The Daily Signal - Shelby Talcott Discusses What She's Seen at Portland Protests, CHOP

Episode Date: July 23, 2020

Shelby Talcott, a reporter for The Daily Caller, been covering the protests in the weeks since the death of George Floyd. She most recently has spent time in Portland, which has become extremely violent in the past weeks. She joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss what she has seen and experienced. We also cover these stories: The Department of State announced Wednesday that they have ordered China’s Consulate in Houston, Texas to "cease all operations and events." The U.S. is paying $1.95 billion in exchange for 100 million coronavirus vaccines.  Rep. Ted Yoho, a Republican from Florida, apologized to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on the Floor of the House Wednesday morning.  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 Thursday, July 23rd. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Shelby Talcott is a reporter for the Daily Caller and has spent time in Portland and other areas of the country covering recent riots and protests. She joins me later to discuss. Don't forget. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now, under our top news. The Department of State announced Wednesday that they have ordered China's consulate in Houston, Texas, to cease all operations and events. The order to close the consulate comes amid increased tensions between the U.S. and China around the coronavirus pandemic, China's blatant human rights abuses, and a trade war between the two countries. The specific reasons for the order to vacate the consulate was not immediately clear, but Morgan Or tangus, a spokeswoman, for the State Department, said the order was made, quote, to protect American intellectual property and Americans' private information. On Tuesday night, the Houston police received a call reporting

smoke coming from the consulate. A video captured several fires and trash cans in the consulate's courtyard and what appeared to be employees of the consulate throwing documents into the flames. Senator Marco Rubio applauded the State Department's order on Twitter, writing, Hashtag China's Houston consulate is a massive spy center. Forcing it to close is long overdue. And he added, hashtag China's consulate and hashtag Houston is not a diplomatic facility. It is the central node of the Communist Party's vast network of spies and influence operations in the United States. Now that building must close and the spies have 72 hours to leave or face arrest. this needed to happen.

The U.S. is paying $1.95 billion in exchange for 100 million coronavirus vaccines. BioN. Tech, a German company, and Pfizer, a company in the U.S., made a deal to create the vaccine, and per CNBC, it is the largest such deal between the government and companies racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine. We've been committed to making the impossible possible by working tirelessly to develop and produce in record, time, a safe and effective vaccine to help bring an end to this global health crisis. Dr. Albert Borla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO said an announcement on Pfizer's website. We made the early decision to begin clinical work and large-scale manufacturing at our own risk to ensure that product would be available immediately if our clinical trials prove successful and an emergency use

authorization is granted. We are honored to be part of this effort to provide Americans' access to protection from this deadly virus. Representative Ted Yoho, a Republican from Florida, apologized to Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Democrat of New York, on the floor of the House Wednesday morning. Yoho issued the apology after a tense run-in with Ocasio-Cortez earlier this week, in which Yoho called Ocasio-Cortez disgusting and said she was, quote, out of your freaking mind for saying that New York's crime spike can be attributed to poverty. The representative denied using expletives in his conversation with the Congresswoman in his

apology per C-SPAN. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you this morning to address the strife I injected into the already contentious Congress. I have worked with many members in this chamber over the past four terms, members on both sides of the aisle, and each of you know that I'm a man of my word. So let me take a moment to address this body. I rise to apologize for the abrupt manner of the conversation I had with my colleague from New York. It is true that we didn't disagree on policies and visions for America, but that does not mean we should be disrespectful. Having been married for 45 years with two daughters, I'm very cognizant of my language. The offensive name-calling words attributed to me by the press were never spoken to my colleagues,

and if they were construed that way, I apologize for their misunderstanding. In response to Yoho's words, Ocasio Cortez tweeted Wednesday, Republican responds to calling a colleague disgusting and an expletive with, I can apologize for my passion and blaming others. I will not teach my nieces and young people watching that this an apology and what they should learn to accept. Yoho is refusing responsibility. Fred Girard, Oregon State Senate Minority Leader, said Portland's protest went from peaceful to riotous. Here's what he had to say via Fox News.

Well, first of all, as you know, I support the federal use of troops, and the reason for it is very simple. What started out as a long overdue, peaceful demonstration has morphed into a full-fledged riot. Anarchists have hijacked the movement and have caused widespread property damage and looting. Federal and state buildings are targets, are law enforcement. enforcement officers are treated terribly, and the security of our citizens are at risk. Most Americans want to cancel culture. A new poll commissioned by Politico and conducted by

Morning Consult found that 46% of Americans think cancel culture has gone too far. And about 25% of Americans either said they did not have an opinion on cancel culture or were not sure if it had gone too far or not. Twenty-seven percent approved of cancel culture and think it has positive impacts, but 49 percent said it has somewhat negative or very negative impact on society. Political points out that cancel culture is one of the few matters that both President Trump and President Obama agree on. Last November, Obama condemned cancel culture saying, if all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get that far. Now stay tuned for my interview with the Daily Caller Shelby Talcott on all she's witnessed during reporting at the riots in Portland.

Do you have an interest in public policy? Do you want to hear some of the biggest names in American politics speak? Every day, the Heritage Foundation hosts webinars called Heritage Events Live. Webinar topics range from ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic to the CARES Act and the economy. me. These webinars are free and open to the public. To find the latest webinars and register, visit heritage.org slash events. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Shelby Telcott. She's reporter for the Daily Caller. Shelby, it's great to have you with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Well, you've been on the ground covering the situation in Portland. Can you start off by telling us a little bit about what you've seen so far and what it's been like?

Yeah, so Portland's definitely been pretty crazy. I mean, they're going to, if they continue protesting, it'll be coming up on 60 days in a row now. So typically during the day, they're stationed across the street from the federal courthouse in the small park. And during the day, it's usually pretty normal. And then as the evening wears on, that's when more and more protesters come out. And I think on Sunday, we're actually going back tomorrow, but on Sunday the last day that I was there, we saw a few thousand of them. There were moms, all the moms were wearing yellow. It got pretty crazy. Protesters started tearing down fencing, getting a little bit aggressive, and then federal officers came out and tear gassed everyone. and but the, you know, the protesters are coming back.

And I think that's the difference in Portland than in other areas. When other, when officers typically tear gas, I've found in other places that really disperses the crowd. And in Portland, it is, it is not doing that anymore. Wow. So how much time have you spent in Portland so far? How many days? And how is your perspective on what you've seen law enforcement in their hands? in their handling of these situations.

So we were in Portland just for three days, and we'll be going back for a lot longer. We've also been in New York City. We've been in D.C. and we've been in Seattle. So, you know, we kind of at this point have a pretty good idea of how these protesters act and how the officers respond. So I think from what I've seen, the officers have responded after protesters, have done something that they're not supposed to, right?

So one day, it was very clear there was a loudspeaker announcement going on every 10 minutes from the federal officers saying, do not try to interfere with the fence, do not try to climb the fence, do not try to take the fence down. And protesters sort of started banging on the fences and getting aggressive, and that's when they responded. So I've largely pretty much seen these police officers respond with reason, with cause. Well, on that note, Portland mayor Ted Wheeler said on CNN, people are literally being scooped off the street into unmarked vans, rental cars, apparently. They're being denied probable cause. And they're denied due process.

They don't even know who's pulling them into vans. So since you've been there for a couple of days, I'm just curious, do you see any of the intervention? by the federal government. So I haven't seen any of that, and I know, I believe the Daily colored an article on it, and the DHS denied that. So I haven't seen any of that. Of course, I'm not, you know, in every area at every time, but from what I've seen, I haven't seen that.

What's your perspective of the protesters, and would you call them riders? Did you talk to any of them? And have they talked about what their motivation is? Yeah, I think that there's a clear distinction. I think that they're both protesters and riders. There's definitely people in all of these cities that are protesting, and they're pushing for peaceful protests, and that's something that we've seen time and time again.

But then there are also people who don't care about the peaceful protests, and they almost have another sort of agenda, and those are the people we see that get violent, that start to break things. And so I think it's definitely a, mix of both. I think in Portland, it is a lot, there's a lot more rioters, I would say, people willing to take that extra step from protests to riot and start destroying stuff. We've talked to some of them. We've listened to their conversations. There's arguments that break out consistently between these groups because the protesters want to, you know,

want to remain peaceful. And there are other people like these rioters. who don't agree with that. So it's definitely a mix of both. So there's even dissension among protesters and writers, like among the people who are gathered. There's dissension even in those circles. Oh, for sure, for sure. So I guess what is your perspective on the area where these protests in Portland are taking place? How big of an area is it? And are they occurring during the day or just at night? I know you said it gets more violent at night, but what happens during the day as well? During the day, it's a lot smaller. There's, they've set up tents in the middle of this park, and the park's only about one block.

So it's fairly small. It's essentially the size of the courthouse. It's just across the street. And that's where these protests have been going on in that park and then into the street right in front of the courthouse. And during the day, it's almost always peaceful. There was a few disagreements. I remember one day, midday. two men came to the courthouse to hang American flags and two or three protesters came and were like,

why are you hanging these flags? But it was more of a discussion. It didn't get violent. I never thought it got incredibly tense even. They were just disagreeing, but still having a discussion. But then pretty much as soon as it starts to get dark, they just come out en masse and there's more protesters. It starts getting very tense. And that's when you see the thousands and thousands. thousands and it'll go pretty much all the way up until two, three, four in the morning. What is your perspective overall of law enforcement? I know you said that they've given out warnings and there's been some things you haven't witnessed. But so like overall so far from the little bit you've time spent time you've spent there, what is your, I guess, overall reaction

to what you've seen when it comes to what law enforcement has done? I think they're, you know, they're doing their job, they're protecting this federal courthouse. And it's difficult because these protesters and rioters are getting angrier because of their presence. But if they leave, what's the alternative, right? Like, does the courthouse get destroyed more? What's going to happen? You don't know. So do we remove the officers and then risk that? Or it's hard? And, you know, these officers are not messing around. But they're always. also, I think, just doing what they're told. They're just doing their jobs. And it's a tough situation. I haven't seen situations where the officers act out of nowhere. There's certainly

cases where perhaps they are too aggressive, but it's always prompted by some other sort of aggression. So it's difficult, you know, if you're in that situation and there are 3,000 protesters and there's 100 police officers, how are you going to react, right? So I haven't seen, I've only seen them really doing their jobs and reacting. But I mean, I know, of course, no system's perfect. And there have been situations, you know, George Floyd where police officers and, you know, people in law enforcement have made the wrong call and absolutely done the wrong thing. So no system's perfect.

And that's, of course, not what I'm saying. Well, you mentioned the example of the fence and the direction. law enforcement not to tamper with it and they continue to do so. Have there been any other examples where there's been very clear direction as to, you know, don't do this thing? And that goes, you know, disregarded. Yeah. In some other cities, I think it was New York City.

There were some squabbles with NYPD because typically when law enforcement comes out in a lot of these cities, what we've seen is they form a line and they start chanting move back. So that's a direct order for protesters to back up. And, you know, some of these protesters refuse to back up. And whether or not they're being aggressive, they're still disobeying a direct order from law enforcement, right? So they're not obeying the law. And we saw also in D.C., the first weekend of protests, there was massive looting, things being set on fire. I mean, I walked into a local liquor store that was just completely destroyed.

I mean, it was crazy. Speaking of that, have there been any times when you've been in Portland where you feared for your own safety? Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's scary because we're going in there sort of very low-key as protesters. So it is scary on both ends. we've had messages that we've found on social media on Twitter of protesters or rioters being like, look out for these people. They're not there for the right reasons. And that's because we will film both police violence, but we'll also film, you know, the protesters doing the wrong thing.

And that's not what they want. They made it very clear that they don't want that narrative getting out. So that's kind of scary. We're always watching our back to see if people sort of know who we are. But then also, you know, the police officers and these federal officers don't know who we are. We just look like protesters. So we have to run with these protesters when the police officers come, you know? Well, you've been covering the protests in the weeks since the death of George Floyd, as you mentioned.

And so can you talk a little bit about maybe has the tenor changed at all from the protests as they started right after George Floyd's death too now. Have you noticed any differences? Has there been consistency or looking back to a couple weeks now months ago to right now. Are there any changes you see? I think sort of the message has changed a little bit. I think when the George Floyd protests began, it was all about, you know, Black Lives Matter, police brutality, fix the system.

And it's sort of become a little bit larger. We see, I mean, in Seattle, there were probably several different groups inside that autonomous zone. We had those people who are still aggressively pushing for police reform because of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. But then we had other people who, like, wanted to keep this autonomous zone forever. And we see that in Seattle, too. Like, we actually saw some protesters stand up and say, none of you guys care about Black Lives Matter. matter. Like this has become something completely different. Like you guys are tearing down these courthouses. How is that going to help us? And these are, you know, black people saying this to

these groups of just angry rioters. So I think the message has a little bit definitely been lost. Well, you also covered the Chop Chas zone in Seattle. What kinds of things did you see there, Shelby? That was a really interesting place. We saw it's an open carry state, so totally legal. I'm all four carrying guns if it's done legally, but we saw a lot of weapons, but the weapons were not being handled very properly. We saw one guy who had a desert eagle, which I've been told, I don't know a ton about guns, but it's not a great weapon to use for self-defense because it's so strong. And he had made a makeshift carrier using his belt, so it was sort of just flopping around. And so that in itself, right, is very dangerous.

So we saw a lot of that, people just brandishing their weapons, you know, which led, of course, to multiple people dying from guns or, you know, from shootings. And it was also there. They really did not want you to film. We had to be very careful. It was a lot of infighting because there was no sort of clear message and no clear leader. And I think that's ultimately why it failed as much as it did because it was just sort of a mess of all these different ideas and people battling for, you know, control over the autonomous zone. Well, you also covered protests in D.C. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you or some of your colleagues were there, the night St. Johns was set on fire. So can you talk a little bit about what that was like and what you experienced at the D.C. protests?

Yeah, the D.C. protests were interesting. I mean, that weekend, that was the weekend where things were really pretty crazy. And so there was a fire in the basement of St. John's, I believe. And then across the street, there was a fire set. I think it was like a small utility building. There were, they were burning American flags. And then police officers came and that's, you know, sort of dispersed the crowd. And that's when all the looting started. And, businesses all over were just completely destroyed. And they weren't even always looting businesses where they could steal things. Like I noticed they were looting, they would loot like a small restaurant, which was already closed because of coronavirus. And then they'd take the salt and pepper shakers to try to break into another business. Well, in all that you've seen in the past, you know, weeks and months covering these protests, what has stood out to you or impacted you the most? That's a good question. I think probably one of the things I'll always remember are the very few protesters and people who stand up against these massive crowds.

And it never goes over well. They never end up being listened to. Sometimes it even gets violent. But, you know, we saw in Seattle. We had a black guy come in and hold up an American flag and march through. And we saw in Portland, we saw a guy with an American flag kneeling and begging people not to break into the courthouse and not to, you know, further the damage. And I mean, we've seen it everywhere. These counter protesters and they're always outnumbered.

They always have a pretty good message. And I feel like they're always willing to listen. You know, listen, we get that you guys are upset, but this is not the right way to do things. And I think that's probably one of the big. things because it's just always so interesting to see these, you know, everyday people just doing their jobs, trying to make things better, and they're willing to go into these incredibly dangerous situations and stand up for what they believe in. So Shelby, to end things on a little bit lighter and more personal note, before you entered

the world of journalism, you were a pro tennis player. Can you talk a little bit about what made you want to switch from tennis to journalism? Yeah, I studied journalism college at the University of Iowa, actually. So I always kind of knew that I wanted to do something related to journalism. And then during my four years as a professional tennis player, I sort of got to travel all around the world, which was amazing. And, you know, learn about different cultures and different people. And I sort of wanted to, that solidified my belief that I wanted to eventually do something where I could tell people's stories. and I could, you know, make the news or, you know, be the person who does that.

And so I have had the dream of being a journalist for a long time. And when the time came for me to hang up my rackets, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Well, Shelby, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. We do appreciate having you with us. Thanks for having me. And that will do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify.

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