The Bulwark Podcast - Justin Kanew and Justin Fenton: Tennessee, Laboratory of Theocracy

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

As local news is hollowed out, rightwing news fills in the gaps. In Tennessee—ground zero for the culture war—Justin Kanew's site, The Tennessee Holler, holds leaders to account. Kanew joins Tim Miller on the anniversary of the Nashville school shooting. Plus, an update on the bridge disaster from Baltimore Banner reporter Justin Fenton. show notes: The Tennessee Holler The Baltimore Banner Baltimore bridge collapse (around 5:40) Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, as a high school student, dressed in drag

Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Hey guys, we have a doubleheader today coming from two state-based journalists who I really respect and are doing great work. Justin Canoe at the Tennessee Holler. He's going to talk about the anniversary of the Covenant shooting

and the follow-up from the Tennessee Three that happened in the days and weeks after that. And then we have Justin Fenton from the Baltimore Banner talking about the bridge collapse, local journalism is being hollowed out. And I want in this episode for us to discuss both of those very important issues, but also the state of local journalism and models for fixing it. If you want political chop shop talk, if you want to hear what my take my rant on the RNC's new litmus test for staffers that they need to believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Head on over to the next level. I'm taping that next. It'll be out this evening. If you want to hear the latest legal news, Sarah Longwell and George Conway are up with a new episode of George Conway Explains It All. Go check out both of those on your Apple or Spotify or

Substack feed. Up next, Justin Canoe from the Tennessee Holler. All right, at long last, been wanting to do this for a while. I'm here with my friend Justin Canoe, founder of the Tennessee Holler, a digital news site. He was also a two-time contestant on The Amazing Race. I don't know if we have enough time to talk about that. We're on the one-year anniversary today of the tragic shooting of the Covenant School in Nashville. And so I wanted to talk about that, fallout for that, what happened with the Tennessee Three. But first, I really just want to kind of talk about your origin story and the origin story of the Tennessee Holler, which I think is probably the best local activism-oriented journalism. I don't know how you describe it. Action journalism. How do you define what you're up to at the Tennessee Holler? I like the phrase accountability journalism, but sure, activism,

journalism, a hybrid. Hybrid, yeah. The origin story is, you know, it goes back to when I ran for Congress in 2018. I had jumped in the race to challenge Marsha Blackburn, who I know a lot of people have strong feelings about it, the progressive side of the argument here in Tennessee. The only way to get your voice heard as somebody on the progressive side was to just hope the Tennessee and let you write an op-ed. So it felt like we needed something to counter the Tennessee Star, which is a conservative outlet here in Tennessee, kind of like Tennessee's Breitbart. So we started The Holler in 2019, really video-based because that's kind of my background. I used to be in the entertainment world. I'm not like a traditional text-based journalist. It's just not what I do.

And we started in 2019. And one of the first things that happened was we helped get rid of this really corrupt speaker, Glenn Cassida, who was the speaker at the time and my state rep. And that kind of put us on the map. Phil Williams really lit the match, but we poured gasoline all over it. And we've become this kind of dog with a bone group of accountability journalists across Tennessee. There's 10 hollers hollering now. I spend a lot of time up at the Capitol trying to hold Republicans accountable because they're the ones with the power. Democrats too, when they do stuff we disagree with. But, you know, it's kind of a weird hybrid, like you said, of journalism and activism. And, you know, we're openly progressive. We don't hide what we're about. And that's what we are. Yeah, I think that candor is

important and that authenticity. That's what people want. And, you know, look, we're going to have a reporter on or a straight news reporter from the Baltimore Banner later to talk about the bridge collapse. As local news has been hollowed out across the country everywhere, there is just this big gap

where people are not getting information. It's being filled by national news sites. Conservatives on the right, they filled that gap with a lot of misinformation, a lot of bullshit from these national outlets, right? Either it used to be talk radio, and now it is the Breitbart's that you mentioned, or the podcast world, the Steve Bannon's, the Candace Owens. There's just this huge ecosystem of right-wing news. And I think particularly in red states, which is why you said they're 10-howlers. I think they're all in Tennessee. I've been

pushing you to kind of take it national, but that can be another conversation. But, you know, in these red states, like folks are not getting the straight news. They're also not really getting a different perspective from the MAGA perspective, whether it be progressive, liberal, or just kind of centrist pro-democracy. It's hard to find that a lot of times even in these local markets. And so I think having both is so critical. And when you guys are out there, have you felt like there was just a thirst for this among folks that you're talking to in the state? Absolutely. Absolutely. Even just in the time we've existed, we've seen a lot of the reporters that have that knowledge of what's gone

on here over the years go away. A lot of the publications have less reporters at the Capitol. And like you said, into that void comes this disinformation, comes outlets that really all they do is act as stenographers for the people in power. They don't challenge them. They don't push back. And so it's been a real problem and it's helped facilitate the drift to the extremes, I think, in a state like ours, because people aren't getting the other side of the story. What I call the truth, you know, who was it? It was Christiane Amanpour recently said, be truthful, not neutral. And I think a lot of the outlets that exist are trying to find that middle ground, trying to be neutral. And it's really detrimental. And in a lot of ways, it's put us where we are. So we try to do with the holler. We don't lie. If we get something wrong,

we fix it. But we frame things in a more, I guess, aggressive way that lets you know what's actually going on here. The example that I always go to is there was a statue in our Capitol of Nathan Bedford Forrest in a place of honor in our Capitol. Well, Nathan Bedford Forrest is the first grand wizard of the KKK. And so people were showing up to protest it. And the articles about it were people protesting Nathan Bedford Forrest. Well, our headlines were protesting the first grand wizard of the KKK. It's true. And it tells people what's actually going on in a way that people can understand and resonate. And sure enough, after two years of headlines like that, it's gone.

So I think you have to tell people what's really going on and framing is really important. So that's what we've tried to bring. Yeah, hell yeah. I love the statue arguing. It's like, oh, we need to respect history. It's like, no, like this guy, we can learn about Nathan Bedford Forrest and learn how he's a racist piece of shit. We can learn about it in the history books. He doesn't even have a statue of honor. Okay. Another example of how aggressive you guys are. I pulled a little audio from a press conference with Governor Lee. Let's just take a listen to this exchange on the drag queen bill that they were putting forth to ban drag shows in Tennessee. What a ridiculous, ridiculous question that is.

Conflating something like that to sexualized entertainment in front of children, which is a very serious subject. Drag is not sexual. Andy, what you got? Do you remember? Is this you? Andy. I'm just wondering if you're aware of any specific cases or instances that this bill is not. Are you aware of specifics in terms of the problem?

I think the concern is what's right there in that building, children, that are potentially exposed to sexualized entertainment, to obscenity, and we need to make sure that they're not. I think that's something that should happen in Tennessee, and it will because of this bill. Would you be okay with drag queens coming here? Is it okay if drag queens come to this school? This is you at a high school, Governor. This right here is you at a high school. Is it only illegal when gay people do it? Yeah, go to the butt.

Have you talked to your sister about the bill, Governor? Oh, you left that part in. Good. I'm glad you did. Yeah, that's a shame. What was the deal? I left that in because I wanted to know. What's the deal with his sister? Is his sister a drag king? Or I don't know the story of the

Lee family. Governor Lee's sister is married to a woman. And it's something that he doesn't like to talk about. And he is signing more anti-LGBTQ bills than any governor never talks about it. And so we talk about it. We mentioned it. I think it's important for people to understand the hypocrisy of this man and how even when it's someone in his own family, an immediate family member, he's still willing to do this stuff that attacks that community. And actually, and I'll say this, I haven't really said this publicly, but like the one call that I ever got from the governor's office to say, Hey, don't do that was about that when I mentioned his sister

and I told them, absolutely not. I'm still going to mention it. And I'm still mentioning it right now. I think it's an important detail, but thank you for that trip down memory lane. That was a, that was a fun day. And the one time that I brought some visual aid to the presser. Yeah. For the YouTube fans, we'll put up, we'll put up a picture. It does lose a little bit in the audio format without the picture of governor Lee with his pearls on it. They're kind of some nice pearls. I wonder if he still has them. I could, I could wear them on MSNBC. They were great pearls. And also I should point out that there was a group that took out billboards in Tennessee and put that picture of him in drag in his yearbook photo up when that was happening. You know,

it's just important to understand how hypocritical these people are. And it really flustered him. Although I will say, Speaker Sexton and Lieutenant Governor McNally do not let me in their pressers. Governor Lee, to his credit, I still go to his pressers, and he still takes a question from me. So, you know, after all that, he still lets me into his pressers. And I do want to give him credit for that. I guess. Sure. We'll give him a little bit of credit. You don't have to. I will.

Yeah, it's sort of like a double-edged sword on the free speech, right? It's like, okay, well, I will let the Tennessee Holler in my press conference, but I won't let people do drag shows, do drag story hour. True. Parents' rights, unless a parent wants to take their kid to a drag queen story hour, then that parent doesn't have rights anymore all true it's disgusting the other thing on the sister i just i feel like i should mention because i've been looking for an excuse to mention it the same story in louisiana governor landry's brother is gay and there's been an outspoken advocate for gay rights and and the whole situation is tragic and he's advancing anti-gay legislation in the state now in 2024 anyway. And it's gross.

You mentioned Lieutenant Governor McNally. I wanted to go to the anniversary, but we can have one more moment of jolliness. Can we have one more chuckle before we get to the sad story? We sure can. One of the other things Tennessee Holler has broken, I'm pretty sure this is when, I mean, I'd seen your guys' stuff. But when I was like, I need to talk to this guy like i was like i need to hang out with whoever's running this was when it was outed that the lieutenant governor randy mcnally and not very attractive older gentlemen if we're just going to be candid i guess i can say that you don't have to weigh in on the looks of your lieutenant governor but um kind of a yucky older man was putting very i don't know i won't let you describe the types of comments he was putting

on the instagram page of a young supportive supportive very encouraged flirtatiously encouraging comments on the page of a 19 18 like very, maybe even younger than 18. Okay. Very young, gay, obviously gay, young man named Franklin, who, by the way, would also help me discover Franklin's Instagram page. He's an artist in his own right. He's putting out a lot of interesting content, but not the type of content that usually a straight 70-year-old man would be commenting on. And so you guys talk to folks about the saga of Randy McNally. I got to tell you, when I first saw what this was, it took me about six hours to believe what I was looking at. Somebody mentioned to us that Lieutenant Governor McNally was commenting on Franklin's Instagram page, which if anybody's seen it, I mean, he's basically naked

in every picture, dancing around in, you know, G-strings and flamboyant, like you said, and, you know, proud of his body. And there is Lieutenant Governor McNally with, you know, fire emojis and heart eyes and something about like, you can be the rain in my rainbow, you know, obviously flirting with this guy who was very young. And, you know, I messaged him and started to talk to him before we posted about this. Cause I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. And Franklin's response to me was no, please include include my handle and tag me and blow me up as much as you possibly can. I want to move to big city. Exactly. All of that. And I was like, great. So we posted about it and I made sure to like screenshots, screen recording, because I knew

the minute I did this, it's going to go away and they're going to tell me that this wasn't true. So we had all the receipts posted about it. It blew up. Apparently Lieutenant Governor McNally's handlers didn't tell him about burner accounts because he was doing this on his Lieutenant Governor McNally handle. Lieutenant Governor McNally with a blue check. Did he have a check mark? And his profile pic with his suit on. I mean, it was just unreal. And so, of course, it took off. His excuse was that he's just supportive of the local community. There was some question about how young Franklin was when he started to talk to him, and that kind of never really got delved into, but I have a feeling it wasn't a great look.

And yes, it became a big thing, especially on the right, but everybody apparently has moved on. He's still Lieutenant Governor McNally, and I guess that's just in the past now. This is though, again, I mean, even though he didn't end up resigning, another example of why like you got this is needed, right? Like this is the kind of thing that he was not going to get called out for. Probably not. I don't know. I mean, it was so crazy, but I think the important thing about it, and this is what Franklin harped on too, was that he is leading this Senate chamber that is one of the most conservative in the entire country, attacking gay people constantly. I mean, the amount of bills that come through that chamber and this legislature, it's just an endless stream of hate. And here he is flirting with a young gay man while he's leading the

charge to attack gay people in Tennessee. So the hypocrisy of it all, it's worth more than just whatever one article might've come out. We were dogs with a bone about it and we made sure that it got the national attention that it deserved. Yeah. And there's so many outrageous LGBT bills. We could go through all of them, but the one just that is the most galling that's happening right now is this. We're banning the pride flag from the classrooms, but the Confederate flag we're keeping, right? Because we need to respect our heritage. Okay. But so you can't, if you're a gay teacher, you know, that wants to put up a pride flag or for a gay pride month, you want to support the students in that wants to put up a pride flag or for gay pride month, you want to support the students in your class and put up a rainbow flag that will be banned in the free speech state

of Tennessee. Not just a flag, a cup on your desk or a tattoo or a necklace. I mean, this is what we're talking about here. So yes, it's led by this guy, Gino Bolso, who is pretty new to the legislature, but has very quickly become one of the most hateful people ever to go through this building. And he has this pride flag ban that explicitly carves out the Confederate flag and allows that to stand, which is actually on the county seal of his county, Williamson County, which is where I live. But yes, to ban this pride flag while claiming to be, you know, free speech advocates and all about freedom. And it's just, it's another way that they're attacking our teachers, our public schools, and it's just so hypocritical. Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees. Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests,

RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. Let's get back to the anniversary. So it was a year ago that the shooter went into the covenant school six dead three nine-year-old kids the most deadly mass shooting in the history of tennessee sadly it's like it wouldn't even be top i don't think four in my home state of colorado it couldn't be even lower than that and the response to this though was you know for a red state pretty overwhelming right And there's tons of people that wanted action. And that kind of led to this series of events that ends up with the expulsion of the Tennessee three. So and you're there kind of documenting this minute by minute.

Let's refresh everybody's memory on kind of the play by play and how, you know, beginning with the shooting and then the protests and the fallout. Sure. So the shooting happened a year ago today, just absolutely devastating day in Tennessee history. I remember learning about it, watching it unfold, you know, the faces of kids on school buses, the kids coming out of the school, you know, as people start to realize what had happened, you know, it's impossible to even put into words how devastating that day was. The next day at the legislature, because they were in session when that happened, I was there and it was really business as usual in a way that was stomach churning. They were going about their business. They did some moments of silence, but nobody was really

talking about, okay, what are we going to do to keep this from happening again i actually went around and asked probably 30 of them in a video that went pretty viral the next day you know what are you going to do to keep this from happening again and they would just be silent and walk away from me and so there was a real hunger for something to be done to make sure that those six people didn't die in vain, kids. And at the next session, which I believe was a Thursday, thousands of people descended on the Capitol saying, do something. They were chanting outside.

There were speeches given, parents, kids came out of school, teachers. They all wanted something done. And on the House floor, yet again, it was kind of business as usual. There was a moment of silence. But then when a few of the members, Pearson, Jones, Gloria, and I think there were maybe some others that tried to talk, They just wouldn't even let them really talk about what had happened. It wasn't like a processing moment. It was a, let's move on. We don't want to talk about guns. Guns are taboo in this state, which has more than our share of gun violence and is actually loosening gun laws. And so when they were cut off, they had their mics cut off, which happened a lot here, the Justins and Gloria at their side, they went into the well to go say, we need to do something, banging on the well in the legislature.

And they immediately cut that mic, gaveled into session after like five minutes. And for about 15 minutes or so, the Justins and Gloria stayed in the well, basically like we need to do something. Jones had a bullhorn and it was a cathartic moment because the thousands of people that had shown up asking for something to be done, that was an extension of them. And if that hadn't happened, those people that showed up would have felt completely unheard. So they were doing that to sort of be an outlet for the anger and desperation, frankly, of the people who showed up that day. And it was much needed. And the Republicans in charge absolutely lost it over that. They started saying it was an insurrection. They started saying it was violent. They sent out robocalls saying that there were pipe bombs that day. I was there. None of that happened. The students were completely

peaceful. There was an edited video of troopers grabbing a student that they made it look like the student was rushing the chamber. Never happened. It was all peaceful, 100% peaceful, as some of the articles written about it afterwards say. And they took that. And the reason they started calling it an insurrection is because they knew right in that moment, we're going to use this as an excuse to expel these three. And so the expulsion proceeding started within a couple of weeks. And very quickly, they expelled the two young black men and not the older white woman. Yeah. And you guys broke another news story in response to that, which was inside the Republican conference, they were pissed at each other because a situation that, you know, the way that that ended up happening, expelling Justin Jones and Pearson and not Gloria and, you know,

shown a light on what was already, you know, pretty racist actions and silencing these two legislators that had a right to speak out in the wake of a tragedy. And so they had an internal discussion, and you guys got some audio of that. I want to play a little bit of that right now. I've been called a racist, a misogynist, a white supremacist more in the last two months of my life than I have my entire life. By golly, I'm biting my tongue. But I'm telling you, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, these days are rare and thin right now. And I'm going to have to swallow this to see Mr. Jones back up here walking these hollowed halls that the greats of Tennessee stood in. And watch them disrespect this state that I chose to move to.

By golly, it's got to stop. I'm sorry for getting angry here my father was d-day plus four and he fought for this freaking country and many of his friends died you gotta do what's right even if you think it might be wrong you gotta do what's right and you gotta protect this freaking republic here in tennessee you know what let's all go to hell home i'm getting freaking gray hair sitting here listen to this okay all right this bullshit I've had enough of this fucking hee-haw bullshit so just if you missed that you've got to do what's right

for the party even if it's wrong that was one statement there the other one the one that kind of grossed me out even more and that was the big headline you guys took away the one that grossed me out even more is this guy who admits to being a transplant to Tennessee by the way I moved to Tennessee these hallowed halls. He's

like, now I have to swallow watching Justin Jones walk through these halls, an elected representative, a black man, this guy could not even bring himself to see him walk through the halls, to see him have the same privileges that he does as a white legislator to hear him speak his mind about what should be done in a democracy when kids are being slaughtered. And these guys are like, we can't even let these young black representatives, progressives speak and walk in here. They're not worthy to walk amongst us. And it was fucking sickening.'s sickening and when gloria we have glory on this podcast last year in response to that i mean she said that you know that audio that you guys had was pretty representative of the conversation she was hearing for you know in private for a long

time for sure first of all that's scott sapicki so let's give him his proper due out of murray county thank you yeah i mean I think it really is representative of how they actually feel, even though it's a, you know, leaked audio, hidden mic situation. I've asked to picky about that since he doesn't regret a word out of his mouth. He says, you know, if the Southeast falls, it's game over for the Republic, we're at war for the Republic. He believes all that stuff. And, you know, for him to say that we have to do what's right, even if you think it might be wrong, I mean, I think that really sums up so much of what we're seeing from Republicans across the country these days.

That's a really, really succinct summation of the way that a lot of people are acting and how we got here as a country. They couldn't believe that they looked racist because they only expelled the black dudes. These are the same people that kept the KKK grand wizard bust in our Capitol for years. You know, they've made fried chicken jokes and there's all kinds of racist stuff that has gone on here for them to be like, oh my God, how could people think we're racist is laughable. And, you know, Jody Barrett is the guy that cast the vote that kept Gloria Johnson there.

And so they're really mad at him in that clip. And they're mad at him for making them look racist, not realizing that they do it to themselves all the damn time. Thankfully, both Justins were sent back unanimously by their districts. They're still up there speaking their their minds speaking up right now as we speak and and so as a reaction to that what republicans are doing now they're passing a law that says that if you get expelled your community can't send you back here really it's going to the legislature right now that's happening now yeah they actually had three bills to do it in three different ways. One was a constitutional amendment and the others were doing it in other ways. And yes, this guy, Johnny Garrett is passing it. So when something happens that they feel like goes against their agenda, they just change

the law. And that's the threat to democracy that people need to understand is happening in Tennessee. And I said this to you off podcast, and I want to say it to you on here. The reason that people outside of Tennessee need to pay attention to what's going on in Tennessee is not because we're a swing state. We're not a swing state, but we are the tip of the spear when it comes to the culture war that's happening in this country. This is a laboratory of theocracy where Republicans figure out what they can get away with and export it to the rest of the country. And that's why you need to pay attention to what's going on here. These guys think and act like they are representing America and the American tradition,

and that those that are against them are the un-American ones, the heathens, the ones that are threatening the Republic. The opposite is true. Every action that they have taken in this Tennessee legislature goes against the fundamental principles of what the country is supposed to be about. The fact that we are a representative democracy, you know, as we were discussing before, free speech with these drag bans, the ban on pride flags. I mean, it's these guys that are the ones that are trying to turn the country into a Hungarian style autocracy. It's not the Democrats who have no power in Tennessee because they're gerrymandered. I actually don't, I kind of think gerrymandering is sometime overrated.

It's not overrated in Tennessee. Nashville, you guys don't even have a rep. You guys don't even have a congressman in Nashville, the biggest city in the state because they carved it all up. It's an important point to make. And it's also important to point out that a lot of the things that they support just from a policy standpoint are not popular. Right. So they have carved themselves into this strength position, but their draconian abortion ban, which is the strictest in the whole country, that's not popular. What are the details on the Tennessee abortion ban? Zero days. So, you know, life begins at conception, no exceptions, no real exceptions for life of the mother. Rape kids are forced to carry the term.

I mean, all the stuff that you, they voted down an amendment just to let raped kids have abortions. They unanimously killed that. So there's that. There's all these, you know, anti-LGBTQ bills on guns. Most of the state wants some sort of gun safety laws. They won't let any of that pass. So you're right

that they do not represent America in the sense of democracy, but also just even from a policy standpoint, if you drill down to it, they're not representing the majority of even this state. And it's just a challenge to get the state to understand what's really happening up here. And that's kind of why we started the holler. It's usually people that are asking me this question. It's like liberals that are saying to me, Tim, help me get inside these Republicans brains. And so I'm going to ask you to do that, though, because you're, you're seeing them out there. But I mean, you see the evidence of it. You're talking about a laboratory of theocracy. They're talking about how this is a threat to the Republic. There's a lot of civil war talk there. There's a hint of secession type talk. What do you think that they see as

the thing they're defending? What are they trying to defend? What is the system of government that they want implemented? I don't think it's a system of government that they're defending. I think first and foremost, it's Christianity. It's their version of Christianity. Bastardized it's their version of christianity bastardized trump bible american version yeah exactly it's like you know gino bolso said 17th century values or 1700 values from when this country was conceived you know that i think is in their mind it's you know that the two-parent household where the wife stays home you know have to say white supremacy. I mean, it would be an incomplete answer without talking about that aspect of what they're defending.

But it's really, at the end of the day, it's their own power. It's their own power and personal ambition. And I don't think it's much more complicated than that. I think there's really a selfishness versus community aspect to all this, and they're just willing to do a lot to maintain what they believe they're entitled to. So we're a year out now. We were talking in the green room, you said that they were on the one year anniversary today, like kind of honoring the rifle or something. There've been no gun laws, no, have there even been school safety type things has that have they done anything in response to this the one thing that they did to make themselves feel better was they passed a law

about fire alarms where you have to have like a different fire alarm process if there's a shooter in the building then you do if it's a fire. Oh, well, that'll do it. Right. Because when Covenant happened, I mean, in a serious way, when Covenant happened, you know, I think there were some kids that ran out into trouble because they thought it was a fire. And so, you know, there is something to that, you know, as far as maybe it's something that needs to happen, but it does not get at the root of the problem, which is, you know, a proliferation of guns throughout our state as evidenced by the amount of people that are dying here every single day. And we're honoring the

Tennessee rifle today? Yeah, the Tennessee rifle is being honored in a state government committee by Rep. Mark Cochran, who his defense was, well, I scheduled it for last week and they rolled it a week. Today is their final calendar. It'll be interesting to see if he actually goes through with it. I get this question, so I get to give it to you. Did you think about leaving? You worried about being in Tennessee? How do you process all that? I mean, I'd be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind or other people's mind. It's constantly a conversation that I'm hearing about here in Tennessee. Part of me worries that by telling people what's happening here, we're chasing away

a lot of good people. But I just think this is a fight that has to be fought. I do love Tennessee. I love living here. We've lived here for seven years. There's a lot of great stuff about Tennessee. Great food, great music, great people. A lot of great people. My friend Amanda Shires was on this podcast. If you haven't heard her, she's the best so much. So I would say Tennessee is worth fighting for. And that's

why we're here doing what we do. So we're not going anywhere. My kids are growing up here, going to public schools. You know, we've met a lot of great people, a lot of people that, you know, are fighting the good fight. And I think that's kind of one of the things that happens in these red States. It's, you know, you find people who, when they're standing 10 toes down, as people say on this stuff, you know, it's sort of a different attitude and, and you kind of find a new respect for people. Like when I lived in LA and New York, these weren't fights that I needed to fight. You know, I just took it for granted that, you know, the people in charge kind of agreed with me and I didn't need to show up every day.

But here, the people that believe in this stuff and want to fight for democracy and want to fight for equality and for people to be welcomed, they're showing up every day. And those are the people that we're standing shoulder to shoulder with. And I don't want to leave them behind. All right. I said to you and promised listeners, look, if we have a big progressive on, we have to, you know, we can, we can argue, we can pretend like we can just do five minutes and pretend like it's 2011, right? Pretend like we're not on the cusp of an autocracy. Pretend like we just like met at a bar. And for some reason, school vouchers came up and we started to argue about it. So Tennessee's pushing for school vouchers right now. You're going to do to me what Al Franken did to you. Yeah, I'm going to flip it. I'm flipping it. Al is obsessed with trying to get me to sound like a conservative when I come on the podcast.

He's like, fight with me about something. And I'm like, okay, I'll fight with you. What do you want to fight about? Environmental regulations? CEQA? Let's fight about CEQA. Okay. I don't really want to fight about it.

I do want to hash this out because I want to acknowledge up top that these fucking Christian nationalist bastards we've been talking about, I don't really want them in charge of anything with regards to schools. And I would rather that they not be making these decisions at all. are being hollowed out or the public school in your area is shitty, wouldn't it be better on net for those families to have access to a voucher, access and ability to maybe take their kid, a parent to take their kid to a school, to charter school, to a religious school, to a school that better prepared them for life, better fit their values? What's wrong with that? Okay. So this would probably be an entire podcast on its own, but I'm going to try to get to it in the time you've given me. We'll do four minutes.

Okay. And then we have to argue about TikTok for four minutes. So we have eight minutes. All right. Okay. We're not in a vacuum. We're in Tennessee and Governor Lee is in charge. And Betsy DeVos came here to help him start his voucher push. And she has openly said that her agenda with public education in Tennessee is to advance God's kingdom. So let's start there. That's where I believe Governor Lee is coming from.

Now, what you presented, yes, that is kind of the logical excuse for what vouchers are. The problem is in implementation, they're not really putting any income limits on this stuff. They're not limiting it to kids that are in struggling schools. It's now going to the entire state. Their goal is universal vouchers, and it's impossible to take seriously people who underfund education in Tennessee by billions of dollars when they turn around and say, well, public education isn't doing what it's supposed to do. So the argument that I would make is we need to fund public schools and not be in the bottom forties in public per pupil spending. We need to make sure that the public education is able to do what it's supposed to do in Tennessee and not, you know,

leave kids behind because what vouchers end up doing is yes, maybe for a few kids, they help them get to a better place, but public education has to educate the kids with disabilities, the kids with learning disabilities and everybody that's left behind taking money away from schools that are already struggling to do that is not the way to take us in a good direction. And then as a last thing, I'll just say before you grill me on this, what we've seen in the states that have done this is 80%, give or take, of the kids that use these vouchers are already in private schools. So what they end up being is coupons for the wealthy that take away resources from our public schools that are underfunded.

We don't need to grill. We basically agree. That's great. Let's put income limits on it. See, this is how democracy should work. We've got progressive Justin and moderate, classically liberal Tim. And it's like, we already have a deal. We can just do vouchers for the bottom 20%. Vouchers for kids in the bottom 20%, vouchers for kids in districts that have graded schools that are failing. And we should fund those schools to try to get them better. But in the meantime, kids should have an option if they need it. Well, I'm still going to reject the deal. You reject my deal?

No. I just proposed to you. You're rejecting my deal? I'm using that as a way to show you that they don't actually mean what they say they mean. I'm not offering to accept your deal on vouchers. All right. That's fine. We have the outlines. I'm not offering to accept your deal on vouchers. All right. That's fine. Okay. We have the outlines. I'm like the AOC here. I'm not here to, you know, I'm not Hakeem Jeffries. We have the

outlines of a potential deal. We'll continue in the future. All right. Here's the one that we want to argue about because we were texting about this. You don't like the TikTok ban. No. I do. So tell me why you don't like it and then we'll go from there. I just think the whole thing is disingenuous. First of all, what are they doing that these other platforms are not doing? Do we trust Elon Musk and Twitter? Oh yeah, it's the Chinese thing. Well, I actually don't believe this is coming from the Chinese. And I think this is where we disagree, you know, and this gets into a whole other topic. I'm not going to try to open up, but I think what people are upset about is that young people are learning about topics like Gaza and Israel, especially in a way that

they don't want them to. And so we saw the head of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, say we have a TikTok problem. And then three weeks later, we see a 50 to zero vote in committee to potentially ban TikTok. I don't think banning TikTok is the answer. I think TikTok informs kids, young people especially, keeps them politically engaged. I think Democrats especially are wrong for supporting this politically. And I just don't think anything is happening there that's not happening on the other platforms. There's a lot of lack of information happening. I mean, just taking Gaza as an example, I was scrolling through TikTok the other day and there was a picture of something that was happening in Syria three years ago. The young person that's doing the citizen journalism is acting like this

is happening in Gaza, and it has a million views. And okay, this is obviously happening other places. There's Fox, there's plenty of places where there's, so I'm not saying this is a unique thing to TikTok. But I also think that we probably shouldn't be encouraging kids to only receive their news from the TikTok algorithm. And TikTok also, if you're on it and you use it frequently, you know, I don't like Elon either. But my Twitter feed is mostly things that I've opted into. Have you looked at the For You feed lately? I have looked at the For You feed and it's fucking, it's garbage. But my Instagram feed is mostly people that I've opted into.

My TikTok feed is all random shit. You know, I'll be scrolling through and it'll be like, you know, some 22 year old in Arizona who's doing like a shirtless news report about what's happening. And then I'll scroll up and it'll be like somebody, some basketball report from Serbia. And it's like, I have no idea where these things are coming from. And I think it's easy for a foreign government. We're not saying get rid of TikTok altogether. It's like, let's not let a foreign government, you know, put their, put their finger on the scale of this kind of black box algorithm where we don't know why things are being served to certain

people. We don't know why things are being surfaced versus not surfaced. You know, I just think that's a different animal than a opt in social social media i see what you're saying i just you know i think maybe open up the algorithm or something like that saying it's not a ban it feels like it is a ban because you know who knows we're just making them sell it we're making them sell it to an american what if they don't then it's a ban right i mean that's then they're gonna be that's the whole point but you know and again i i don't i'm not saying unregulated social media i just don't necessarily think that they're doing anything that isn't happening. I mean, there's plenty of disinformation on Twitter. When it comes to social media, you either have to trust that it's on balance, a good

thing, a positive thing, and those things are going to self-correct or you don't. And I don't trust that this is coming from, we don't trust China. I do think it's coming from kids are getting information they're not getting elsewhere. We need to make that stop. I think it's about China. I will say that probably the Gaza thing did spur action that people have long wanted. And I think that there have been long concerns about the China thing. And frankly, Biden should have done this earlier. So this was not an election year issue. Because I do see how he already has trouble with young voters. And I do see that it's a potential risk with them, but I don't know, man, the Chinese. I think he's in big trouble with

young voters. I really do. What do you think he should do? What would you do if he, if Joe Biden called you to the West wing tomorrow and was like, Justin, how can I help improve my numbers with young progressives? I think he needs to do everything he possibly can to make the situation in Gaza stop. I think humanitarian aid needs to be let in there. I think we need to absolutely put conditions on our help to Israel. We need to stop sending them weapons. I mean, it's long been way too much already. And I've been saying this for months. I was even late to the party. I mean, what's going on there is horrific. The images coming out of there are horrific. And that's why his numbers are suppressed with young people is because they're seeing this

on social media in a way that my mother and my parents are not seeing it on CNN and MSNBC. I don't think Joe Biden wants it to happen, but I also think that his bear hug of Israel has taken us to the place that we are now. I'm going to have the opposite view of this on tomorrow. This is dicey. I'm a classic, just middle of the road, squishy Tim. I just can't. I think Joe Biden's in a really tough situation. I think he's been handling it well. And I think that a lot of the young progressives, I think that the expectations of him are crazy. There was a good article that Peter Baker and Susan Glasser's kid wrote for The Atlantic about what's happening at Stanford. And I was watching the Twitter discussion about this from some of the left folks on Stanford's campus.

And when one of the kids that D.O. Baker had wrote about had said that, you know, he thinks Joe Biden should be killed. I know you don't agree with this. He's defending himself on Twitter by saying, well, would it have been wrong to say Hitler should be killed or bin Laden should be killed? He's doing a genocide. And this is where I'm like, these young people are not getting good information, right? Like Joe Biden is not Hitler and he's not bin Laden. He's trying to navigate a very challenging situation. He's been distancing himself from Bibi at times. And at other times he's been supportive, I think, of their legitimate right to defend themselves from a terrorist group that wanted to wipe them off the face of the planet and it's like if you really thought that i don't think

anybody's trying to get through to these young people saying if you really thought that joe biden was a genocidal maniac which was this guy's quote in the vein of hitler it's like well then you wouldn't be saying that on twitter because people who live in countries that are run by genocidal maniacs are very scared to mention that they think that they're a genocidal maniac, right? Like it's not a logical, it's not a logical statement. I completely agree. Of course he's not. I think that's an awful thing to say. You know, I think, and there are absolutely people out there that are pro Hamas that are happy that October 7th happened. I think that's disgusting too. We can't argue about the fringes like that. I just think generally speaking, I do understand where these young

people are coming from when they say they might not be able to bring themselves to go vote in November. And I understand that uncommitted vote was encouraging Biden to change course. I think people are trying to help him help himself. And I have this fight with my parents and my siblings and they say, well, Trump is worse. And I agree, Trump is worse. Of course, Trump is worse. And that's the reason that we need this to stop. And I'm not saying that I'm going to not support a president and let Trump win. But I do understand when you have these images in your mind every single day, I mean, even this week, it's still happening. They're facing famine.

Like we have to make the stop period full stop. And so, you know, I think that's the way to keep Trump out of office. That's the way to help Biden correct his numbers. And, you know, I can't get behind this idea that like, you know, we just need to let this go on because we have to support Israel. Netanyahu is not a good guy. Thank you for opening up that can of worms because. Sorry. I don't know. How did we get to that?

No, I appreciate you opened up the can. It was my, I brought up TikTok. I'm glad you opened it up though, because that view, I don't know, has been represented on this podcast. It should be because we need to have an open dialogue about, about tough issues. And that's, that's what we're trying to do here. Not bullshit people. People that want to get good news, real news, have an open dialogue about tough issues. And that's what we're trying to do here. Not bullshit people. People that want to get good news, real news, have real discussions about what's happening in Tennessee, Gaza, everywhere. The Tennessee Holler.

Check it out. Be here at the Bulwark. Justin Canoe. And follow the Bulwark and support the Bulwark. I don't tell you this enough, Tim, but I do listen to you. I follow you. I know that we don't agree on every single thing, but I really appreciate what you do. I think you do it in a way that more people need to. And so I appreciate you too, Tim.

Man, back at you, brother. I hope we can see each other, have a beer soon. I want to thank Justin Canoe. It's one year anniversary of the Covenant shooting. I want to remember the victims, Catherine Kuntz, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peake, Evelyn Deakhouse, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, three nine-year-old kids. And they're just not doing anything about it in Tennessee. It's pretty, pretty devastating and disappointing. On the other side of the break, we'll have Justin Fenton with the Baltimore Banner on the Bridge Claps. all right we are back with another justin justin fenton investigative reporter for the baltimore banner he was at the bal the Baltimore Sun for 17 years.

He's the author of We Own This City, which became an HBO miniseries developed by David Simon. Justin, thanks for jumping on to talk about this really tragic incident in Baltimore. Yeah, of course. Thank you. I wanted to just point out first, before we get into the bridge collapse, the new owner of your former outlet, the Baltimore Sun, wrote a column this week saying, I'm no longer certain Putin is the bad guy and Biden is the good guy in Ukraine. It's complicated. This goes to the theme of our episode today. It shows the need for real local journalism truth. So talk to us about the kind of origin of the banner, the new outlet that you're working at. The Baltimore Sun had been traded ownership many times over the years I was there.

And then it was taken over by a hedge fund that had a really bad reputation for gutting newsrooms. So there was an effort. It was called Save Our Sun, where we were trying to get a local ownership group to take it over. And it failed. And one of the buyers who was considering buying the Sun said, even though I wasn't able to buy the Sun, I still think that there's a need for a nonprofit newsroom in Baltimore. And so they approached me. It was the right time. It was a great project. And I jumped over. And as you pointed out, since the hedge fund sold The Sun, and they've since been taken over by the chairman of Sinclair Broadcasting, which is headquartered just north of Baltimore, now owns the paper, is implementing some changes, including inserting the co-owner,

Armstrong Williams, who now writes frequent op-eds for them. Do you think everybody was aware that this was an actual plot from The Wire? And that was supposed to be a spoof in the final season of The Wire? The horrible owners taking over a newspaper and gutting it and ruining it. It's a little bit too close to home. I mean, it was quite a surprise. I remember where I was when the news came in. I think I was watching the Buffalo Bills playoff game and it was like, wow, David Smith has bought the sun. So far, I think I still know a lot of people over there

and they're still doing the same coverage that they've been doing. There's little ways that they've been sort of inserting themselves and changing things. But I know that the editorial product has not changed, but we'll see because they certainly have a reputation on the TV side. And so the main mission of the banner, talk to us about that. Like what holes you guys are trying to fill. You know, I mean, it's not just the sun. Local media everywhere has been pretty devastated. Yeah, I think that, again, the effort was to create a sustainable model.

The idea was that the for-profit journalism model was not sustainable. And if we could create using this seed money from our founder, Stuart Bainham, if we could sort of create an environment where the news can last, that's our goal. We're getting there. We're not there yet, but things are really positive. Yeah, we're really hopeful for the future. We're trying to cover the city, but also the region. And we've been growing and growing, which is something I've never experienced in my journalism career, a newsroom that is growing instead of contracting. But I'm really proud of the work we're doing. All right, we'll keep monitoring this. Thank you for doing it. And this is a moment where you can tell the importance of it. So it was, I guess,

Monday night into Tuesday morning, just after 1am, there was a container ship crashed into that Francis Scott Key Bridge, which I've driven over many a time, I'm sure you have as well. Just a really a tragic incident. Six deaths from, I guess, construction workers that were working on the bridge to rescue. And I guess the rescue operation is over. Why don't you kind of just walk us through the basics of what happened and where we are right now? I got a call from a source at 2.30 in the morning. I'd slept through the first call that the key bridge had collapsed. And I'm kind of groggy and out of it.

And I'm like, what do you mean collapse? Like a piece of it fell? And he's like, no, the whole thing collapsed. Check it out online. And there was this video showing the ship hitting it and it just toppling into the water. And as you mentioned, having seen that, I mean, not just driven across it, but it's in our skyline. It's something you see all the time. You see it from Fort McHenry.

It's iconic in many ways. And it's just stunning. But the fallout is incredible. I mean, obviously, there's six lives that have been lost. Yeah, economic impact on the port, the transportation impacts. This is something that we've mobilized like our entire newsroom to cover. And I know we're going to be covering it for not just months, but years to come. Yeah, I want to get into the impacts. But first, I mean, the one element of this that is, I guess, somewhat inspiring or hopeful is, I guess, the ship itself, when it ran out of power and kind of anticipated that it might be crashing into the bridge, sent out a warning signal. And I guess in enough time to stop traffic from crossing the bridge. And I guess 1.30 in the morning, not a ton of traffic, but there should have been some cars going over that bridge had they not done that, right? Absolutely. The video shows cars traveling over the bridge as this is happening. And the initial reports from emergency personnel was that up to 20 people were being sought.

And then as you look a little closer in the video, you can see that the traffic had stopped, that there weren't cars crossing over it. And then we got the word that, yeah, the word had been put out, I guess, just in time. I can't even understand how they were able to do that. But as tragic as the six lives that have been lost, it really could have been a lot worse, especially if this had happened not at 1.30 in the morning. So yeah, pretty incredible. Think about the impacts for Baltimore. I mean, you know, the hollowing out of the port and the jobs on the port. I mean, this is like a tale as old as time in Baltimore. Are there concerns that while the cleanup is happening, folks are going to adapt, then there might be a long-term negative impact on Baltimore? What are officials saying about

how long the cleanup's going to be? Talk to us about the kind of economic impact on the city. Yeah, I mean, right now, the channel into the Inner Harbor, into the Patapsco River on that side is just cut off. There's mangled metal in the water. And I think, you know, because this is such a stunning sort of event of a bridge just giving way because a ship hit it on the way out, there's going to be a really serious investigation of this. So I think what we're hearing is that they're going to keep that intact because they want to study it. They want to understand it. And what that means is no one's coming in or out.

Keep what intact? I'm sorry. The bridge. What remained. Oh, man. Okay. Exactly. So it's impassable right now. I know there's a strong urge to get it cleared, but that's going to take some time. I think not only the investigation is going to take time, but the simple act of removing this enormous structure from the deep waters is going to be very difficult. So yeah, I saw a figure yesterday that said the port is expecting to lose $15 million a day. Things are being rerouted. We have a cruise terminal that they're diverting, returning cruises to Norfolk, Virginia. So we're just starting to wrap our arms around what this is going to look like.

But it's definitely going to impact jobs. It's going to impact commerce. You have, you know, Wes Moore, who is kind of a rising Democratic star. I did a profile on him a while back, a governor, new governor of Maryland from Baltimore. First really major crisis challenge for him. Like what have we been hearing out of him? And he's also, you know, a Democrat that's very interested in economic development. So I assume that this is going to be something that he's, you know, super engaged on. Yeah, he was in Boston at the time that this happened and headed back. I think that by all assessments, he's been, you know, just leading with poise and trying to reassure people. But

this is going to be very complicated. And you saw, I feel like you saw, I'm not a political reporter, but I feel you saw a little bit of politics creeping into things yesterday when President Biden was talking about covering the full cost and he expected Congress would make sure that that happened. It was sort of like it almost sounded a bit like a challenge that you didn't expect that to be that easy. But people are saying, listen, this isn't about politics. This is about making this region a whole again, being able to reestablish a major transportation channel, a major port, establish jobs. And we'll see how that progresses in this climate. Yeah, I've got bad news for you, Justin. Pontix is going to be

involved in this. You had online yesterday on the right, I mean, we have to talk about this. It's just absurd. But the mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, younger black guy, online, someone on the right, we're calling him a DEI mayor saying he's not capable of this. We have Lara Logan was on the Bandon podcast yesterday talking about how this was actually a terrorist attack and these guys are covering it up. Alex Jones called it World War III. Yeah. Okay. Do we have any evidence of a terrorist attack? What's the actual reporting on that? No, I mean, you know, again, this ship had just taken off. We can see in the videos that there's an electrical power failure of some sort. You know, I personally do have questions of what could have happened that early into its journey. But authorities are saying there's no evidence of anything terrorist or intentional nature.

I saw those memes, the things going around. I saw a tweet saying that he was the DEI mayor. I clicked on the clip thinking he must have slipped up. He must have said something stupid. And that's why they were making fun of him. And it was as poised as I've ever seen him. So, I mean, it was really just coded racism and really unfortunate to see, but really, really widespread. What's next for Baltimore? What are you guys going to be focusing on? What are you looking at in the coming days? Oh, man, we're all getting crash courses in engineering. You know, we've got people talking. One of our reporters used to work at the Miami Herald and was first on the scene at Surfside. So we're talking to engineers. We're trying to figure out those economic impacts. And again, there's still a recovery

operation underway. So a lot of angles, but thankfully, we're a nonprofit newsroom that has the resources to cover them. I think a lot of nonprofits across the country, and I've been getting a crash course in this myself. I'm a legacy media guy. I've followed mostly legacy media. There's so many interesting newsrooms, but a lot of them tend to be smaller. You know, they have a handful of reporters, They try to put out some impact stories a couple times a week. We aspire to cover everything, and we have got the staff to do it. So we are chipping away. All right.

Well, if you're in Baltimore, care about Baltimore, care about the region, make sure to check out the Baltimore Banner. Justin Fenton, thanks for taking the time to come talk to us about this in the wake of something that's really tragic and devastating. For City, I love Baltimore. I got, you know, we go out there a bunch when I needed a weekend away when I was living in DC and it's been a city that's been hard hit already. And I think this is probably just going to make things even more challenging for you guys. Yeah. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it, Justin. Thanks so much. I remember the night and the Tennessee walks I must have heard it a thousand times And it wasn't till now that I've come to see

The view from behind those glass We were singing along to an old familiar song When she came waltzing through the door With her head held high and a look in her eyes. Now I don't see you anymore. I remember the night and the Tennessee walls. The Bullwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.