Some More News - Adnan Syed's Release, Protests In Iran, and EVEN MORE Elon Musk Mishaps

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Hi. Author, attorney, and podcaster Rabia Chaudry (@RabiaSquared) joins Katy and Cody to talk about the release of Adnan Syed, her experience of being his public advocate, and why wrongful convictions are so commonplace. They also talk about Elon Musk buying Twitter (maybe/finally/if-he-can-secure-financing) and the ongoing protest movement in Iran. The news about President Biden pardoning thousands who were convicted for "simple possession" of marijuana broke while we were recording, so the group touches on that for a few minutes as well. Please fill out our SURVEY: https://kastmedia.com/survey/ Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949&utm_campaign=9949&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=Some%2BMore%2BNews  including BETTER THINGS ARE NECESSARY AND POSSIBLE shirts: https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/20713359-better-things-are-necessary-and-possible  SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqego... Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-mo... Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews   Try the sheets that will make fall the coziest season of the year. Get 15% off your first set of sheets and free shipping when you use promo code MORENEWS at https://bollandbranch.com. Help save the planet with your Aspiration Debit Card. Open your account at https://Aspiration.com/MORENEWSDEBIT TODAY! Terms and conditions apply. Get a better night's rest with Sleep See Bee Dee solutions from NextEvo Naturals. For up to 25% off subscription orders of $50 or more, use promo code MORENEWS at NextEvo.com.Support the show!: http://patreon.com.com/somemorenewsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. That's right. It's true. Just like my name is also true. Yeah, it couldn't be more true. Katie Stoll. True Katie Stoll. Hi, Katie Stoll.

I'm Cody Johnston. And don't look up the fact about the podcast being the only one, but trust us about it. Absolutely. Do not look up, but always trust. And joining us today for the first time, we're really, really excited. Author, attorney, podcast host. We are thrilled to welcome Rabia Shadri. Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me. We're thrilled to have you, Rabia. We start off our show by acknowledging the national holiday on which we're recording. And today, National Coaches Day, Thursday, October 6th, National Coaches Day. Oh, I like coaches. Coaches are

generally good. I'm thinking of that story we just the supreme court case with the coach last term oh yeah where he was praying and then bring everybody to pray with him uh on the 50 yard line yeah so there's that but in general i find coach i'm i'm grateful for my coaches throughout my life you know thank, thank you, coaches. Except for that one. And anybody else that wants to like, you know, force their players into prayer. I don't think I support that. I know I don't.

Firm, hard stance. Last time I had a coach, I think I was seven and it was like my dad and my friend's dad's pitching the softball to me. Happy Friends Dad's Day. You stopped doing sports at seven. I was not sports at seven i was you just a big reveal

i mean look i never started but i'm thankful for my kids coaches yeah yeah oh yeah kids right now your dick guys are doing important work helping out the parents and not to just gloss shadow not to overshadow. It's a pun about what the upcoming day is. Shadow. Good job, Cody. Looking ahead. Friday, October 7th.

National LED light day. National LED. Everything needs a day. Everything needs a fucking day. Doesn't every date have like multiple like different days? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It it's wild there is always

something to celebrate in these dark times yeah like national led light go on turn on your led light yeah who proposed is an led light give me an example of one i mean you probably have some in your house i'm sure i do but is it like aren't they the ugly lights yeah yeah they're like the it's like the white light the bright white light oh yeah it's a light emitting diode yeah definitely the led industry did not like propose this day definitely they had nothing to do with it uh they're more efficient but they are too much in your face rabia this is your first time on our show thank you jonathan i'm gonna throw to you to get us started today we've got lots to get through. Obviously, not obviously, I'm sorry. This is tough today. I am throwing to you, Jonathan.

Yeah, well, since we have you here, our listeners should know that it's kind of fortuitous that we have you here today because we booked you before the release of Adnan Syed before we knew he was going to be released. Nansayed before we knew he was going to be released. You've known him since he was 13 years old. You have been his public advocate during his incarceration. I guess just real quick for our listeners who may not be familiar with the case, he was wrongfully convicted of murder in 2000 and spent over 20 years in prison, released last month after a judge vacated his conviction, both due to prosecutors failing to turn over evidence that could have helped him at trial and for apparent new evidence that could have changed the outcome. Hopefully I got all that right. Sure. Yep. So before we get into what's next and wrongful convictions in general, I'm really curious of what those first days were like after you knew he was going to get out and then when he got home

oh gosh i mean we didn't really know until the moment the judge said i am granting the motion and vacating his conviction that was really going to happen like we wow we're you know and we have been so close to this point before in the past that i absolutely was not going to let myself celebrate till it happened. And frankly, we're still encountering some resistance from the state, but not from the state attorney's office, the Baltimore City's state attorney's office, but from the Maryland Attorney General's office, because the Maryland Attorney General in the past, I don't know, five, six, seven years, they have been fighting our efforts to get him a new trial all these years so they're not too

pleased with this result and so there's a little bit of weirdness between those two offices but they're gonna have to work it out so yeah it wasn't really until that moment when it happened but there was just like this weird kind of deja vu because it was like the story being bookended with almost the same scene because i was sitting behind adnan about 10, 15 feet behind him on the day he was convicted and with his back to us and the jury reading the verdict. And then all these years later, I was sitting in pretty much a similar position behind him with his back to us when the judge said that she's throwing out the conviction and told and told the sheriff's deputy to remove his shackles. And I also remember 23 years ago when they told, when they came to put

the shackles on him for the first time in the courtroom. Because normally when you're, you know, when you're facing trial, they don't walk you in with shackles during the trial because they want you to be in a suit and look like, you know, a civilian for the jury. But the minute the verdict was read that he was guilty, they shackled him. And I'd never seen him without shackles for 23 years. So it was an incredibly profound moment for me and for all of us, obviously. And there were just gasps in the courtroom. And then the judge dismissed everybody but family.

And that includes me at this point. So there's like four of us. And Adnan just sat there waiting for the judge to signal that he could go. And he wouldn't turn until she said, because he's so used to being told what to do. And she said, finally, she looked up and was like, she's like, Mr. Said, go be with your family. And it was crazy. Cause we have never, we haven't been able to touch him in years. Like when you,

he was at a super max facility for many years of his incarceration. You couldn't touch him. We were behind plexiglass. So yeah, it was amazing. And then taking him home. It's like a dream. It was like a dream. Yeah, I got some chills listening to that. It's not just because Cody is on. It's it's cold in here. But I honestly find it hard to wrap my mind around how that might feel and all of these years these long drawn out years and what a ride it's been and not what a ride but i know i'm referencing this obviously serial podcast that got so much wrong about the case and did not follow up about it and i know that there's been a lot of attention and ebbs and flows paid to paid attention to what to this case and to what's been going on. But then it drops off of a lot of people's mind and we don't know what's been happening or that, you know, the realization, new evidence or new things that weren't necessarily highlighted on the show.

And then to feel I'm trying to articulate what it must have felt like to have the surge of attention. And then they get it wrong and it almost it doesn't really help you at all. And then people stop paying attention and there's hope and then there's pain. I'll tell you what it feels like. It feels like absolute and complete validation because, you know, at the hearing, the motion that was raised and Jonathan's right that, you know, the motion was granted and conviction cleared for a number of reasons, like evidence that wasn't turned over, new evidence. But also, also the motion pointed out incredible serious flaws in the actual conviction itself. Things that had gone really wrong at trial, like the state's witness, you know, J. Wiles, their main witness being completely flawed and not credible and getting his

stories wrong like there being a history of misconduct by the detective like literally this is an estate's motion they un they undid the evidence like the cell phone evidence being complete bullshit junk science they undid their own case right like they undid the the evidence um themselves and it was validating because number one, serial got all those things wrong, but also undisclosed got all those things right years ago. Me and my, my, you know, my colleague, Susan Simpson, Colin Miller, incredible attorneys and investigators, they pointed this stuff out six, seven years ago in our podcast. So for it to show up years later and even part of the, you know, the documentary

about the case was cited in court, in open court. It was remarkable. So, yeah, it felt very validating on, I mean, all of these issues. I'm like, I told you so. I told you so. I told you so. It all kept saying to myself. Yeah. I feel very frustrated hearing that it wasn't, you said the state is fighting this or, you you know didn't want him to be released the state is i mean when you say the state it's like you've got the city prosecutor who is the one who has said no this conviction needs to be thrown out then you've got the attorney general and you know so and the attorney general is the one who's been fighting to keep the conviction you know like sound so you have these two parties inside the state that are at odds

and it's i i don't know but at this point i don't know what anybody could do to like reverse this thing i mean i think now adnan is out he's out um he is on home detention and that's going to remain until the state's attorney decides whether or not to completely drop charges or take him to trial again. And we welcome either one of those, you know, scenarios. Because it does not sound like they have a case. And there are two other possible suspects that have not been identified. But, you know, I mean, they pretty much have been identified. I mean, the Baltimore Sun's been doing some pretty they identified them by names at this point. So they're there.

Oh, yeah. I mean, one of the suspects, anybody who knows the case knows that it was the guy who found the body because that suspect was, he was literally the only person in the entire case given a polygraph, which he failed. And so by referencing the polygraph, the state tells us who that suspect is. The other one, I don't know, the reporter at The Sun figured out himself. So you get the sense that the Baltimore City District Attorney's Office is not going to try to retry the case. Is there a time frame by where they have to do that?

Well, she has said in just an interview two days ago, but she literally we met with her privately before the hearing. She said multiple times, State's Attorney's attorney Mosby that I'm waiting for this batch, this final batch of DNA testing to come back because there's been two different rounds. And once it comes back, um, I'm going to either drop charges or if there's anything there, I'll take him back to trial. Those are the two. Now the court has said you have 30 days to make that decision. The 30 days will be October 19th. If for some reason the DNA testing does not come back in time, because this stuff can take forever, then her only option really would be to like kind of set a trial date out in

the future, just to kind of buy time and then make the decision. She can always drop the charges later, make the decision when she gets the DNA evidence. Having said that from my conversation with her, I do think that it's likely that the evidence will come in before the 30 days. Listen up, pal. Listen, listen to Katie. You know, some nights it sure is hard to get to sleep. What with knowing about all the terror you've unleashed on the world. Like you, I've spent many moonlit hours standing at my window, looking at my ever expanding garden. Luckily, there's sleep Sebe Day Solutions from

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to talk about wrongful convictions at large you know because what happened to Adnan is actually quite commonplace and you know it happens all the time in our current criminal justice system yeah I mean like you know speaking of you all the time in our current criminal justice system. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, speaking of you start off your show with naming a day, wrongful conviction day recently passed just a couple of days ago. Well, we missed that one that actually matters. Yeah. I mean, wrongful convictions are not uncommon. Like if, you know, the statistics show us that even if we take a very kind of conservative approach and say, let's say only 5% of convictions

are wrongful, that's still 100,000 people in prisons today, given the amount of people we incarcerate who are wrongfully convicted. The work I do with my team, you know, we look at the wrongful convictions of people who have been convicted of murder and are serving either life sentences or facing death sentences. But that, we are not able to look at all the people who are wrongfully convicted of drug charges, of, of violent offenses, of all kinds of other kinds of, you know, criminal charges that frankly, because their sentence is not as long or whatever, like we just don't have the bandwidth to do. So I'm guessing the number is higher than 5%.

I'm guessing it's probably closer to between 8% to 10% because just what I've seen. And wrongful conviction also, there's something called, not everybody who's wrongfully convicted is innocent either. So that's like another thing we have to understand. You can be guilty of something, but you're wrongfully convicted

because you didn't get due process. And I know for some people, they might not care, but you should care because we all deserve due process and a fair trial. But yeah, it's this is an endemic issue. One of the big reasons at the root of it, I believe, is that there's no accountability because almost like for an I'll give you an example in in Baltimore or in Maryland, excuse me, 80 percent of the exonerations that have taken place in the state have, at the heart of them, misconduct by prosecutors. Like they hid evidence from the defense. So imagine being a defendant. How are you supposed to defend yourself if they're hiding evidence?

And who collects evidence during an investigation? Only the state. The state is the one that can subpoena people. They can do all the stuff that we can't do, defendants can't do. And if they hide the ball,'s a really egregious so if 80 but those prosecutors go on to become judges they get they don't end up in prison they don't pay any fines there's no accountability and that's a real problem and you mentioned whether or not they're not gonna put adnan back in prison you know but, I don't think from what you've described and the way that this is going, but like you said, they didn't want him to be released. They don't care

actually if somebody is innocent or not is my point. What they want is for the case to be solved. What they want is for that to be out of the finality. It doesn't matter to them if it's the right person. And I mean, there's obviously that's bad. This is a huge problem in our country. And I'm grateful. I know you're great. Everyone's grateful where we are at here with this case. But, you know, it took 23 years for this to happen with all of this attention.

And average exoneration takes decades. You know, it takes decades. And sometimes it just takes those decades because, you know, a lot of the cases that we work on are from the late 80s, early 90s, where, first of all, there was this weird CSI effect kind of impacting the country. Everybody who watched CSI or whatever just thought that forensic evidence is everywhere and like you got you can trust it. So the juries were populated with people who'd be presented with junk science and think that's real. That shit is real. And I can actually like, like you know convict this person based on it but the thing is like since then obviously technology's evolved and we know now that a lot of it is junk um so that should help undo convictions but also you know a lot of these cases have never had dna testing

ever you know the fact that adnan's in the non's case the dna testing is happening now after all these years is crazy but i will say this that if even if it took place 10 years ago uh we wouldn't have had the same kind of sophisticated technology that we have today to to pull up even touch dna so that's why it just take it does take a long long time i just like it's just so wild to to compare like the the the length of the original trial. Right. Like how quickly somebody can be convicted versus how long it takes to undo it. It's just like, yeah.

A child, by the way. He was just a kid. It was a six week trial, but the jury deliberated for about three hours, I think. Right. Like we had we were we maybe it was less because I remember we were we were dismissed from the courtroom when the jury retired for deliberation and we were like, we should go get lunch. We didn't even get to lunch before we were called back. It was very, very quick within like a couple of hours, I think. And you mentioned the the idea of like CSI junk science. And I imagine myself being on a jury in like 1999, knowing nothing about cell phones and being told, well, this ping is this and this ping is that.

And why would I doubt that? Being like, oh yeah, sure, of course, that's iron clad. And we had a guest on recently, Josie Duffy Rice, who went on. I love Josie, yep. She's great. And she went on, I think it was You're Wrong About to talk about all the CSI junk science and stuff.

And it's really illuminating because television and film has just taught us is that this is how investigations go. This is how it's science. It's not speculation. It's not, oh, we picked out this guy on the first day, and we're going to do everything to get that conviction. It's like, oh, no, we had the lasers, we had the, you know, and it's like, right none of it mark bite mark evidence i mean like blood spatter evidence i mean hair i mean hair comparison analysis has been around forever it and the problem is a lot of this crap is still accepted in a lot of courts but you know how they do hair analysis a person just sits down with a with a with a little with a little um what's it called uh they called a microscope excuse me and yeah and just looks at

them i mean this is a sophistication we're talking about with hair analysis like that's that was done especially two decades ago but the other thing is this we didn't understand nobody in 99 or 2000 or even maybe 10 years ago would have understood the phenomena of false confessions nobody would believe that somebody like jay wiles the state's witness in this case would falsely implicate himself or just falsely come up. Like nobody would believe that even me, because I didn't know this was a thing. It's only really been in the last 10 or 15 years that the public is more aware of how easily it is to get like young people to falsely confess what, what the re technique, that interrogative technique, how it coerces people into confessing. the re technique, that interrogative technique, how it coerces people into confessing.

We're just understanding a lot more about how people end up like, you know, being convicted of crimes they didn't commit. We just didn't know it then. And how a lot of times that's the goal, right? Like they have these methods to get these confessions because that's all they want. They don't want any, they don't, they're not looking for the truth. Right. Well, to them, the confession, I mean, there's many cases in which we've looked at in which there's no evidence, but a confession. There's no witness. It's just that one kid's confession, which the kid will then say, can I go home now? Am I done? And for the police officers, then, I mean, it's really hard for me to say to be fair, but OK. They also didn't believe that anybody would confess. They really didn't think anybody would confess

unless it was for real, because they're grown men, grizzled men, who are like, I wouldn't confess to this shit, a murder, if I didn't do it. They can't believe that somebody would falsely confess. They didn't believe it then. Now, it's more common for law enforcement to understand that it can happen.

And so you have to be careful to make sure it doesn't happen. When they're frightened and someone's stuck in a room for 12 hours or they haven't, you know, they get a sprite and they're like, this guy's my friend, you know? Yeah. Or they're they're lied to that they're lied to and they're allowed to be lied to. Yes. And you don't know. It's scary. I mean, look, look at how many people are wrongfully convicted. You think if this person's on my side, how do I get out of this? Or, you know, they say something and it gets twisted and you're tired. There's all sorts of explanations for how this happens. And to your point, yeah, a lot has changed. I mean, it's not just that the technology has changed. I think that we have or we are starting to collectively change in how we accept information in who we trust. I know that I certainly when I early 2000, I probably 2000s, I probably would be quicker to trust a cop than I am now or to what they say but we see the propaganda everywhere we see the

twisting we see there's a story about these la off pd officer that was killed in a quote-unquote training exercise but it turns out that actually he was investigating yeah they killed that guy misconduct and they killed him i mean it seems so my point is is that i don't allegedly is that i think that we are now aware of all the fractures in our system this is just a big broad general phrasing here but we're seeing it skepticism now yeah and it's not just about this i think not just about the systems or the institutions but also about like what we're talking about like the media the copaganda like the csi things that sort of like have molded people's view of like well they're out there they're doing the hard work they're doing this they're doing this and they're doing it all the right way and yeah and

look i'm gonna say this look i i come from a family of police too on my mother's side um there are some most i would say most law enforcement officers, most prosecutors are ethical people. But one dirty one over the course of his career can ruin hundreds of lives. And then the disease spreads. I mean, anybody who knows anything about like Baltimore is probably plugged into the, you know, the GTTF stuff, the gun trace task force stuff. It's yeah. And like it's it's i don't know but but the problem is again accountability right like so we have all seen social media we've seen videos that citizens take of like police literally killing somebody in front of your eyes they don't get convicted sometimes they don't even get charged well and and it's the system we've created right so if it doesn't matter if, you know, a prosecutor X or officer X is ethical because they're in a system that's like, well, we need this conviction or we need this arrest.

They get qualified immunity. You can't even sue them. They get qualified immunity. And you know who set that up? That system set up by prosecutors as well. They want those laws. I mean, so there in maryland we have something called a police bill of rights that won't even allow somebody if i have been brutalized by the police i don't even have a right to get that officers like his um his uh like the reports any any of the reports about brutality i will never know that there's a pattern there if he's been doing it for 20 years because i don't because the police bill of rights will protect that from me. That's wild. And of course, again, a conversation we just had on the show recently is again, SCOTUS decisions and how, you know, we're not sure Miranda rights are going to be a thing in

the future. You know, they're chipping away at stuff like that. And it is terrifying. And I am very grateful for people like you for doing this kind of work. I have really quick. There's a bit of breaking news that's slightly relevant to this. I think Joe Biden, the president of the United States, has just pardoned anyone with a prior federal offense for possession of marijuana. Oh, that's fantastic. and he's urging all the governors to do the same and is gonna try to reschedule marijuana as well yeah oh my god wait that's a really incredible piece of breaking news yeah we got some breaking dark brandon during yeah that's dark brandon my god brandon shoot those beams from your eyes norman brandon's

taking a nap but this guy yeah i'm, very thrilled to hear it because I was thinking right now about touching on that. But it's so depressing to me because I smoke a lot of marijuana. And I mean, that's not why it's depressing. It's a thing that I think about all the time is that I feel such a lack of fear around the substance that has that does give me a lot of relief medically, you know, and I am a privileged white woman who has not felt fear around it. And I think it's really, really important that everybody enjoying it acknowledge and realize what's happening. And this is huge. I'm no, I was just going to say, this is the kind of move that can,

in a very big sweeping way, address the problem of mass incarceration. Because so many people who are incarcerated are there for nonviolent drug offenses. I hope he continues to take this further. I was going to say, this is like the first thing you would do. There's so many things that need to happen. And the first, like, okay, well, this is, we're done done with this we're not doing this anymore and then and by the way you know like

i do think this is the trajectory that we are going in as a society we went from three strikes you're out to you know like the super predators back in whatever the night early 90s to now understanding like oh my god what the f have we been doing you know what i mean and there's even the skepticism like the the true crime world which i'm like you know very obviously deeply in um true crime reporting has changed dramatically to so that the listeners are like not taking reporting at face evidence or at face value excuse me not listening so i i feel like positive about the trajectory we're moving in on criminal justice i mean the fact that like we don't need to get into it, but like Joe Biden, of all people, is doing that, like knowing his history with like like drugs and everything.

And yeah, it's like the opposite of poetic in some way. It's weird. I appreciate a meal. I appreciate somebody who says, I got that. I got this wrong. Big time. Yeah, I welcome that. I think in general, politics aside, this is me getting a little... Hooky-booky, hooky-booky. You were going to say hooky-booky. Maybe not hooky-booky, but I think it's not...

I was going to say hooky-booky, but it's not hooky-booky. That would be if I was saying my psychic told me this, but... My other psychic told me this. Yeah, I think a big problem in general across the spectrum of everything to me is a lack of accountability. I think that we culturally grow up thinking we can't be wrong and there's a fear of failure and making mistakes. And that might stop people from trying and it stops other people from admitting when they've done something wrong.

That means in our personal relationships and business, politically. So to me, anybody being able to say, like, here's how I've changed, or like, I see that that was a mistake and I want to fix it. That's a big deal. I think that that's to be celebrated. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take a quick ad break.

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more news debit today. Again, aspiration.com slash more news debit terms and conditions apply. And we are back as promised for even more news. We did it. We're in the second half. Rocking and rolling. Slid right into the second half. It's going great. We're having fun, Jonathan. We're all very high now. Ruin it for us by talking about Elon Musk. Yeah. So this might be this might have changed just by the time I put these notes together. I know. Elon Musk now says he is actually planning to buy Twitter for the originally agreed upon

price of $54.20 per share. This is probably happening because his lawyers told him that he didn't have much of a case in terms of Twitter's lawsuit against him. Yeah, I would also posit that he's doing it because he didn't want the trial to continue because of like things like discovery and the process of the trial, I think, would have hurt him. Yes, he was going to lose and more emails and texts and things that he probably doesn't want out.

Also, I feel like he doesn't like out we're gonna get out i feel like he doesn't like people making fun of him oh definitely you you don't have to feel that way you can just know it i don't i know i'm sure but you know he fired people uh on his uh comedy project that he never ended up doing because they made fun of him so but one thing to talk about here is that the the hitch appears to be the financing of this because he's now like okay i'm gonna buy it for the 44 billion but that includes 13 billion of debt from big or big banks we're gonna put up this money and take on a bunch of debt and then sell that debt and now that debt is going to be worth a lot less because the market's down and so maybe you know morgan stanley or barkley's doesn't want to front the money uh yeah i saw there's like

there are people pulling out like the people he had lined up to help him with this purchase uh are no longer willing to help him so what's the most likely outcome here is that he does end up taking control of twitter but is like what bored because he he hasn't cared about actually the free speech stuff or any of this stuff he's been talking about in what six months now yeah i just don't think that anything is he buys twitter he doesn't i don't think much will change i think what everything he's railed about and talked about, he's not going to be able to do anything about the the issues of the Internet and are bigger than him and all of his thoughts about free speech or Twitter or what have you. different i think you know my what i do think is possible if he does end up owning twitter is that he could he could re-platform or just platform a lot of fascists and i mean like you know it's not so much about what he can do about like quote the everyday person it's more about who he's gonna

not kick off the platform anymore or just you know welcome back on because that's kind of what he he still does that's what he believes he doesn't believe in the fact that people like you know welcome back on because that's kind of what he he sold us that's what he believed he doesn't believe in the fact that people like you know based on their belief like all ideas are kind of equal to him but you know what i mean so that that's i think it could just become a much more toxic place which you know i mean yeah if you lose you know users because of that then i mean is it is it worth it and losers too and yeah losers too well yeah because i think that uh i mean he'll probably bring trump back and a lot of other people and so on and i think one thing like one result of that is that he uh it kind of blows it up and he like ignores it and doesn't do anything about it or it's his company and he will slowly realize all of the complexity and nuance that comes with

moderating a platform like that and he'll sort of like start to realize like oh if i don't do the things that i was complaining about then this happens and he'll sort of start to see like the actual moving parts it's like it's like being like you know there's like some forum that you're you're a part of and you're like oh it sucks i can't do this i can't do this and then you get in charge of the forum you're like oh moderating a forum is really really hard actually and i think that he will start maybe start to realize that or because also a lot of his ideas are not good uh you can find a lot of his ideas for like how to monetize the platform all these sort of ideas and they're all pretty bad and not just like i don't like elon musk like that's a bad idea i don't i wouldn't want to use that for the website he wants to introduce like

dogecoin and stuff like that um so i think that the only changes he'll make aside from like letting people on will probably be aesthetic because that's what his whole deal is it's aesthetics and like pr so he might change the way twitter looks but i think all of his bad ideas won't actually filter through because they won't want to do them because they're bad ideas. But he will also get very bored very quickly. And he's going to if he remains the CEO of Twitter, he will be the CEO of five companies, which, again, I would argue makes it seem like being a CEO is not the maybe it's like really easy.

Kind of seems like maybe he's not really a ceo of any way you work 80 hours a day and then you buy another company or 80 hours a week then you buy another company you still work 80 hours a week then you buy another company you still do say that maybe you're actually not right so like there will be a two-week period where he's like i'm all on my tesla robot or tesla guy in a suit or whatever it is and then so the people at twitter will be just like working away setting stuff up doing what they always do and then like once every eight months they'll get like an email or call out of the blue and be like all hands meeting we're doing this now we're you

know uh now all tweets are getting shot into space or whatever it is yeah then they'll like have to do that for a couple of weeks and then he'll like get bored he'll get move on because he does not actually care flamethrower yeah and like it's uh you know the the the business's usual things that they do that are successes he'll be like look at what's happening under my rule you know and take credit for it and then yeah do these silly things i think his ego is going to outweigh his um pragmatism his pragmatism. And I, people like that tend to, I mean, he's a total narcissist, tend to burn shit down.

If that's what, you know what I mean? Like they don't care if it burns down as long as their ego is served. Yeah. So I don't know how it's going to go, but I mean. And this might burn down. I mean, yeah.

And he wouldn't care, right? Like it's not something he actually cares about other than the attention that he gets and the praise he gets. And the power, the power that he has over all this yeah pop in losers we're all headed back to facebook also no we're not we aren't uh also no i saw this report that he uh he didn't attend a uh one of the twitter deposition because of covid concerns i thought he didn't like believe in it of COVID concerns.

I thought he didn't like believe in it and that he made all of his workers go to work in spite of it. So maybe he's very few cases in the end of April. Very few cases by the end of April 2020. End of April 2020. He's got all these young babies and they're too young to get vaccinated. So that's true. You know, that's just being a good parent. I think we should move on.

I agree with you. we should move on before we move on i agree with you we should move on but real quick uh this is he he tweeted something he tweeted buying twitter is an accelerant to creating x the everything app yeah what the heck is that just it's just it's just is this a joke weird like reddit tier like jokes about i like i don't know he just says stuff sometimes right his like water truck thing like ah your truck is a submarine that was a joke but it was like was it i don't know so just i actually do want i really want to move on to more important things but i now i'd forgotten about this just every week him chiming in and creating a fucking poll a twitter poll about whether or not russia's elections in the annexed parts of ukraine like if the people want it then that should be the the way shut the fuck

up man shut the fuck up that it's it's well beyond and now russia's officially like touting that is like yes elon musk is correct the will of the people fuck you oh he is it's absurd i'm just acknowledging it i don't want to talk about it anymore i want to pivot because this is actually way more important and um impactful in every way uh and that that is are the protests in iran so jonathan set us up for this conversation, please. And thank you. Sure. Protests have been going on in Iran for three weeks since the killing of Masa Amini. She's a Kurdish woman who was arrested by, I don't know what they're officially called, the Iran's Morality Police. Yeah. For not properly wearing the hijab. Eyewitnesses said she was

severely beaten before falling into a coma for two days and dying the police said she just randomly had a heart attack while in their custody there have been a young woman just massive protests in iran and outside of iran the government has been cracking down with displays of brutal force unknown number of people have died in those in those demonstrations dozens at least hundreds of women have died in those demonstrations, dozens at least. Hundreds of women have been arrested. And this is a primarily woman-led protest. A lot of young women are leading this. They have been chanting slogans like woman life freedom and death to the dictator. I'm pretty sure that the deaths at this point are in the hundreds. I think that that's hard to specifically quantify. But just, yeah, I just wanted to interject with that.

Yeah. But this is, you know, it's also very inspiring. This is the most that the regime has been pressured in years, perhaps decades. I mean, some of the there's images of some of the protests in solidarity around the world. I saw one from Kabul, Afghanistan, where 30 women were were protesting in support, and they were dispersed by the Taliban with soldiers firing into the air. So, you know, this this does appear to be something that is really galvanizing the world and bringing people to their cause.

This is a story I think we would like to bring someone on in the near future who can talk about this with some expertise and personal experiences. But I have been gutted and very inspired by the demonstrations that I've seen of people drawing attention to this. You know, so much is happening all the time in this country, around the world. And it can be hard for stuff to break through into our American consciousness and internationally. And this is like, this is the crux of so much that we see. Just the stripping away of human right and, you know, personal freedoms and ruling through terror. And it is incredible to see people rising up like this. I, you know, I've been listening to a lot of interviews or pieces about it, and there kind

of is a bit of an attitude of what do we have to lose at this point well can i can i just say something because yes please i stand in solidarity with the people of iran who are putting their lives on the line for basic human freedoms but i am also filled with a sense of dread yeah because a lot of us are forgetting about the Arab Spring. And, you know, from it's really easy from a distance to say, yeah, go for it, do all this and then not be there in any real way to provide support on the ground protection to do anything. None of that worked out great for those regions. How did the Arab Spring end? Yeah. And and I think that's kind of what's happening now too

and i feel like look look at what happened in afghanistan we fought the taliban we're freeing these women guess what the taliban are back and they are entrenched like we we you know what i mean like it's like i i don't see and you're talking about entrenched patriarchy and misogyny look at what happened what's. My daughters have less reproductive rights than I had growing up. So to me, those power structures don't go away like that. It it's I hate to say it. I don't think I don't I'm not saying that it's not important for, you know, to to, you you know for it's not important that the people of iran um don't take like matters in their hand but i don't i just don't have hope because i am afraid of what these kinds of regimes will do to keep power and they will do anything they will all they will murder as many citizens look at bashar asad in syria murder tens of thousands of your own citizens to keep power. This is what we're talking about here. And I don't think people understand how absolutely terrifying and dangerous this is. And I'm really full of dread. I tweeted my heart's in my throat and it really is seeing these images because I think about my daughters and I don't know if I would have the bravery to do it. I think about my daughters and I don't know if I would have the bravery to do it.

Yeah, I think those are really, really, really important points. Thank you. Because as we're sitting here talking about this, I'm aware it's just it's hard because it is scary. I am inspired by it and you want to and I support it, you know, in so much as like, yes, obviously, but I am terrified. I don't know what happens. So much is like, yes, obviously, but I am terrified. I don't know what happens.

I don't know how any of these, you know, regimes around the world back down once they've stood their ground. Right. And that people, the support that you see online right now this week probably isn't going to stick around long enough to see this movement through. And then meanwhile, what happens? long enough to see this movement through. And then meanwhile, what happens? Everybody's day-to-day lives continue or get worse, you know, on the ground there. Yeah, attention is a commodity and it's, you know, scarce.

And what keeps things going like that is just the attention. And, you know, what Trump will announce he's going to run in 2024. And then that's where all the attention will go. Right. Or, you know, OPEC slashing. Yeah. What, however many barrels of oil production and how that's going to affect our midterms, et cetera.

OK, before we wrap things up, I wanted to talk about some of your upcoming projects. Normally we do that up top, but you've got a lot going on. And so, yeah. Well, first, let's start with your new book, Fatty, Fatty, Boom, Boom, a memoir of food, fat and family, which comes out on November 8th. Talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. I mean, it's like three years in the making. And so it's like, you know, finally having this baby out in the world. It's it is what it says it is. It's a memoir about food and family. And, you know,

after I wrote a non-story, which, you know, did really well, it was critically very well received and New York Times bestseller, all that good stuff. Immediately, my publisher and agent's like, got to write something next. And I thought, I, I gravitate towards nonfiction, but writing a non-story almost killed me because it required so much intense research. What can I write that I don't have to put in touch? I was like, oh yeah, my own story. And so if I did, it would be around this subject that I have never really publicly spoken about. Although privately, anybody who knows me knows I'm constantly talking about this stuff. And also I think it just resonates with a lot of people who doesn't who's not always talking about food, fat and family like everybody is in some level. Yeah. And so but it is more of a it's not it's kind of has more of a lighthearted take.

Like it has a bit of a my big fat Greek wedding feel. It's gotten, yeah, like three starred reviews already. It's getting great reviews. And yeah, I'm very excited about it. And I hope people check it out. We've got a blurb for your new book. It says, it's the story of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done but refuses to meet the expectations of others.

And I think that is wonderful. The idea that others have expectations of other people's bodies and, and just that pressure we, we put on that on the individual. Look, I'm, I, Jonathan might want me to cut this out, but I am working on a new project. And this is one of the first topics that we're kind of digging into is this. So the relationship that we have with our bodies and the pressures that we get socially and kind of the roots of that you know how you know we've sold this idea of you know bmi or ideal weights and it's all bullshit but we we but i also think one of the most damaging things ideas around this conversation is that is the idea that it's all

about just discipline if you are disciplined and can take care of yourself without giving any credence to, you know, family history, what you inherit, trauma, childhood patterns. I mean, the shit that's in our food, which is not real food. We're learning so much about how we metabolize food. Everybody's different about what genetic markers affect that. But also the whole idea of discipline is actually bullshit. If you look into it, you're like, okay, so if you actually measure people's discipline, it's almost impossible. I might be someone who you consider disciplined because I hike a lot. Well, it might not be hard for me. That's not self-discipline because I like to hike. What is hard for me that requires self-discipline, I avoid it.

And so but any kind of mentality where where I am the problem and I have to beat myself up for it is not going to result in in the progress that you want. We have to completely approach our bodies differently. And we've been told that your body needs to look a certain way. And it's just fucking bullshit anyway. And I'm sorry, the FDA needs to burn down most of the food industry. We are we are fed actual poison in this country and with a government stamp that this is real food when so many indigenous societies would be like, this is not even real food. This is like dead,

dead shit that's poisoning you. And that's a whole other topic I want to get into, you know, the amount of things that we allow in this country versus what other countries allow in our foods, in our skincare products and everything like that. So there's, I just, I'm very, very, very grateful every time I see new work coming out that, you know, talks around this, that, you know, we start to actually address this issue because it affects us all. Yeah. It's taken 40 plus years. I'm 48 now, but you know, like about four or five years ago when is when I started like kind of just learning to be like gentle with myself, you know what I mean? And understanding all the different factors

that led me here and not hate, not flogging myself for not having the discipline because I kept being told this is calories in and calories out. What's wrong with you? Why can't you do it? It's bullshit. It's bullshit. It's not true. But at the same time, I love food and I'm going to talk about food. I put recipes at the end. Anyhow, I think people will. Yeah. I think people will like the book. It sounds beautiful. And then you also have a new podcast.

Drop Today. Drop Today. Oh, wow. On National LED Day. I don't know. We timed it. We timed it just for that. You guys really didn't hold back.

It's called Rabia and Ellen Solve the Case. Tell us about that. Oh, yeah. I always keep being like, I should describe it. No, this is your work. You can describe it. Yeah. I'm really excited about this. And it's because a couple of years, about a year and a half ago, I realized that the shows I listened to the most, I listened to a lot of true crime, excuse me, podcasts were true crime and talk shows. And I said, does anybody have a true crime talk show? And I'm like, wait, nobody does.

And so I thought, you know, it'd be fun to find a co-host who would kind of be the yin to my yang and Ellen Marsh is like this incredible, talented, gorgeous Broadway actor who is like my voice is like a sedative and hers is like crystal meth. And we just work well together. But also, you know, I also wanted to be able to bring like the skills that I've learned doing Undisclosed and doing like the investigative work to cases that everybody thinks they know, you know, Scott Peterson, Michael Peterson, John Bonet Ramsey, all these true crime big, the cases and just kind of breaking away the layers of like the noise around them and getting to the evidence, teaching people how to really understand, like what's evidence, what's not, what are you looking at?

What do you look at in a case? And, but having guests on like, so we have celebrity guests on, I'm really excited about some people because even celebrities love crime and have cases that they're obsessed with. So it's got a different element. And it's one hour. But within one hour, I promise to change people's minds about some of the cases they think they know. Yeah. What I think is really interesting about this, obviously, true crime is having a moment has been for a while.

You know, there's my favorite murder, different types of podcasts out there. And but what you bring to this, well, first off, you're right, a true crime talk show. I haven't heard that before. And bringing guests is always great because it helps bring in new fresh energy and keep stuff. stuff. But specifically, you bringing a level of expertise and knowledge. And that's exactly right. Being able to break down elements of the case that other people might not understand. You know how we talked about up top, you know, an opportunity to talk about wrongful convictions or see how things can go wrong or what's right or just how to look at this from not a sensational perspective, but rather one that's more practical. The Nancy Grace effect is real. OK, that's real. And I was just right before we started recording. I look briefly at our Instagram because our first episodes dropped today and we talk about

Scott Peterson, the Scott Peterson, Lacey Peterson case and like 80 comments on one of the posts is like, I cannot believe my mind has been changed. And I'm like, this is great. That's great. Wow. This is what I want to do and have fun doing it. Yeah, that's exactly it. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.

This has been really great. We really appreciate it for having me. Still can't believe the timing of this. Right. I'm just so happy for you, for your whole family. It's pretty remarkable. And it shouldn't be remarkable, but it is. Look, I've told Adnan, you know, we chat almost every day.

I'm like, listen, and he'll call me and be like, I know you're busy, Rabia. And I'm like, I am. And I can be busy now because I'm done with your case now. Yeah. But yeah, he's like lurking on social media and just kind of trying to figure out how to like, you know, use a laptop and stuff.

And it's fun. It's fun watching him discover the world. I didn't even, this must be pretty overwhelming and exciting, but to come out in almost 2023, that's got to be a real trip. Like walking out of a cave. And famous.

Like you walking out of a cave and everybody knows you. It's like, welcome to the world. We did a terrible job with this point, but here it is. Yeah, it got worse. Well, we'll certainly be paying attention and following this. And thank you. Thank you again.

We appreciate it. And thank you all, our lovely listeners. We will be back next week. But in the meantime, please, please remember that we love you very much.