The Daily Signal - #460: He Was an Antifa Activist. Then He Took an Economic Class.

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

Gabriel Nadales is that rare young adult who became more conservative in college. Once an activist on the left, he started questioning his beliefs after studying economics--and now he promotes free speech at colleges. We also cover these stories:•President Trump condemns Rep. Rashida Tlaib's comments about the Holocaust. •Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now says she was joking about the world ending in 12 years because of climate change.•Actress Alyssa Milano is calling for a sex strike.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, May 14th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Gabriel Nodalis was once a hard left protester who marched on the streets with Antifa. That is, until he encountered in economics class. Now he works for a major conservative group that trains young people to do activism. So what happened? Our executive editor, Rob Bluie, sat down with Gabriel recently, and today we'll play that interview.

Plus, Alyssa Milano is protesting abortion restrictions by urging women to go on a sex strike. We'll unpack those details and evaluate. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes, and please subscribe. Now on to our top news. Well, the stock market took a plunge on Monday after President Trump hit China with new tariffs escalating the trade war. President Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports the previous week from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of goods. Akewarm. accusing Chinese officials of backing out of certain agreements during negotiations. Those tariffs caused the Dow Jones to lose over 600 points on Monday,

and China retaliated, saying it would hike tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. imports starting June 1st. President Trump had downplayed the effect of the tariffs, saying that goods can be bought from non-tariffed countries or within the U.S. He tweeted, quote, many tariffed companies will be leaving China for Vietnam and other such countries in Asia. That's why China wants to make a deal so badly. There will be nobody left in China to do business with. Very bad for China, very good for USA. But China has taken so advantage of the U.S. for so many years, our presidents did not do the job.

Therefore, China should not retaliate will only get worse. Speaking on a Yahoo podcast, Skullduggery, Representative Rashida Talib, Democrat of Michigan, made some bizarre remarks about the Holocaust. I mean, for me, just a few, I think two weeks ago or so, we celebrated or just it took a moment, I think, in our country to remember the Holocaust. And there's, you know, there's a kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks. When I think of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, the human dignity, their existence in many ways have been wiped out in some people's passport. I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews,

post the Holocaust, post the tragedy and horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that. Well, even CNN thought that was a little much from Talib. Yes, as she said, Palestinians lost land in the creation of Israel. But she ignored the fact that Palestinian leaders at the time allied themselves with Hitler. and the total war was how the Arab world reacted to the Declaration of Israeli Independence. Talib has now tweeted, policing my words, twisting and turning them to ignite vile attacks on me will not work.

All of you who are trying to silence me will fail miserably. I will never allow you to take my words out of context to push your racist and hateful agenda. The truth will always win. Meanwhile, President Trump tweeted, Democrat Representative Talib is being slammed for her horrible and highly insensitive statement on the Holocaust. She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. Can you imagine what would happen if I ever said what she said and says? Well, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision on Monday, allowing a case to proceed against Apple.

Third-party apps have sued Apple, arguing that its monopoly over its app store has led to inflated prices for third-party apps. Apple charges a 30% fee for sales to go through the Apple store. Apple's arguing that app developers had no standing to even sue. The ruling surprised some as Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, cited with the court's four liberals and actually wrote the opinion. The case will now proceed through a federal district court. Immigration crimes totaled a third of all crimes when it came to federal sentencing, reports the Washington Examiner.

Per the United States Sentencing Commission, immigration crimes include, quote, trafficking in U.S. passports, trafficking and entry documents, failure to surrender naturalization certificate, fraudulently acquiring U.S. passports, smuggling, transporting, or harboring, an unlawful alien, fraudulently acquiring entry documents, and unlawfully entering or remaining in the U.S. Venezuelan leader Juan Guido took a step toward asking for U.S. military intervention over the weekend, requesting strategic and operational planning assistance from the U.S. military. On Saturday, his top diplomat in Washington sent a letter to the head of U.S. Southern Command to request a meeting. He wrote, quote, we welcome strategic and

operational planning so that we may fulfill our constitutional obligation to the Venezuelan people in order to alleviate their suffering and restore our democracy, end quote. Venezuela remains mired in a political conflict as the country's socialist dictator, Nicholas Maduro, refuses to step down, despite widespread evidence that he rigged last year's election. According to the Constitution, Guido, the president of the National Assembly, is now the legitimate president. Representative Alexandria Ocasia Cortez, Democrat of New York, tweeted over the weekend, this is a technique of the GOP to take dry humor plus sarcasm, literally, and fact-check it. Like the world ending in 12 years thing, you'd have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge to think it's literal.

But the GOP is basically Dwight from the office, so who knows? End quote. However, Ocasio-Cortez didn't sound like she was being sarcastic or funny when she made the remark in January. Millennials and people and, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we're like, the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change. And your biggest issue is,

Your biggest issue is how are we going to pay for it? And like this is the war, this is our World War II. Well, many Americans will have heard of Brian Sims by now. He's the Philadelphia State Representative who recently live-streamed himself harassing and berating pro-life women preying outside of a Planned Parenthood Clinic. Those actions provoked a thousand pro-life supporters to hold a rally outside the clinic last week. and now Sims is nowhere to be found. He's now locked his Twitter account, and, according to the Daily Wire,

security is now blocking off his office building, and constituents aren't able to talk to him. His last tweet was on May the 6th. Actress and singer Doris Day died Monday at age 97. Her foundation, the Doris Day Animal Foundation, says that she was surrounded by friends and at home, and that she had died after catching pneumonia. Day was in 39 movies, including Pillow Talk and Love Me or Leave Me.

She was also a gifted singer. When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, what will I be? Here's what she said to me. Kera, said off, the future's not ours to see. Kea said I, said I. Day was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. The parents of a nine-year-old boy in Oregon are suing a school district for a million dollars after their son was kept from multiple recesses by a teacher who repeatedly asked if the boy was transgender.

The teacher showed him videos and gave him books to read about transgenderism, which the parents found. Fox 12 reports the parents were never told about the interactions and only found out when they asked their son about, one of the books. The mother, who remains anonymous, said, quote, he feels different now, he feels confused. To hear your son say that on a couch talking to a therapist, holding back tears, it's very heartbreaking, end quote. It all started when the boy was uncomfortable using the bathroom because of a stomach problem. That made the teacher think he was uncomfortable using the boy's restroom and could be transgender. Next up, we'll feature Rob's interview with a former Antifa activist.

Do you own an Amazon Echo? You can now get the Daily Signal podcast every day as part of your daily Alexa Flash briefing. It's easy to do. Just open your Amazon Alexa app, go to settings, and select Flash Briefing. From there, you can search for the Daily Signal podcast and add it to your Flash briefing so you can stay up to date with the top news of the day that the liberal media isn't covering. We're joined at the Daily Signal by Gabriel Nadalus of the Leadership Institute.

Thanks for being with us. Thank you for having me. Your region is California. You work on that for the Leadership Institute. You also have quite an interesting personal story yourself. And I want to begin there because it's not too often that the Daily Signal we get to talk to people who are involved with the left, particularly Antifa. Gabriel, tell us how you got started with the left and then we'll get into your transition to becoming a conservative. Sure.

Well, honestly, it really takes me back all the way 2009. That's when I really started doing activism for the left. but really I remember being very, I didn't really care too much about it. I had my political beliefs. I would go to March just here and there. In college? In high school, actually. In high school?

Way back then. And I remember it wasn't until 2010 when I refused to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance. And I threatened to the school because I got in trouble. That's when I really began my leftist activism. I went on marches. I went to the homes of CEOs who like yell them, telling that they weren't welcome in these communities. I did a lot of things for the left. What was motivating you to do that?

You know something? Really, looking back, I've always had the same idea. I've always just wanted to help people. Back then, I thought the best way of helping people was to go in March up to corporations, up to banks, and tell them that they were doing wrong. But now I see how misguided I used to be. So you are involved with groups like Antifa,

and then what happens in your own life for your experience to begin to change your mindset about how you can help people and why conservatism might be a better option. Well, you know, the reason I started questioning my beliefs was in my senior year of high school. I was failing. So I remember my econ class. I was a D right there. I needed to get a D at the very least. So I started opening my economics book. So first time ever for a leftist to do that. And I just started questioning myself and I started questioning all these beliefs and the people I started talking to about this outside of school was a lot of other members of Antifa. And I remember that's the first time I've ever been called a

capitalist pig. And I would just argue with them. And by no means I was a conservative at the time. I literally just had a lot of questions, but nobody could really answer them. And it wasn't until I got to college that the Leadership Institute found me because it started requesting information from online resources. Adam Weinberg, the person who had my job at the time, he reached out to me. We talked about things. He recommended Frederick Bostia and much other books. And I just started getting more and more to the right. And I became conservative after a short while. Wow. So trying to pass Econ. Trying to pass Econ. Led you to this. That's great. Tell us more about your college experience

and what it was like on your campus and how your interaction with the Leadership Institute, you know, was influential in that time in your life. Sure. So I went to a small little community College called Citrus College. Interestingly enough, it's in Los Angeles, but it's in Glendora. Glendora is one of the only conservative cities in the San Diego River Valley where I went. It's probably, it's incredibly conservative. Yet that school was also a leftist school. I remember getting harassed by a lot of other, my peers who were much leftist, and I started a Young Americans for Liberty Club. I remember the, what is her name? Not her name. The advisor for student government, she even threatened to sue us because we were criticizing the student government by using

their logo and in a satirical manner. And I remember we even sued the school back in 2014 because they were violating our rights. And there was multiple things that happened in between that. I don't say this too much often, but I remember the day I graduated. The president in the school shook my hand and not in the actual graduation, but there was a ceremony for transfer students. And I remember this to this day, and I told people at the time, she told me, like, we're so glad you're leaving. And it took me as a surprise because I was like, wait, what? And then I didn't know what to say at that time. But at that school, a lot of the administration did not like me because I was a conservative.

Even though it's a conservative city, it is a liberal school. And this is what students are facing all across the nation. What did that experience then teach you about freedom of speech on a college campus? I mean, to have the president of the college, I mean, bid farewell to you in such a hostile way. I mean, it seems unusual. But perhaps it's what many conservatives on campus today are experiencing. And you're right. It seems unusual, but unfortunately, it's not.

At multiple other universities, I've seen the exact same thing happen to students. I was just in Hawaii recently, and I was talking to one of other students there. they actually put a petition to ban Turning Point and him personally from the school because they don't like him. And he brought over Charlie Kirk and Canada Zones about last year. Then we have students here in Santa Clara. Last night, there was a Young Americans for Freedom Chapter at Santa Clara University. It's in San Jose. And the student government just decided not to approve the chapter and they gave some bogus reasons, et cetera.

But this is the third time they did this. The previous time, they gave the students for Israel chapter a hard time. And two years ago, Turning Point USA had a hard time getting recognized by the school. Time and time again at multiple universities, we see that liberals do not even want to give a platform to conservatives. So you are now with the Leadership Institute, and one of your roles is to work with a lot of these conservative college students. Tell us about what a typical day in your life is like and some of the things that you're doing to help spread the message of conservatism. Well, you know, day-to-days can be actually kind of scary. I used to not be like this, but sometimes I do have to watch my back on college campuses.

I mean, Hayden Williams, he was punched at Berkeley. And you know the funny thing about that is that that's not the first time he's been punched. As a matter of fact, two weeks before that, or maybe three weeks before that, him and I were both at UCLA, and I got assaulted then. And we didn't get it on video, but then we ended up getting that guy arrested. He's facing charges around for battery. and it's a continual thing. My everyday life or my everyday work on college campus is to meet with students and defend them.

You know something? I really don't like to be assaulted. I don't think anyone does. I don't think anybody does. No, but, you know, if that's what it really takes for me to go into campuses and defend conservative students, and I'll be there.

Well, thank you for having the courage to do that. I cannot even imagine what it is like to face that kind of a threat. particularly in an environment where you would think that they would be open to different ideas. And they're not. And they're really not. But luckily, we've been seeing some successes in a lot of different universities, not just with a Trump's executive order that was prompted by the punch at Berkeley. But even in the smaller scale, I remember helping a chapter at Long Beach City College.

They were having an incredibly hard time finding an advisor. And finally they found one, and I helped them host an event. host a public, what's called, a gun event. Nothing major, like 25 people showed up to the event. But two key people were there, the president of the student body and the editor-in-chief of the student paper. They loved the event. They were leftists, but they loved it.

They saw the interaction. They saw the benefit of this. So the next issue of the student paper, and the front, it was a MAGA hat, the campus paper, and it had conservatives on campus. And there was an editorial signed by the entire news team at the school or the campus paper. And it said conservative voices needed at Long Beach City College. After that, we actually had all of the conservative professors that were afraid to advise that chapter. They called them.

And they're like, I want to be your advisor. Let's do it. And not only that, but right now, last I heard about it, this is a couple months ago. Well, last I heard about it, they were trying to organize debates between liberal and conservative professors. And that's the way college should be. And unfortunate, so many colleges like Berkeley or like Harvard or Yale or Chicago, all these schools that pretend to be a platform for free speech, they're not. Then a small little community college is doing a better job than they are.

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that story. It's refreshing to hear that there are some examples out there of where you're able to have success and an positive impact. You mentioned the president's executive order on free speech. you had an opportunity to be there with the president when he signed that. Tell us both about that experience to be in the room

and also what that executive order really means for those students who are out there today. So it was an incredible experience. I'd never expected to be in the White House. It's actually been one of my dreams to be invited to the White House, so that's pretty amazing. When I was there, I was in awe,

just like so much history about what the White House is in the Office of the Presidency. It's amazing. But what that order really means, it means that right now, thank goodness we have a president that's willing to stand up for conservative values and especially conservatives on campus because we haven't had that in a long time. So it's amazing that we finally do. You know, the Leadership Institute offers so many resources for students.

You have campus reform, which is a great news outlet, which we really appreciate at the Daily Signal. Tell our listeners what they can learn, how they can learn more about what you have to offer or if perhaps they're experiencing their own challenges on campus, how they get involved? Sure. You know something? We're always looking for campus correspondence for campus reform. We are in no shortage of material. We always have to, we have so many things that sometimes we have to pass because we have to prioritize in some stories. So if you want to get involved, campusreform.org is if you could just go ahead and apply it to be a correspondent. And you actually get paid per story that you write. So it's a good incentive for students. But,

And if maybe you don't want to write, but you still want to talk about it, you can send in tips so we can report on these stories. And also for the Leadership Institute, we just have a lot of field programs. You can just contact me over a national field program, and we'll go to your campus and help you fight back. Well, we appreciate the work that you and Morton Blackwell and everybody at the team is doing there. We enjoy working closely with you and particularly telling some of those stories

on the Daily Signal as well when we're able. So Gabriel, thanks so much for joining us at the Daily Signal. Thank you. I really much appreciate it. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Actress and activist Alyssa Milano isn't happy about Georgia's new law banning abortions after the heartbeat of the unborn baby has been detected. Milano tweeted. Our reproductive rights are being erased.

Until women have legal control over our own bodies, we just cannot risk pregnancy. Join me by not having sex until we get bodily autonomy back. I'm calling for a sex strike. Pass it on. Joining us to discuss is Daily Signal reporter Rachel Del Judas. Rachel, I mean, I guess there's no non-wird way to ask this. What do you think about Milano's sex strike? I have like two major bones to pick with this looking at the tweet just at face value.

And the first point is that women already have control over their own bodies. And I'd like to point out this Georgia law, like while this part of it is still hotly contested in a lot of different states, people across the country, it does have the exception for rape, incest or for the life of the mother. So this law is not saying that women in Georgia can't have an abortion if they're raped or if they have incest in their family and they get pregnant. or if their lives is at stake. My issue is that women already have autonomy over their body and by saying, oh, we have to, you know, relegate ourselves to not having sex because we don't have bodily autonomy

is basically, I think, just playing into an extremely sexist argument that, oh, we have to, you know, withhold something or not live our lives, how we want to live our lives because we don't have bodily autonomy. So I think, to me, it's incredibly sexist. Well, I think I agree partly, but I have a slightly different take as well. it's interesting to me

that the left is kind of coming full circle here like they're now in favor of abstinence That's what Abby Johnson was saying Right actually so we should call this Absence Education or Sex Strike Education in schools And then we'll be teaching abstinence everywhere I just think it's actually If it'll actually click

If Alyssa Milano will realize Oh this actually is the solution To abortion not like This is the solution that we need Like abortion isn't the solution But abstinence outside of of like a loving, committed marriage relationship.

It's always a better choice. Oh, for sure. I just think her saying, oh, we have to withhold sex or not engage in sex because we don't have bodily autonomy is absolutely ridiculous because by saying that she's asserting her own bodily autonomy. So I don't know. That's ridiculous to me. And then the other point was, and I know folks like Milano don't see the humanity of the

unborn child, but it's like, look at the, you know, so the Georgia heartbeat bill, it prohibits abortion after six weeks or when a heartbeat is detected. And, you know, there's this heartbeat. The person doing the sonogram can hear it. The doctor can hear it. The mom can hear it. What about the bodily autonomy of the baby whose heart is beating? And I just think it's incredibly sad that people like Milano don't recognize that because not only does the mom have her own bodily autonomy, but she, the child that she's carrying also has bodily autonomy.

And I think that should be recognized and should be part of the conversation. But I want to know Kate's take on this. I mean, I support Alyssa 100%. No, I mean, I support her. but for different reasons. I mean, I think it's very interesting. I mean, I don't even really know to get my head around this one.

I mean, I think, you know, a friend of mine, Bethany Mandel, who's a great writer who's been published at a lot of outlets, she was tweeting, and I just really loved her tweets on this. She brought up, I mean, one, if you're having sex with someone and you don't think you would be there for you,

if you have an unplanned pregnancy, why are you sleeping with this guy? Exactly. She also wrote up, this is basically admitting, that abortion is a backup to birth control failing. I know conservatives get made fun of a lot for saying abstinence is the only 100% sure way to not have a baby, but actually every form of birth control can fail.

So there are children who are conceived because of that. But I think also it's just interesting, you know, you always hear, and I assume Milano shares this viewpoint, but you always hear from the left. Like they think that pro-life stuff is about conservative men wanting to control women's bodies. And I just have so much trouble understanding where they get that from and what they think that's about because, yeah, it's just, I don't know. And then even now, it's like, we'll hold the men accountable. And it's like, yeah, where's your agency, Alyssa? What are you doing?

I don't know. It just strikes me as very weird. It's like she's become puritanical. It's just great. I think it's hilarious. Yeah. And I thought one other thing that was interesting was Lila Rose, who of course runs live action and we've had her on the show, a great pro-lifer. She tweeted about this as well that like, you know, this idea of reproductive responsibility, that, you know, if you are going to have sex, there is responsibilities there.

Like, there is no surefire way to not have a child through sex. And I think that is a mindset that's completely lost in this liberal Milano perspective where it's just like sex, there's no cost to sex no matter what. And that's just frankly not biologically true. Yeah, it's like, it's unfortunate that she sees it. only as like a weapon, like withholding sex as a weapon to use for political purposes, whereas it's actually serving a real practical function right now. Yeah. And actually the other point that Bethany Mandel made was like, wait, you're a feminist

and you're saying that women don't enjoy sex, that it's only guys who do and that's why you're withholding it, which I thought was interesting. Yeah, it just plays in again, like you mentioned to a very sexist argument. Yeah. Well, a bad day for feminism and Alyssa Milano. Well, Rachel, thanks so much for. being back on. Thanks for having me. And we're going to leave it there for today. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis, sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.