The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3663 - The Movement to Kill FEMA; Bolivia Uprising w/ Micah Loewinger, Joseph Bouchard

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

It's Wednesday and it's The Majority Report On today's program: Graham Platner wins the Democratic nomination in a landslide. In his acceptance, Platner says if you give him a chance, he will be a "senator for those who cannot afford to buy one". Micah Loewinger, co-host of WNYC's On the Media, joins to discuss his four-part podcast series on the decades long movement to kill FEMA. Joseph Bouchard, journalist and contributor to Drop Site News, joins from La Paz, Bolivia to discuss the nationwide blockades and protests in the wake of the election of Rodrigo Paz. For more from Bouchard check out his website. In the Fun Half: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson says that the Republicans are looking to cut social security next year. Rep. Rob Whitman poorly fakes a phone call to avoid questions about Johnson's comments about social security. Fox Business tries to frame the horrible inflation data as "better-than-expected". Meanwhile, Trump says he loves the inflation. Harry Enten presents polling that shows his approval ratings with independents have dropped below Nixon during the peak of Watergate. Scott Pelley unloads on Bari Weiss after his firing from 60 Minutes. All that and more. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: COZY EARTH: Go to cozyearth.com/MAJORITYREPORT for an exclusive 20% off. LEESA: Go to Leesa.com for the Early Access July 4th Sale 25% off PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.  

The majority report with Sam Cedar. The destiny of America is always safer in the hands of the people than in the conference rooms of any elite. Sam Cedar. They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The majority report with Sam Cedar. Cedar. It is Wednesday.

June 10th, 2026. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America,

downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Michael Lohinger, co-host of WNWC's On the Media on their new series American Emergency, the Movement to Kill FEMA. Then we'll be talking to Joseph Bouchard, social scientist, journalist covering Latin America contributor to DropSight, currently reporting from La Paz on Bolivia's nationwide blockades and protests. also on the program today.

Graham Platner wins the Maine Senate primary big time as Dem turnout explodes in Maine. California results finally in. Steve Hilton beats Steyer for the second spot in California's governor race. Yet to be seen if the Republicans will. accept this outcome because of all the fraud. In California 7th, My Vang will advance into the general election

facing a 20-year incumbent, both Democrats. Other highlights, Nancy Mace loses in her bid for South Carolina governor, although that could have been fun. There's a liquor store in D.C. that's going to go out of business. Brian. Inflation pops off. in May hits a three-year high of 4.2 percent.

Social Security trustee report. New report releases, released projects that the trust fund will be exhausted a year earlier now in 2032 is a functions of Trump's case-shaped economy and attack on immigrants. Judge strikes down the $100,000 fee for H-1B. visas. Iran expands strikes in response to U.S. strikes as our non-war rages on. New poll, only one in ten Europeans now see the United States as an ally. Meanwhile, in this country, 63 percent disapprove of Trump on the economy, setting a new record. The assault on the administrative state continues on. EPA scientists are being pressured to downplay risks

of household products. House passes another $70 billion for ICE yesterday. And ICE, a new report shows that ICE has detained over 500 babies and toddlers, finally getting those dangerous under four-year-olds off the street. All this and more on today's majority report. court. Welcome to the program, folks. It is Wednesday, hump day, as it were. Emma Vigland out today. Got a lot to talk about. A lot of folks were saying that if somehow Graham Platner manages to get under 60% of the vote, that is going to be a real tell that there's a serious issue in Maine. I don't know that I would have agreed with that, but that was their own baseline. for how they were going to agitate to drive Graham Platner out of the race in the general election.

That did not happen. As it stands now, and I don't know, was this, that was from last night. This is 13% in. Yeah. With right now, and, you know, we don't have vote complete tallies, but there's about 90% of the votes in. And Graham Platner is at 72%. Janet Mills is at 19%. And David Costello is at 8%.

Graham up by 110,000 votes. And this is relevant because, I mean, the actual raw totals are relevant. Because in 2020, the number of votes who participated in the primary at that time was about 30% less than it was in this race. And may not be, I don't know, Gideon obviously had in 2020 just a ton of money and was very much considered the obvious winner.

But Janet Mills had suspended her campaign. And so there was no any explanation as to why people came out other. than Mainer's going, F you, I'm voting for Graham Platner. FU. F, how would you say that? What do you mean? In Maine? Frig you. Frig you.

So Platterner's got quite a bit of enthusiasm in Maine. Here is his speech. His speech got a lot of plotters from some unlikely sources, frankly. but on the cable news. But here is the part of it. I am a son of rural Maine. I was a kid who picked blueberries under the July sun, and then one day I was a kid who signed up

and left to fight for his country. And when I returned, I carried with me the weight of forever wars and the struggle and the alienation that came with it. But I'm also a lucky one who found his way back, who found a living on the sea, and a home, in a community that offered love and redemption. Redemption is not just some simple or easy destination. It's a journey.

I've made mistakes in my life, mistakes that I regret that I live with, and that I continue to learn from. And I'm still far from perfect. But every day I wake up and I try to be a little bit better and a little bit kinder than I was the day before. And if you give me the chance, I will be a senator for the people who cannot afford to buy a senator. I will stand up for you and against billionaires and greedy corporations. I will serve you, the people of Maine, not some lobbyist or party boss. I will be the champion for your dreams as if it were my own, no matter the challenge or the expense. I will fight for you.

I have been willing to die for my country. There is nothing that I will not do for the state of Maine. Speech got a lot of plot. And of course, there's still, you know, some skepticism around. Platner's candidacy. But this I thought, and he was on MS now this morning with Mika and Joe Scarborough. I think Mika just was alone in this interview with him. And let's play this.

I asked this question by Chris Hayes about the issue of, is there more out there? What else could be out there that might be revealed during the campaign? And you deflected, said among other things, this is between you and your wife. was understandable to a limit because for main voters in a general election, the question is, what is out there? What is not in your possession that you sent to others who may have in their possession? How many concerning pictures and or text messages are in the possession of other people that could be used against you? And I'd like to know if there are pictures concerning pictures. I will just say that the nature of Amy and I's relationship has been blown, I would say, totally out of proportion.

Early in our marriage, we had some struggles, and we worked through them because that's what you do when you're in love with somebody. And it made our marriage much stronger, made us a much happier and communicative couple. I was single for the majority of my adult life. I was in my 20s and 30s and I dated, and you know, that's in the modern age. That's what happens. You date people and you use dating apps and you do all the stuff. And frankly, that all happened long before I got married and happened long before I decided to run for the United States Senate. I can just tell you, there is nothing out there that is going to be,

we'll run counter to any of the stories that I've talked about openly this entire campaign. All right there. I just want to step in here. First off, I love the intensity of Mika's look when she is thinking, well, are there dick picks? I mean, that's what this is about. I mean, let's just be clear. There are people who are concerned that they're, and it sounds to me, just from his answer, like, I did all the stuff.

Yeah. Now, I think Mika and I are a similar age. She may be a little bit younger than me. And I can tell you that, you know, prior to the time that I got married back, you know, and I got married in 2004 or something like that, there was no, like, we couldn't even send pictures on our phones. And it just wasn't a thing. and then after

I got divorced like 20 years later I was like what's going on here but I don't think that people in Mika's generation realize like yeah that's what they do I mean and she knows it because like

I mean here's the irony Maine voters want to know though Sam this is what what Maine voters want that's what the media really is concerned about what the main voters want before Mika and Joe were married guess what? Joe was married to somebody else. I wonder if he said, I'm ending my marriage. Hey, what are you doing Friday night? Give me a break. I mean, this moralizing over this stuff is ridiculous.

And the point is that even, you know, people have pointed many times to when Plattner said, is there anything, you know, is there anything else coming out? And him saying no. And I think, you know, it's quite clear at least from this latest tranche of stuff is that it's all indicative of what he had already said in general terms i was a drunk i was angry i was a bad person in some of my interpersonal relationships um but there there is this pathological desire by uh the establishment. Well, the truth is a lot of them don't like him for different reasons. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. But continue. I can just tell you, there is nothing out there that is going to be,

we'll run counter to any of the stories that I've talked about openly this entire campaign. And I know everyone continues to be like, oh, what else is coming? You know, ironically, Right. The whole, what else is coming has essentially been the same thing the whole time, which is I've been very open about the fact that I struggled, very open about the fact that I had a long list litany of failed relationships for years because I myself was not in a good place. And then every now and again, we will have a media outlet or a politically motivated attack come up and try to drag it all up. but it's all very much within the exact same story that I've told this entire time. Okay, so you say there's nothing out there that could be concerning. And this may seem a little bit rich.

I just want to make this clear. There's nothing out there that's actually concerning. People will make everything seem very concerning because that's what people do in politics. But, you know, I think the thing about all of this is what I find to be kind of most curious, is this is what everyone wants to make the campaign about. So we do not talk about the struggles of working manners. We do not talk about the fact that I know someone of my hometown here who works three jobs in pays over 60% of her income and rent.

I think that matters a lot. more than the details of my relationship before I ran for United States Senate. That's just me. Okay, so then let me ask you that this way. Can you just talk about the nature of the sexting in terms of can you call for the release of the Epstein files? All right. Pause it. Now, you really need to listen to this now, okay?

Because they're trying to, like, trying desperately. like, okay, when you put it that way that we're obsessed with your dating stuff, and let's be clear, three days you could have asked that question. Three days ago, you could ask that question and be like, well, we're going to find out how main voters react to this. And he underperformed his polling by like a point in a half. In other words, not at all. Now, you could argue, but don't you think Republican?

are going to be more concerned that you might have been a misogynist or said a bad word, even though the entire last campaign was about being able to say the R word again, see Paul the page. He paved so horribly. I mean, it's a point of concern three or four days ago because you want to know, like, is this going to damage him in the general election? what has been revealed at this point. But now it's just like, we got nothing else to talk about

because we definitely don't want to talk about the issues that are associated with this. So let's get a really smart producer to find something that is actually like material here as a job as Senator. And this is so ridiculous and good for him. He just swats us away. This way.

Can you just talk about the nature of the sexting in terms of kids? Can you call for the release of the Epstein files? And can you call out those who have abused women and not be conflicted in any way? Yes, of course. I engaged in consensual romantic activities with adults at an earlier part in my life. That seems like a fairly normal thing most people do. Going to an island with billionaires to possibly assault children is a vastly,

vastly different thing. Oh, it is? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Actually, that's, you can hear Joe off screen going, yeah, actually. Hey, let's not, let's not wade too far into this. Because remember on New Year's when we, back in 2016, when we went to Mar-a-Lago and we used to be friends with Donald Trump until we realized that wasn't cutting it with our audience, Let's not get into like cavorting with Epstein and Mara Lai.

Let's just not, let's just move on. So there it is. And now Platner is out there to run in the general election. We don't have results yet from other stuff in Maine because it is ranked choice voting. but it is very, very close for the governor race there, at least in terms of like the Democratic primary. Shaw, Pingree, and Jackson are within four or five points of each other in the first round, I think this is. So it's going to have to go through the ranked choice voting system, which is, I sort of understand it. But I'm not going to try and explain.

But it's going to be interesting to see how Troy Jackson does, because this is the candidate who went around with Platner and with Bernie Sanders. and it would not be dispositive if somebody else picks up these votes in my estimation. But it would, in the event that Troy Jackson leaps ahead in these other rounds, it's going to be indicative of what kind of role that Platner is playing now in Maine politics. I mean, I said this the other day. Platner's strategy is. going to go around and organize. And he's going to campaign in a way that Susan Collins is not going to.

They're going to dump $50 million into that state the Republicans are, but they're not going to be paying volunteer coordinators because there's not going to be any volunteers. They're going to be saturating the airwaves with hopefully Platner Dick Picks from their perspective. But meanwhile, Platter is going to go around and meet almost every single person in Maine over the course of the next five months. And they're going to be able to say, like, what am I going to believe? Susan Collins, you know, advertisers or not.

And in the event that he does win, and he wins in this way, this is what is fundamentally different. We're seeing, we saw it with Mum Donnie, and we could have a chance to see it with Platner. He's got, what, 15,000 volunteers in a state like Maine. there's only 30,000 people, 220,000 people voting in the primary. I mean, you've got one out of

10 people in the electorate working for you for free. All they're going to do is go home and tell a couple of their friends. But they're building an organization. And that's going to have implications when Angus King's seat comes up, when the next governor gets elected,

next round in Congress, Congress, this is how you change a state from being purple to blue. So shout out Maine voters for having their eye on the ball. Running a little behind, got a little bit excited into that. In a minute, we're going to be talking to Michael Lohinger about his new series on the media, the American Emergency, the Movement to Kill of FEMA. And then we'll be talking to Joseph Bouchard about what's going on in Bolivia. First couple of words from our sponsors, you can get grooming products.

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I want to welcome to the program, Michael Lohinger. He is the co-host of WNYCs on the media. and you guys have a new series, American Emergency, the Movement to Kill FEMA. We have been talking a lot on this program about the assault on the administrative state across the board. And FEMA was one of the ones that they first decided to target in this administration. Before we get there, talk to us just a little bit about the history of FEMA because there is, you know, Like some of the conspiracy theories, I don't know if people remember like Jade Helm and all of that stuff, but you guys cover where that, what the genesis of that stuff was. Yeah, that's right.

I mean, FEMA was created in the late 70s with this dual mandate of responding to natural disasters and civil defense. And FEMA really comes out of this Cold War infrastructure at a time, you know, from the 50s onward where the American government was pouring money into preparing the country for a nuclear attack. And so before FEMA and then when FEMA's created, there's this, there's all of these secret plans that the government is quietly creating. Like, so for instance, a lot of distrust and early conspiracy theories about FEMA are rooted in Mount Weather. Have you, have you heard of this place, Mount Weather? Is this as opposed to Mount Chasta?

It's this secret bunker in northern Virginia that was built in the 50s and it's being renovated right now. It's operated by FEMA. But this is the place where the White House and thousands of federal workers would live and operate the country underground in the case of a nuclear attack or some big disaster. So this was kept secret from the public. And this is just one thing that FEMA did. Another is it started gaming out like doomsday scenarios. What would we do if two-thirds of Americans were killed in a nuclear attack?

How would we, like, put the country back on the right tracks? How would we make sure that leadership is there? And so under the Reagan administration, FEMA is put in charge of this secret program to potentially declare martial law. And so this history, which is real, I mean, there were martial law plans, you know, at FEMA, thankfully have never been instituted. But the fact that the government was actually doing these schemes led to some of the conspiracy theories

that are still with us today, namely the FEMA camps conspiracy theory. This is like an Alex Jones classic. We have FEMA is going to be in charge of the political prisons and they're in your local Walmart and they're going to round up the political dissidents, the right-wing militias, and then the federal government can do whatever it wants.

And FEMA's behind this. So that conspiracy theory, theory again is not real there there are no FEMA camps but it's rooted in some of this cold war secrecy that has been kind of a really big problem problem for FEMA ever since just staying on that on that that that theme um I mean obviously like it seems I you know and it's it's easier to understand like why these two things were uh sort of conjoined during the Cold War I mean I'm old enough to remember like we still were very conscious of like where bomb shelters were and uh you know I think my dad had a civil defense hat type of thing or something to that effect.

The conspiracy theories, I mean, they, they, they, they, they, you know, it's not just Alex Jones or I mean, this stuff sort of like mutates into sort of almost the same sort of pizza gate stuff and sort of fits in a lot with the judge. John Birch Society's notion of like why you don't want a powerful federal government. And then here we are today where it turns out the government does have these massive detention camps. And they have, there are lists right now of left-wing, you know, influencers on the White House as being problematic. I mean, on some level, like the conspiracy theories work both ways, right? They gin up an anti-government hostility, but then they also sort of seem to like provide a blueprint where what is being done is not as shocking as it could be.

No, and I want to be clear that like fears of civil liberties being stripped back or fears of a tyrannical government or an authoritarian government, you know, they are not unique to one party or one political. ideology in the United States. During the Cold War, we know that the FBI kept lists of political dissidents that it might want to round up in the case of a nuclear war. This is what we did to Japanese Americans during World War II. There's legitimate history to point to. And yes, it is true that today there is a sprawling migrant detention system as part of MAGA's mass deportation program. And I'm wary of using the term irony because I don't want to trivialize what people go through when they're sucked into this system. But just to point out the contradiction here, FEMA last year announced a program where they would give states hundreds of millions of dollars

to build their own migrant detention centers. To my knowledge, the only state that's really been able to squeeze money out of the federal government for this program is Florida. And just in the past couple of weeks, Alligator Alcatraz was reimbursed some of its construction and operating costs by FEMA. And so it is kind of confounding and disturbing that we now have alligator Alcatraz being the closest thing to a legitimate FEMA camp. It reminds me of that quote about conservatism. I'm going to paraphrase it. I don't know it by heart, which is that conservatism relies on one principle, which is that there are in groups for whom the law protects but does not bind, and there are outgroups for whom the law binds but does not protect.

It's confusing. It's upsetting to see perhaps legitimate concerns about a tyrannical government weaponized by MAGA on the campaign trail, exploit these fears and concerns exploited when government fails us, only to have this same political movement in power flip the script, you know, and use conspiracy theories to ruin public programs that. help people while also using them to justify further consolidations of power. All right. So let's go just briefly, historically, from Reagan to Clinton.

Clinton's FEMA, like that, and I wasn't necessarily the biggest fan of Clinton at the time, but Clinton's FEMA was good. I mean, was really good, and largely because he had come from Arkansas, and as governor, the sort of the state version of FEMA was obviously really important, particularly because of tornadoes and whatnot. That's right. Yeah. When Clinton came into office, he brought with him his state emergency manager, a man

named James Lee Witt. He's a fascinating character. He didn't go to college. He was like, he really came into politics by way of running a construction company and being a county judge. But as Arkansas's director of emergency management, he really, really demonstrated that he had a knack for helping the state prepare for and respond to natural disasters. When Clinton comes to the White House and James Lee Witt comes to run FEMA,

he ends up turning FEMA around from like this weird agency that was obsessed with nukes and kind of doing too little to help Americans prepare for and respond to natural disasters to like a government success story. And they, over the course of four years, demonstrate that, that we can prepare states for hurricanes and wildfires and earthquakes. There was one poll in the late 90s that FEMA was not just a popular agency, but one of the most popular agencies to work for. And so when George W. Bush comes into office, especially after 9-11, unfortunately, all of those kind of gains, all that progress is kind of washed away

when the Department of Homeland Security is created. and FEMA's kind of hoovered into this massive new bureaucracy. And instead of prioritizing natural disasters, the MO at FEMA really becomes, we have to prepare every city and state for a terrorist attack. And that's really what sets up the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. And one of the things that I think they moved to do was also a huge privatization push

like diminish the capacity of FEMA to a function and rather just sort of like privatize a lot of its functions. So all the FEMA ends up being is sort of like pushing around different contracts that are end up being subcontracted. I mean, I specifically remember having covered the Katrina when it happened. The big story about the buses not showing up for people in New Orleans was because you had a subcontractor who didn't want to have to prep the buses because if they're not going to be used, they lose their money. And George Bush puts in his college roommate. Was it Mike Brown?

Was it a good job Brownie. So, okay. But just in terms of like, and I want to pop up to where we are in present day in terms of FEMA, but why not? And one of the things the Trump administration has basically said states can take care of it. Will you explain to people like why, how insane that is? It's insane for a lot of reasons.

A big one is that states already do kind of take care of it. If you talk to people at FEMA, they'll say, we're not leading the charge when it comes to responding to natural disasters. It's local and state emergency managers, local and state emergency responders who are the ones on the ground doing a lot of the work afterward. FEMA is really responsible for helping move money to states and counties really, really fast when they need it. They're helping step in when those systems break down. And we want a federal system that can bring in the might of the entire federal government

when people are recovering from a devastating flood or wildfire. That's a good thing. So this idea of returning the responsibility to the states is just kind of misleading people on like what our government is doing and has been doing for decades. What I think they mean when they say we're going to return responsibilities to the states is they just want the federal government to spend less money. They want to give less money to states. And state budgets just cannot handle responding to a massive disaster like Hurricane Katrina. The math just won't work. So the idea that FEMA can be chipped away at or destroyed altogether, which is what Trump talked about on just like his third day in office last year, is harmful and misleading.

But the thing is, I don't even think that Republican members of Congress want this. It might be a goal of some right-wing think tanks or anti-government groups, but there is not a strong constituency for getting. rid of FEMA altogether. That doesn't mean that Christyneum and Corey Lewandowski did not try their darned us to make it happen. But the fact is most people want FEMA. The question is, what is FEMA going to look like in the future? FEMA basically acts as an insurance company. Like the federal government is providing essentially insurance because these states cannot, it's not like they're going to put aside billions of dollars because maybe in three or four, five years, there's going to be a massive hurricane or there's going to be an earthquake or there's

going to be a massive fire or whatever it is. Why do you think, why do they go after FEMA as opposed to like, why was that number one, A, and B, then let's talk about what's going to be left of this. I think honestly, a lot of the Trump, well, the big thing is that FEMA is really, really expensive. And so if your whole MO is just reducing the federal budget and firing, you know, thousands of government employees, FEMA is one prime target. A big part of the reason that MAGA hates FEMA so much can really be dated back to Hurricane Helene. You know, this was the storm that brought historic flooding to western North Carolina. And the sources that I spoke to, even critics of FEMA, people who worked at the agency, said that, you know, did a pretty good job, all things considered. I know that when power is out and the roads are

covered in debris and there's flooding everywhere, it's hard to say, well, you know, the government agency in charge of helping provide relief is doing a good job. But the fact is, after Hurricane Katrina, FEMA got, like, competent and well-trained and much more proactive. And that wasn't always super clear to the public. But while Kamala Harris and Don Donald Trump were duking it out on the campaign trail just a month before the election and Hurricane Haleen hits, Trump starts to spread all these wild conspiracy theories about FEMA. He claims that the agency doesn't have money to give to survivors because it spent it all on migrant housing. That was the story that he told over and over and over. All of this is just meant to make the Biden administration look bad, of course.

but this was the narrative that got picked up by right-wing media. He said that FEMA didn't want to help Trump supporters in North Carolina because FEMA didn't want his supporters to be able to vote for him and that they wanted migrants. They're giving all this money to migrants because they wanted migrants to vote for his opponent. So this was the kind of conspiracy theory that was spreading a lot during Helene, and it led to a lot of fear, both people being a friend. raid of FEMA? Is it building FEMA camps? Is it really helping us? Does it have some ulterior motive?

And then at FEMA, it led to all this fear because they're getting harassed now by like people online. They're getting death threats. High-ranking officials at the agency are being, you know, swatted. So this was an incredibly chaotic time in the middle of a very toxic election. And unfortunately, it led to one employee at FEMA, a woman named Marnie Washington, telling her staff on the ground that they could avoid Trump supporters' homes in Florida if they wanted to avoid future harassment. And there's no evidence this was a widespread practice at FEMA, but this became evidence for Donald Trump and for the right-wing media that, look, FEMA actually is biased against Trump supporters. And it's this narrative that they bring to the White House last year that they used

to justify dismantling it. And we should say, during Clinton's time, there was also sort of like threats to FEMA people. I mean, this, this is indicative of, you know, this is indicative of like right wing sort of like militia activity and, you know, Pizza Gate during Obama. And I mean, all of this, this is par for the course. And it's really just sort of like, almost like they're taking, you know, a roulette wheel. And whatever number it stops on, that's where we're. we're going to do the conspiracy theory around. Yes, the Clinton example is honestly one of the wildest things that I uncovered in reporting

our series, American Emergency. I learned from a longtime FEMA employee named Tim Manning that his mentor in the 90s, a guy named Mike Walker, number two leader at FEMA, had been commuting from his home in West Virginia to the FEMA headquarters in D.C. And he and his wife had hired a handyman to help out around their house. And a few weeks into having this guy show up and do a pretty good job, Mike Walker gets a call from the FBI and they say, do you know who that handyman is?

And he says, yeah. And they're like, no, you don't. He's actually a militia leader who's been undercover in your home snooping around and keeping an eye on you. If that doesn't illustrate the kind of the drumbeat of how, this paranoia, these negative and largely unfounded stories of FEMA lead to like real world harassment of government workers. I don't know what does. But as I was speaking to FEMA employees from just about every decade of the agency, I heard about different threats that show how these conspiracy

theories make the work of running this agency in D.C. and on the ground really, really difficult. And that hurts us because we rely on FEMA to help rebuild our schools and our parks and our bridges and our roads. It's just too important to have the government workers at this agency afraid to do the necessary work that we need them to do. So what is the shape of FEMA now and what's it going to take to rebuild it? I mean, I know enough to ask the second question based upon what we've seen with every assault on government in this administration. The shape of FEMA now is an agency where upwards of 20 percent have retired, been fired, or elected to, you know, leave for the private sector. Many of the high-ranking officials at FEMA who had spent decades responding to hundreds of natural disasters left, beginning last year when Christy Noam and Corey Lewandowski set out to abolish FEMA or at the very least make it a largely dysfunctional agency.

They attempted to slash preparedness programs and the agency has been largely leaderless. There has not been a permanent Senate confirmed administrator at FEMA this entire Second Trump administration. At the same time, there are people running the agency who are pretty unqualified. One of them is named Greg Phillips. He was a conspiracy theorist who had been spreading false claims about election fraud. And now he is the director of the Response and Recovery Department at FEMA. He's like a number three, number four official at the agency. He has no business in that role.

But that just kind of speaks to the brain drain at this, at the, agency right now. And all of this, all of this dysfunction has led to deep, low morale at FEMA. People have been extremely depressed to work there. And so we're headed into this disaster season, hurricane season in the Atlantic, and risk of increased wildfires and flooding on the West Coast with FEMA not in fighting form. Yeah, the super El Nino. in long term like how i mean i imagine on some level because fema is there are 50 you know emergency

management uh agencies in the states that it's not inconceivable that you could rebuild an agency like that quicker than most because there are still sort of like minor league versions of this or really, you know, that's not even fair, I think, just sort of like smaller in scope versions, but they're still dealing with all the same issues. So it might be easier to sort of repair this agency than say like, I don't know, the, you know, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau where you don't necessarily have an agency that has the authorities and is dealing with the same things.

So when you lose the institutional memory of a FEMA might be somewhat easier to reconstitute than other agencies. Is that the sense you get from talking to FEMA people? Or are they just like this is like incalculable? That's not the sense I get. The sense I get is that it could take up to a decade to rebuild what has been destroyed at FEMA just over the last. year. They need to fill a large number of vacant positions. But at the state level, even these state and local emergency management offices rely so much on federal grants. I spoke to the guy running the Vermont State Emergency Management Department. And he doesn't have that many

people working in his state. Vermont does not have a huge tax base. So they can't just raise a bunch of money really easily, he squeeze it out of the budget and just transition to a new paradigm where states are picking up more of the bill and the federal government less. It's just not that easy. Add to the problem the fact that the president of the United States has a lot of discretion about which states get disaster relief funding. So a state like Vermont, for instance, applied for a major disaster declaration last summer for some big floods that hit Vermont in July, and their request was denied. And Donald Trump

has said on Truth Social that he has effectively rewarded red states and penalized blue states when it comes to disaster declarations. So, you know, even if they rebuild FEMA over the next year or two, if we still have a president who is refusing to send disaster relief money to the states when they need it for political reasons, we're still in really rough shape. Michael Loinger, the series is American Emergency, the movement to kill FEMA. So important, this is such important work because so much of these stories about the agencies getting undermined are going under the radar in a way that, like, you know, this would be a story that would get a lot of attention three or four years ago.

How do you keep up with all of it? But exactly. That's why this is so important. It's a four-part series. I can't recommend it enough. Thanks so much for coming on and talking to us about it. And again, thanks so much for doing it. Really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, Sam. All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to be talking to Joseph Bouchard, journalist and social scientists covering Latin America contributed to drop site who is currently reporting from La Paz in Bolivia on their nationwide blockades and protests. We'll be right back after this. We are back, Sam Cedar on the majority report. Emma Viglin out today.

I want to welcome to the program, Joseph Bouchard, social scientist, journalist covering Latin America, contributed to drop site and is in La Paz, as we see. speak. And Bolivia continues to have turmoil. Now, I got to say up front, I'm not terribly familiar with Bolivian politics. And I was telling Brian earlier that my Butch Cassie and the Sundance kid is sort of like when I think of Bolivia. But just take us back to sort of like where we are in the past two decades of Bolivian history, Evo Morales was the president for 15 years. And in many respects, we are in the wake of his presidency and the internal fight in the

movement to socialism party, towards socialism party, and then sort of like the backlash from that, and now we're almost getting the backlash to the backlash. That's right. I'm glad you bring this back because a lot of people don't see this connection where basically you had sort of decades

bidding back to independence, really, of sort of military rule, neoliberal rule, pro-US rule, until you had breaking points in the 1952 revolution that then led to a lot of U.S. interventionism, other neoliberal and military governments, until finally you had in the 90s sort of unions taking over Bolivian politics and finally being able to elect their first, truly leftist government with Evo Morelis in 2005. And he was actually the longest serving president for 14 or 15 years until 2019, until he was deposed.

in a coup by the U.S. and the Trump administration and the Organization of American States. And really, you see sort of ripple effects of this today, where you had a pro-U.S., very militaristic, neoliberal government, 2019, 2020, and then you had a return to mass the movement towards socialism party rule for about five years until the president resigned, and then there were new elections, and due to a lot of sort of crisis. and the problems and infighting within the left between the 2021 to 2025 President Luis Sarce, who was actually his Minister of Finance, and Evo Morales, who has basically been banished from Bolivian politics, or at least formal Bolivian politics since then, and they elected

a sort of supposedly centrist government of Rodrigo Paz, who's the current president, who ran on a motto of capitalism for all, and promised thing to keep a lot of the social programs that were championed by the mass government, by Evo, and by following Luis Arse government. And some austerity because of financial problems, but mostly trying to keep this sort of welfare state mostly. But what you've seen is instead the president did a 180 and allied himself with bright-rate parties, with the U.S., with Israel, cut off relations with sort of left-front governments,

with Iran, with sort of any kind of opposition forces and really went all in into sort of neoliberal government governance, really quickly started cutting social programs. His really coup grots was really when he tried to privatize and reclassify indigenous lands and then to try to sell them to mining companies, energy companies, U.S. companies, and trying to relitigate energy issues to favor U.S. companies. That's really when you started to see protests start. The easiest way for me to understand essentially Central and Latin America from the perspective of America's role is to start with what natural resources did Bolivia have in under its ground and or. above its ground that they don't realize is actually ours in the United States.

And they just happen to be sitting out. Like what, what is, what are we talking about here when we have this type of American interference in Bolivian politics? It's undoubtedly like our government or really more specifically our corporate interests want that stuff. What's the stuff in this instance? Yeah, well, there's really four main resources, and I think going back to natural resource politics, geopolitics is always a good way to understand what does the U.S. actually care about. It might make a big fuss about democracy and liberty, but this is really what it's about.

So first you had the water war in Cochabamba, where U.S. companies, I believe Bechtel, Bechtel, tried to privatize Bolivia's water resources, leading to mass clashes between, leftists, indigenous protesters, land defenders, and the government, and far-right groups. And then you had, when Evo Perds got elected, you had the gas war where Santa Cruz, the sort of white majority conservative Christian, some might say, MAGA heartland of Bolivia tried to separate from the country over nationalization of natural gas and oil. and then you have lithium, which has been an issue for the last two decades mostly. Bolivia actually has the largest found proven reserves of lithium, about 20% of the world supply, and they nationalized lithium, I believe, in 2008. And American companies lost the bidding process to try to sort of transform, exploit the lithium. And then the cocoa leaf, it's not really natural resources, but a natural resource,

but I would say it's a central part of this conflict, where basically since the Nixon administration, you've had U.S. governments intervene directly in Bolivia and South America to try to eradicate the coca leaf drug production and using that as an excuse to go against leftists, coca leaders, coca growers. And by the way, Avonarales actually got his political career started as a Coquolero union leader.

So I would say those are the main floor, but, you know, it goes beyond this. There's obviously a long history of U.S. interventionism in the region, going back really to the independence era. And so in present day, we are now at the sort of the stage where Bolivians have realized that Paz has more or less lied to them, has attempted to sort of of 180 the government functions serving corporate interests, cutting all of these programs, instituting austerity programs.

The response to the protests have been what? And how much is the United States sort of like aided in that project? Well, you can kind of try to guess, but it's mostly been repression. So the government has talked about dialogue. You know, they said the word dialogue more than any other word in the Spanish language probably every day, and they organize these events, but really indigenous groups, ROTES groups are not present at these dialogue sessions. There's a social economic council where the left is just not represented. And so they've used this as a cover to really repress the groups.

They've gone after leaders of the groups. They've arrested or issued arrest warrants against multiple leaders. They've jailed the former president, Uisarse. There's an arrest warrant against Evo Morales. They've also used very repressive tactics at protests using, you know, the whole gambit to tear gas, rubber bullets, even some reports of lethal ammunition. They've sent the military on a couple occasions so far to forcefully unblock the country and critical points.

And they've also been talking about implementing a state of exception, which is a way to say, euphemistic way to say martial law, where most constitutional rights, including rights to assembly, to protest, to voice your opinion freely on the internet or in person, are completely prohibited. You had this last time during the pro-US coup in 2019, 2020. And they've already passed a law re-regulating that previous law that was passed after the Aya's government, the pro-U.S. government that conducted massacres of leftist protesters of indigenous politicians and social leaders and activists to try to limit the powers of the

military and the police in this kind of contingency, and they've removed basically all safeguards. The law was passed yesterday, and we're just waiting to see if the president declares the state of exception. He's already declared a state of emergency, for 90 days, then he's used the military in this capacity, but the state of exception would take it even further. So what is, is Moss still the sort of like the biggest opposition party? And what, what, what is their response been? Like, or is it now more sort of like organizing on the ground? because this is the

you know, this is how a you know, I mean, I don't know in the modern day if you can sustain it for 20 years but this is how like in the past you know, the 20 year coup, you know, military style junta government or

dictatorship, this is how it begins. Yeah. Unfortunately, even though the government likes to claim that the mass is behind all the protests, the left, right now in Bolivia, is basically dead. The only power they have is through this kind of protest where the mass through 20 years of governing,

15 years of governing experience and five years in opposition has really, sorry, basically 20 years in total of governance and sometime in opposition has been able to use its connections to social leaders, to protest groups, indigenous groups, to unions to mobilize, and that's basically the only weapon it has. It only has about 10 deputies in the Chamber of Deputies, less than 10%. The overwhelming majority of formal political representation is with the right.

They have zero, the left has no representation in the Senate. And even though the government likes to say that Evo Morales, who they claim is a narco-terrorist, and we can get into how the U.S. has responded to this, they've also said the same thing. They tried to say, well, because the mass. is a narco-terrorist organization by proxy, all protests are legitimate, and they are narcos and terrorists and thugs and whatever work they want to use for them. The reality is the left right now in Bolivia is completely gutted. The only avenue they have is this kind of protests and unions and social movements, but really there's no unified block. So

in the coalition of the protests, you have teachers, minors, transport drivers, you really have all kinds of social sectors that go from even anti-mass blocks, most of them don't like Evo, to be quite honest, to even they call them the red ponchos, who are sort of a radical, more radical, usually willing to use violence and blockades group that are directly tied to the Tupac Amaru revolutionary group from the 60s and 70s that they have some sort of ties to Evo.

So there's really a wide range. But this is, to put it frankly, the only way they have to resist this. What is your sense of what happens next? Is it just this like march towards a dictatorship and to the extent that we get to that point, are there elements outside of, you know, the sort of like shattered left that may push back on this? Or is it just getting a buy-in from the elite and everybody's going to

make their money through lithium sales? Yeah. So the government is trying to do three things at the same time. they're trying to sort of tamper off protest one group at a time. They've signed deals with leaders and groups. Sometimes they will sign a deal with, say, a leader, and then the group they're supposed to represent, we'll say, no, we don't abide by this. We'll continue protesting. But they've tried to sort of minimize the power of the protest groups,

the coalition. The second thing will be the state of exception. It's basically expected to be, to kick in any minute now, any day. The right really wants this. The elites really want this. So Marcelo Claudé, who's the richest man in Bolivia, he's tweeted every single day calling for it.

The sort of leader of the far right to Tokyroga, who was president under the former Hugo Van Zer dictatorship, pro-U.S. dictatorship became, was his vice president, that became president. He's also called First State of Exception. And so you have this pressure mounting on PAS, and people in his own cabinet are also dissenting to say, do it. It's over. Please go after Evo Morales, please suspend all rights and regulations to try to climb down a protest.

And then you have the U.S., which is also pressuring to put in state of exception. There's a good reporting from DropS. talking about this. And then they've also brought back the DEA. that was banned by Evo, I believe in 2014, due to alleged interference in elections. And we can just look around the region right now and see how the US is behaving to understand that the US is not a benevolent sort of interested

in democracy force. They tend to actually meddle in elections, especially, say, in the case of Evo, who legalized coca growing and is interested in fighting a different kind of one. on drugs that does not implicate sort of militarization, the DEA, and these kinds of tactics. And the past government has actually brought back the DEA a couple months ago signed cooperation agreement, and there's reports of an office already being informally run in

Cochabamba near where Evo Morales lives and is supposed to open up an office very soon with the help of the U.S. Embassy. And they actually just appointed a new Council General yesterday, Eric Martini, who has ties to sort of the counterterrorism side of the U.S. State Department was, I believe, an executive director for counterterrorism, was appointed also counsel general in, sorry, counsel in Guayakil, which is the center of the Novoa government, who's a pro-U.S. right-wing autocrat, who's also run through a state of exception, basically suspended all rights to pro-pro-tebrose. and assembly to fight a war on drugs. And so this is the kind of people they are interested in bringing in and the kind of campaign

they want to run. So there's this really three-pronged approach that's meant to destroy the protests, go after their left even more, and use the pretext of the war on drugs to do it. What is making pause hesitant about pulling the trigger on the exception? Like it sounds like, you know, with all these forces that are pressuring him, why wouldn't he? So there's actually forces in his own cabinet, and I would say himself as well, who are a bit reluctant to do it. So his super minister, Lupo, his vice president, who actually won him the presidency. It's just pretty fairly commonly held belief, who are more directly tied to the social movements, who believe more in negotiation and dialogue, not repression.

and they've been openly critical, actually, of use of force at protests, including his own vice president, who's issued a number of letters to that effect, saying this is against human rights law, this is against our obligations to the Inter-American Commission's human rights, let's bring in observers, let's try to negotiate. And I think Pass himself doesn't want to be seen as an authoritarian president. He has this sort of insecure statement where he keeps going back to calling him, himself a moderate and a liberal and a Democrat and he was elected and he's a reformist president. He's actually related to other presidents, including his dad, who were sort of held as the more

leftist presidents in the history of Bolivia, even though they collaborated with the Banzer government, with the far right, with the U.S. But he sort of wants to continue this legacy. And I think he knows that if he declares a state of exception, he will not only lose these very important figures in his cabinet who have basically the only relationship to the ground to social movements in the left, but also completely lose all legitimacy, and it will be the start of the end of this presidency. Well, I guess we will keep an eye on that. And you're reporting in DropSite, Joseph Bouchard, really appreciate your time today.

We'll link to your stuff in DropSight. Thanks very much and stay safe down there. It sounds like things are shifting pretty quick. Thanks so much. Thank you for having and have a great day. You too. All right, folks. That's it for the free show today.

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Good thing for that. Jillian, what's her face, though? We didn't have that debate two weeks later. Oh, she's not sure if around's good or not. The worn around is good or not. Right. Or whether we needed USAID with everything that's going on with the screw worm. Just those two things alone.

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