themselves from her and train her. Anyway, I can see why. So in November 225, according to a BBC report, Trump also said that he would send troops into Nigeria, guns, are blazing if its government continues to allow the killing of Christians. Then in December 2025, according to another BBC report, the US

Starting point is 02:12:32 has launched strikes on the 25th of December as a Christmas present against militants in the Islamic State Group in northwestern Nigeria. What should be noted though is they did not strike Boko Haram, which is based in northeast Nigeria. Yeah, it was really interesting to look at

Starting point is 02:12:50 the bill that I wrote about this a bit for my newsletter, but the US was flying intelligence gathering flights essentially for some time of Nigeria, right? Clearly, like, there must have been some kind of agreement with the Nigerian government to allow this, right? But they were clearly trying to identify, like, where it's Wapen Boko Haram were. And, like, you could see them winding up to this strike. Yeah, I guess they waited to Christmas Day to go for it. Yeah, yeah. So there was the Christmas present of the U.S.

Starting point is 02:13:22 bombing there. Yeah. And this happened less than a week, by the way, after the Alliance of Sahel States, that being Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali, commissioned a joint military force of 5,000 counter-terrorists. And that move was following the economic community of West African states or ECOWAS plan to launch a 260,000 member counterterrorism force. So there's a lot of military action happening in West Africa right now, coming from the inside and the outside. In a January 2026 report, Trump, Trump claimed, quote, I'd love to make it a one-time strike, but if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many-time strike, end quote. Trump has also accused the Nigerian government, as I said, of repeatedly failing to protect

Starting point is 02:14:05 Christians. So Trump is a known liar to take everything he says with a grain assault, as is the rest of his administration, and generally really can't trust politicians and pundits. So let me break down what is actually happening in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has said that Muslims, Christians, and those of no faith alike are targeted. According to Ayula, Bawalula, the government of Nigeria is indeed failing to adequately address devastation being wrought against communities in Nigeria. But critically, it is not religious nature. Or rather, religion is only a part of the picture.

Starting point is 02:14:52 It can be used to explain the whole story on the ground. So there are several groups wreaking havoc in North Nigeria. You have a few different Islamic State of things. related groups. They have Boko Haram, which is the main one, and you also have the conflict between the Fulani herdsmen, who are mostly Muslim, and various farming groups, who may be Christian or Muslim. So when the herdsmen are concerned, that kind of conflict has actually been taken place between the herders and the settled people for literal centuries. The only difference is that now you have them carry an AK47s instead of just sticks and

Starting point is 02:15:25 machetes. Yeah. How they got those AK47s is really thanks to the history. history of the West's intervention in Africa, but we'll get to that in a moment. Critically, though, if you step outside of the religious freeman, you would see a criminal, economic, and political motivation behind these actions. They may be going after land, or want to extract ransom, or pursue a particular political goal. The Muslims in North Nigeria are not safe just because they're Muslim. Boko Haram's victims are mostly Muslim because Bukharam's target is anyone who stands to them and their political aims. Everyone who isn't Boko Haram or aligned with Islamic State

Starting point is 02:16:05 West African province is considered an enemy. One article on Trump's Beef with Nigeria by Yusuf Bangura talks about six types of violence in the country. We have the Boko Haram Islamist-inspired violence in the northeast, whose main victims are Muslims who reject the group's Islamist ideology. They have the banditry in the northwest, which affects Muslims and Christians in equal measure. You have the Herder Farmer conflict in the Middle Belt, which affects Christians and Muslims, although reports indicate the Christians are the main victims of that violence. You have the Herda Farmer Violence in the Northwest, which is distinct from the Hood of Farmer Violence in the Middle Belt.

Starting point is 02:16:44 So the one in the Northwest has Fulani Hoeders reportedly pitched against Hausa farmers, and both groups are Muslim. You have the violence inflicted by the indigenous people of Biafra and bandits in the east against their own people, Ibos, who are. Christian, and you also have general banditry in large parts of the country, which has rendered travelling by roads between cities very risky. So there's been a lot of Western attention drawn to just some of the victims, the churches, the church leaders, and the Christian communities, even though mosques and imams and Muslim communities and animists have also been devastated,

Starting point is 02:17:19 and it's turned a multifaceted violence into a narrative of targeted anti-Christian violence, seemingly at least from the Trump and Zionist camp for the purpose of demonizing Muslims and I guess in some convoluted way weakening global support for Palestinians because Palestinians are also Muslims so they're all the same I don't know that's just speculation on my part even Christian leaders in Nigeria have been calling out this frame in though Archbishop Matthew Manoso Nagoso was quoted extensively in an article for aid to the need, which is an international Catholic organization. Rather than pin the blame on Islam, he said, quote,

Starting point is 02:17:59 in the northwest, the farmers are mostly Muslims and they also have conflicts with the Fulani. As moving the middle belt, it is inhabiting mostly by Christians, so there will most likely be a Christian farm. Religion and ethnicity are very sensitive problems in Nigeria. They are always used for convenience. But primarily this conflict is not religious, I am absolutely sure. If you apply for a job when you don't get it, you might say you were rejected because you were a Christian, and the same for Muslims.

Starting point is 02:18:23 Opportunists, such as politicians, use these factors to their own advantage. But if you go to the route, you discover it is little or nothing to his religion. End quote. It's an excellent analysis from the church. I'm surprised it came from that source. I'm glad it did, you know?

Starting point is 02:18:37 Yeah, Catholic Church of all places. Yeah. So he even claims that the kidnappings of priests have little to do with religion. And I'll quote him again. In the last three years, seven of my priests have been kidnapped, two have been killed and one has been in captivity for three years and two months.

Starting point is 02:18:54 Four released. In 50 of my parishes, priests cannot stay in their rectories because they are targets. They are seen as an easy source of money for ransom. So he's emphasizing there that it's really about the money that the church has perceived to be able to provide to these kiddappers, more so than any religious targeting in particular. Of course, that is only one archbishop's perspective on the situation. I think Babalola makes an important point in his article on the myth that I would like to quote as well. Crucially, Christians at times become the chosen targets in particular assaults.

Starting point is 02:19:29 Churches have been attacked during worship, pre-subducted, and entire Christian villages raised in Plateau, Benu, and Southern Kaduna. These episodes are not separate from the general crisis, but are rather moments when Christian identity is weaponized to mark a community for terror. In this sense, Christians bear both the general weight of insecurity, shared by all Nigerians and the sharper trauma of faith-based targeting in certain attacks. But Mabulah doesn't forget that these groups terror has a severe impact on the Muslims as well. In fact, he makes an important comparison I wanted to highlight, which is that in areas ravaged by armed groups, the first victims tend to be those who have religious or ethnic groups in common with the militants,

Starting point is 02:20:13 killed because they are seen as infidels or not noble enough or not committed, enough to the ideals of that movement. If you look at the history of Zionism in the Middle East, for example, before the founding of the state of Israel, there were bombings of several Jewish heritage sites across the Middle East, and records have later showed that they were carried out by terroristic Jewish gangs who sought to instill a fair in Jewish communities across the region to sow discord between the Jewish communities and their neighbours for the purpose of forcing them to abandon these Middle Eastern states and relocate to Israel to further Israel's economic and geopolitical goals.

Starting point is 02:20:57 So it's not unheard of for a group to target its own core religionists for its geopolitical economic and economic countries. If we talk about specifically the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, right, ISIS as opposed to the Islamic State in West Africa, they killed more Muslims than anyone else, right? exactly those were the bulk of the people it murdered we could even look at a very old historical example the latin crusade you had all these christians from europe going on a crusade and because they didn't get paid they decided to ransack their core religious in Greece and you know in the wider Byzantine empire and eventually you know deconstruct the Byzantine empire entirely and establish their own

Starting point is 02:21:44 Latin Empire. Yeah. So I didn't want to gloss over the real challenges that Christians specifically are facing in North Nigeria though. Since 1999, Sharia law has been introduced and enforced in 12 northern states. And according to the same archbishop that I quoted earlier, this has ensured that religious persecution in the north is systemic. He said, and I quote, I cannot build a church. Even if you buy land, you cannot get a permission of occupancy, and therefore you cannot build. In many of these states do not allow the teaching of Christianity, yet the government employs and pays imams to teach in schools. Every year they have money to build mosques in the budget, but they will not let you build churches. They might state there as a university and across the street there are five mosques, and no church.

Starting point is 02:22:27 We wanted to build one, they didn't allow it. If you build the church without permission, the government can't tear it down. And this is what we are going through. It is serious. We want our government to be held accountable for people to be treated equally. End quote. So, again, religious conflict is still part of the picture. but not in the way that the Western governments are painted.

Starting point is 02:22:47 What's happening is these issues are being amplified by opportunists and far-right lobbyists. And as I established earlier, we should be addressing where these terror groups have even come from, because the West's hands are not clean in that picture either. Groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have known connections in their history to Western Midland. An American policy in Africa has at least indirectly armed these groups thanks to the fall of Gaddafi in Libya and the American-led-e stabilization of other Muslim countries

Starting point is 02:23:15 in Southwest Asia and North Africa. The death squads are armed with AKs that is dispersed across the Sahel region victimizing Africans of all face or at least some of their firepower to that Western intervention, to the flow of arms coming out of Libya. The West has repeatedly shown

Starting point is 02:23:32 that it is not care of people's lives. So what is the real beef that Trump and Coe have with Nigeria? Well, according to Bangford, Gura's article, Trump is not feeling the fact that the US is dependent on China for rare earths. And Nigeria is very resource rich when it comes to rare earths like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and all that other stuff. Chinese companies have invested more than $1.3 billion in Nigeria's lithium processing industry. And Russia has growing leverage in the region thanks to their involvement with Niger, Bikina Faso, and Mali.

Starting point is 02:24:16 So in an effort to wean America or of China, Trump's been trying to utter the deal of the situation. So he signed agreements in Southeast Asia to increase the production and processing of rare earths and exports to the US. He stepped into a broker peace deal, quote and quote, between the DRC and Rwanda so the US can invest more in the DRC's minerals. And what Trump really do like in Nigeria's case is that Nigeria's president, Tudu, is not playing more with him, at least in this case. In Trump's eyes, Tinugu do not do enough to reverse Nigeria's military coup, and Tinugu

Starting point is 02:24:53 do not let the U.S. relocate their Nigerian military base to Nigeria. Tunubu also didn't let Trump relocate deportees to Nigeria, even when Ghana, Rwanda, Eswetini, South Sudan, and Uganda all accepted them. Furthermore, as I

Starting point is 02:25:10 established before, Nigeria continues to condemn Israel's genocide in Gaza. Now, when it wants to, the US can intervene in other countries without the talk about humanitarian itself. We could look at Guatemala in 1954 when they tried to implement some land reforms and that went against the United Food Company's interests, so the US invaded. And you also had the US willing to simply support whatever opposition exists in the country. Like in the Congo in 1961 against Patrice Lumumba, in Chile in 1973 against Salvador Allende,

Starting point is 02:25:43 and in Iran in 1953 against Mohammed Mossadegh. So they will use humanitarian talk. Whether they use that talk or not, the results tend to be disastrous for the people in those countries. US intervention sucks pretty much everywhere. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and more besides. So we can count on whatever Trump attempts in Nigeria being an abject failure. More recently, the United States announced it will be sending a military team

Starting point is 02:26:13 to Nigeria after a string of recent attacks, that being 200 troops. So we'll see what happens next. But it's clear that US intervention is not the solution. Its intentions are definitely malicious. So what can the future be for the people of Nigeria? How can its people be free? Obviously, the battle against these reactionary forces rages on, but military solutions and militarization will not be enough.

Starting point is 02:26:41 In fact, it carries some serious risk in the the region as a whole in terms of escalation. An article by Ayodele O'Aubi in Al-Jazeera recognized that with Nigeria's entanglement with the US and the 260,000 strong ICAAS force, the AES is going to feel threatened, you know, as it's trying to keep Western influence out of the region. So there's a danger of future ECOWAS deployments overlapping with AES operations and potentially leading to clashes. And if there isn't a de-escalation of tensions between ECOWAS and AES, we can end up seeing

Starting point is 02:27:12 interstate wars that would devastate communities in the region and give the insurgents opportunities to expand. It could very well set up another proxy battleground for global powers and some kind of new Cold War. So they have to find some way of avoiding this clash and see if they can build a cooperative security framework despite their vastly different interests. Yeah. And to a degree we already see like global powers, right? Like Russia has been honing its most horrendous. horrific war crimes in parts of West Africa for a long time, right? With its private military contractors. Exactly.

Starting point is 02:27:50 Ukraine has sent special forces to assist the people fighting against their Russian private military contractors. We've seen Nigeria's own government kill its own civilians and its counterterrorism operation. All of this just makes life less livable for people who are ready, like on the thick end of climate change for one thing and have suffered under centuries of colonialism for another. So that's a geopolitic analysis, I suppose.

Starting point is 02:28:20 But in the long term, I think there's much to be done to rebuild the revolutionary front within Nigeria, led by Nigerians themselves, to chart another path for the future of the country away from a status of vassalage. Yeah. You know, left and left adjacent movements were very diminished in relevance and credibility after the end of military rule in Nigeria in 1999, due to several reasons that we could get into at another time. But by the time we got the Nsars movement in 2020,

Starting point is 02:28:50 left forces were present but didn't have the level of organization and strategy necessary to rise the occasion. But according to an article in Progressive International by Ayula Babalola, there's potential for a resurgence. The end bad governance movement had demonstrations in August, October, 2124, which saw leftist groups like Take It Back and the Socialist Workers League play a central role in organizing and mobilizing protests. Unlike earlier moments, these groups articulated clear demands, coordinated protest strategies, and attempted to provide ideological direction.

Starting point is 02:29:26 This is in spite of facing crackdowns and arrests of key figures in the left and progressive spaces. Of course, not everyone mobilizing against Nigeria's struggling economic and political conditions are committed to left or left-adjacent ideas, but still the question remains unresolved. Can this renewed street-level influence be transformed into lasting organizational power, or will repeat the cycle of localization followed by fragmentation that has littered movements before it? This violence taking place in Nigeria is bound up with the violence taking place across the world. It is bound up in imperialist interests, in capitalist interests, in status interests, and in petty tyrant's interests.

Starting point is 02:30:08 From Nigeria to Congo to Sudan to Palestine, violence and suppression tactics wielded in one place often brought to another. Babelola says in his article that, quote, a genuine pursuit of justice must confront proximate perpetrators as well as the transnational systems of power that sustain them. What we must not allow is for the global perpetrators of criminality and terror to tell the world where to focus its attention. End quote.

Starting point is 02:30:34 In other words, do let the world. the perpetrators of these violences tell you where to focus. We must look everywhere, look holistically at what's happening, and put the power and solidarity in the hands of the people affected to resist that violence. That's all I have to say. As usual, all power to all the people. Peace. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different

Starting point is 02:31:24 stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age? What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory.

Starting point is 02:32:04 I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into to the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guests and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals, and sagas, both on the track and far away from it that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years.

Starting point is 02:32:27 Listen to no grip on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A silver 40-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. From I-Hart Podcasts and Best Case Studios. This is Worshack, Murder at City. Hall. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest. Both men are carrying concealed weapons. And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.

Starting point is 02:33:13 Now, everybody in the chambers docks. A shocking public murder. A scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. Those are shots. Get down. A charismatic politician. You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man. I still have a weapon, and I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was a victim of blackmail. That may or may not have been political.

Starting point is 02:33:37 That may have been about sex. Listen to Roershack, murder at City Hall, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah. Con, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit Stick Season, and one of the biggest voices in music today. Noah opens up about the pressure that followed his rapid success, his struggles with mental health and body image, and the fear of starting again after such a defining moment in his career. It's easy to look at somebody and be like, your life must be so sick.

Starting point is 02:34:16 Man, you have no clue. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. I'm just now trying to unwind this idea that I have to be. unhealthy physically or in pain in some emotional way in my life to create good music. If someone says that I did a good job, I'm like, yeah, I'm good. Someone says that I suck. I'm like, I suck. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now I need it more than ever. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 02:34:54 This is It Could Happen here at 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 James Stout, Mia Wong, and Robert Evans. This episode, we are covering the week of April 1st to April 8th. The DHS shutdown has surpassed 50 days. Last week, House Republicans tentatively agreed to the Senate deal to fund DHS without ICE and CPP, though this agreement is stalled while Congress is out of session till April 14th. Fox News has partnered with Kalshi

Starting point is 02:35:30 to incorporate its political betting data into news coverage. Fox joins CNN, CNBC, and the AP in entering into deals with the so-called prediction market. Kalshi announced, quote, prediction markets add accountability by rewarding accuracy.

Starting point is 02:35:47 That's why the three leading networks have chosen Kalshi. No spin, no partisan lens, just incentives to be right, unquote. It's just gambling. It's so cool that the whole world, all media is now just ESPN. Incentives to be right. Again, like, people are, there's, like, one of the sub-markets within Kalshi is people, like,

Starting point is 02:36:07 bringing in lawyers to make threats over, like, tiny differences in grammar that invalidate them either losing money or mean that they should have won the art. Like, like, none of this is about what actually happened. It's becoming as much about what you can game or, like, threaten the news and to not reporting as we talked about the week before last with that case in Israel. And insider trading. And insider trading.

Starting point is 02:36:28 Yeah. No, it's just turning politics into like a corrupt casino. Yeah, it's just mob sports betting. It's worse than sports betting because sports betting is actually based on like real odds, right? These odds are completely created by users with their money. Like it's completely manufactured.

Starting point is 02:36:44 There's no actual basis for a lot of these bets, right? Like the betting on the like the papal conclave, there's no basis for an America Pope getting elected, right? There's no actual odds that were like mathematically certain. It's just created through, through money. Well, to be fair, the sports odds are also just kind of made up by guys too. But like, yeah, you know, it's just a tiny bit. It's vibes based.

Starting point is 02:37:08 Like it's people looking at horses is a lot of what's happening in sports betting. Yes. Making approving or just. I think I saw that something close to a billion dollars was bet on oil prices, as we approached Trump's deadline. We already had that. Just play the oil futures market. It's too complicated for people, I guess.

Starting point is 02:37:29 God damn it. No, it's really bad. According to a March poll from the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, sampling almost 600 Texas Democratic primary voters, 76% say Israel's committing genocide in Gaza,

Starting point is 02:37:47 80% support ending weapons funding to Israel. 44% of telemarked. Alarico voters said his criticism of Israel was important to them and swayed their vote. Over 1 and 5 voters, 22%, said reducing support for Israel was one of their top three factors impacting their vote, while only 2% said the same about increasing or maintaining support for Israel. And 88% of voters said they agreed with a statement to Talariko made during a primary debate about cutting off weapons to Israel. on Sunday night, 13 gunshots were fired into the front door of Indianapolis City County Councilor Ron Gibson

Starting point is 02:38:27 who just voted to approve a half a billion dollar data center. A note was left under the doormat that read no data centers, quote unquote. Gibson and his son were home at the time of the shooting. Yeah, these data centers are really staggeringly unpopular. There's been a bunch of reporting on even the ones that are attempted to be built, something like 50% of them

Starting point is 02:38:49 are just not able to do it because of massive public local backlash. Because it makes life worse around them. Akey power bills go up, they're loud. Yeah, it's like old school, it's like old school environmental nimbism, sort of like, I don't want these assholes in my small town stuff.

Starting point is 02:39:06 There's just like the anti-AI sentiment in general. They're hideously unpopular. And this kind of stuff is just going to continue as these data centers continue to be built. Okay. Time for me. So Donald Trump has said that he will discuss United States withdrawal from NATO for those who work in the New York Times as a North Atlantic treaty organization with Mark Rutter, who is the NATO Secretary General during their meeting, which will happen today, which is Wednesday, April 8th. If, question mark, this happens, it would be utterly apocal.

Starting point is 02:39:39 Like, it would be one of the two things they're going to point out as like the dawning of the new era of. Yes, seismic shift. Yeah, like what geopolitics is. This is like the fundamental bases of this in this week are like ceasing to exist. Yeah. Shirley Kittleson has been released by Katie Pazbullah after they made her read a video confession in which she confessed. And to be very clear, this is very clearly extracted. Yeah, it's a coerced confession.

Starting point is 02:40:07 Yes. Yeah. I think in this is true. But in the video, they made her confess to passing information to U.S. consulate in Baghdad. In one point in the video, she said she had been collecting information on leaders, but forgotten their names, which is very credible and true. Most real confession. Yeah, it's ludicrous. Her release came after Iraq released several Khadib Hasbullah members.

Starting point is 02:40:32 So it seems like a straight swap, which is what this was about in the first place, right? It's not about her or her work per se. It's about her being a trading chip that they can trade. Finally, Republican Brandon Gill has sharply criticized the Dignity-S-Dignidad Act recently, and this has become like something of an online discourse topic on the right. I'm not exactly sure why it's happening now. Rep Salazar from Florida has tried to introduce this act several times in the last few years. We've actually covered it when it was introduced in 2025 on this show. it's a bipartisan act to reform the immigration system that is bad.

Starting point is 02:41:13 It creates what's called a dignity status, which is essentially like an underclass of people who there is no pathway to citizenship. There is no pathway to voting. But it comes with the right to renew it and the right to residency, right? So it creates like a sub-citizen class. It's bad. It is not a progressive immigration reform. But is Brandon Gill criticizing it from the right? Gill is coming from another perspective than I am.

Starting point is 02:41:38 They think it gives incentives for illegal immigration and it's an amnesty. Okay, yeah, so he's criticizing from the right. It's interesting to see the split among Republicans on this, and that's why I wanted to bring it in, right? We spoke last time about the Florida sheriff breaking with Trump on mass deportations. There are a number of things which indicate that there is clearly a faction of the Republican Party, which has realized massive deportation of people who have not been accused. or convicted of any crime is not a popular stance, especially when you keep killing people.

Starting point is 02:42:13 On that note, actually, ICE have shot somebody else. This broke relatively late on Tuesday night. They shot someone in Patterson, California. The person has been identified as Carlos Iva Mendoza Hernandez. He's wanted in El Salvador for questioning a connection to a murder. It is another of those incidents in which they accused a person of weaponising their vehicle and there is a dash cam video which has been released which shows a person attempting to leave in a vehicle. It's a little hard to tell if the person is attempting to weaponise their vehicle,

Starting point is 02:42:48 but it doesn't look that way to me. It looks like that person is trying to make an exit. We have seen a number of these, right, where federal immigration agents have shot people behind the wheel of their car. Yeah. I should add that his attorney claims that he is not wanted in. connection with that murder and has provided a document from the government of El Salvador, which seems to confirm that. So we have once again the DHS said versus what we seem to be seeing proved out by documents, right? Before we get to Iran, which there's a lot to discuss,

Starting point is 02:43:21 there is another news story, a little bit closer to us that we think deserves some fair coverage. Statements made on a podcast last year by a top FEMA official resurfaced this last week. Greg Phillips, who is in charge of disaster response, claims that he once teleported to a Waffle House in Rome, Georgia. Phillips also says he experienced a separate incident in which he teleported in front of a church. The fact that this was a Waffle House does lend a story a bit of credibility. I have suspected for years there's some sort of paranormal field around Waffle houses. Personally, I believe that when you walk into one, there is a small chance you could walk out of another in a separate location. The craft store Michaels has a similar, has a similar

Starting point is 02:44:08 energy to it. Anyone who's gone drunk to enough waffle houses knows that that's true. Right. So there is an aspect of the story, which is very believable. But there's some details that Phillips has included that makes me a bit more skeptical of his characterization of this incident. Let's listen to his claim on this podcast right now. We had a teleported incident to with them, which transported me about 40 miles from where I was in near Albany, Georgia to the ditch of a, to the ditch of a church. I ended up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was. So to defend these statements, Phillips has taken to Truth Social to share biblical accounts of teleportation as supporting evidence of teleportation. Great.

Starting point is 02:45:05 Employees at the three Waffle houses in Rome, Georgia were interviewed by the New York Times and they say they do not recall anyone being transported there by means of teleportation, nor did they recognize pictures of Greg Phillips. But in a follow-up statement by Phillips on Truth Social, he said he was going through cancer treatment at the time of this alleged teleportation incident. Quote, I was here. healed of cancer and it was a miracle. The podcast at the center of this controversy was part of

Starting point is 02:45:35 chronicling that journey. And during that journey, things happened that I can't explain. I was in the opening days of intensive treatment, heavily medicated, not thinking about future headlines. That context was nowhere in the reporting, unquote. I think it is important here that he says he was heavily medicated during the time around this incident. I'll bet. I love how he This is cop voice. Like a teleportation incident. Yeah. But however, I'm going to point out that Garrison, the next thing you're about to read.

Starting point is 02:46:09 He was not heavily medicated when he said this. So. Phillips added to this truth, quote, the word teleportation was not mine. It was used by someone else in the conversation. Reaching for language describes something with no easy name. Which is not true. He said teleport. He said teleport.

Starting point is 02:46:29 I think what he means is he didn't. wasn't his initial term that then started using it? I guess. He keeps using it. He continues, quote, the more accurate biblical terms are translated or transported. Not new ideas for people of faith. If you believe that God moves in ways we cannot fully explain, as I do, then having faith is not a sound bite.

Starting point is 02:46:51 It is the whole point. I believe in miracles, all caps. God bless America, he is risen, unquote. Now, one detail from the podcast. that has not been mentioned as much, I think offers to help some idea of what's really going on here. It was an incredibly frightening moment to experience yourself in your car flying through the air. It was possible. It was real. He was teleported in his car.

Starting point is 02:47:20 He was in his car, which for me changes this entire thing. Yeah, it really does. The way that these headlines were kind of imagine as if his body, like, dematerial, somewhere, rematerialized in a Waffle House, something that's, you know, certainly... He just blacked out while driving. Which is very different. Which is very different. Robert and I went to saw a guy teleport in a car when we were driving around Texas.

Starting point is 02:47:45 Yeah, I teleported on Xanax once, about 30 hours into the future. So the fact that he zoned out while driving and ended up at a Waffle House, much more, much more explainable. because many people in slightly altered states Up here outside of waffle houses in their car. This is a very common car. This is probably about maybe 10 to 30% of the Waffle House clientele shows up in this sort of environment where they are not operating on their full faculties

Starting point is 02:48:20 either through some sort of drugs, alcohol, medication, what have you. I've seen UFOs at a Waffle House before. No, right. The Wombo houses are, you know, or have some kind of pull that I think attracts people like a magnet who are in an altered state towards them as like a beacon. Yeah, that that pull is smothered and covered hash browns. Yes, yes. So. And the fact that they're open at 4 a.m. Oh, in bathrooms you can do heroin in. Don't forget that. Says it on the sign. I also want to make sure that we mentioned that in the same week in which the New York Times, the guy who was running. the headline didn't know what NATO stood for. They also titled, the initial title

Starting point is 02:49:01 of the article they wrote about this was, and I quote, FEMA official says he teleported to Waffle House. Experts are dubious. This is, this might be the worst experts disagree headline ever read.

Starting point is 02:49:18 I think this is good. I actually, out of the two polls of New York Times headlines this week, the data one is iffy. This one, I fully agree with. I fully agree with their choice to say that experts are dubious about the teleportation. This does make me sad because in New York Times is also the outlet that ran, what is, in my opinion, the best headline ever written?

Starting point is 02:49:40 It was about the fact that Moray... Oh, that one's good. Okay. It was on the subject of a scientific study which looked at Moray Eels and their ability to climb a ramp out of a pool to eat some food, which proved in theory that Moray Eels could hunt on land. and the headline was, when an eel climbs a ramp to eat a squid from a clamp, that's a moray. Title from a better time.

Starting point is 02:50:04 Yeah, yeah, what a different era. Truly a masterpiece. Yeah, whoever wrote that, I hope you're doing well. We will now teleport to an ad break and rematerialize to discuss the back and forth ceasefire, not ceasefire with Iran. We're back. And depending on what do you listen to this,

Starting point is 02:50:41 we may either be back to war with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz could be closed or open. We're in like just this beautiful, like, Frodinger's war. Schrodinger's. No one knows where it's going to go after this. Yeah, if you don't open your phone, then you never know how many wars and ceasefires have started

Starting point is 02:51:03 since the last time you opened your phone. That's right. They can't make you believe that a war is going. on if you choose to not be informed. Yeah. Other than by looking at gas prices. Yeah, yeah, that is a thing. God.

Starting point is 02:51:16 All right, let's try and do this in chronological order because this week has been bonkers. So let's start with last Friday when you last listened to ED. If you listen on the day, we released them. Good Friday. And that is kind of important because a United States Air Force F-15E strike eagle belonging to the 48th fighter wing crashed into. southwestern Iran last Friday after being hit by a manpads. The manpads is a shoulder-fired surface to a missile.

Starting point is 02:51:46 The plane carries a pilot and a whizzo. WSO as an acronym. It means weapons systems officer or weapons systems operator. I'm just going to call them a weapons officer just to make it easier for everyone going forward. And both crew members safely self- ejected from the plane. The United States very quickly launched a massive CSAR that's combat search and rescue. operation involving helicopters, low-flying aircraft, and close air support from both MQ9 Reaper drones and A-10 aircraft. During this operation, in which the aircraft flew within small

Starting point is 02:52:20 arms range of the ground in Kuzestan province, several aircraft were damaged. One of the jolly green two rescue helicopters was hit with small arms fire, and A-10 Thunderbolt crashed in the straight of Hormuz and the pilot was recovered. Another was hit and the pilot ejected over Q8. But this effort did result in the faith recovery of the F-15's pilot, but not the weapons officer. The following day, that happened during the day, right, in daylight hours, which is remarkable. Like, it is extremely rare to see this happening, right?

Starting point is 02:52:59 Like, low-flying helicopters over what is notionally enemy territory in the middle of daytime. On Easter Sunday, the United States launched a huge operation which resulted in the recovery of the weapons officer. This was preceded by a disinformation campaign, which hoped to make the Iranian state believe that they had extracted the weapons officer by land, which they hadn't. The operation involved a ton of special operations forces assets who flew to an agricultural airstrip outside Isfahan. This seems to have gone largely unremarked upon in the reporting. There is some crackpot theory that this was all cover for an operation that extracted enriched uranium from Isfahan, because there is a nuclear research facility at Isfahan. I have not seen any evidence to support that, but I think it is likely that they knew of this agricultural airstrip because of plans which were made for a potential raid on the Isfahan nuclear research facility. during the operation MQ9 Reaper drones

Starting point is 02:54:03 bombed quote military age males who were close to the airmen Iran had offered a reward of $60,000 for capturing this person before the United States got to them and it is common for people in this area if you're like herding animals

Starting point is 02:54:21 right to carry a gun like to protect their animals or to protect themselves there were some kind of propaganda videos of like local people looking for the airmen, right? They were carrying like Iranian flags and their like antiquated bolt action rifles. But it's also very possible that some of these drone strikes may have occurred against people

Starting point is 02:54:42 who were just going about their business in the region, right? Like if they didn't, they said military age males, that's a broad remit. And anyone who would doubt that being a shepherd would be a military aged male, right? Would be a military aged. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:54:55 This is like one of the most sickening terms. U.S. warfare is invented. Yeah, military age mail, it's like any time people are using that, like, you've got a dozen pass a sniff test. No, it could be anyone from between like 14 years old to like 69. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:55:12 Yeah. You'll be surprised who looks like an adult when you're a scared man with a gun. Yeah, yeah. Or looking from thousands of feet up on a drone camera, right? Yeah. It's a term invented for we are just going to start shooting at random people. We have no idea who they are.

Starting point is 02:55:28 we're just going to kill them. Yeah. And it's hideous. I was recently rereading, I think it's called a theory of the drone. It's a philosophy book about drones and drone warfare. And there's a scene in the opening of that, which I think is, which you can probably get the free preview of the book if you have a Kindle and read that scene. But it's very illustrative of how vague this term can be.

Starting point is 02:55:47 The rescue operation saw the planes land at an airstrip. Then a little bird helicopter took off, collected the airman. who had been evading capture in a mountainous area. He was then carried back by a helicopter to the airstrip where the two larger aircraft that had bought the helicopter and all the personnel had become stuck. Incredible. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:56:10 I mean, I guess normally they would do some kind of soil sampling, but I think there probably just wasn't time. Yeah. So the United States elected to destroy those aircraft in place and send three more aircraft to recover their personnel. And we can see that Iran, has published footage to that,

Starting point is 02:56:29 right? It seems that they also destroyed the little bird helicopters. I've seen some reporting that

Starting point is 02:56:33 the little bird helicopters were just like on a one-way flight that they flew into a run knowing that their range wasn't long enough

Starting point is 02:56:40 for them to fly back and that they always planned to destroy them. I don't think that's the case. I think they got them out the back

Starting point is 02:56:46 of the C-130s and assembled them quickly. That is a thing they have the capacity to do and that is what makes the most sense.

Starting point is 02:56:54 So on that same day, Easter Sunday, kind of a big deal for the Christian folks. Donald Trump truce the following. Quote, Tuesday will be

Starting point is 02:57:04 Power Plant Day and Bridge Day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards or you'll be living in hell.

Starting point is 02:57:14 Just watch. Praise B to Allah. I love the president. Yeah, that is a leader of the free world. Yeah. My extremely low-stakes conspiracy is that this was not Trump.

Starting point is 02:57:27 This was written by Trump's staff because it's slightly off. It could have been. It doesn't sound like him, really. Yeah. He's not normally a swearer. Like, he gets angry. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:57:38 The Allah stuff isn't really him. No. That's a weird thing for him to throw in. I can very easily believe that this is, that this is him, like, going nuts on something. Yeah. Like, he could have done this. It's possible. I think there's a low chance that this was, this was like a staff written thing.

Starting point is 02:57:56 it's just it's it's it's it's weird wording from him like it's a strange message although the last couple from him have all seemed kind of strange yeah he is just out of it the one he put up after the ceasefire announcement where he's like where he puts in quotations that the navy will be hanging round yeah yeah that's not doesn't sound like him much either but also like who else would he let write that it's just but it is weird right that does not sound like any previous trump post hanging round to say fuck in a Trump in a presidential tweet. Like, I don't know why a staffer would do that.

Starting point is 02:58:30 No, and I agree with you, James. These things are usually transcribed. Like, usually he reads these out loud and someone writes them down and then he looks at them and then and then they hit post. Like, that's how all of his truths were structured in that documentary is.

Starting point is 02:58:45 Does he dictate the capitalization? When he looks them over, like he may. Okay. Because he has a fascinating and quite unique approach to capitalization. I mean, like, specifically, like, there will be nothing like it is definitely like a Trump verbal tick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a super Trump line.

Starting point is 02:59:04 Yeah, but then, like, the next part, I, is weird. Yeah. But hanging round. That's, that's not really a Trump sounding line. Okay, sorry. It's weird. We've all been distracted. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:59:15 So let's talk about what he said on Tuesday, power plant day, bridge day. Yeah. He said, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. That's a Trump line. Yeah. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, did they?

Starting point is 02:59:37 Maybe some... Do it? I don't know. I'm not so sure. Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight. One of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end.

Starting point is 02:59:55 God bless the great people of Iran. Real journey that you go on. Yeah. From a civilization will die tonight to God bless the great people of Iran. Nightmare. I don't know what to make of that. Like it seems like he's just, they obviously striking civilian targets. It is a war crime.

Starting point is 03:00:18 It is a war crime Israel does all the time. We covered that last time we spoke. A whole civilization will die tonight. borderline, like, genocidal as a threat? Yeah, I mean, that's not borderline. I think that is. I think that's a threat of genocide. Yeah, like, this is, which by the way is also, like, if you say this and then kill one

Starting point is 03:00:40 person, like, you are guilty of the crime of genocide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, attempt to genocide. Like, it's not good. It is not good. Let's talk about what actually happened, right? Since then, just before the deadline, a huge number of strikes hit a run, including the Ministry of Intelligence Building and Shiraz.

Starting point is 03:00:56 There's some evidence that may have had some tunnels underneath it. Aerospace Research Institute, Bridges and aluminium factory. Brigadier General Majid Hademi, who is the head of IRGC. Intelligence was also killed in the targeted strike. And we hit Kag Island again. Good. Finally. Yep.

Starting point is 03:01:16 Yeah. Let a lot of people think that this might have been a precursor to some kind of U.S. land operation. However. Or nuclear weapons. a lot, right? Yeah, right. We've seen this a lot, right? Again, when the president's saying you're going to wipe out a culture...

Starting point is 03:01:29 It doesn't make me feel calm. You should assume that the president might actually try to wipe out a culture. I mean... Like, that is my strong stance on this, is that based on what he's saying, it is not unreasonable for people to flip out over this statement. No, it's absolutely not. People should be outraged that a president said this. They aren't really strong enough words.

Starting point is 03:01:50 It's really bad. Like, like, it's very bad. Yeah. Like, he should be... hauled up in front of a tribunal like Milosevic. Like, I am not on team. We should just move past this. Like, it's easy because everything's so insane to be like another insane thing.

Starting point is 03:02:04 Everything's fucking nuts. This is a guy who has to trigger for all the nukes saying he's going to wipe out a civilization. Like, I would love to be the nothing ever happens. Nothing happened here. It's fine. Like, don't, don't yield a Trump derangement syndrome guy because it's a lot easier. But like, this is not something anyone should be. move past. He should go on trial for like this alone, like outside of the other stuff.

Starting point is 03:02:28 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Each of these tweets would constitute a reason for a trial in any previous presidency. Since then, Pakistan offered to mediate a ceasefire, and these are negotiated to where ongoing as Donald Trump was through thing. Iran reportedly made a list of its own demands. This is a translation from Persian, so like not a word for word quotation, right? It listed these in its telegram channels as control passage through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with Iran's armed forces, the necessity of ending the war against all components of the axis of resistance, the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from all bases and deployments in the region, establishing a secure transit protocol in the Strait of Hormuz that guarantees

Starting point is 03:03:13 Iranian control, full payment of damages to Iran, removal of all primary and secondary sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian assets and property abroad, and the ratification of all these items in a binding UN Security Council resolution. The parties then agreed to a two-week ceasefire. Trump again shared the news of this on True Social. I'm kind of done reading out his truth, so I'm going to skip that one. That was a hanging around one. Very shortly thereafter, Israel began a massive bombing campaign in Lebanon,

Starting point is 03:03:45 and Iran continued to launch missiles at the occupied territories. Caroline Levitt has said that Trump refused the Iranian plan. The Iranians originally put forward a 10-point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team. Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that plan as being acceptable to the United States, and that is false. So she was pretty emphatic about that.

Starting point is 03:04:16 Trump attacked CNN for publishing the plan. This morning, Trump has said that the Israeli attacks on Lebanon were quite. quote, a separate skirmish. Israel struck Lebanon a hundred times in just over 10 minutes today. They dropped whole tower blocks in Beirut. That is not a skirmish. Nah. He said they're not part of the deal because Osbalah is not part of the deal.

Starting point is 03:04:41 Of course, in Iran, state media are pushing that they have somehow achieved all of their 10 points, which I think were their sort of goals for negotiation or a basis for negotiation. Trump has said to one reporter that the tolls on the straight could be a joint venture between the United States and Iran, which suggests there's some parts of this deal that are true that he has kind of agreed on. That are at least on the table, right? Like these are the bases, which was how they were initially reported by CNN and others, that these had been accepted as a basis for negotiation. They have not been accepted whole cloth, some people, some whom I think are acting about. have said. Since this morning, the Wall Street Journal has reported that tolls will be paid in cryptocurrency or Chinese one. Yeah, and that Iran is broadcasting VHF messages. It's very high

Starting point is 03:05:37 frequency. It's radio frequency warning, non-paying ships crossing the straight-of-homuz that they will be targeted. Trump approved he said straight-of-hormoos is open. This doesn't seem like that. The tolls about like 2 million, right? Well, there have been various proposals. I said $2 million. I've seen different dollar sums per barrel of oil transiting the strait. I guess it would depend. If it's a U.S. Iranian partnership,

Starting point is 03:06:03 you know, how are we going to account for the exchange rate? Everyone has to get their peace, right? Yes, the $2 million number was thrown around a lot. Yeah, and it's worth noting that the straight is not open. No.

Starting point is 03:06:15 It is simply not the number. Israel hasn't stopped launch and strikes. Well, even if they wanted to open it right now, they would have to remove the mines that they've put in it, right? We don't know how many mines there are if there are. So there are still ships going through. There's not many of them. Like there's, I think it was the number I saw for today was four.

Starting point is 03:06:35 Yeah. Yeah. Like it is, like it is possible to go through. But four is like one of the lowest numbers that has happened since the straight was first closed. So it has simply not been reopened. Trump says this constantly. It's down to one. channel would be my guess, right? And then they're advising those ships, I'm guessing,

Starting point is 03:06:56 or sending a pilot craft perhaps, to go between the mines. Yeah, I haven't seen any reporting on how they're getting them through. Yeah, I haven't. The extent to which they've laid mines is really unclear. Yeah. Like, all we know is that they have the capacity to do so and that the US has been striking craft that are set to lay mines. But like, I haven't heard of any evidence of a ship getting hit with a mine yet. Right. Yeah, neither have I. So perhaps they haven't laid any. We don't know what they've done. They may have decided that that was more than they needed to do at this point.

Starting point is 03:07:29 Yeah. Yeah. And so far all of the attacks on ships have been with other more conventional weapons. Yeah, either sea drones or just missiles, various kinds. Yeah, shooting them with guns in a couple of cases. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Garrison, let's start with this clip of J.D. Vant, talking about the inclusion of Lebanon in this ceasefire. First of all, I actually think, and there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith, you know, propaganda going on.

Starting point is 03:07:58 I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states. So, yeah, let's talk about Israel, right, a country which famously loves to respect a ceasefire. Israel has continued to strike inside Iran. It has not stopped since the announcement of this ceasefire, right?

Starting point is 03:08:35 It has shown no indication of wanting to stop. It has also continued, as I said, it's massive bombing campaign inside Lebanon. It seems to be the case that whatever was negotiated, the Israelis do not perceive the ceasefire as applying to them. I already see IDF does not, I should say, rather than the Israelis, right? And therefore, Iran does not perceive it as being obliged to no longer strike Israel. Yeah, I mean, the whole situation right now is very unclear and is literally changing by the hour. Yeah, like by the time we're done recording this. Right, yeah.

Starting point is 03:09:12 So we're recording this Wednesday afternoon. By the time this comes out Thursday night slash Friday morning, there could be a whole different situation. Yeah, yeah. I'll try and record a pickup if we have to. But yeah, as of Wednesday afternoon, this is what the sort of ambiguity around the deal looks like and the level of compliance regarding Israel and the United States. Yeah. There are two more things I want to talk about that have been reported on less. Obviously, this has been reported on widely because it is a threat to terms of.

Starting point is 03:09:42 all of our lives if we're going to start a nuclear war. The P.A.K. This Kurdistan Freedom Party says its leader's headquarters. This was initially reported as home. They did send me a text that used the word home, WhatsApp. But I think, judging by what I have heard from other reports in a region, it's better described as headquarters, was struck with several Iranian missiles. This came after, according to Fox News, the president claimed that the United States sent weapons to protesters in Iran in January, but that, quote, the Kurds kept them. Now, a video of Trump addressing the issue does not explicitly name the Kurds. It does imply that.

Starting point is 03:10:22 They don't have guns. You know, we sent some guns. But the group that was supposed to give, which I said what happened to my people, I said it, I called it exactly, we sent guns. We sent guns. They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs. You know what happened? The people that they sent them to kept them because they said, what a beautiful gun. I think I'll keep it.

Starting point is 03:10:44 So I'm very upset with a certain group of people, and they're going to pay a big price for that. But the Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they're not going to be shot, and as soon as they can get weapons. This is one of the most surreal things I've seen. It's up there with him, saying, threatening to nuke Iran while flanked by the Easter Bunny. I hesitate to use the word Lynchian. because that work gets misapplied a lot and Kafkaesque simile

Starting point is 03:11:14 and this is not a a perfect invocation of Lynchian either but it's getting closer with the sort of one of the more Lynchian things to happen in real life it's incredible stuff with like the Easter jazz

Starting point is 03:11:28 in the background the crash of vibes yeah as there's like flowers over the archway yeah the kind of no the sort of juxt position which I think is the key part

Starting point is 03:11:38 of Lynch is like is this real with the mundane and you you have parts of this here where you have this sort of intensity of the stuff Trump's talking about with the Easter jazz and his like purple tie and it's beautiful. And it's beautiful. Like decorations in the background. This is this is a stunning piece of media. It's a stunning piece of history.

Starting point is 03:11:59 God. Yeah. I saw this yesterday and I thought I need to expose my colleagues to this like one of the most incredible 30 seconds of video to come back to topic at hand. Various Rogulati groups have denied this. And it would be an extreme logistical challenge to provide weapons to Kurdish armed groups, most of whom have most of their personnel in Iraq. And for them to transit those weapons to Tehran,

Starting point is 03:12:25 I don't believe that that would have been something that any U.S. administration would entertain. What guns would they give them that they don't? Because if these groups tend to be pretty well supplied with small personal arms, We're talking about like your battle rifles and, you know, long-range precision rifles and the like. What they lack is man-portable anti-aircraft and man-portable anti-armor. Those are kind of some of the most precious pieces of gear to them. And I doubt Trump was offering to send that into Iran. Among other things, we probably don't want to be sending a bunch of man-portable anti-aircraft into Iran right now.

Starting point is 03:13:03 Yeah. Like that could be a backfire. But that's the only should I could see these different groups wanting to take for. themselves. Yeah, it's especially strange because, like, I watched a lot of videos of armed attacks on, like, Iranian police in January of this year, and they were using very basic weapons to include quite a few of the PAK using pump-action shotguns. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:13:25 I don't think the U.S. sent them pump-action shotguns. No, that would be a weird. We don't, the U.S. military doesn't have a lot of pump-action shotties just laying around. That's not like the first gun they'd have a bunch of to hand over to somebody. Yeah. They probably got more A-Ks than that. Yeah, and like they were AK's use as well, but like these are very basic weapons, as you say. Like this doesn't seem like anything that would come from the US.

Starting point is 03:13:46 Also in Kurdistan, an Iranian drone struck Zagazawi village, killing Musa Amwar Rasul, age 39, and his wife, Mousda Assad Hassan. Their children both survived. This is really heartbreaking. And like, there were really horrible videos of their children, like confronting the fact that they are now orphans, right? And because of stories like this one, which I do not see any basis for, in fact, Kurdistan is being absolutely hammered by Iranian bonds, right? Little children are losing their parents. And like, I'm really disturbed, as I say every week, by the campus tendency to ignore this or to say that it has to happen because the Kurds don't have a state or even the sort of blue wave tendency to sort of hand wave this. say, well, Donald Trump started a war, so Iran gets to murder Kurdish civilians.

Starting point is 03:14:43 Like, I just find it so heartbreaking. And I, Robert and I both spent time in Kurdistan and, like, how of fondness for the people there, but it makes me mad. It's all pretty bleak and disappointing. Well, you know what else? Disappointing. Every week we have to do this. It's an ad break.

Starting point is 03:14:59 All right. We're back. We still have three or four important stories that we're going to do here before we close. James, do you want to start with your section on the threat to press freedom? Yeah, so I think this is important. President Trump has said that his DOJ will seek to prosecute the person who, quote, leaked the information that the F-15's weapon safety officer was missing and evading caption, Iran. Quote, we're going to go to the media company that released it and we're going to say, national security, give it up or go to jail, Trump said.

Starting point is 03:15:45 Quote, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot. that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life. It wasn't a pilot. It was a weapons officer, but airman, right? I can't quite find who broke the story because it's not really a story that broke. It didn't require anyone to leak anything

Starting point is 03:16:04 to know that someone was missing because the wreckage, and without seeing the wreckage, people weren't really willing to publish the story, right, because they had no confirmation and Iran says wild shit all the time. Yeah. The wreckage was photographed and published by presumably Iranian sources,

Starting point is 03:16:22 and it very clearly showed the livery of a US Air Force F-15 based out of Lake and Heath, which is near Cambridge in the United Kingdom. There were some very early report before we saw photos that the plane shot down was an F-35, and that would have been a single-seater, right? But as soon as the images came out, everyone knew that that wasn't the case. Nope, was an F-5. Strike Eagle. Yeah, and there are single-seater F-15 variants, but I don't believe any of them are active-duty U.S. Air Force.

Starting point is 03:16:50 Strike Eagles will always have two people. It's not a single-seater, right? So nobody had to leak that information for it to be obvious that if they had collected one person, then there was still one person. This does represent quite a serious attack on the First Amendment. People are killing and dying over Iran, and our tax dollars are supporting that, have a right to know. journalism has played a role in the way Americans perceive conflict for a very long time, right?

Starting point is 03:17:18 We can think about the Napalm girl photo, understand that photo now has disputed authorship, we can think about Walter Cronkite, the Vietnam War, we can think about Abu Ghraib. There is no federal press shield law, though, and journalists have been held in contempt for refusing to reveal sources on that security issues before. This is a serious threat, and it's one that I think everyone should take very seriously. Well, and it's a very important part of the last little section of the newsroom TV show. There's a whole plot line about this and it shows. Yes, yes, Gareth, there sure is.

Starting point is 03:17:53 So I just thought that's worth mentioning. You guys have told me not to what sex. It'll make me angry and I've respected that. You should not, James. You will lose your mind. It's not good for you. There's a lot of stuff's making me angry right now, so I'm going to give that one. Too much sorkin at the moment is very quickly becomes toxic.

Starting point is 03:18:10 Too much sorkin is really fucked up. of people in this country. Yeah. Speaking of things that'll really fuck you up are beautiful tariff music.

Starting point is 03:18:21 Ah, so glad that we're back to talking about tariffs. So, okay, we have a couple of Iran-related tariff things.

Starting point is 03:18:44 Gar, are we playing the nightmare clip? We have to play the nightmare clip. We're playing the nightmare clip. Okay,

Starting point is 03:18:50 this is... When inevitably, in the course of humanity, they have to make a museum to explain to people what capitalism was this is what they are going to show

Starting point is 03:19:03 this is a clip from the quote-unquote news agency CNBC deadline that President Trump has set 8 p.m. has threatened to destroy a civilization how does an investor process that? Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?

Starting point is 03:19:24 Big Upside risk or down, side risk to genocide. How do we, how do we do that? She kind of looks up and then just goes right in. Like, when they have to, like, explain to people, right? Like, how, how 8 billion people were, like, consumed into these, like, roles that they were forced to inhabit by the machinations of capital, this is going to be the one.

Starting point is 03:19:50 Oh, God. It turns out The markets responded very positively To Trump's threats To destroy a civilization It's I You know What if we didn't have market

Starting point is 03:20:03 What if there wasn't a line I Oh God Okay So speaking of Bad things I guess So on Wednesday Trump posted on truth social

Starting point is 03:20:18 Quote A country Capital T country supplying capital M military weapons to Iran will be immediately tariffed on any and all goods sold to the United States of America 50% effective immediately. There will be no exclusions or exemptions. So can he do this? Yes.

Starting point is 03:20:39 Key nine listeners may remember that the legal authority he was claiming to have to do this, the Supreme Court may go away. So can he do this? Look, okay. the way he's describing this, right? Sounds like he's using trade authority. It may be that buried somewhere deep in the annals of like sanction policy or some shit. Maybe there's something.

Starting point is 03:21:05 I went through all of the trade authority that I know of to try to find any legal authority for this. The short version is there isn't. The long version is, okay, so I guess in theory, maybe if you scrolls, went right, you could use section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act but that's supposed to be a national security risk from unfair trade practices

Starting point is 03:21:29 so it could technically work, but the thing is you also have to, that specific one we've talked about this on the show before you have to like set up a commission and do a trade study and there's like all this stuff. So it can't work immediately. No, and Trump doesn't seem like a big set up

Starting point is 03:21:45 a commission guy. I mean, the thing is, they actually have done this for China already. but I don't know If you squint like really hard Like if you like really Really squint At like section 232

Starting point is 03:22:00 Like maybe in theory Like but Like no Like if you're really willing to believe that like The president has the ability to be like This is what the law says Then maybe The only way I can see this working is if he invoked section 338

Starting point is 03:22:19 which is the, this is like the remaining part of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. Now, famously good smooth-haw-like. Yeah, so like, okay, there is a small chance that, like, you, the listeners may have heard of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, and that's because it's the one that, like, made the Great Depression worse. Yep. And no one's ever used them since. It's not even clear if they're on the books anymore. Because, like, this is a legitimate thing of academic discussion, just like whether these are even still in effect, because they haven't been used. they're technically still there, but also

Starting point is 03:22:50 no one has like ever used them and also there's been like subsequent laws regulating trade so I don't know there's no there's no way he can do this legally that wouldn't immediately fall apart or it wouldn't fall apart eventually to a court challenge except maybe

Starting point is 03:23:09 the like smoot holly like nuclear bomb desperation thing I don't know it's very unclear to me whether any of this is ever even going to be attempted to be implemented. He shouldn't be able to do this. It's just Calvin Ball bullshit. But who knows? Yeah, it would be China or presumably is what he's going for there, right? Like, China's so weapons to Iran. Yeah. And, like, there's also a lot of speculation. Like, I think Reuters reported this that this might be a thing because there's going to be

Starting point is 03:23:39 a trade summit with Beijing. But if you're a trade person in Beijing, you also know that he can't do this. So it's not real leverage. I don't know. Nightmare. Let's talk about some relatively fun, I guess, news back at home. Interesting, certainly. Yeah. So one of the things that happened this week was there was a series of elections and the result of those elections was the Republicans got absolutely hammered, like all up and down the ballot in Wisconsin. They did, they performed terribly in Georgia. So the big Democratic win. was in Wisconsin. So polls had Chris Taylor,

Starting point is 03:24:18 who was the Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, up by about 7 or 8%. Chris Taylor won this election by 20. Oh, wow. Yeah. There was also a full sweep of the whole, like, Moms for Liberty school board slates

Starting point is 03:24:36 in a bunch of elections in very conservative, Waukesha County. The specific one where every single one of them lost and they've fully cleared out all of the Mons for Liberty, people was a very specific one that was famous for doing a whole bunch of these right-wing book bands and stuff like that and they're they're all gone and this is this is you know a continuation of a trend that we've seen over the past couple of years really well like year a year

Starting point is 03:25:00 and a half where all of these weird monster liberty weirdos just get clobbered now also in that same county in the actual like mayoral election of wakisha like the city of wakisha the democrats won that election, which they haven't done in ages. Yeah, this is like one of the biggest Republican, like, stronghold victories that, like, they will always win this seat. Yeah. You know, and this is something that, like, everyone from Wisconsin has been talking about, which is if they can't win here, they can't win Wisconsin at all.

Starting point is 03:25:32 Yeah. There's no way. Yep. Right? And again, like, you know, I'm going to get into this more in a second, but, like, the Democrats were projected to win this seat. And this is obviously a by-election. And this, this Supreme Court seat that they won is.

Starting point is 03:25:44 like them getting to 5-2, so it wasn't like the majority seat in the way that the last one of these elections were. But they were projected to win by like seven, and they won by 20. Yeah. Yeah, that's big. Wow. Which is astonishing. Part of, again, you mentioned a bunch of these like school board elections in Wisconsin. It's not just Wisconsin. I mean, in a lot of the most conservative territories, the most conservative counties in Texas over the last like year basically every school district that was taken by the Moms for Liberty types has been completely like they have been completely thrown out and that has been happening around the country there's a lot that people are focusing on when looking at like why

Starting point is 03:26:26 are numbers so fucking dog shit for Republicans right now right now why they be getting beaten by such wide margins and it's certainly way more than one thing is responsible but I think something that has not gotten enough attention that has been dooming the Republicans electoral is that they got what they wanted in the branch of the chunk of our government that is hardest to ignore for the average American, which is like what's happening to their kids in schools. And a bunch of regular people who were not all that political saw that like my kid can't like check books out any of the fuck is wrong happening here. And they they went crazy. Not crazy. They got really pissed off.

Starting point is 03:27:03 Rightfully so. And I think this is going. My hope is that this turns out to be one of their worst like strategic missteps. in this period of time, is their belief that we can just go fucking ape shit on schools and no one will care. Yeah. Well, and this brings me back to something I've been talking about for a while, which is that, so, like, one of the other results that we're sort of looking at here is, so there was an election in Georgia in this, like, as a special election for the seat that was Marjorie Taylor Green's old district. This is like one of the most unhinged Republican districts in the entire country. Trump won it by 40. and the Republican Clay Fuller did win,

Starting point is 03:27:41 but he won by 12 points in a county that Trump carried by 40. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's like a 28 point shift. Yeah, right. It's unbelievable. Now, obviously, they didn't win here,

Starting point is 03:27:54 but there's been a lot of stuff about how, okay, well, this is just because Democrats, Democrats do better among high information voters. Those are the people who vote in these off-cycle elections that aren't during the normal election cycle. Blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of this kind of stuff. that's a kind of stuff that puts you ahead as the polls were showing in Wisconsin.

Starting point is 03:28:12 That puts you ahead by like seven. That does not explain a 13% overperformance. Yeah, yeah. Right. And I think what is happening here is something I've said consistently, and this is something that I think Robert is sort of explaining why this is happening, is that pollers are still using, they're still using as their basis for what they assume the elector is going to be. They're using the data from the electorate from the 2024 election.

Starting point is 03:28:36 Yeah. Because that's, that's the same. standard practice, right? You use as a sample, you know, and you make some, like, adjustments because it's a by-election and stuff like that. But, like, they're using as, as a sample base of voters the people from 2024. And that electorate does not exist anymore because it's been completely destroyed. Yeah. Right. All of these people have suddenly been mobilized. Like, the whole city of Minneapolis has been, like, turned into this, like, weird, I don't know, I'm making that sound negative. It's like, like, there's, like, Minneapolis has had a level of mobilization that is, like,

Starting point is 03:29:03 possibly has never been seen before in U.S. history, all of these, like, people who had been, you know, just, like, not political at all are, and this is the other thing with, like, these school vote elections is that these are mostly people who were not political people at all, who just swept in because, like, their schools got fucked with. The entire electorate has changed. It shows there's, like, a deep fluidity here, right? There's a lot of people who supported Trump because of economic conditions, which were blamed on the Democrats. And they moved for Trump. And there was a lot of, you know, these same people are not like

Starting point is 03:29:35 Trump or Republican loyalists. They're reacting to the economic conditions and the messaging from each party. And this is reflected in the number of Trump's or on voters, even the number of people who vote Trump and AOC in New York, right? Yeah. They're not like mega loyalists, right?

Starting point is 03:29:51 But it's showing how there is a big fluidity among the types of people that do decide elections. Yeah. But then there's also, and this is I think the other side of this too, right, is that there's the ones people who haven't voted. So I just didn't give a shit at all.

Starting point is 03:30:07 And those people are suddenly being mobilized. And this is turning into like, like, the Democrats are like winning a whole bunch of like rural counties in these elections, right? Yeah, yeah. And now I did the last thing I want to talk about in sort of this kind of section of everybody hates the Republicans is that the issues and insights TIPP survey for April shows Trump with a 39% approval rating. This poll, which is done a bunch of times every year.

Starting point is 03:30:33 They give a bunch of topics where they give A few F rankings from like immigration to the economy to like the wars in Iran and Ukraine. And like a plurality of the votes were an F on every single one. Even immigration. Immigration was the one that was kind of close. Okay. Between that and like A. Every single other one was down double digits. Okay.

Starting point is 03:30:54 If you look at like CDF versus like A B or if you like ignore C, right, it's so much more in the category of like D. and Fs. On the negative side in general, yeah. Yeah, like, this is for every single issue. I'm guessing it was kind of a binary distribution, right? Like a lot of A's or a lot of Fs and not much. There's actually a surprising number of Bs, but... That's interesting, yeah.

Starting point is 03:31:17 And, like, a decent number of D's. But, yeah, it was like mostly Fs, and then everything else is kind of spread out between the other ones. I mean, all of this is before the, like, I'm a civilization will die tonight stuff. Which did cause negative reactions from people in the... in the conservative base. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:31:35 And the people voting in Georgia and Wisconsin. I want to play this clip here. This was a clip from Georgia of a Georgia voter who was interviewed on Election Day. It's giving war crime. You can't do that. We don't just annihilate people because we can and, you know, make a grab for the money in the old and that's what we've done in venezuela and that's what we're doing in iran it's giving war crime it's a giving war crime i need to take a second this is this is beautiful though right

Starting point is 03:32:15 positive yes that's a better message and the democrats just to come up with on this no i just this is this is like a woman in her 30s or 40s holding holding a kid at nine this is this broadcast was at 933m in rome georgia on election day yep it is it is It's giving war crime. Yeah. And, you know, if you look at that, like, the UGov Economist poll, which is from, like, April 1st, but, like, even at April 1st, he had an atrocious 35% approval rating, which is that's like, that's like end of the Bush administration shit. All of this, the important part of this is that, like, the Democrats are still really historically unpopular right now because everyone's piss at them for not doing anything. But the actual mass of people in this country fucking hate all of this.

Starting point is 03:33:03 They're pissed off at everything that is happening. Anything you ask about that Trump is doing, they are fucking angry about. And, you know, this is, this is the kind of anger and the kind of just generalized raise that I think there's no really good way to measure outside of the tools that we've developed for elections or in terms of just like, you know, sometimes you get street mobilizations. Like this anger, like is the defining thing of the United States right now. that everybody's pissed the fuck off about this.

Starting point is 03:33:35 And yeah, and every opportunity they get to express that this shit fucking sucks, they do. This is what American politics is, even as everything is unbelievably hideously bleak from all of the shit that people are doing. Speaking of people who are pissed off, there's one final story that I'll go through pretty quick before we close this episode. Last Wednesday, to celebrate April Fool's Day, Trump fired Pam Bondi as a attorney general. Trump told Bondi about his plan to fire her while in the car together to watch the Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship. Jesus Christ. There's video of it. There's video of it.

Starting point is 03:34:12 It's amazing. Like credit to Fox, but they got a shot of them in the limo and Trump is clearly telling her. And it's when we know he was telling her. It's an amazing little artifact. All you can make out is their faces kind of and their body language, but it rips. It's so funny. Bondi tried to convince Trump to let her stay on until at least summer, but to no avail. Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve as acting Attorney General

Starting point is 03:34:39 until the president nominates a full replacement. On Tuesday, Blanche said, quote, nobody has any idea, unquote, why Bondi was fired except for President Trump. Those sources close to the White House have told multiple outlets that Trump had a growing frustration with Bondi for a while, especially related to her failure to successfully prosecute certain political enemies and the fallout from her handling of the Epstein files. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldon has been floated as a prospective replacement for Attorney General. At the EPA, Zeldon has led efforts to roll back environmental regulations

Starting point is 03:35:15 and climate protections related to endangered species, wetlands, and emissions. Before working in the Second Trump administration, Zeldon lost the race for New York Governor to Kathy Hokel by seven percentage points. relatively close race for New York. Yeah. Zeldin is a Trump loyalist, fought against the president's two impeachments while in Congress, and refused to certify the 2020 election results.

Starting point is 03:35:40 Great. Zeldin's a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, who served four years in active duty as a military intelligence officer, federal prosecutor, and military magistrate, and 2006 was deployed with the 80-second airborne division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Wait, so he's a troop cop. Military magistrate. He's a troop judge.

Starting point is 03:35:59 He served in a few roles. Yeah, that's troop cop shit. He served as a prosecutor and a judge. They hated and reviled. Yeah. Troop cop. He looks like maybe he at some point went to law school there, right. He went to law school in New York, either during that time or beforehand,

Starting point is 03:36:17 it all kind of takes place around, because I think he got out of law school around 2004. At the time, he was the youngest person to finish law school in New York. Oh, wow. He was in his early 20s. After he got out of the military, or, I think, out of active duty, he briefly served as an attorney for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and also private practice for a little bit before he went into the state senate and then eventually U.S. Congress. Now, before Bondi's firing, Pan Bonny was scheduled to testify in front of the House

Starting point is 03:36:45 Oversight Committee about the Epstein files on April 14th. Now, Democrats on the committee still want her to testify as she holds relevant knowledge. But on Wednesday morning, the Justice Department released a statement saying Bondi would not appear at the hearing on the 14th, quote, since she is no longer attorney general and was subpoenaed in her capacity as attorney general, unquote. This is a little bit untrue. She was not subpoenaed by her title as attorney general. She was subpoenaed by name as Pam Bondi. Now, oversight committee Democrats have responded by saying if Bonnie does not comply with the bipartisan subpoena addressed to her by name, they will, quote, begin contempt charges, unquote. Republican Nancy Mesa said, quote,

Starting point is 03:37:25 Pan Bondi cannot escape accountability simply because she no longer holds the office of Attorney General. Our motion to subpoena Pam Bondi, which was passed by the Oversight Committee, was for Bondi by name, not by title. She will still have to appear before the Oversight Committee for a sworn deposition. The American people deserve answers, and we expect her to appear as soon as a new date is set. Unquote. So it appears they will try to reschedule her for a new date. Bondi's firing is interesting in the context of Christy Noem's firing. As for the first year or so of Trump's second term, he really resisted making changes to his cabinet, right?

Starting point is 03:38:02 These sorts of frequent changes were a hallmark of his first term. Yeah. And for the start of his second, he seemed to not want to do that and instead got like his ranks of loyalists that he was going to work with. But since Christy Noam's firing, that has clearly changed. And this is prompted speculation about who could be. next. From people like Tulsi Gabbard to Cash Patel or Pete Hengseth, I think Gabbard is certainly certainly one of the people. If I was one of these three, I would be most nervous if I was

Starting point is 03:38:33 Gabbert. Patel's an odd, is an odd character. I'm really not sure what's in the future for him. A podcast. And I think that what happens eventually in Iran will determine what goes on with Hague Seth. There have been rumors that some of the reason that Hegseth has been sort of purging high command in the military is that he has concerned that those people could be his replacements like alternates for him a sec deaf yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Patel was under more heat i feel like during following the shooting of charlie kirk right the assassination and that their failure to find the assassin for some time yeah and his and his uh plane tickets and his trips with his girlfriend yeah the failure with savannah guthrie too yeah trump trump did not like that clip of him in the hockey locker

Starting point is 03:39:20 room. Yeah, there have been of quite a few now you mention them. Before we go, we should mention there is still about a week left of Webby voting. It Could Happen here is nominated for a Webby, as is James series migrating to America, which aired on it could happen here. And of course, behind the bastards. Links to vote for our shows in the Webby Awards will be in the episode description. Voda goes till April 16th. Most important election of our lives. Stay in line. early and often, etc., etc. If you'd like to email us with tips that are relevant to our news coverage, you can do so. CoolZone tips at proton.me.

Starting point is 03:40:04 If you have a marketing message to send us, I will block you. All right, that does it for us here at It Could Happen Here. Put a trans girl on your couch. We reported the news. We reported the news. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more. episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

Starting point is 03:40:32 For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. 10 shots five in City Hall building. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. A shocking public murder.

Starting point is 03:40:58 This was one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics. I scream. Get down. Get down. Those are shots. A tragedy that's now forgotten. And a mystery. That may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the senior show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances. The entire season

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