What A Day - Impeachment Vote And New Findings From The Tulsa Massacre

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

Today House Democrats are expected to formally vote to impeach Donald Trump. He now joins Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton on the Mt. Rushmore of impeached presidents.  Two mass graves have been found in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which are believed to hold the remains of African-American victims of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. We discuss this heinous act of racial violence with a WaPo reporter who’s covered it extensively, DeNeen Brown.  And in headlines: DeRulo’s cat lump, 100 billion Mormon dollars, and the debate gets a date.

It's Wednesday, December 18th. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, the emergency exit row aisle seat of daily news podcasts. This is my verbal yes, I am willing to assist. Thank you for flying with WOD. On today's show, a new discovery in one of America's worst instances of racist violence, and as always, some headlines. But first, another impeachment news blast. Today is the day that House Democrats are expected to formally vote to impeach President Donald Trump. After a number of moderate members said they were on board yesterday, a majority of Democrats have now said they plan to support it before the final dance in the House. Last night, thousands of people across the country came out to show their support for Trump's impeachment. And it's actually not the first time that there's been an impeachment

vote right before Christmas. In fact, in the not too distant past, I have accepted responsibility for what I did wrong in my personal life. And I have invited members of Congress to work with us to find a reasonable, bipartisan and proportionate response. That approach was rejected today by Republicans in the House. Right. So that, of course, was former President Bill Clinton and that he was speaking after the House voted to impeach him on December 19th, 1998, almost exactly 21 years to the day of Trump's anticipated impeachment. Clinton was acquitted in the Senate as they failed to reach a necessary two thirds majority for conviction and removal from office. OK, so we know the House will likely have the votes, you know, in this time as well.

But what do we know about what's going to happen in convict and remove Trump. But even before all that begins, yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's request to subpoena new witnesses for the Senate trial. That included John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor, and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House Chief of Staff. So shocking. I know, right? Who could have predicted this? Schumer said that holding a trial without witnesses, quote, would be an aberration. He's still going to try to push for witnesses and documents through votes in the Senate. And, you know, one of the byproducts of that is anytime that you have Republican senators on record saying that they don't want more transparency or more witnesses. Maybe not a good thing for difficult reelection campaigns. McConnell reiterated again, though,

that he's not going to be impartial here. He said that he is, quote, not an impartial juror and acknowledged that he is coordinating with the White House before this trial even begins. I'm not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There's not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision. Yeah, so part of what he's saying is the truth that this could go down strictly on partisan lines, as it's likely to happen in the House. But Schumer on the Democratic side is at least still trying to uphold this as a legit trial and not give up. He said, quote, I'm withholding any final decision until we hear all the evidence. Yeah, America rules because one party likes to play by the rules and the other likes to pretend that they've never heard of the concept. The White House hasn't really

participated in this so far, but didn't the president have something to say on Tuesday? He certainly did. A little something something. Yeah, just a little bit. President Trump wrote a bananas six page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling the impeachment process an, quote, attempted coup and did what Bart Simpson frequently advises against, have a cow, man. Now, we know that our audience may not have gotten a chance to read the full letter. And, Akilah, you haven't gone through it in a few hours, right? Yeah, and you know how much news has happened. It's too much.

But we're going to quickly see if you know which of the following passages are truthfully from the president's letter and which are from the letter that i with my severely trump affected brain wrote today to tom hooper the director of cats detailing my problems with his affront to god of a movie okay so the first one you really like the idea of cats i love the idea of cats i'm making everybody at WOD see cats, whether they like it or not. If this movie's a hit, it's going to be your fault. I know. I hope that's the case. Okay, here's the first one. Quote, you have developed a full-fledged case of what many in the media call Trump derangement syndrome, and sadly, you will never get over it.

You are unwilling and unable to accept the verdict issued at the ballot box during the great election of 2016. So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn the will of the American people and nullify their votes. You view democracy as your enemy. That's the letter. That's the letter, yep. Number two, quote, in other words, once the phone call was made public,

your whole plot blew up, but that didn't stop you from continuing. More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem witch trials. You and others on your committees have long said impeachment must be bipartisan. It is not. You said it was very divisive. It certainly is, even far more than you ever thought possible.

And it will only get worse. So wait, so I'm supposed to decide if you wrote this to the person who made Cats or if this is in the letter? It's in the letter. Yeah, that's in the letter. All right, all right. The third and final one. The cat who calls herself Bumble Arena is too small.

I've seen lots of cats, many more than my detractors, and their midsections are much thicker. Only the cat called Bustopher Jones, played by the always amazing James Corden, has proportions that are pleasing to the eye. The others are very nasty to watch and are, frankly, more skinny than anybody likes. Less like cats, more like seahorses. Not good, folks. I kind of wish that was in the letter.

I mean, it's five pages, six pages. So like, you know, come on. But I'm pretty sure that's you. That is me. Yeah. And girling over these damn cats again. That is the letter going to Mr. Hooper. Well, well done on that.

Yeah. Very challenging game. Thank you so much. It was. We like to push people here. We'll update you after the House votes today. And that was today's impeachment news blast. News broke on Tuesday that two mass graves were found in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that are believed to hold the remains of African American

victims of the 1921 Tulsa massacre. Now, if you've never heard about the story, you're not alone. American history classes tend to skip past the tale of one of the deadliest incidents of racial violence in the nation's history. But it has been in the zeitgeist this year, thanks to the hit HBO series Watchmen, which begins with a dramatized reenactment of the event told from the perspective of a child. Now, Akilah, before we get to the massacre that took place in Tulsa, can you talk a little bit more about what the city was actually like back then, 1921? Sure. So a little background. In the Greenwood district of Tulsa, there was a thriving marketplace, a black-owned and run economy that saw doctor's offices, newspapers, barbershops, grocery stores, theaters, banks, hotels, and pretty much everything else in the middle of the country. Now, this may seem unusual for the early 1900s, but following the Dawes Act, some former slaves of Native American tribes

were given land and reparations to start over after the Civil War. More than 50 black townships popped up in Oklahoma as a result. That's the most in the nation at that time. Now, this area was colloquially known as Black Wall Street. Black-owned, Black owned, Black patronized, even the Black people who didn't have high status jobs and, you know, for instance, worked in the more segregated parts of Oklahoma outside of the Greenwood District would come back to spend their money there. So, you know, just a primer, that's how communities tend to build

wealth. And they were doing a great job at it. Anyway, for several years before the event, America's racial problems were heightened with lynchings all over the country. The KKK was on the rise and Jim Crow laws were already in full effect. Right. So you're saying it was basically a situational powder keg for violence. What exactly happened in Tulsa, though? What's the incident that actually sparked this entire massacre? So the heightened racial animosity in Tulsa exploded in 1921 when 19 year old Dick Rowland, who was a black shoeshiner, he was accused of attempted sexual assault of a 17 year old white elevator operator named Sarah Page. When an angry white mob went to the courthouse to demand that the sheriff hand over

Rowland. So, I mean, logically they could go lynch him. The sheriff refused. And a group of about 25 armed black men, including a lot of World War I veterans, went to the courthouse to, you know, help guard Roland. But they were outmanned and outgunned and they all retreated to the Greenwood District where over the course of two days, so this is May 31st and June 1st, 1921, a very angry white mob murdered hundreds of black people in that neighborhood, burning down everything that had been built, scores of businesses, over a thousand homes, and more than a million dollars in wealth was decimated. In today's terms, that's about, you know, $25 million. So nothing, you know, sort of blink at. Now, maybe you're thinking, well, those people

got arrested and the city rebuilt Greenwood, right? No, of course not. The NAACP and black churches across America raised money for the victims. But the neighborhood was never the same. And it's even unrecognizable now. Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely insane. And there was an effort about 20 years ago to start investigating this event. There was a commission, but a lot of questions remained unanswered, in particular, the physical evidence of the victims. But now the city is taking another look at it. What happened to make that come about? Yeah. So last year, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum called for the city to reinvestigate the existence of mass graves from that 1921 massacre in the Greenwood District,

following an article from Deneen Brown, a reporter at The Washington Post, who has been covering efforts in Tulsa by activists and descendants to bring this history to light. I spoke with Brown on the phone. She's in Tulsa this week covering the announcement from scientists about the evidence of the mass graves. She told me that descendants, researchers and other government employees were gathered in a middle school to hear what the scientists had learned. People were sitting on pens and needles waiting for this announcement. They said that they were not surprised that the scientists found anomalies. They were surprised that the city actually

told them that they found anomalies. Yeah. So the anomalies that she's speaking of, she's talking about inconsistencies in the ground that indicate that something was dug out and filled in. To her point, though, about the surprise, it makes sense that there would be distrust in the city government since the massacre had been intentionally hidden, minimized, and in some cases covered up for almost 100 years. I asked Brown more about that.

It was left out of textbooks. Many people only whispered about it. But I was at the University of Tulsa's library, which has this pretty extensive collection on the Tulsa Race Massacre. And the curator there said when he came to the library in 1980, he found that someone had gone through all the magazines and used a razor to cut out all the stories on the Tulsa race. At the time, it was called the Tulsa Race Riot. Yeah, so people were going to great lengths to cover this up, which I think is just proof that they know it's a shameful event. Maybe they're trying to hide it, but come on. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And now that the truth is being brought to light on all of this, where do we think that the story goes next? Yeah,

well, the next logical question is, will there be reparations for descendants and a community that might be more affluent or have more power had those murders not occurred. I also talked to Deneen Brown about this. She's been talking to activists in the community, and they believe reparations can take a lot of different forms. They say reparations means atonement. It means justice. It means paying back the wealth that was lost. It means also, even though the perpetrators back in 1921, most of them are likely dead, it means maybe filing charges against them because no one was ever arrested for the killings. Yeah. And acknowledgement on its own is a big deal.

And I think that would mean a lot, even as a gesture to say, you know, this happened and we recognize that it happened. Well, until now, the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, which is comprised of descendants and historians, has only identified 35 African-American bodies. But the revelation of these mass graves and the commitment to transparently investigate, there's finally a real chance for justice and family burials. And what happens in Tulsa might end up being a blueprint for other cities across America to address and atone for past racist violence in those places. To read more about this, check out Deneen Brown's writing at The Washington Post. She's been on this beat for a minute, and I would encourage you to watch Watchmen. It does a very beautiful job of, you know, sort of exploring generational trauma associated with, you know, specifically the massacre in Tulsa.

And now to some ads. Let's talk about sleep. Not getting enough is, as you probably realize, not good. According to Harvard and Johns Hopkins, chronic sleep deprivation has been shown to lead to depression, diabetes, a bunch of other really bad, painful diseases, but it can be tough to get a good night's sleep, especially if you're too hot. That is right.

The Pod by 8 Sleep is a high-tech bed designed specifically to help you achieve optimal sleep fitness. It learns your sleep habits and adjusts the temperature automatically. That is crazy. Combining dynamic temperature regulation and sleep tracking to enhance your rest and recovery. They already sold out of their first two batches, but you can try the pod for 100 nights. And if

you don't love it, they'll refund your purchase and arrange for a free pickup. For a limited time, get $150 off your purchase when you go to 8sleep.com slash day. That's E-I-G-H-T sleep.com slash day. Get in the pod. Listen to why. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. A food bank in Athens County, Ohio, was flooded with donations after a hometown quarterback made national headlines. Joe Burrow, a quarterback for Louisiana State University, accepted the Heisman Trophy over the weekend in a record-breaking win. During a speech, Burrow began choking up when he dedicated some time to talk about how

there were high levels of poverty and hunger in his hometown. Needless to say, it touched many people's hearts and led to over $300,000 in donations to a food bank in Athens. Right on. After a weekend of high anticipation, the last Democratic presidential debate of the decade is back on. It was in doubt as the candidates said that they would not cross a picket line in order to participate. And the backstory there was that there was a nine-month long labor dispute between food service provider Sodexo and the cafeteria workers union at Loyola Marymount University. And that is over for now. The two parties reached an agreement on Tuesday after facing pressure from the 2020 candidates who all threatened to boycott the event in solidarity with the workers. Seeing how well they all work together, you start to wonder if they should all be president.

But is our country ready for some kind of seven-headed president monstrosity? Yes. These are the important questions I'll be pondering during the debate on Thursday. We know the upcoming Cats movie features some huge breakthroughs in the field of computer-generated hot animals, but on Monday, Jason Derulo went on Andy Cohen's show to reveal how the technology fell short. You're in tights and cats. It makes me think maybe they CGI'd the dick out.

Yes! Yeah, they did. They did CGI. I noticed that. Did they? Yeah. You think that they airbrushed your penis out of the cats? 125%. Really? I literally, I could see it in the trailer. Good God. cats. 125%. Really? I literally, I see it in the trailer. Good God.

Okay. 125%. Scary to imagine the extra work animators had to put in to erase Derulo's lump. If you've seen the pics, you know

the Derulo meat market is flourishing. Anyway, I'm boycotting cats until they release the Derulo cut. We deserve to see Rum Tugger

in all his chunky glory. I'm also resigning from the show. I can't believe I've been talking about dicks. People are listening to this in the morning. I just thought that it's a really bad time for animators. The two jobs are either redoing all the Sonic movie

or zooming in on the crotch of a cat person played by Jason Derulo. It's fraught in these streets. It's fraught. I want to be dead. A whistleblower says that the Church of Latter-day Saints has been holding onto donations instead of giving them to charitable causes,

and now they've amassed $100 billion. Oh, my Lord. Nonprofits like the Mormon Church are exempt from paying taxes on income, which explains how they've been able to make themselves almost as rich as Apple computers. Goodbye, iPod. Hello, iGod. But the IRS requires them to give away money to remain tax-exempt, so they might need to start paying up. The whistleblower worked as an investment manager

for a church affiliate and says the only things he saw them spend money on were two for-profit causes, an insurance company and a mall. Malls are the new churches of our modern consumer society. I pray to Delius. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, give us a rating, give us a Christmas present and tell your friends to listen. By the way, if you're into reading and not just Donald Trump's Pelosi letter over a period of two hours because it is very long, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.

I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And nobody's watching Star Wars this weekend. Everyone's watching Cats instead. And not one Star Wars ticket will be sold because all screens are showing Cats. Rum tum tugga. I would rather see Star Wars ticket will be sold because all screens are showing cats. Rum tum tugga. I would rather see Star Wars. What a day is a product of Crooked Media.

It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.