The Chaser Report - LA Cop Drafted To IDF After Shooting Journalist

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

In the wake of an Australian journalist being shot at by police in LA, Charles and Dom knock their brains together to come up with a solution for the impending Australia vs USA war. ---Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] our caviar addiction: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Moving them on through the heart of L.A. And look, Dom, I think it's only seen that footage for the first time just now. No, I've seen it repeatedly. But you looked shocked when you saw the police officer literally pointing and aiming. I hadn't seen the shooter.

Yeah, that's Lauren Tamasi from 9 News, reporting on the police shooting people with robber bullets on the streets of Los Angeles before a police officer far closer than I realized. So I thought it had come from the, there's a line of police officers quite a long way away and I thought it was a stray bullet from there. When you look at the video up close,

it's not a stray bullet. The guy, the cop turns, aims and fires it. from really close. Let's take a quick break and just ponder exactly the consequences. There are going to be consequences. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at FIS.ca. So, yeah, Lauren Tamasi apparently is okay, and that's the main thing.

The good news is it hit her in the leg, by all appearances, it probably hurts quite a lot. It reminds me, Charles, of your Bucks night, actually. Oh, really? When we went to paintball. And I'm not proud of what happened, but at the end, I mean, it does actually hurt when he gets shot with a paintball. Yes, I do remember this. It did get to the point at the end of the night where I just had everybody, I'm hoping I wasn't part of this group, but I may have been. essentially just shot you repeatedly at point-blank range over and over again.

It was very metaphorical. It looked very painful. But we weren't sworn police officers. Isn't that true that a lot of, NYPD anyway, not the LAPD, they've got the words to protect and to serve written on their cars. I'm not sure whether that officer was trying to protect Lauren Tamas, you or serve her at that point. I think it's to protect and serve the interests of capitalism and the American military empire. But, no, no, so there's lots of angles to this.

The first one is you've got to take into account that this was held on the King's birthday long weekend holiday. Oh, you think that's a factor. Well, I just think Americans perhaps don't understand that that is, to Australians, the most important day of the year. It's the most sacred day of the year. This is like shooting somebody, like shooting an American, on the 4th of July. On the 4th of July or on, I don't know, on Thanksgiving.

on Christmas Day. It's like going into a church and shooting baby Jesus in the face on Christmas Day. A nine journalist is very much the priests of our age. They're the hallowed. They're the hallowed citizens.

Like they're the first among equals. So like I think there needs to be consequences. And I think this is what I want to talk about is what happens next. Yeah. This will go into your feed on Tuesday morning. And by then, Anthony, any Albanese will have made some sort of statement.

I mean, he made a small statement on the news on Monday night. But can I just predict with 100% certainty what that phrase is going to be that he's going to say? Sure. This is not the act of a friend. Don't you think? Don't you think? Because that's the only thing they say.

That's the only phrase that they use whenever anyone gets shot. You know, they put tariffs on us. they steal out steel They They fuck our meat Tattu trade Whatever they do Is not the an act of a friend

I endorse that It's not an act of a friend And it's true I endorse that Charles It's sort of almost like The bare minimum thing You can say about this act He's trying to send a message to

United States President Donald J Trump And Charles I've just come As we're recording the podcast now From reasoning with a three year old And I put to you Charles, that the phrase, this is not what a friend does, is actually the way that you reason

with someone who, being as generous as possible, may not quite have the cognitive complexity on board that perhaps most fully grown adults do. Donald Trump is not particularly competent at seeing cause and effect in his actions. So maybe this is the way Alba gets the message through. Do you ever use consequences? Have you ever heard of consequences? Oh yes, no, we do do consequences. Oh, right.

Okay, so because I've got, because my, my parents always used to say to me a slightly different phrase, the one you're doing. What they always used to say to me is you don't buy submarines off the country that shoots your journalists. That's what they always used to say to me. Yes, yes, all the time. I have vivid memories, you know, whenever I shot a journalist in the face or the leg or whatever, they always go, you don't buy submarines of a country. that shoots you doing like.

And I assume that's a metaphor or something. Oh, it must have been. One of those aphorisms like the coconut tree in Kamala Harris' story. Yeah, that's right. Are you suggesting, are you suggesting orchestra's in jeopardy? Charles, on the very day, which Scott Morrison has been made a companion to the Order of Australia. I know.

For the Orcas deal, you think that America's cancelled in this action. I can't imagine that even Scott Morrison. No, he probably does support the shooting of journalists. And also, she was a woman. So, although he very famously had a pro-dismarch with he didn't shoot any women. My God, they've even gone They've even broached the heart They've broken the Scott Morrison standard

Which is you don't shoot women when they're outside But Charles also, in Scott Morrison's defence What was his most famous statement? He doesn't hold things at times of elevated tension Scott Morrison wouldn't be in favour of anyone holding any weapons Or hoses or whatever it might be In that scenario, no Look, Charles, there is a broader context here

Of the LA riots of Donald Trump's ice crackdown That's what this is all about. It's Gavin Newsom. It's essentially Gavin Newsom versus Donald Trump in a contest of wills. That's the context. But it comes down to Lauren Tamassi for Australia. But the context has been trumped, if you will, by the fact that there's now an Aussie angle to it. So none of that really matters compared to the Aussie Angle.

So before that was about, you know, the fairly brutal eviction of, you know, so-called illegal immigrants in the US. and the idea that, as has been said by, I think Gavin Newsom, that Americans might have voted for a crackdown, but they didn't vote for war on the streets of Los Angeles. No, if there's one Aussie, if one Aussie's leg gets fragged with a rubble bullet, that's what it's all, it's the only thing we can think about. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I don't think we should go into any wider context,

because I'm sure that's not what any... I mean, maybe what we need is for the Prime Minister that can actually sort this out, A beautiful little statue of a rubber bullet that says I stopped these. If someone manages... I don't know what I'm saying. If another Prime Minister manages to stop that, that's happening. One of the stories that the Chaser website put up on Monday afternoon in wake of this breaking news was the story LA cop drafted to IDF after shooting journalists,

which immediately went very viral, right? And the whole satirical point was that, you know, obviously shooting a journalist is perhaps something that the IDF might like in a cop, right? So, anyway, I was doing a little bit of background research on that because it said, it just struck me as, I wonder whether there is any relationship between the LAPD and the IDF. Turns out, Los Angeles time didn't take much Googling. It took like literally the first search that I did, right? LA Times in October last year has a story about the LAPD trains foreign police, does that enable human rights violations. Now, the first part of the story is just about how they actually invite people from all

around the world to train with them, which is fine, whatever, to be sort of professional and protect people and stuff like that. But then the second half of the article is all about how the LAPD, quite controversially, go and send all their officers over to, well, not all their offices, but a lot of their officers over to Israel, and they get trained in Israel. And it's highly controversial, especially in the wake of Gaza and stuff of that. But it's sort of, it's an extraordinary thing, which is, there is every possibility that the cops who were facing down that Australian journalist were actually trainees of Israel's

law enforcement agency. Which I find astounding. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that. But we can go on to other topics. I'm just wondering, because the latest, I mean, as we speak, the boat with Greta Tunberg aboard is also, I'm not entirely sure where that is. There's reports of kind of white powder all over the deck.

I don't even know what's going on there. Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure the news on Monday night was that they have been detained. Well, they'd lost radio contact too. Yeah, and Israel's sort of foreign ministry posted on, like, Instagram, a photo of them receiving sort of food and drink, which I'm going to say, is more than they seem to give to the gas of this. Yeah, so it's definitely confirmed that they have been detained. Yeah, so, and interestingly, the spin coming from Israel on this flotilla of freedom

is that it's called, they're calling it the selfie yacht, right? thing is quite a good casting shade, right? Like, if you're going to try and sort of denigrate the work of Greta Thunberg, what better way to denigrate the work of a young woman than to just, you know, make her sound like some vapid Kardashian influencer type thing rather than some sort of freedom fighter? But I thought it was quite an interesting piece of spin, because if you actually analyse it, what they're saying is that Israel was so scared of people who they claim just want to take photos that they're actually that is prepared to break international law going to international waters seize a boat that was in international waters because they're

scared of people wanting to take photos I mean what are they scared of in terms of people to oh I see right like you sort of go actually it's sort of unwind that whole you know selfie your criticism unwinds because it's actually showing that that that's what they're most scared of they don't want anything they don't want attention highlighting what they're doing in Gaza. Well, if they don't want attention to this boat, I think that's backfired. They've done the strikes and defeat, haven't they? The world's media has paid a lot of attention.

Iran has come out and described there's an act of piracy. They've said it was in international waters. Yes, exactly, it is. It's piracy. Yes. The Turkish have said it to violation of international law. Multiple European ministers have been looking at it. There's a Spanish citizen on board and so on.

So, yeah, watch this space. see what's going to happen. But the question you were going to address, which I think we need to get back to after these ads, is what Anthony Almanesey does to stick up for Channel 9. Because even in this day and age of, you know, television not having the clout that it once did and we're talking on the day when the project has been cancelled.

RIP, the project. Yes. Did you go on the project? Yeah, a few times. I went on the project once. It's a very big day for me. Yeah. So given that they briefly paid attention to me in their 4,000,

and 500 episodes. I was in one of them. I mourn it. I knew those guys, Charles. This feels personal. So we'll talk about what the Albanese government's response should be to the Rob Bullitt and potentially the project because it's sort of a similar international diplomacy issue. Yeah, definitely. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. Fizz is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month.

Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. The Chaser Report. Now with extra whispers. All right, so we know that Anthony Albanesey is about to meet Donald Trump. For the first time, the coalition was quite right about that. They'd never miss, I don't think. No.

They're about to meet for the first time on the side of the, is it, the G20? G8, I think, yeah. Or G7, is it? One of the Gs. One of the Gs. Oh, there was a G2? before they kicked rush route. Yeah, yeah.

So Albany's going over to meet with Donald Trump. What does he say? What does he say about the beef? What does you say about the rubber bullets? This is not an act of a friend. It is the G7 these days, yeah. Yeah. Do you think that's the only line he's got it?

Are we going to respond in any way? Are we going to do anything? We're going to stop the... Can we symbolically cancel the order of rubber bullets that we may have placed? You know what I think Alba should do is DAC, Trump? Yeah. Now, hear me out here, because it sounds like a novel approach. But I think decking's bad, right?

Like, I don't approve of decking. I think it's humiliating, it's horrible, right? But in no universe, is it worse than shooting a journalist, right? So the whole key with international diplomacy is what you've got to do is you've got to show that you're not going to be pushed around, but you also don't want to escalate. Sure. Right. You've got to find that it's a real tightrope, isn't it?

The real tie rope. And the thing is, there's nothing really Australia can do, I mean, unless they were actually prepared to stand up and, you know, cancel august or something like that, which they're not going to do. I mean, you also suggest that's what you would do. If someone wasn't a friend repeatedly, despite you having any national pact with them, you would deck them. You know what I mean?

And so it's sort of going, and then Trump will go, well, that was not the act of a friend. and Albao go, we'll go, yeah, that's my point. Do you see what I mean? Gosh, that's a real... That's a real... Well, hello. Also, Trump would then look petty if he then... Or, you know, and that he couldn't take it

if he, you know, did something like put tariffs on us for doing it or something like that. Like, it's one of those weird situations where it's so out of the left field. There's no precedent for dealing with deckings in international... I'm an amazing. Maybe Genghis Khan did back in the day. Because I think if you deck Donald Trump, there's a lot of people who'd be sympathetic to Donald Trump. I think it could back fire.

I think it could alienate Australian. Yes. It'd be a bad fraud diplomacy. Here's a more subtle idea, Charles. Yeah. More subtle than decking. Yeah, it involves a little bit of high technology. And maybe, I don't know if we've got sort of the secret agent capability to do this stuff.

Do we have sort of intelligence personnel to pull this off? it's Operation Suttledack, right? Oh, yeah. What you do is, okay. Just go with me on this. Yeah. What you do is you rig Donald Trump's belt. Yeah.

Using, you get someone on the inside. Yeah. Valet, maybe you bribe, to switch the belt on the pants for a special model that, let's just say it's not so strong. Like a drone. Yeah, yeah. Remote control. Like, they've got remote controlled drones.

Yeah, yeah. In Ukraine, we've got remote controlled. belts, yeah. And it is at exactly the right moment. Yes. Someone presses a button somewhere and the dacks fall down. Yes. So Albo's not dacking him.

No. The dacks are falling down to their own accord. And then elbow just so happens to have a buckle. A buckle made out of Australian steel. Yes. Quality Australian steel. Yes. That should not have tariffs on it because it's undackable.

Yes. Well, Mr. President, just so happens, I have this deck-proof Australian steel. And Trump would buckle immediately. He wouldn't he be the one buckling. He would buckle. I don't think we've got those sort of intelligence capabilities. You know what we should do. We should threaten to send the project over to America.

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