Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari, and Kmele chat about the Tangle live event, homelessness and Nicolás Maduro.

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Today on Suspension of the rules, Isaac, Ari, and Kmele chat about how the Tangle Live event in Irvine, CA went. Then they pivot over to some discussion about homelessness and the new homeless proposal in Utah. The guys then briefly talk a bit about how unreal the Nicolás Maduro news was this week with the US trying to lure his personal pilot to betray the Venezuelan leader. Lastly we get into some tick talks with our grievances. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by: Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75 and Jon Lall. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up, a recap of the L.A. event, a lot of talk about a big homelessness proposal in Utah, a little bit of Nicholas Maduro, and a lot of talk about ticks. It's a good one. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good afternoon and good evening. evening and welcome to the suspension of the rules podcast. I'm your host, Isaac Sol. I've just totally given up on the intro. We're fresh off the boat from Los Angeles, Irvine, California, I should say, not Los Angeles. I don't want to do, I was accused of Orange County Eurasia. I don't want to do that. We were not in Los Angeles. We were in Orange County, Irvine, California, together. I miss being together. I'm here with managing editor Ari Weitzman and our editor, Camille Foster.

Gentlemen, how are you doing? Good. How are you? I'm tickled. I'm enjoying the kind of Trumpian intro there. I'm here from the Ovo Office. What a great place we are, not Los Angeles. Los Angeles orator, I was accused very unfairly.

It's not true. Los Angeles is real. Orange County is real. They love me there. It was fun. I'm back. I feel good. It's wonderful.

I love the weep. I was going to assail, Isaac, for mentioning fresh off the boat. Because I don't know if that's appropriate. That seems a little bit. Is that not a PC thing to say anymore? Now that you say that, I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess there is some connotation there.

That's probably not appropriate. I use that expression a lot. We also didn't ride any boats. So, yeah. Yeah, of course, yeah. I basically describing fresh off the boat anytime I arrive anywhere. I'm like, oh, I'm like, you know, it's just like.

I think people probably just assume you're making like intentionally edgy off-color joke. And they're like, oh, all right. Nice. Okay. For a guy who thinks a lot about language, I never considered that one. Yeah.

Okay, well, anyway, yeah, we were in Irvine, which was awesome. First of all, thank you to everybody who came out. Super fun night. We had over 300, I think close to 400 people in attendance. We had an awesome VIP after show hang out with like 30 or so people. Huge shout out to Barclay, the Irvine, the Barclay Earvine Theater, or Irvine Barclay Theater, who were awesome hosts and really took care of us and took care of all of our guests.

I got to meet Dick and Emily from, you know, of this American life and question everything fame, which was super fun. it was great to hang out with them I'd love to go back to Orange County I hope we get to do it again next year and the onstage product was awesome we got to watch Camille chop it up with Anna Casparian and

Alex Thompson Anna Anna Anna Anna's awesome she's so she was like exactly who I thought she was like she just brought the fire and said honest stuff and you know I like obviously disagree with her on plenty of things and I know she's been raked

over the coals and accused of being an anti-Semite and all this stuff for her Israel commentary, which we did not talk about it all at the show. But she was basically exactly who I thought she was because she was just like really interesting and had some biting commentary and said some things I didn't expect her to say and whatever. And that's just what I've gotten from watching her show. So when I say that, I mean it in like a totally complimentary great way. And Alex surprised me almost the entire night.

Like I was expecting him to be kind of like a sort of boring reporter. Like we were going to have to coax him out into saying anything remotely like edgy or interesting or that was just, you know, nothing to do with any of his work or anything I've seen. He's an incredible reporter. It's just like because he's such a straight news kind of DC source reporter. But instead he just kind of managed to say a ton of interesting stuff all night, you know, whether it was about, like, the gossip he hears about Donald Trump Jr.'s relationships or whatever to just, like, what Republicans are whispering behind closed doors about Trump, I felt like he managed to walk this really difficult line where he didn't actually offer an opinion on basically anything all night,

but he just injected really fascinating reporting and, you know, spoke for like, this is how the Trump administration views this thing, XYZ. which I thought was really fun. And, yeah, it was a fantastic panel. I don't know if you guys have thoughts to throw in there, but I figured it would only be appropriate to start with that. Yeah, had a really, really good time. Would concur with all the things you said.

Certainly Anna was great. Alex was great. Anna did not raise her voice at all. There was no shouting. There was plenty of agreement and disagreement. And more than that, just kind of thoughtful back and forth. I loved when the crowd got involved, both kind of booing and hissing and occasion and applauding spontaneously.

So that was, it was great. It was a good time, especially enjoyed the hang afterwards. Lots of really, really great thoughtful people, interesting feedback on the publication itself, on the times we are living in, the nature of the news business broadly, and even some suggestions about the directions that we might go in in the future. I think just to add to the audience interaction from my seat in the audience the whole time, not under the bright lights with you guys,

I heard a couple shushes too, which I appreciate it. Yeah, people were locked in, and when there's a little bit of chatter, I heard some very, like, pointed, and John got shushed once, even, our executive producer. He was having a whispery conversation, with Magdalena in the back

I thought it was pretty quiet but it was distracting enough to warn a shush. That sounds funny. That's at least an indicator that tells me we have an audience that really wanted to listen. John was talking while me and Camille

did our thing on stage. I mean, that's just objectively rude and he deserved to be sure. Got what he had coming, in my opinion. Yeah, extremely inappropriate of John to be discussing the way the stage product looks and his role as executive producer who could imagine doing something so thoughtless. John, I know you're hearing all this

and you need to take this feedback. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, no, it was fun. Also, I got really jammed up a few times throughout the night, mostly because the panel found some agreement in places that bothered me. So I ended up defending gerrymandering. I had to defend Gavin Newsom. And I think I even defended regime change, too, all in the matter of about 90 minutes. Just to add some, there was too much nicety happening. So I had to go devil's advocate mode and, yeah, make the case to gerrymander the hell out of California and then also talk about how good Gavin Newsom is. I don't know. I might actually believe the gerrymandering thing.

I've been thinking about it since I made the argument on stage. For those of you who aren't there, which is going to be most of the people listening to this, basically one of our topics was gerrymandering in California. Anna Casparian made a very passionate case that Democrats and Gavin Newsom should not engage in gerrymandering because like it's so pathetic that Trump has to gerrymandered or hold on to the House and Democrats should just be above it and whatever. And Camille generally concurred, I think, with that viewpoint. Like hold the principle. Alex didn't really chime in much. And then I made my argument, which was actually like Trump is the one setting all of the off. And despite the fact that I very much opposed gerrymandering as a principal, if we're going to

just allow Trump to keep the house by gerrymandering all these Republican states and don't fight back, then Democrats are going to be in really big trouble in the long term. And the gerrymandering problem is only going to get worse. And if we want people to step back off the ledge, the best thing to do is Democrats fight back, gerrymander the hell out of everything they can. And they all gets to the point where it's so bad that everybody looks around and realizes, wow, this sucks. Like, we're not electing 90% of the people, the representatives that were sending to Congress, we're basically just having them pick who their voters are, and we should do something to fix the system.

And that's the actual off-ramp. And I didn't believe a word of that. I mostly agreed with Camille and Anna, but I was trying to add some, yeah, some ideological diversity to the debate that was happening on. stage and then I thought about it and I was like maybe I do actually like Anna's response wasn't compelling to me I don't even know if she gave a response that argument but I didn't really hear anything afterwards I was like maybe that's right maybe I actually am right about that and that like there's a guy who's bullying everybody like hypothetical you know but Trump's it's sort of

like a bullying movie's telling everybody like let's gerrymander and your options are like sit on your hands and hope he gets it out of his system and just doesn't keep doing it or like call in a bigger kid and fight back a little bit and make him realize that he can't just run around bullying people with no repercussions. I kind of like the latter approach more even if bullying is wrong. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's one of those things where they're actually, this is going to be so unsatisfying, but I think that it's one of those things where it can be correct, like the correct stance, depending on what your goals are or what your affiliation is.

Like if you are a Democrat in Congress or a Democrat in California and you want to push back against the Trump administration and you are at least even on the side of the Democrats and saying we need to have checks against the Trump administration's powers, Congress is not providing it. And if we allow more gerrymandering to happen across the country, fewer checks will be in place and if you are aligned with that perspective

and you have that goal politically then saying we're going to use this weapon to fight back makes sense and sounds like the right response when you frame it as we are currently in a fight for our lives here politically and if we are bringing principles to a knife fight we're going to get knifed. Whereas on the other side if we are independence

or moderates or people calling balls and strikes principled observers from the sign lines. And we want to say, you know, it doesn't really make sense philosophically to say, in order to prevent the bad thing that's happening, we need to do more of the bad thing that's happening. We can say like that doesn't really

check out logically and that if we want to make a stand on principle, then on principle you can't support the thing that you're principled against. Like that checks out too. So I think like both are right and I don't know if that feels good enough. Yeah.

think the special circumstance being that we're having this conversation in California, where Proposition 50 is being voted on. And California also being the place that they have to vote to empower the government to carry out this partisan retributive redistricting effort precisely because they had earlier decided that they wanted to have an independent commission, have responsibility for this, to try to make the system more impartial, to try and give greater confidence in their institutions to every citizen of California, even the ones who are in these political minorities. And the notion that you would, again, vacate that principle, abandon it in order to defend yourself against something that is essentially being positioned

as a greater wrong, I think it is unique. It does. It does. bring the kind of tension into particularly sharp relief. And I think that it's a circumstance where I really think that Californians ought to be proud of what they had already done. It was something that people all over the country have pointed to as a model for the way to try and combat a tangible problem that has been dealt with for a very long time with respect to partisan redistricting. And I don't know. I'm just, I'm deeply uncomfortable abandoning that value for the sake of what perhaps could be some short-term gain, especially when

I think there's also a pretty good probability that, especially when you listen to Steve Bannon to defend their approach, like they actively talk about doing this so that they can attain a permanent electoral majority. People who talk like that, I don't know that they're actually going to win a lot of people to their side. I think that that suggests the kind of vulnerability and that you can attack that vulnerability without selling out your principles.

And that's the argument I tried to make anyways. I think Anna's point, which is perhaps a little more salient than you are willing to give her credit for now, Isaac, and maybe it's just in retrospect. But Congress isn't doing all that much at the moment. they are rubber-stamping things. And perhaps Democrats could do more if they actually had a majority.

But I'm not so sure about that. No, I do think that's a fair point. I mean, I guess if I pushed back to what you just said would be like, it's true that you could use this as an attack line, you know, against Republicans to kind of make them look weak and, like, you know, they can't win without rigging the game or whatever. But the whole point of gerrymandering is that if they do it well enough, even if you win the popular sentiment on that,

you're still going to lose the election. Like, you know, Democrats could have a 5% popular vote advantage and then also end up in the minority in the House, which is like the whole problem, not the whole problem, but one of the big problems of gerrymandering. So it's sort of like, yeah, you get to feel good about taking the moral high ground, but then you get trounced anyway in exactly like they get everything they want by you not fighting back kind of, which is tough.

So, yeah, I mean, I guess this is, I created a tangent here, but it's maybe a little less straightforward than I thought. Again, I think like my, I'm drawn towards the take the principled stance and don't gerrymander because we know gerrymandering's bad and you've said. it's bad. And California is like this beacon of, you know, reform, the independent commission, however flawed it is, is better than what they're doing before.

And now they're undoing all that, like, or they may undo that. I guess one last question, Camille, maybe you have a sense of this. Is Prop 50, which is the ballot measure that will allow the gerrymandering in California to happen? Is that likely to pass? It feels like it probably is, right? You know what's funny? I haven't looked at any of the recent polling. The last I looked, it did seem likely to pass,

but I don't know where we are, and I should double-check that. Yeah, I don't know either, but I'd be interested in what its actual odds are. I suppose that impacts me. It's just dawning on me. Wait, you live here. According to the LA Times, voters in a recent poll that they put out, do you side with Democrats on. Prop 50 and it is

they say 70% of those who plan about an election day oppose 6 and 10 likely voters support Proposition 50 and early voters favor the proposition but 70% of those who plan a vote on election day oppose it which is nuanced and interesting which means it's going to be kind of close but the LA Times according to their analysis

says that more reflects the way demographics have shifted with how people vote and who's voting when. So, I don't know. We'll find out. The only statewide ballot measure. I mean, this is the whole reason. Essentially to go out and vote.

So it will be interesting. I don't know if it has implications for the rest of the country, although there have been a couple of states that have suggested that they might want to do something. But were there at least discussions about it? But only California is actually pursuing this at this time. I mean, pursuing this, but there are other states that are doing mid-decade redistricting. So it's just, are there states that are going to be amending their laws so that they can do that same thing?

Because the ones that don't are actively doing it. They actually don't need to do it because they don't have the same provisions in place to prevent them. But again, I do think there has been some recent research that I've seen that suggests that at the national level, a lot of the gerrymandering efforts, like kind of just work themselves out in the wash. I do think that, you know, sounding the alarm, Texas did what it did. And the president of the United States has encouraged other Republican states to follow their lead and to do more partisan redistricting. But is that likely to have a profound consequence?

It's actually debatable. And whether or not you, again, betray your principles for some sort of, some sort of short-term remedy to something that may in fact not be terribly consequential is, I don't know. I don't know if I love that. But here we are. I asked chat, GBT, if fresh off the boat to describe someone as inappropriate now? You were stuck on that. Dang, we've moved up.

We've been talking about gerrymandering this whole time. I don't know if you're aware of that. It said short answer, usually yes, avoid it. Fresh off the boat has a long history as a slur aimed at newly arrived immigrants. especially Asians, but not only. And it suggested some safer alternatives like newly arrived, just arrived, recently immigrated, new to city slash country.

None of which apply to you getting off the plane. But yeah, I will say, I don't want to open another can of worms and I'm on the side of like, yeah, this is the way that that phrase should be interpreted. But chat GPT, I've noticed, does have a little bit of a liberal bias there. and not necessarily in or just in that answer,

but I've asked the questions before, and it claims that there is a consensus, that is a consensus that it just sees in more liberal media establishments. And I really wish that I had an example for you, just like in the holster, but it's more of just like a thing that I've surmised. I don't know if you have a feeling on that, Camille,

or if you just want to say, hey, let's move on. I just, I copy and paste it. I'm going to spare you all. I copy and pasted the question into GROC, a known racist AI chat bot. It also said... He said somewhat sarcastically. Yeah, it also said, yes,

the phrase fresh off the boat, often abbreviated as Fobb, which I've never heard, can be inappropriate or offensive in many contexts today, although it depends on intent, audience, and tone, which I think is maybe a more nuanced answer,

actually. All right, well, We actually have some plans to talk about, well, Jerryman is really important. But I wanted to put a big policy discussion on the plate today. I feel like it had been a few weeks since as a group, we wrestled with some policy. And I kind of had that thought. There's just been like so much Trump stuff not related to legislation. And the government shut down, which is kind of like some policy stuff.

And then there's all the culture war stuff that has kind of been, you know, I don't know. overflowing everybody's brains with ideas and thoughts and commentary. And then this thing fell into my lap, which was this fascinating story in the New York Times about a really important issue, which is homelessness,

and what they're thinking about doing in Utah. And so I sent this article to Ari and Camille and asked them both to read it and meditate on it and be prepared for a little bit of a conversation because I think it's super fascinating. I think there's a lot here. And I'll start with kind of giving the big picture, which is that in the last decade in the United States,

unsheltered homelessness has gone up 60%. Today, 23 of 10,000 people in America are homeless on any given night, an estimated 770,000 people. So, you know, about as many people is live in like kind of mid-sized, mid-major, almost big cities in America, a lot of people. And in Utah, they are thinking about a kind of new approach that I think has been embraced mostly by people on the right, by a lot of conservatives, certainly appears to be getting the enthusiastic endorsement of President Trump. And the idea in, I guess, a quick summarized break.

down is that they have found a piece of property sort of on the outskirts of Salt Lake City where they want to build a facility to house the city's homeless people and offer things like mental health services and addiction services. It's sort of being framed by the people who are proposing it as this really, I would say, human, thoughtful approach that will be rehabilitative and hopefully end with people finding work and getting on their own two feet and landing somewhere else. The catch, if there's a catch, I guess, and in this case, I think maybe the kind of hook that's sort of causing a lot of debate is that it appears

the way people are talking about it that the commitment to this facility for many of the homeless in Salt Lake City is not going to be voluntary. They are going... One of the people who's behind the facility

basically describes the proposal as having police who... He used a euphemism for the police which I'll have to find. in this article. It wasn't, oh, God, it was like, I can't find it.

It'll come to me, but it was like relocation officers or something like that. And the idea was to have these police go to places where they're encampments in Salt Lake City and effectively tell the people there, you can go to jail or court, or we can take you to this facility where you can get some help and we'll get you on your feet. And once they're in the facility, it's not entirely clear, you know, whether they can come and go on their own free will and what that looks like. Critics are kind of talking about it like it's this inhumane concentration camp, while people who are supportive of it are saying, you know, what's actually inhumane is leaving these

homeless people on the street to, you know, effectively live in squalor and if they have addiction or mental health issues, not get help and basically kill themselves slowly, which candidly is what happens in a lot of situations. So I'm curious, I guess. I'll start with like a broad, I've got tons of questions about this proposal and some of the issues that come up for me and thoughts about it. But I'm interested maybe just to start to hear from both of you kind of what you thought reading the article, like what sorts of stuff came to mind for you? And if this felt like a program

that you would generally be supportive of or if there was like immediately some red flags, we were just like, no, no, no, no, not this. We'll be right back after this quick break. I was a little over the map thinking about this and responding to it because the questions that we saw starting with the ambiguity, which I think remains the headline. I think anything that we say is going to circle back to the idea that this is still a proposal and we don't have answers to the key questions in this yet. So how are these relocation officers or whoever are going to be ascertaining the people who need to be in this facility? How are they making that assert, like that determination? How are they being transported there and do they have the ability to leave?

Those are going to be not details, but salient characteristics of this plan. And I know that when the state was asked about that by the times, They said that the reporter was worrying about details. And this was something, a granular detail to be worked out. They were really considering this blue sky approach that they were excited about. Those are obviously going to be key. So starting with that. The things that concern me are clearly, like there's an image that's bad about this.

That it's like this facility remotely away from somewhere, from anywhere other than like ranchers that are nearby who aren't really thrilled about this, understandably, but the the image looks bad. It's a security facility with like fencing and it doesn't look like it's a place that screams Rehabilitation Center. We're here to help

come escape and find a answer to your malady. It screams this is akin to a prison. The thing that is interesting about it is if I were to describe exactly this, exactly this proposal, with a question, one of the questions

answered, the question being, is it voluntary to leave? And the answer is like, if you don't have a clinical diagnosis and you don't have a judge order telling you to be here, it's voluntary, you can come and come out. If that's the answer, and I described exactly this plan, and it happened to be in a building in a downtown city, in the middle of Salt Lake City, I don't think anybody would blink twice. The fact that it is in a report, remote area kind of outside the city feels different, but I don't know how much that should matter. We talk about how we have a lot of land that it's strange when you look at the map of the country, how huge it is and we struggle with homelessness. And it feels somewhat reasonable to

say if we have these facilities where the only way to fix homelessness is with shelter. So let's build a shelter in the space where there's space and then allow people to go in and access it. That sounds pretty reasonable. But again, it circles back to what I started with. What is the voluntary nature of this for the people who are sent to the facility? We don't know. I'll just really quick before Camille said something, I'll say that. According to Randy Shumway, the chairman of the group of the political appointees and business

figures that are advising on this campus plan, they believe that nearly two-thirds of the 1,300 homeless people potentially sent to the site could be there for involuntary treatment. So they're expecting like a pretty large chunk of the people to be there for involuntary treatment. And the way that they could be. Yeah. The euphemism that I was remembering from the article was, I asked how people would enter the facility, Schumann said law enforcement rescue teams would identify homeless people in

the city and offer them a choice. We can take you to court. and you can go to jail. We don't want to do that. We have this resource, yeah, resource-rich alternative come to this campus with us, basically. But, I mean, even there,

like, that doesn't provide many answers to me because it's saying how many people do we expect we could be sending to this facility and it doesn't say for how long and whether or not they'd be able to leave. That is an important detail. Yeah, I don't know. Isaac, if you mentioned the title of the story, it's in Utah, Trump's vision for homelessness

begins to take shape in the New York Times. We've got a couple of bylines there. If I remember, I don't know, maybe it was not more than two. But anyways, I think reading the story, I had a bunch of different reactions. One, there was some language in the story that I ended up highlighting, which seemed as though it was supposed to be, you should kind of take offense at this. Like, look at the way they're accusing homeless. people of turning great cities into, quote, unsanitary nightmares. I've found the renewed effort to kind of police language around homelessness, to talk about it in perhaps a more sanitized way, somewhat frustrating.

And it is perhaps frustrating because this is such a genuinely complicated, awful thing. And I know that it is imperative that we kind of center human dignity and empathy here. And I think it's very valuable to establish that you have people who find themselves in these situations, generally speaking, it is not a consequence of just they've made poor decisions financially. Most of these people are struggling with mental health issues or addiction. It's really hard to find your way out of circumstances like that by yourself. And some of them have alienated their families, perhaps don't have families. It's just an extraordinary. extraordinarily difficult and complicated problem.

So I'm all for leading with humanity in these discussions and trying to talk about things in a careful way. But I do worry that some of the efforts to sanitize these conversations and to kind of make them safer, so to speak, come at the expense of acknowledging that the status quo is absolutely terrible. I mean, we have this kind of practiced indifference where we step over homeless people. If you live in a place like San Francisco who are getting high. on the street. You kind of walk around them. They're muttering to themselves and you try to avoid them. I've lived in New York for many, many years. I am there almost weekly. I actually ride the

train pretty regularly now, unfortunately, because sometimes coming in from JFK, it's the only way to get into the city. I know, I know, just man of the people. But, you know, you see people who are suffering mental health, in clear mental health crisis and also on the street. And it's sad, but also sometimes they are dangerous, clearly. Sometimes it does inspire fear. And there have been pretty high profile incidents of citizens getting into either being assaulted by or the thing was Daniel Penny was his name in New York on that subway where he got into it with Michael Jackson impersonator who was homeless, who did have a history

of mental health challenges, and someone died. And I think it is imperative to just acknowledge that the status quo isn't so great, that the range of options includes indifference and incarceration and now this kind of involuntary detention, which is not new, but is something that Americans kind of drifted away from. We closed a lot of our mental health facilities, and we've just been either ignoring or incarcerating homeless people in this country for a while. So looking for novel approaches here is a good and valuable thing to do. I think the challenge with a program like this, however, is it's going to require lots and lots of resources. Some of those resources are going to come from federal grants that are already being given out that are going to nonprofit organizations that are kind of distributed and all over

the place. And the goal here seems to be to kind of centralize the programming in a way and to perhaps even centralize the mechanisms for determining the kind of appropriateness and efficacy of particular kind of treatment regimens. And I don't know that that's necessarily a good idea either. And when I see some of the other things in the story, there was one quote about, you know, we're not, we're not measuring success and whether or not the number of people that get housed. Like we measure success and whether or not people are kind of having their dignity restored. And there's other kind of quasi-religious language that makes me slightly uncomfortable,

not merely because of the separation of church and state, but because I'm not certain that the state ought to be the person or the institution that we're looking to to give people dignity. Yeah, I agree with that. And I do think that there are a lot of these local smaller programs that have actually had pretty remarkable success and could do with more funding. And I'd be very concerned about a program like this. kind of happening in a dramatic, sweeping way and having, you know, the bright lights shined on it and not paying special attention to the existing programs that are perhaps

more local, more effective, that might actually be displaced by making a move to this. So that I think, you know, obviously everything else that's already been said about involuntary detention and the concerns that come along with that are, I agree wholeheartedly. it's a very difficult challenge. I mean, most of us are familiar with one flew over the cucko's nest, although it's a bit dated now, so maybe you guys haven't seen it.

That's what I think of, when I think of like sanitariums, these in silums, asylums, but at the same time, it's clear that we do need radical new approaches. Some of those things

will be state-run and state-funded. But I suppose the most important thing in addition to actually getting these programs up and running and funding them in a careful way is just actually having some transparency. And it's totally appropriate to ask questions about how these programs will actually work. And I don't think hiding behind the fact that you're kind of early is a great reason for not being prepared to answer, at least attempt to answer sensible questions about what happens if someone's in this facility and they're caught drinking. Like, what do you do with them then? Are you just kind of kicking them back out of the program

again? Does it extend the period of their kind of involuntary detention in these camps that you're setting up near, you know, the airport? It just, it could, it could be very terrible. And at the same time, the conditions people are living in are also quite terrible already. And it's just the problem is distributed and it's making neighborhoods and communities worse off. I feel like I'm just kind of tossing out a deluge of awful things that don't really stack up to a sensible solution and perhaps just complicate the picture. But maybe that's useful. I want to give you the room to respond to your, Isaac, but very briefly to say that I think it could be helpful to have a framework here of like criticisms to the response or the way that this is being pitched versus

criticism to the idea, because things like not being prepared to answer questions, us still having questions of the plan, not being able to provide them, as well as the statement that this is not going to be measured, this plan to reduce homelessness, its success will not be measured by whether or not it reduces homelessness. Like, that's pretty silly, but that's, like, also separate from the criticisms that we're talking about with the idea. So, like, there's two buckets there that maybe that helps to provide some structure to your a del usual. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, to start, I would say I'm working from a position

where the people involved in this have a genuine interest in doing right by the homeless. Like, I think the people behind the plan are well-intentioned, and I think the opponents to the plan are well-intentioned. And I'm, like, functioning from that baseline. I mean, I'm reading, you know, like the guy, this guy, this guy, Shumway, I'm not sure how to say his name, who's like the head of this consortium of people who are involved in this campus. I mean, he's like, you know, they're trying to build a system towards the pathway to human thriving, allowing people to remain on the streets originates from the purest intentions and maybe the most inhumane thing we could possibly do. He talks about how this is, you know, like, Success is not permanent housing. Success is human dignity. We're in the business of lives, humans, and souls. We can't brick and mortar our way out of this.

You know, like, this is somebody who cares deeply about this issue. This is not some, like, guy who's just trying to clear out all the homeless people in Salt Lake City and lock them in a concentration camp. I'm sorry. Unless he's, like, the best PR person of all time, I don't buy that. So I'm, like, coming from that place. They do make a little room in the piece to, to mention that he has a firm that promotes some software,

build software, that he may, in fact, be licensing back to the agency so that they can actually keep track of homeless people, something like that. Which, like, just proves that he's interested in the problem. I mean, you could say, like, it shows that he's, like, a conniving, pernicious person who has some shell game set up, but it did sound pretty convincing that it was, like, a nonprofit that he doesn't see a time. I think, yeah, he was, like, pretty, had a very direct statement in response. to the Times of just like

nobody makes money off that it's a nonprofit funded by philanthropic donors. I mean, that's like, yeah, I don't know. That to me felt like classic New York Times bias in their reporting

being injected into the piece. It was just like, yeah, I sort of scoffed at that when I saw it. So I guess like working from that principle, I mean, I would say one, I think like on the face of it, the plan, the broad strokes of the plan are actually something I'd really like to see attempted.

You know, I sort of said this like when about the Zora Mandani stuff when we talked about him and New York where I was like, you know, I don't live in New York City anymore and they're not taking my tax dollars and like I probably wouldn't vote for him because I think a lot of his policies are like fantasy and you know I'm not going to vote for fucking Curtis Leewa or Andrew Cuomo either and I'd be in a really big bind if I was in New York right now but from sitting where I am like I'm hoping that Mondani actually gets elected because I'd be curious to see if he can stand up a free child care program in New York. York. Like, let's see what progressives can do when they have power. I'm like curious about it.

And it wouldn't affect me. So I just can watch it as a, you know, as a commentator and analysts and pundit. Like, you know, I don't think he's going to like burn the city into ruin. I think he's going to try and do some good stuff and probably will fail a bunch. I see this. There's like a little bit more weight because it's like you're talking about potentially taking away people's freedom. But also it is like it is a new approach. And, or, or one at least that's like we haven't attempted in the kind of 21st century context where like I think we do have a better understanding of how to rehabilitate people and we you know there is more sort of progressive societal um embrace of like we have to care for

the homeless than maybe there was 40 50 100 years ago when they're like the insane asylums and stuff like what is involuntary commitment look like today is probably a lot different than when it looked like 50 years ago um especially with so many people watching and I'm almost curious just to see, like, what this group could do and if they can actually like, yeah, have some results. I'll say, like, speaking from personal experience, I've known, I've had personal relationships with three people in my life who have been homeless at one time or another. two of the three, I think, definitively had some sort of mental health crisis of some kind, mental health issues.

One of them, I think, just had really remarkable bad luck. I would say, like, all three of them, by the way, or zero of the three of them are actually currently homeless, which is awesome. But I would say, like, for the two that had the mental health stuff, what literally got them off the streets after years of being on the streets was being forced into treatment. And, like, I, you know, that's my personal experience. It's what I witnessed. It was, like, you know, being a part of, like, a group of family or friends who are, like, trying to get this person help and they refuse. And there's literally nothing you can do unless somebody like that threatens someone. else's life or their own life, if they don't do that. And even in that scenario,

even then, yeah. Even then, the best thing you can do is you get them committed to some hospital for 48 hours and then they get released. And that's it. And like, I saw that happen over and over again. And like, you know what? If somebody, like, I can see so clearly this person is in crisis. Like, if somebody had come to me and said, like, hey, we can, we can take this person you love and involuntarily commit them, like, I would have done that because I, it was so obvious to me that that would have helped them. And eventually we got there because they did the requisite things to be forced in a treatment and it got better. But like, you know, it's, I think there's something there. Like, I just do. I'm sorry. And like, I think there's, it's not, you know,

outside of my personal anecdotes, I think, like, there's a lot of evidence for this. And like, you know, Camille, you're talking about people you see on the street. It's like, you can tell. Like, this person is not in a state of mind to go get themselves help. They're never going to do that. You know, I remember reading about the moms in San Francisco in the Bay Area who were really opposed to safe injection sites. Like, the parents of the addicts living on the street who organized protests against safe injection sites because they're like, I want you to put my kid in jail because he's a heroin addict. And if you just, like, facilitate his drug use and try and. usher him into some treatment center, he's never going to get sober. Whether they're right or wrong or whatever, like, they're the closest people possible

who have the absolute best intentions. And, like, they're just like, get them off the street is number one. I reported on this place called the Doe Fund that would house formerly incarcerated people. They would come out of prison and they would come straight to the Doe Fund. It exists in New York City. I think Philadelphia now, too. And the program was basically like, you get. drug tested while you live here, and we give you a job straight off the street.

Those, like straight out of prison, those two things. And if you fail a drug test, you're out. And if you don't show up for work, you're out. And if you hit those two things, you can stay here and live here for X amount of time and we'll cover your housing, whatever, and your meals, and you save up all that money you earned, and then you transition from prison to the real world. And they had, like, unbelievable success reducing recidivism by just giving people jobs housing and making sure they were clean.

Like, these programs can work. So, I don't know. I would say, like, I have, like, a broadly positive posture towards this, if only because everything else just seems so broken, like Camille said. It's just, like, of course, the last thing I'll say is, like, you know, then I say all this, and then it's like, this facility opens and there's one story of one person who's, like, trapped inside the facility and can't get out even though they're of sound mind

and they're like sending distress signals out to the public to come help me. I'm locked in here. It's a prison. And then like it's like, oh, this was a terrible idea. You know, you're putting so much faith in the facility and the resources to be good people and have good programs and whatever.

Yeah. Which is risky and scary. So, you know, it's a lot of power to wield. Yeah. Transparency and transparency and accountability just have to be the watchwords with a program like this. And I agree pretty violently with almost everything you said there, Isaac, in my own experience, with family members who've been in mental health crisis, people I've known who've been homeless, I've had a similar,

it's been very similar to what you described. And in some cases where I was very, very close to the situation, it was like the person who's calling the police. And I'm also the person who's interacting with the police later on when they're trying to, you know, prosecute them and keep them in jail. And I'm encouraging them, like, maybe mental health. Some sort of diversion program would be better. No program existed. There was not really an option to do anything apart from put this person in jail for, you know, a not insignificant period of time. But then they get out.

And the same cycle kind of repeats itself because there just aren't enough resources. and we've got a large, close-knit family, and it was challenging for us and has been challenging for us. And I can only imagine how difficult it is for lots of other people. So, I mean, interestingly, what I think it highlights is that addressing homelessness isn't merely a matter of the people who are currently on the street and their unique challenges. It's also a matter of keeping people off the street to begin with

who are on the peripheries of society who are struggling with mental health. That has to be as much a part of the conversation as anything else. I think the thing to add, because there's this important point here about voluntary or involuntary assistance, I think that's very close to the central issue at hand. And I think I've seen those cases too. I know people, an extended family, who have responded to drug issues only when they are forced to get treatment. The key aspect of that is the person who's making those judgments. lots of, it's not a new thing. Lots of jurisdictions have set up drug courts

specifically for that problem. So a judge who is trained in these matters can make determinations that are somewhat informed, impartial, but also relies on the compassion of that person's family. And that's still the central issue because the question that Isaac's thinking of, this idea of the person who's stuck in the system, who's been swooped up through a process

that we don't know yet by metrics that we aren't sure of and been adjudicated by people who we've not been introduced to, how many of those people are they going to be? And what are these processes going to look like? Because if it's something that is going to start with a lot of good intentions and end up being a wide drag net that catches a lot of people up in it and then isn't transparent to your point, Camille, and we don't understand what that process looks like, and it ends up getting a lot of people in a position where they're worse off and their autonomy is being restricted

in ways that are not going to allow for better outcomes when they're out. And to say nothing of whether or not their autonomy should be restricted in the first place, people who may not be struggling. If that ends up being a lot of people, then this plan's terrible. It doesn't work.

But if it ends up being something where there's transparency, we see this happens. There's going to be cases where we are a junior, people who are sent to a facility to deal with their drug problems and like a rehab facility that's sheltered and then gets them back to a position where they can be more mentally stable and prepared, then that could work. The issue is whether or not like what that process is going to look like. And the last thing I think that I want to say is a little unrelated, but it's still the same topic is that this concept of remoteness, the reason why I think I kind of dismissed it earlier

when I was starting, and I seemed like you guys nodded, it wasn't something where there's a lot of disagreements, so we moved on. But I think that it's still salient here because a lot of rehab facilities are halfway houses or places where people are going to be offered shelter while they deal with treatment, they get the ability to work a job, and then they're able to transport themselves to that job. Somewhere that's two miles from the nearest bus stop that you have to walk to on roads that don't have sidewalks doesn't really lend itself to a position where you can seek gainful employment easily. And to the extent that the remoteness matters at all, it's what is the plan for the temporariness of this solution? And is it going to be something that

allows people who find help to transition a way that's smooth? Or is it going to be, okay, good, We took you off the street. Seems like you're sober. Six months later, good luck. Because that seems like an important aspect of it too. I actually had the opposite reaction to the remoteness. And I'm glad that you brought it back up. Because I kind of thought it was good, honestly.

I mean, I... First of all, like, I'm looking at the pictures and it looks just like a beautiful place to be. And I have this... And maybe this is like a little Pollyannish, but just like this... You know, like this vision of like it is, it is, it's like good for somebody in this kind of situation and just be like separated from the craziness and taken out of the environment that they were in where they were, you know, if we're presuming they're sick or have some issues. Like the, you know, somebody in the actual article, one of the homeless people they interviewed said something to this effect of like, you can't get clean when you're spending your time where you got dirty basically.

Like, how are you supposed to do that? And, like, I think there was a, I think there is a, there's something positive about that, like, a fresh environment and putting them there, that I think could have an effect that maybe on net is good. I hadn't thought about, like, the idea of, okay, but like, if these people are in a functional, state, how are they going to get to work? Like, what happens when they're put? And it's a good question.

I mean, I presume if somebody's employed or wants to be employed or whatever, then there's just this added cost to the program in order to get them around, which is a big deal. Yeah, shuttle or maybe they're allowed to have a car when they're there, you know, or whatever. I mean, I don't know exactly what that looks like. It doesn't feel insurmountable to me. And I think, you know, especially if you're dealing with people who are there who are homeless thanks to like an addiction issue, I mean, I think there's an even stronger case for like creating more friction between them and obtaining drugs. Like if it's a 30-yard walk from their shelter in downtown Manhattan, you know, versus like a hour-long drive or something that requires permission to leave the facility

and then you have to come back. Like, I don't, like, you know, I don't know if that's a bad thing, honestly. So I was sort of compelled a little bit by the idea that this was like a shelter that wasn't in downtown city and was actually in this like beautiful landscape a little on the edge town, whatever. Well, I think that's clear here is it's kind of a mixed goal of a rehabilitation facility and a homelessness solution. And those things aren't quite addressed to the same problem because if it's a solution

to homelessness, then it would have to be permanent. Like we'd have to say, okay, this is where you're going to live now, which feels bizarre. There's a theory, you know, I don't describe to it because I think it's wrong. Maybe that's kind of self-explanatory, but that there's a theory that homelessness is driven by people, not by like a lack of being able to access shelter, but people being unable to like apply for like a tenetship and be able to hold rent and thus the root issues behavioral. And we have to have structures to address behavioral issues. And under that theory, then this is functioning as a temporary rehabilitation center.

And in that regard, let's treat in on those terms, just for the sake of good faith argument here. I want to ask you about something Isaac that I know is somewhat related to your background and maybe he's like a little too close to home. So let me know if that's the case. But I know that a number of people from your high school like had that pipeline where people who needed rehabilitation went to Florida. and then sought treatment there, and then they return. And I never really understood the return process. And I just wanted to ask, like, anecdotally, if you're comfortable talking about what happened with people

who went to Florida to kind of go away from where they got dirty to get clean. They came back. What was that way? Yeah, I mean, and the background here is basically just that. I grew up, obviously, in Bucks County, I talk about that all the time on the show, but my high school was hit harder by, the opioid epidemic than pretty much anywhere in America.

Like, there were national news articles about where I grew up, in part because the town I grew up in is right across from Trent, New Jersey, which was like a hub for, like, heroin and now fentanyl distribution and, like, percocet and opioids of all kinds. So, like, my era of high school students, the kids that I grew up with, it's better now, but, like, we were ravaged. I mean, I, you know, there were a thousand. I went to a huge high school, a thousand kids in a grade. But, like, you know, in the first decade that I was out of school,

I knew of, like, 20 people from my class who died of an overdose. Like, we were obliterated. And, like, a hundred more who are, you know, lifelong addicts and soberness. now. So, or like still in treatment. So yeah, to Ari's point, what many of them did, and like I've, you know, probably three or four friends at least who left the area to go get treatment in Florida. I don't really know the background of why Florida is such a popular spot. I think there's just like a cottage industry of treatment centers down there. And I presume part of the advantage is like it's nice weather and it's a, you know, whatever. Maybe you're near the beach.

I don't know. Or maybe there's some laws that are friendly towards the stuff in Florida. To answer your question, like very few of them actually come back and stay for extended period of time. In fact, like, the friends that I know who are sober and have stayed sober,

almost all of them have gone to live somewhere else. Or they come back, you know, for like seasonally or something and they talk a lot about like it being hard to be back in the environment where they were when they were using. Like, it's just, you know, and maybe that is informing my perspective here a little bit. I mean, I honestly, I haven't even thought of that or connected those dots. But, like, yeah, I think it's hard for people to just, like, be back in their old haunts and be surrounded by their old friends and whatever, who they used to do this kind of thing with.

So, you know, I'm thinking in my head of, like, a few friends like that. And I'm actually having a hard time thinking of any of them who are sober right now who are living in the town that we grew up in. Like I think most of the ones who are consistently getting treatment and staying sober have left and stayed out. And that could just be a coincidence. Like a lot of people leave home and don't come back for all kinds. Like, you know, 85% of my friends probably from high school don't live in our hometown anymore that like I'm in regular touch with. But, yeah, it's a real, I think it's a real thing. Like, you know, the, the way, like, the drinkers always say it is, like, they're going somewhere to dry out is how they would talk about it.

Like, you know, like, I'm going down to Florida to dry out for a bit. Like, that's, like, an expression I've heard my friends use, you know, which is like they're just going to get new environment and get sober. So, yeah, I think the reentry can be really tough. And I'd be curious what, like, the experts say about that. I mean, this is, again, like, I'm not a therapist or addiction expert or whatever. The authority that I speak with is, like, all personal experience. But it does seem to me at least like a change of environment is positive for people in a lot of scenarios. So maybe you just strengthened my argument accidentally.

Wayne? And maybe I didn't. The thing that I'm puzzling over here is like the idea that homelessness, like there's two different theories of the root causes here. I mentioned earlier the one that I oppose, but I didn't describe the one that I support,

which is that it is with like few inputs added to it. It's an equation that can be measured mostly by availability of shelter versus number of people. And for the most part, that tells us what we need to know. And if we want to talk about how to give effective treatment to people who are struggling with addiction or mental health issues, then change of location sounds like something that's

part of that formula. But if we want to talk about solving homelessness, under the perspective that I have, under my theory that I've been pretty convinced of, you just have to have to have. you just have to have more shelter. And we can probably do both at the same time. You can have facilities that offer people rehabilitation services and at the same time produce more shelters. Like that's something that a lot of places are struggling to do.

So it's not just the snap and it's done kind of thing. But maybe part of that equation is rehabilitate and people can ask you, hey, you had a lot of trouble in Salt Lake City. Is this something where, you know, too much? weeks in, do you want to try to, we can link you up with somebody who can help you in a different state, if that's something that could be helpful for you. But there's smaller communities that are looking to attract people to move there. It does not have to be these big urban environments that are struggling to build. And I don't want to, like, I definitely don't, I'm trying not to

say, yeah, all we have to do is pick these people up and ship them somewhere else. Like, that's inhumane and it doesn't really feel like it works or like it feels bad but like there's a basis in that equation that also reflects something that's true which is that homelessness is an issue in these big cities and there's a lot of available housing not a lot but enough in other towns like i most recently before moving to vermont lived in pittsburg both of those places other than burlington and vermont both of those places have room like vermont for a long time was offering people like stipends to move to Vermont because like they want to try to like the population's aging and they want more workforce and there's lots of space in Pittsburgh the housing market's

really healthy even now like it's gotten not as available as it was in the 2010s and even before that but it's still one of those mid-market cities where there's opportunity and I think still maybe the issue is like making sure people know about those opportunities and having the ability to go to where the housing is. But I guess like, you know, I'm offering more confusion. It sounds like none of us really have this stance or like, yes, good, yes, bad. But just there's something here that works, but there's aspects of it that we're uncomfortable with. And that's like the thing for me just ends up being, it doesn't sound like a solution to homelessness. It sounds like a solution to a different problem.

And it's something that if we're talking about that problem, then in theory it's something I could support. But for homelessness, I think there's more of the equation. Yeah. I think more to the equation is kind of precisely the right closing note. That you actually need a very much more comprehensive approach. And it touches on a bunch of different policy areas. Certainly the lack of availability of affordable housing is a central issue.

just clearly and that has to be part of it the one thing I did want to say briefly just because we've talked about safe injection sites and mostly in the kind of pejorative context almost in a way it's certainly in the article the suggestion

is that well intentioned but among the worst possible things and I do think that adulterated from my understanding and I've talked to people like Carl Hart about this and done some reporting on this in the past is that just adulterated drug supplies on account of their being illegal are going to be far more dangerous and that safe injection sites and more specifically making testing available

broadly and widely so that people can know whether or not the drugs that they have, which they plan to consume, are adulterated. That is actually enormously helpful for knocking down rates of over. overdoses for ensuring that the drugs are less harmful and for ensuring that people aren't mixing those drugs with other things that might be harmful to them as well. And drug policy here again is just another area where a completely separate matter, but clearly related to the homelessness epidemic and certainly getting people out of homelessness. It's one thing to lose your home because you couldn't afford one.

Once you're on the street, the likelihood that you might fall victim to addiction or something like that, is going to increase pretty substantially. And the difficulty of now trying to get back on your feet while also fighting addiction is, I mean, it just makes your circumstance incredibly difficult. And just thinking about the approach to this issue in a more holistic way is very valuable. And the entire thing can seem incredibly daunting, but certainly people have found their way through it. I think there's a lot of good evidence with respect to the kinds of programs that work. I think the biggest challenge is that you can't, it's hard to scale a lot of those programs.

What makes them work is great people who are on the ground, who are filled with these almost inexhaustible, inexhaustible reservoirs of compassion, doing really, really difficult work with people in urgent circumstances, and you just can't press to digitate more of them into existence. that that is perhaps among the harder things involved with all of these. Like using the WordPress to digitate. So a nice SAT word there, Camille. Very appreciated. Well, you know, it's better than magic.

All right, as I was hoping we would be spent a lot of time on this, we've got a few minutes left. I had a couple other things I wanted to chat about. One of them was the response to my piece last week. But it occurs to me that Audrey is going to be publishing her own response. And we're going to highlight some commentary about that tomorrow. And both like on the podcast here, Audrey is going to do a read-down of it. And then I'm sure we'll have some reader comments appended to the piece. And that'll give us plenty to chew on for next week.

So there is a story Ari will tell you I've been obsessing over that I've demanded to be part of the show today, which is an under the radar story that we put in the newsletter. And since, you know, maybe we can just spend 10 minutes on before we get out of here. but it's the story of the United States effort to arrest Nicholas Maduro, which, I mean, there's, I'm curious to hear just thoughts generally about the premise of, like, us doing this. I certainly have reservations. But the story that the Associated Press publish is remarkable.

I mean, it is like spy thriller, movie, novel stuff. where there is a U.S. agent who gets a tip that a few of Nicholas Maduro's planes were getting serviced, I think maybe in the Dominican Republic. And so they send these agents there, and the agents go and interview the pilots, and they know that the last pilot they're going to interview is someone who regularly flies Nicholas Maduro around, and they kind of ease into the conversation, and then they start asking questions about Maduro, and he starts panicking and shaking and realizing that they're there for some reason, and this one agent develops this relationship

with this guy and he basically has this texting relationship with him, where over the span, you know, starting during the Biden administration up until this August, is trying to convince this pilot to take Nicholas Maduro and fly him to a place like Puerto Rico against his will the next time they're in a plane together so U.S. authorities can arrest him. and the AP has the text messages that they've corroborated. Trump is saying openly that the CIA is trying to overthrow Maduro.

I mean, they're just like admitting the thing, which we historically never do. And then we have all the boat stuff happening off the coast of Venezuela. But this is like... And the Pacific, yeah. This is a wild story to me. Like, the Biden and Trump administration both

you know, I mean, Ari and I, it's like the deep, you want to talk about deep state. How about like a continuum of spy agents who are working over a pilot in Venezuela to allow us to arrest Nicholas Maduro? And like, there's no hiccup in the effort. It's just like it started under Biden and it bled into the Trump administration and there was no like, hey, maybe we should back off that plan, that insane like Hollywood plan we can. concocted to get a pilot, you know, where they're like low-key bribing him. They're telling him he's going to be rich, not low-key. They're directly bribing him saying, we're going to give you money and make you rich, and you'll be a hero.

And maybe you'll get sending him the text to the, or a link to the reward that's like, hey, $50,000, just remember. $50 million, dude, $50 million. It's my fault. I meant $50,000,000. I don't know. This story blew my, like, I don't, for whatever reason, this story just, like, blew my top off. Like, we're actually doing this kind of stuff.

I mean, I know we do it, but, like, I can't believe it's just this, something like this rudimentary. Like, one pilot, we just got to work this one guy over, and then we're overthrowing the entire government of Venezuela. Anyway, I'd be curious what you guys think about this. like, is this something that is, like, should we be doing this? Is this justifiable? Does this plan feel to you like, oh, like so crazy like a fox, it just might work? Like, I could have seen this plan working. I mean, if I'm not pilot, he took the agent's phone number.

You guys have to read, if you're listening this, you have to read the Associated Press story. It's really worth the time. But he takes their phone number. so he's clearly considering it, right? The headline of the story is U.S. sought to lure Nicholas Maduro's pilot into betraying the Venezuelan leader. I don't know.

Good use of spy time and money or bad use of spy time and money. I think it's important to underline that this started in 2024 under the Biden administration. As he said, like, five times. I just want to say it again. This is a multi-administration push from one of those shady spy agencies that comprise the sort of less muscular but more sinister arm of the American government.

And it is one of those things that when you hear about as a U.S. citizen, or I should say what I hear about it, my feelings are, it's like 80%, Jesus, we are the baddies. Like we are just reaching our tendrils into other governments and trying to snatch up their leaders and bring the back. And the other 20% of me is like, he wasn't elected fairly. He is. Right. It's a good thing that somebody's exerting influence like this instead of letting him get away with the things that he's doing. And then, you know, like it's this invasion of sovereign power.

But like the idea of we are one relationship. like if this agent was able to just like push this pile a little bit more, persuade him. And if he knew his love language, a little bit more, we could have maybe had Maduro arrested in this country. I don't try to wax poetic too much, but there was, I had a reaction in my head right away when you said,

like there's just one pilot. Like this is kind of crazy that the CIA operation can hinge on something. So small and minute, there's this line and an Andrew Bird song that I remember thinking about a lot during the pandemic, which is tenuous at best, is how he felt impressed about the rest of it, the world that is, to underscore that the institutions that undergird our global systems are so tenuous and that they can crumble in ways that we don't anticipate. like, you know, some virus escapes in Wuhan and then we have a global pandemic for years. If this text messaging had gone the other way, we're talking about regime change in Venezuela. And that, I think, like, as a global citizen, it sucks,

but you have to kind of get somewhat comfortable with the sense that things can change like that really quickly. Like, Trump was also, let's remember, a half centimeter away from being assassinated. Like, we live on a razor's edge all the time. History can change on a razor's edge all the time. And that's just like the way that I think about these major events. It's not really a way of saying, yes, good idea, no bad idea. I'll refer you back to my other comment.

80% bad idea, 20%. Eh, well, you know, maybe. Beats war. It beats war. Yeah, the part of it that I'm, I'm wrestling with many dimensions of it, generally, dispositionally a non-interventionist, although I don't really like to frame my views in negative ways, more affirmative if possible. But the reason why I have that disposition is just because of all of the unintended consequences of actions like this. The part that I'm wrestling with here,

And interestingly, I think there's a thread between this and the last topic we were discussing because accountability is really important. Transparency is perhaps a little less practical in the main since you are dealing with these. I think you used the word shady, Ari, when you were talking about the intelligence community. And I wonder if shadowy isn't better,

but maybe you actually mean shady. Perhaps you mean shady because they can do some very shady things at times as well. but you really need that accountability and transparency. And at the same time, Trump's bellicosity around these kinds of issues, the fact that he's kind of openly talking about this. And even the reporting that I saw on it initially suggested to me that they want to broadcast the Venezuelans, hey, we're doing all the things.

Like, we're blowing up the boats. We are doing everything we can to kind of subvert your authority. we're coming for you. It's time to surrender. You know, it feels odd. Kind of like today. I mean, the president of the United States is meeting with Chi. And before the meeting, they're signing papers and he's making it clear to the Pentagon.

He wants them to resume nuclear testing. There's something about it that is clearly very theatrical over the top. It seems almost amateurish. And at the same time, there's something about it that also, you understand where the president stands on this. You understand the disposition of the administration. And to the extent they're doing other things in a clandestine way, they're doing some of this very much openly. The provocations are clear and they're evident and it's there for everyone to see. And it makes it easier to criticize it, both for the media broadly, but also for other policymakers to openly criticize the stated policy of the administration. So that's the dimension of this and I'm perhaps most wrestling with as I think about this story this kind of Jason Bourne-esque

adventures it's probably better that we know things about this. Yeah, I mean, it's like sort of where my mind went initially was I'm so deluded by my like

Western American privilege that I'm like anything occurs to me other than this is terrible, and, like, this is insane that we're doing this. Like, you know, at first, the hypothetical was, you know, imagine Donald Trump's pilot gets bribed to land Air Force One in, like, Taiwan, and then, you know, China comes over and arrests him and just, like, puts him in, like, I would, like, enlist, you know?

Like, that's the kind of thing that would, I would go crazy. Like that, it's like such a, so you, I sort of start there, like, oh, my God, this is like so bananas and like, what are we even talking about? But then I'm like, okay, what if Donald Trump was like actually an authoritarian leader and we didn't have free elections here? And he was like, you know, suppressing all political dissent, like doing the things Maduro's doing. And everything was shit. The country was terrible and you couldn't afford anything. We had terrible inflation, whatever. And then China did that.

I'd be like, eh, I don't, like, maybe, maybe less, like, less of like, I'm going to, you know, and that is maybe a little closer to the reality, but it's like, what if China's only motivation to do it is they want our oil and natural resources and they don't care at all about what I American think, then it's like, then it's bad again, and that's also the reality. So I don't know. It's like I'm like, I sort of went in these circles of, I'm pretty sure it's really bad. But, you know, if you try and contextualize it in, like, the totally full way, it maybe gets, like, a tiny, slightly bit more justifiable.

But I think the real story is, like, we tried to, I mean, we're trying to abduct another country's president so we can arrest him, which feels not good to me. Yeah, maybe that's all we have to say is like that. We probably should not do that. It does seem bad. Yeah. It's not great. America. Spreading democracy to the global south.

This is how it's done. Bringing our enemies to justice, not the other way around. But wouldn't that actually be, to the extent that what actually follows in the wake of his arrest is an actual democratic election? That would be... Yeah, I mean, I...

Genuine, authentically. If that were to happen. But then it's like, are we administering the election and is that democracy like I then no again then now bad once more it's yeah

it doesn't it just feels I think the instinct that it feels not right is the right instinct and it's easy to kind of justify or talk yourself into but like and maybe this is sort of the I mean I thought this was like the Trump it's clearly not the Trump

policy but I thought it was was just like, this isn't our problem. So, like, we're not getting involved. Clearly, he doesn't think that. He very much views this as our problem. No, that's not. America first, in parentheses,

except for Venezuela, then we care. Well, America first, even in Venezuela. We're going to be first for everyone, though. Well, yeah. I mean, this is our sphere of influence. The Trump administration does very much have that perspective, that we've neglected it for too long, that the refugee crises we've dealt with in the past.

are a function of our not actually paying enough attention to this. But it's a perspective. But, but started in 2024. Right. Like this is a CIA priority. It's not like a Trump administration priority. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. And a CIA priority still set by the administration. I don't think the Biden administration was unawares of the fact that this was all transpiring.

I was actually just trying to build a bridge with respect. to Trump's broader perspective, or at least inclination away from interventionism and the fact that there are places where he is clearly willing to do things. And interestingly, I mean, this is also just the contrast in approaches to foreign policy between Rubio and the vice president of the United States. And I do wonder what J.D. Vance actually makes of these incursions into the South personally. I don't know that we would actually get his authentic view of things now

but this kind of stuff has like Rubio's fingerprints all over it. Well, I think Vance would have an opinion if it were Europe. Yeah. I think he's just like, that's his fear of having an opinion.

If it's Europe, they messed up. If it's anywhere else, whatever. Yeah, but he's not disagreeing with president in public at any time soon. That's for sure. Zero chance. Not on this. Yeah.

All right. cool. We've been at it for about an hour and a half, so I think it's time to play the music and get into our grievances for the week. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing

a lot of importance on shoe removal. I have a silly one. I could start. I'll go. Sure. All right. This is... I know this doesn't sound important, but it has a bigger impact on my life than you might expect.

I'm a sock guy. Like, I get, just like fundamentally, I think, like, I will spend, I'll, like, pay the premium for a nice pair of socks. And if I have, like, a... Oh, okay. I thought you meant you wear socks. Like, all right? I'm just like, I'll, like, I'll buy, like, high-end socks.

I think it's, if you're out there, just like skip a cappage, skip the Starbucks for a week and buy yourself like a set of three pairs of really nice socks and get back. You got to name some brands here, Isaac. I want to know it, John. Strideline is my go-to, the most comfortable sock on planet Earth, I think. You can sponsor us if you'd like Strideline.

The grievances is just the sponsor call-out section. Strideline can sponsor us Anyway, one of the things stride line does And this is relevant actually for my grievance So thank you for bringing that up, Camille, is they have the left and right Like an L and an R on the socks And they're fitted for your left and right foot.

So I have like tons of these stride line socks at home And something remarkable has been happening over time Which is that like I am just consistently losing the left side of sets and I'm I'm trending right and then last night something happened

which like I I took I made documentation of just so I could talk about on the show day which is I was doing the laundry with my wife for just like folding

talking catching about the day and I you know the game is like you find the left sock you find the right sock same length same color because we have a bunch of different sets

fold them up together throw them in our little sock basket and I get done making all the pairs and there's no more pairs to make and there's 14 socks on my bed of different length color and all the same brand and all 14 of them are right-footed socks

and I literally looked at my wife and I just said are you fucking with me like are you and she was like you're literally a psycho I can't believe you're talking to me like that. I'm just like, are you hiding all the, like, is this a joke? Is this like a, like, is this a, like a, like, it'd be a good practical joke if you were doing it.

She's like, no, I have to wear the socks too. Like, I also want them to be in sets. Wait, she's taking your socks. Yeah, we share. We wear some of the same socks. And my suspicion was just maybe she was, I'm like, this is mathematically, I mean, R.A. you've failed out of a stats major. Like, what's one-half?

I dropped out of a stat. PhD, thank you. All right. You dropped out of a stats, PhD. Like, one-half times, one-half, 14 times in a row. That's, like, the odds of that are... I don't know if that's the equation,

but it's something doesn't work here. The probabilities seem of... So you want him to confirm that your wife is stealing your socks. Something's up, and I don't know what it is. But I'm walking around with two... lefty socks on, or no, two righty socks on, and it sucks. It's just like I paid the premium to have these like right left socks that are comfortable and the toe just feels a little bit weird and the in seams not quite the way it should be because I've got all right-footed socks

and I have no idea where the lefty socks are and it's driving me absolutely insane. And that's my grievance for the week. Well, now I'm distracted about the equation up. I'm just going to consult chat GPT, find out which sock left or right is most likely to go missing and why. That's a good... I'm sure it will give me a definitive answer. All right. Fun, I guess. There is something that I think is potentially supernatural about socks.

I had a theory as like, no, it's very straightforward. There's two places that your socks go and they're missing. one, it's either in like the part of the washing machine that has like the ridges on it that spins around on the drum like they get stuck there and then they come out later and then you find them later or two, they're in fitted sheets like that's where they go

or I guess the third is like you wear them out and then you forget that you threw them out and you do that when you're not paying attention but like I there's something there's something there I think it's gremlins I think it's something I don't know what alternative dimensions but, like, I do sort of buy that there's something...

The odds of flipping a coin and getting tails 14 times in a row is one over 16,000, which is basically... It's pretty much what I'm experiencing. It's a little different than that. Yeah. True. Maybe a little, but... Okay, well, I'm like writing the equation in so I can get to an exact answer here.

So you had 14 pairs totally, or you have more pairs... More pairs, which complicates the... equation quite a bit. This probably isn't worth your time. Not if I am much. How many pairs of socks do you estimate? I said I've got 11, 25. I've got 11 sets and then like then just 14 right socks,

which in case it's not clear is driving me insane. Totally ruining my life. Yeah. And now totally without any qualifier. I agree. I'll work on this in the background. Camille, you go next so that by the time I have a grievance, I'll have this solved. I don't even know that I have anything this week.

I mean, I'm, nothing, nothing new. Like, I, the biggest pain point in my life is my travel schedule and the commutes back and forth to the airport. It's just painful and it hasn't gotten any better. And that is just weep for me. That's all, that's it. Weep for me. I'm not getting enough first class. You drove down to our event from Northern Hollywood.

You got stuck in traffic for two hours then. That was a terrible experience for you. Then you did a whole road trip home with your wife and children. Nothing happened in that road trip where you thought, God, I'd love so safe space to complain about the last five minutes. Actually, no. The drive back was wonderful. I was in traffic for maybe 20 minutes.

I think we left L.A. at 4 o'clock in the morning on the nose. And I got back to Marin around 11 a.m. That's really good time with two small kids. We stopped to eat once. It's electric. So we had to charge too. That's really, really good time. The challenge is I left L.A. 4 o'clock in the morning. I got back home in around 11 a.m. And by 11 p.m. that night, I was on a flight from Marin to New York. That's true. From S.F. to New York. So that is. That is. the actual pain point. That's the difficulty. Everything was on time. It's just that I had to be there for all of it. A clean week for Camille. All right, man. I mean, I have 12, I come into every

episode with 12 grievances and I have to decide which one I want to elevate. We have totally different dispositions. I don't know how you go a whole week without having something, a clear pain point in your life that you'd like to complain about. Maybe it's all the mindfulness that you practice. It is the mindfulness stuff, really. Like my mantra, this is the way things are right now. We try not to complain. I mean, again, I could complain about the operations of particular airlines. But that wouldn't even be interesting.

That wouldn't be fun. Like, I don't, well, see, now I'm going to do it. But I don't understand why all the displays are off. I knew I could get them. They should be off. They should be off. And at night, honestly, like, you're coming through the cabin to give me coffee and all sorts of stuff. It's one o'clock in the morning.

Don't turn the lights on. I agree. Turn the lights on. Why would you do that? Great complaint. There should just be gay policy. So it depends on when you land. There is a policy.

Like airlines will turn the lights on on planes when it's like within, depending on the flight, like within an hour of landing and then try to open the windows so passengers can acclimate because those are the times when statistically you're most likely to experience some sort of disturbance, not like a crash, but something like an emergency landing. And to raise the. odds of people surviving those kinds of experiences, they want them to be able to acclimate to being in an environment where they should be awake. And that's why they do that. In my experience, there is no rhyme or reason to this. Different airlines, I've taken so many

red eyes recently. Same airline, different crew, and the lights will come on or they won't come on at different times. It's just, it's very strange. That first passed through with the cart. Does the light? really need to come back on for that. Most, a lot of these people are sleeping. We do not want to be disturbed. And still, it's on. So, I don't know.

I mean, the real, the real solution to all of this is I just need more first class upgrades. I was just going to. If I got those, it's much easier. Because there, it's clear, it's easier to signal that I don't want to be disturbed in my cabin, which is if we should, if Tangle ever gets sold, we should just use the money to start our own airline, all premium first class, everything. If you're buying a ticket on that, it's like everybody's in first class, the whole thing's a first class experience, all up to Camille's standards of,

I think I might have just invented a private jet, but I don't know. It sounds good. It's like a close to being something. It's almost a good business idea. So before I go, real quick, based on what I think are correct calculations, Isaac, Like the chances of you losing 14 socks that are either all right or all left are 0.000 77%. Sounds unbelievably. Sounds almost as if there is some foul play.

She did. Almost impossibly low. Or it's Kremlin's. I think it's Kremlin's. But I guess my grievance is that it's tick season in Vermont. Not a thick season, I guess with apologies to Noah Kahn. Maybe both, but take seasons far worse. So we went on a walk with some friends last weekend, the weekend before last.

They had their family were visiting, and they brought their dog with them who was like this really adventurous five-year-old dogs, like around then, just athletic and young. And we had our 11-year-old, like, I'm just here to go for a walk dog with us. And it was really cute to watch their dog bounding in and out of the trees as we're going on. on this big walk, they ended up getting lost. And what the dog did, he got lost. And it took a while for us to be able to relocate him. And we're going like into the woods and trying to search for him. And eventually we're able to get him.

But when I came home that day, I had three ticks on me. Hello! Having to like crash through the woods looking for this animal, which is like somewhat fun to do. But that equals the amount of ticks that I've had on me throughout my entire life. and it was just from that day. And since then, I've found three more in addition to the ones that were coming off the dog.

And I think it's official that now ticks are supplanting mosquitoes in the pantheon of creatures that I dislike. I think ticks are number one now. I have such a revulsion to them. Very early as a dog owner, when I found a tick on my dog, I would have this urge

to torture it. Like nobody sucks the life off of money. That's psychotic. You parasite. It felt like, well, ticks are psychotic. Ticks are psychotic. They require a psychotic response. They just latch on,

they drink your blood, and in exchange they give you disease. That's not a great deal. I would go as far as to say that's probably the worst, like the most evil creature on the planet is a tick. And they live here. They're all around this. I love this grievance.

It's probably something, something like a tick. I'm similarly repulsed by them. Also, I met somebody recently who got bit by a tick and then became allergic to meat, which... Alergic to meat. Yeah, a lone star tick. It's happening enough. It's called like Alpha Gale or something. Oh, it's a New England thing.

Terrifying. Like, you get bit by a tick. And then he was just telling me like, yeah, I can't, if I eat meat of any kind, I get super super duper sick, and the doctor told me there's, like, nothing to do. I just have to wait for like 10 years for this illness to pass from a tick, which there's like hundreds of thousands of people in America who have experienced this. So tics are terrifying, great grievance. Yeah.

And I think so Katie, my wife, like, went to Cape Cod somewhat around the time that you did and said that alpha gal that like disease, born in. ticks that makes you allergic to meat, is spreading enough in that region that there are restaurants popping up that are like, they have, or restaurants that are there, have the warning, like, hey, if you have this, we have diets for you. You can eat here. And it's like becoming common enough that people have to, like, there's marketplaces to serve that demographic now. And it is terrifying. That, I mean, it's terrifying. It's also fascinating, though. Like the evolutionary

implications of something like that, that some tick-borne disease could affect an entire species at some point and alter their diets in like a fundamental way. That's fascinating. You might be missing the main point, which is fuck ticks.

Like, just say that. No, I'm not missing the main point. I was distracted for a moment. By some intellectual fancy. No, but it is interesting. Interesting. Pilgrimate Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard's wonderful, amazing book that everyone should read. There's this thing, and it's very early in the book, about a water bug that sucks the life out of these frogs. Like, it punctures the frog. It's a giant water bug, and it essentially turns their insides into liquid and slurps them dry. And there's this whole aside in there where she references the Quran and talks about it.

talks about God and asks, like, did God make this thing ingest? Like, what, if not in jest, like, what on earth was God up to here? Like, this monstrosity is absolutely terrible. And, yeah, I think ticks and giant waterbugs that turn your insides into jelly and then slurp them out, like, it's very odd to know that you share a planet with them. What's worse is to imagine that many of these creatures were actually much bigger at different points in the past. The ticks, the spiders, the water bugs. And that's terrifying. That is terrifying. Yikes. Yeah. And I'm looking at the lone star tick now that spreads alpha gal. And it does look

distinctive. So I feel like it would be somewhat easier to acknowledge, not what I found. And I don't think that I've seen those around here. So fingers crossed, all the wood is knocked. Knock on Wood yourself, Camille. Because our three to my earlier comments, they're evil and fucked in. All right. That's enough TikTok. On that helpful note. All right, gentlemen. Good to see you. You sound like a parent already, Isaac.

Yeah, that's enough. That's enough of that. That was fun. All right. Enough TikTok for you. I'll see you guys soon. All right. Bye.

See you. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul and our executive producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Canuth, and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website

at retangle.com.