It Could Happen Here Weekly 227

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Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.

Welcome to it could happen hear a podcast about unions falling apart and in this case, how they're not being put back together again. I am your host, Bio Wong, and today we are telling a somewhat unusual story for this show. It's usual in the sense that it's a story about, you know, the replacement of democracy with bureaucracy.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I've listened to a few episodes, so I was excited, and you asked me to come on. Love your work, and yeah, this is this is gonna be a good rant because and not even really a rant because because honestly, like when you like when you start the Puel is Back, it is really like a textbook case study from what we know on like just

Yeah.

Yeah, Like I remember like covering the Colin Kaepernick season, which was ten years ago as of this god right, ten years ago, yeah, and just like seeing how alienating that was. Just like just writing like a column saying, hey, you know, Washington, like they should work Colin Kaepernick out because they don't have a quarterback and this guy is just a startable quarterback. And you would get like hate mail over that stuff. But I'm still tuned every Sunday,

It's a fundamental issue here is people will still do it immediately. I am mildly proud that I wasn't watching that era, but I wasn't watching that era specifically because the Seahawks loss Super Bolts to the Patriots, and then I was like I'm fucking out after like eight years.

Well I've been watching this stuff my whole life. Like I remember watching like college football with like my dad and his friends when I was like five and six years Old's like, I like, legit just don't know anything else to a degree, like I had to use this sport as like my vehicle to kind of explore the rest of the world, like once I got out of college, just trying to figure my shit out.

Yeah, And I think we have a good combination here to talk about this because you come at this from the football angle and then exploring out of the like, oh, by god, this is so unhinged. Everything is broken. And then I come at this kind of from the opposite direction, which is one of the things that's been really frustrating about the coverage of this is that like, like there's

Like instigators kind of put in it is put in it lightly.

I mean he got the union president fired basically.

Yeah, he got the union president fired after it was revealed that he was using union money to go to strip clubs.

It's like.

That's like the tail end of this story.

Yeah, that's like the end of it. That's where it's going, right. But like, the thing that's been frustrating to me about this is like the people covering this, and people have done a lot of good work. Is there not people who cover unions at all? Yeah, And like that's like what I do, right, And like I don't know, like I think as much as this episode is going to be us screaming about this union doing unhinged shit, like

It's like, yeah, I was member of the first box union that yeah, god damn that was almost ten years.

Ago now is christ so old?

And look like I believe in this stuff, like I like, with the stroke of a pen, not to put it that simplically because obviously a lot of fight went to it, but with a struggle with pen, like I was able to live in DC after being there he broke, you know, and it's crazy like my salary went up to Liverpool age and nothing.

Died yep, right, you know, no one died.

It was it was it was business as usual, honestly, Like nothing was weird. So obviously people who listen to the show, like, you know that these people with the money like they're out to get us obviously for their own game. And it's so just brazenly clear through like this union story, especially through the past twenty years, which is where I think you kind of have to start it.

Tretter was elected director.

One of the villains of this story power right.

And and you know, one thing about like Poplo and Mike Florio, who have really been on this more than like any other national journalist, is like, yeah, we still don't know a big component of like the why and the how this is happening, because you know, well, we gotta get into because basically it feels like there's two two or three guys kind of acting as liaisons to the owner while also trying to respect and you know, run the union, which are obviously just two completely incompatible

Yeah, I guess that's actually a way to start talking about this kind of going back to there there used to be a time when the NFL union would go on strike, like they did pickets, like they fought scabs outside of the gates of football stadium.

This was a thing that happened like regularly.

Like there's there's a whole bunch of stories of like umw A guys and like guys from like the auto unions, like on these picket lights with the NFL players and you know, like one of one of the sort of upshots of this God, Okay, that's a terrible punt, I'm realizing now because this guy, Okay.

We gotta talk about Gene, you know, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, one of one of the guys who led this union was Gene Upshaw, who was a player for a long time and then was like ran the union for most of its history. And he's you know, he's running an actual union, Like they go on strike, they organize, they like do ship and you know, Jane like over the course of this runs into like they start losing stripes, which is just like a nightmare, and then he just like dies in two thousand and eight, like this is really horrible cancer. Yeah.

So so like not only like like Jane, Jane was a hall of fame off intive Lineman. Yeah, Like like when you think of the Raiders in the in the past, like he was kind of like this start of that era. The only basically the only area where we still think of the Raiders is like, you know, an entity that should be respected, right, right, not a joke because because you know, it was.

A different time in the league.

Like especially when we see what the Seahawks sale ends up looking like, and we've seen like the Broncos and the Commanders get sold within the past decade.

These teams are now being run by people who don't have football backgrounds.

Like when you think of you know, even even even someone as despicable as Jerry Jones, like you can't you can't doubt at his heart that you know, he loves this sport and will be an advocate to the sport, even in ways that that could be harmful to the

So yeah, he died in office.

That's a long time and and it's a lot of trust. And also I think Gene kind of solidified the idea, which is important now that players should run this union, which I agree with. You know, yeah, that's what the union is, right, That's that's what the union is. And I would say even just like someone who played football byself, like it's kind of a cult when you're in there and you don't really really trust the outsiders to understand like what is going on here on a day to

Unreal, unreal, And like you can like you can get serious, like people every single year, get really really seriously injured like it trading camp and in preseason games.

And there was no free agency, right, so like the team that drafted you, like they own you until you know you're ready to call it quit till they trade you somewhere else where they cut you and you kind of got to figure it out. But like the idea that you could just like have this agency and leave and your contract expires you can go side with someone else,

Be a player.

And Gene, like coming from his background with the Raiders, we were talking about proud football organization, Like the very like material basis of being an NFL player was extremely important to Gene. So you know, up until he passed away in two thousand and eight, I mean he is you know, he's, like you said, he's leading strikes. He's fighting for more revenue, he's fighting for you know, more benefits on the back end after guys retire, and it kind of culminates in the two thousand and six CBA.

And yeah, that's not fuck like, it was fake.

It was fake, right, So I'll say this, it was fake in the sense that there was something called like a revenue credit or a revenue a tax or something that the owners took off of the pie before it went down to like the sixty forty split, right, So you know, and it's it started, you know in two thousand and six, like I think the first time they cut it it was like, you know, eight hundred billion dollars and then you know, within two years they were

Oh god, what are the worst people ever?

By the way, this is it, We don't time to do this right up for like.

One of the worst people ever.

So you're like, if you play Madden before, you know sometimes you might turn off the salary cap and what do you do you spend And because Jerry has always been like, it's my money. Yeah, I'm gonna spend as much of it as i want to if I please, like within the rule as the salary cap, no salary cap, Jerry's gonna spend. And the other owners punish those two with fines after the season, yeah, for spending recklessly. That's how committed they are to like this consolidation of power.

Which which by the way, is unhinged because like so one of the fundamental like issues of the NFL is that it is a monopoly. Yes, Now, the way they get around this is a they have the union and be the teams are supposed to be quote unquote competing with each other and they are not supposed to quote unquote collude against the players. And it's like, okay, you you find guys for paying people.

Like right, like you find each other.

Yeah, which is like just unreal.

It's just like the boss offs collusion if.

You look across like to the NBA, where like the Kawhi Leonard and Steve Balmer stuff is oh my god, another party, another politic exclusive but hey, there's a reason why they are aggressively going after this, you know, because the other billionaires don't want people rummaging through their shit either, so you know, and ultimately they like the Microsoft guy being part of the gang, so they're not going to do anything. And that's when you see like, oh, there

The way, CBA is collective bargaining agreement, is.

The collect collective bargaining agreement right between the union and the league, right, so if there's no agreement, then like they can't play football games, yeah, because you know, like you said, like the NFLPA functory just exist so the NFL doesn't get sued for like anti trust stuff, which takes us right back to the next point. So going back to twenty eleven, the players are trying to figure out, like what are we gonna do about like this lockout

And I think the everything about this too is like that's really important.

This is an.

Unbelievably, unbelievably skilled labor force. Yes, And in order to develop these skills, you have to devote your entire life to it. Yes, And then what you get from devoting your entire life to this thing that is killing you because you're getting injured constantly and you're getting head trauma from all of this every single time. Like, so we start from like high school, you're starting to get brain

Right, So think about like it's March of twenty eleven. Now, Gene upshaws and pass away. For a couple of years, they were in the fully in the demor Smith in the more Smith's reign of union leadership, and the first move that the owners make, like now that the CBA is officially over twenty ten season, they lock out the players, which, as we just said, if your career is two years, the idea that you would miss one of those years is kind of unfathombed. You're earning power is just like demolished.

My main account.

Things would have things could have turned out, you know, maybe a little bit different. Probably still would have found something some way, Like where I'm right here. But but honestly, it's a good start. So what the union did was a decertified as a union in twenty eleven, led by Tom Brady and Drew Brees Falcons fan. And I will say this part has given me so much justification on my hatred. It's like it went past the football into like the like the material realm of like real life.

Blah blah blah, blah, bah blah.

Get down to August the time of twenty eleven CBA in August of twenty eleven, so like this is a month, a month before the season, and the concessions that were made after like after getting locked out for what six.

Like five months?

Yeah, and you decertified that you go through all this work to try and get a deal done, and they gave up so much. So we said before you have the total revenue split at you know, sixty forty, but functionally it was closer to you know, fifty one fifty two percent in favor of the players that dropped to like forty seven percent in the twenty eleven CBAS So now the owners are back in charge, you know, like

The believable amount of money.

Another thing that changed was Roger Goodell has now like full autonomy over player punishments.

I don't know why you gave that up either. That's unhinged, right, right.

That's like that that's the kind of thing that like the like the only kind of unions that would sign something like that are like, like I don't even think the organized crime unions would signe out. I think that's just like literally the fascist unions and the unions that are directly controlled, like the yellow unions that are directly controlled by corporation or like, the only ones that would sign that, even those ones probably would want to still

Right, And and what's changed here is like these players are not willing to go on strike, like to not play these games, to not have a situation like in the eighties where you know, Donald Trump has built up the USFL and saying, hey, why don't you strikeing players that come play over here, and you you have some some guys who were like NFL Hall of famers who have briefly played in the USFL during you know, during

That's worth billions of dollars.

Really like in terms of like what you what you guys can set yourself up with and what the what the veteran players who were on board with this, what they thought was, oh okay, well if the rookie wages. If the rookie wages deal like that, if that gets capped at a certain amount, then that's more money for us. So like the like a prime example is in twenty ten, Sam Bradford was a number one overall pick to Saint Louis Rams. He signed a six year, eighty four million

She's christ.

You lost sixty million dollars in terms of value from the year before. So what what the players, what the veteran players thought was, oh, okay, well now there'll be this influx of cap space to sign veteran players. What do billionaires do when they suddenly have access to a cheap workforce. They just loaded up on rookies, right, So these veteran players they sold themselves on like the fallacy of trickle down economics and got themselves replaced out of

Is Joe Burrow the highest paid right now? At I feel like it's Burrow?

Yeah that sounds right.

But now like that deal is worth you know, closer to eighty million, you know, seventy million dollars a year than it is to anything like closer to twenty Yeah, so you gave up so much and you got this whole middle class of the league just decimated, and and yeah,

And I say that with.

A grain of salt now because I used to be one of these guys like, oh you know, they don't care what's going on, and there is a good chunk that don't care what's going on. But I think now it's more clear there's like an obvious force stopping them from getting like information about what's going on with this union stuff, which is the meat of this. Like the recent stuff is just like the ultimate just fucket. I guess we're ponds of the ownership stuff.

You know.

I think the arc of this is like it's it's the arc of sort of unionism in America. You know, you go back to like your early nineteen hundreds unions, right, and those unions, you know, they're unbelievably powerful. They're extremely dangerous.

And to me, like that point is like so crucial because that's where I ship from. Oh, it's not that the guys don't care about this, like they don't know what's going on.

Yeah, it's being hidden from them.

They can't know, they can't know.

And and I will say, like part of what makes this difficult if you are someone in there who does care and wants to wants to fix things. Is they're just the truth that like even the bottom rung players are comfortably living like off of their salaries. So when you start to get to guys who are veterans, like and even if you don't take the best deal shit, like what I'm still making fifteen million dollars a year, Like, ultimately I'm still good. And that's what it's hard to

Little bit more lucrative.

And that didn't really happen, you know, like no, like they just gave up the seventeenth game and they got I think one percent more in terms of like the rev share, so it got to like forty eight or forty nine percent.

It's like, yeah, like that's it you.

Share for adding Like what what what's the percent game added? To the season like right.

And and like there were some concessions made to like players made at the bottom rung of the ladder, so like like the veteran minimum salaries, like they got boosted, the practice squads got a little bit longer, and now you got into the space where you see, like veterans can be on a practice squad instead of guys who are within like three years of you know, accrued years in the NFL. But the seventeenth game while still having inequity in terms of the revenue share, I mean, the owners,

Now.

It's getting to the part like where it's kind of murky on what's happening. Because obviously, like if you're in a union and you know, like my coworkers, like they've.

Dealt with J. C.

Tradder, like I've seen him speak before, if you're in a union, obviously, like you don't want too many people outside of the union to know what's going on. Like it's just not good from a standpoint of like leverage and power. But JC Tredder like he plays off of that by keeping everything a secret.

You know, Yeah, which is a terrible idea, which is a terrible idea, Like yeah, well it's good for him, right right, right, Like maybe you.

Don't want to tell me a reporter like what's going on, but you should tell like the other people within your union what's going on. Like when you see like a lack of information about or any information about, like what's going on with these with these elections, it's because no one's being told what's going on these elections.

And that's how you end up with Lloyd Howe, which is just dude.

Oh god, okay, okay, let let's let's talk about Lloyd Howell, who is oh my god, yeah, one of the worst people to run a union I have ever seen.

Yes, but it's purposefullly bad, you know, Like, yeah, the Lloyd Howell like a secret election, Like it's not not even to say, like I was, you know, somewhat somewhat of a secret now a secret of election basically to get Lloyd Howell hired what he somewhere for Booze Allen Man.

Yeah he was. He was the CFO of booz Allen Hamilton, right, Like his background was in busting unions.

Uh huh, right, that's his background. Yeah, and this, but this is where you get like such a look at the ideology of someone like J. C. Tratterer, who also studied labor unions in college. That's what you guys, degree in labor labor relations and labor rangement from Harvard.

Yep, yeah, you're not. You're not doing the the labor relations degree to like being a union. Like like the people the people who like organize for unions are like fucking grad students who you know, have like a I don't know like they have they have some random degree and then they were like, fucking I organized my graduat you know, I'm gonna go organize the field. This is not what you go into that for. You go into this union busting.

Yeah.

So, but so J. C. Trader and you know, the people around him they viewed that experience from Wood Howell and busting unions as a positive. Yeah, because you know, there's this train of thought like oh, well, you know, well, if we know someone who knows how to destroy us, if we hire them, surely they will change their ways and they will start to help us. Like we're going to get inside knowledge on how to bust a unit. So maybe we could weaponize that and turn it back

Yeah, the Carlisle Group.

Like you, you're an executive director of the union works for hedge funds that are extracting value from these teams, like like true players.

Yeah, that's that's disqualifying, Like it should be disqualifying.

She's on camera.

The union posted a video of him on camera talking about how he was talking to the owners about letting about letting the investment group.

Yes, it's unbelievable.

It's as close as I've ever seen outside of again, a union that is literally run by the bosses to like my union guy works for managements. Like it's like baffling. I don't know, It's like it's like State integrated CCP shit, right, Like it's like, dude, yes, you have.

A corporate consultant?

Is your union liaison to thirty two billionaires and Roger Goodell? Like yeah, it's it's completely incompatible on like a basic like ideological level, and then you start getting to like, well, okay, well now he has like direct control over people's lives and the funds of the union, which, as ESPN and Paulo Tooria found out, he was using to go to the goddamn strip club in Miami, Yeah, and to spend on other stuff. And also he was sued for sexual

It is completely unhinged. And unfortunately, the other thing that's unhinged is that's going to be all for today. However, come there is more to this story tomorrow, as we finished part two of this interview, and oh my god, holy shit, somehow the worst is yet to come. So join us for part two tomorrow, in which question Mark there seems to be good evidence of the NFL paying a guy specifically to be able to keep control of

Like okay, so even if you lose the arbitration. Yeah, the fact that a judge wrote, yeah, legal document that it was like beyond the benstit of a doubt that Roger Goodell and the thirty two owners were colluding. We've seen text messages between the Cardinals owner and the Chargers owner talking about how much to pay Justin Herbert.

Yeah. Lamar Jackson, Yeah, okay, can we can we explain to Lamar Jackson situation and like explain it who Lamar Jackson is for people who don't watch football, so they can understand how unhinged this is.

Lamar Jackson is a wizard, is the best way that I could put it. Lamar Jackson. He is the franchise quarterback for the Baltimore Rayments, And I just think that anyone with the brain could have seen what was going on. Yeah, right, like with this situation, so so and even before Deshaun, even before Lamar Jackson. You have to take it back to Deshaun Watson trade out of Houston.

Oh god, the one trade we've ever covered on this show, because holy shit, dude, Oh but this, this is.

What got the Dominoes rolling on this stuff. Where As terrible as Deshaun Watson is as a football player now and obviously as a human being, yeah, like right when he was in Houston, it feels like a different world, but he was the man, Like he was incredible, like to the point where the Texans I think his last year starting there, they went four and twelve and it was like so obviously not his fault, like in terms of efficiency, like he was right behind Patrick Mahomes to

Yeah, it's really hideous shit.

Right, So then it gets to a point where he the texts they don't want them there, He doesn't want to be there anymore. But you have what looks to be a franchise quarterback in his mid twenties available for any team to have, you know, with the trade. So my team, Sally d Lash Falcons, they thought that they had a deal done for Deshaun Watson, and then the

Like that, which is like not how this works normally, Like, no one gets guarantee contracts, right, And because.

The previously the actual first player to get a fully guaranteed the contract from another team was actually Kirk Cousins with the Vikings when he left Washington. They gave him like a three year I think it was three years eighty eight million dollars fully guaranteed. But still that ain't five years two hundred and thirty yeah, you know. Yeah, And what the owners were mad about was not that you would seek out someone with the personal background Deshaun

Because now that sense precedent.

Because if you're Lamar Jackson, whose contract was coming to an end at the season after Deshaun Watson signed this deal, I didn't touch those women. Yeah, I'm an MVP quarterback and I'm in my twenties. Why shouldn't I get a fully guaranteed contract? Yep, right, which is what he was doing. And the Ravens they said, okay, fine, go out into

L hittyous anti labor practice.

Right, So his contract with the Ravens is over. And they can hit him with an exclusive franchise tag, which means you will be playing for US next year. You basically have no say in it unless we remove this or you know, we work out a trade with somebody else, but you cannot go negotiate with anyone else even though your.

Contract has expired.

And yeah, to be quote unquote fair, like, the payment is a average of the top five you know, yearly salaries of the position you play, so you will get paid like, you know, a top five player for one year at your position. It really only goes to mostly

I grew up in Chicago, so like I grew up with the Bears, and my family are like a like a family is like Seahawks fans. Right, Neither of those two teams have ever had a quarterback who's in the same stratosphere as this guy. Like this is right. These guys never like ever ever.

Ever hit free agency, never ever, and people like they'll bend the rules to things that aren't written were let's say, oh, you know, the.

Ravens will just match, make them match. Then you have them.

That's a competitive advantage for you.

Right right. I hate that my favorite team he's popped up in this Atlanta. But but Arthur Blank, he put his name on it, saying, you know, the Falcons, like they were trying to out, you know, backup quarterback quality guys, because after Matt Ryan left.

Has been rider like Jesus Christ.

Marcus Mariota, dude.

And and I'm sitting there like you're telling me that I can sign Lamar Jackson and I got to give up two first round picks for him, Like, dude, pay him sixty million guaranteed every year.

He's worth that much.

Yeah, And Arthur Blank says, well, you know, Lamar Jackson, he's gonna get hurt too much for us to sign him.

So so nope, no team signs him. No team even talks to him.

So obviously he goes back to the Ravens, doesn't get the full guaranteed contract that the Shaun Watson got and that kind of put an end to it for a little bit until the power of journalism popped up. Poullotory does his investigation here's about arbitration, hearing about collusion in the NFL, and he gets his hands, like on the documents that say that while Lamar Jackson was going through his free agency basically rejection by thirty one teams, when he would have been upgrade for like.

Twenty eight of them, twenty nine of them.

Yeah, at the time, I would throw a number one overall rookie quarterback that I just drafted with the first ro overall pick out the fucking window thrown away to get Lamar Jackson.

Right, you can be a part of this. Two first round picks were giving you two first round picks plus. Yeah, you know if like at that time, like it may have been like Kyler Murray or something like that.

Yeah, take them like it's taken.

It's unbelievable, Like I cannot he he literally like the game of football is a fundamentally a different game now. It was when when Lamar Jackson like started playing because of him, and it's just like he didn't take.

Him his influence on the NFL so strong that we don't really do the black quarterback talking points anymore. Yeah, because the league was like, oh, we can't let that happen again. Like when Lamar Jackson fell to thirty two and everyone's talk about does he needs to play a different position, and in year two he wins an MVP.

Yeah, and the.

Year after he signs his deal with the Ravens, he wins his second MVP. Like that kind of cooled the fans. Like when you get to see guys like Kim Warre going first overall or even Kyler Murray going first of all and there's no talk about like how smart they are as players. Yeah, Like that's his influence directly, his success contribute to that, Like he is a Hall of Fame. It kind of gives me chills, like think about like

It's like he was not even the first Ravens draft pick that year.

No, they drafted hidden Hurst twenty five overall before they drafted Lamar Jackson. Every single team passed on him, and he's one. He's one of eleven players in the HISTORIL and NFL to win two MVPs. Every other player that has won two or more MVPs is either a Hall of Famer or actively playing Aaron Rodgers and Pat Mahomes. That's it, Like this guy is a Hall of Famer already.

And he should have won a third by the way, like right, he should have won the third, but either way near identical, like like statistical tie for like a third one.

So yeah, he's first. He's the three time first team up pro. He's going to be a Hall of Famer. And the fact that nobody nobody called him in to say what what would it take? What contract are you looking for? That that's why I was like something, something, something is so obviously not right here. The Colts traded to first rowd picks for a quarterback, Like yes, right, precisely precisely, and.

Like they're starting a guy who broke his leg and then also news Achilles like letters like.

I just do like Jalen Ramsey went for two first round picks and he's a great play, but he's a cornerback.

You know, it's not even the same thing.

So this is the most important position in sports.

Right A first ballot Hall of Famer was on the market in his prime and nobody talked him about a contract except the team that owned that, you know, owned like the rights of first refusal. And it was so frustrating to see, like my colleagues in the media say, oh, you know, the Rams were just gonna match. That's so disingenuous. That's so disingenuous because you're you're stripping Lamar like of his agency as a player one like he's better than

Trader and Lloyd Howe they hit this from the unit.

Bro.

If if you're a union and you have even if you lose.

Arbitration, you have physical note from a judge that says you were ccluded against, take your megaphone to the top of the talls mount in the world and talk about this. Apply some pressure now, Like this is where I started to get curious, like why why did this happen? Because that part we still don't have enough information all like like I need to like how much like if there's a kickback going back to like JA C. Trader, how

Oh my fucking god.

Yeah, the NFLPA is so lucky that the MLBPA had a shadow that's almost as embarrassing to the strung club that maybe.

But Lloyd Howell and Tony White, they were working together as part of an eight man group of like union parasites like at the top of the corporate ladder in America to siphon money away from the union into their own personal pockets.

Like this is what's running it.

We know for a fact Lloyd an Tony White, who's the you know baseball union had what it was because he no longer has his job or family.

Yeah, that did for him, but fucking you, you you brought this upon yourself, right.

He can't go home for Christy like that, Like he's done. They were part of a small group that was sifeing money away from you union funds to line their own pockets. Like that is verified. They've been sued for that. So what else is going on here?

Yeah?

What is the incentivization for J. C. Tredder to push someone like that through? And then the backside is jc's reign as the union president expires while Lloyd How's the executive director and Lloyd makes a new cushy role for JC as like you know, I don't remember what the role was called, but like.

It's like if a strategy or something.

Yes, chief strategy officer, so something that paid him like three million dollars a year, very handsomely, punctually Lloyd was off, you know, blowing money at the Strip club, and JC was kind of running like the actual data day things because he's the one that has a connection.

To the players, right. And now we've gone through a point where.

After Gene Upshaw dies, the two executive directors who followed him, as you know, the head of union, Jamar Smith and Lloyd Howe. Neither of those guys were NFL players, So you can understand how players might feel we've gotten a little bit too far from our roots, like we don't have guys who are from our background interested in you know, players and what we go through.

Which leads back to J. C.

Tredder, who played for the Packers, played for the Browns, was at his peak.

Man, he was a good player.

Like I'm not going to take that away from Like he was a good starting center on a lot of good offensive lines in Cleveland that didn't win any games, no, but they they blocked the hell out of people, man Like, Like like when you go back you look at some of those lines, like they had Joe Thomas and Alex Snack and Mitchell Schwartz, Joe Platonio, like they have some stars that are out there winning four or five games

I think he resigns eventually from there.

Yes, yes, yes, after whatd HALLI resigns. J C resigns too. So now we're up to last summer summer twenty twenty five. Yeah, eight months ago, right, it's March twenty seven. Eight months ago. J C tried to resigns from the chief strategy officer role that was cut out before him and says he said in an interview to my friend Jonathan Jones, I have no interest in any leadership roles in the moving forward. He said. I have given this my all. I've given this everything I had. I'm gonna go home and be

Now this is where it's murky.

I don't know like all the processes that go on with like how they decide like who's gonna, you know, do what, like they apparently they have three hundred candidates. It will have down the three. I don't ask some players what was going on in the past couple of weeks. They don't know, like how like all this was selected. But they are presented with three finalists for the executive director role to vote on Rider, who has popped up

It's like a college football commissioner.

Well yeah, like like yeah, college football, college football commission Like he's talking to like the president of Rice University about like scheduling games against Toledo or some shit.

Christ.

But see you have Jay C. Tradder the American Conference commissioner, not even like the ACC, the A A C. Right think ass conference. It used to be the Big East, Like they're stolen Big East valor this this guy was running against JAYC.

Trader.

And also the third was a former Hollywood Union exect who didn't really seem to be that interested in the role in the first place. So we get down to the election day and we find out the American Conference commissioner drops out on.

Election day. He dropped right. Okay, So now so now.

We're dealing with We've had two executive directors back to back, Morse Smith, Lords Howe not football players didn't go well. Ja C. Tratder was a part of that, but he played football, right, So you see the Jac Tradder or this Hollywood guy who doesn't give a crap. I forget his name, but his background wasn't like always the cleanest in terms of, you know, actually getting things done, in terms of you know, being pro labor all the time, ultimately as fucked up as it is. That's an easy

So you had Ja C.

Tradder, who is now back as the executive director eight months after he said he had no interest in being any type of union leadership.

And like somehow this whole process has like stage manage.

He's like back again.

Right, But to me, this lynchpin right here is actually the most fascinating part of what's happened. And this is where like, if you listen to this podcast probably won't sound like the conspiracy If you're not thinking about labor relations in America. It might sound like conspiracy to you, but j C. Tretder when he was the president, like his right hand man, I think it was like the vice president was Jalen Reeves Mayban or was very important.

J C had this new role as the chief strategy officer.

But Jalen Reeves Mayban is sitting there as the president of the union, so obviously he is involved in this somehow, right, Like he is involved with like the cover up for the players not being as aggressive as you should be towards ownership in terms of gave up a seventeenth game, dog like that's insane and you got nothing back for it. Yeah, So there's a clock though, in terms of how long you can like be removed from being a player and

I think it's within yes, two years. Two years.

So if you flaw the league, you're not signing a contract, like no one's pursuing you, like you kind of just get filed as retired, even if you're not, even if you have to come out and say like I'm retired, Like there's a bunch of players that never said I'm retired, but nobody's signed them, like t Y Hilton. T Y Hilton just functually retired, like yeah, two weeks ago. He hasn't played like five years, okay, but he has been

Makes good, perfect sense.

So okay, this does not sound crazy, probably the people who listen to this podcast. Right, If you are one of thirty two owners, right, and you have this power structure of an organization that you negotiate against the NFLPA, this power structure is very friendly towards you. You know, they've given you a lot over the past fifteen years since he ripped up the two thousand and six Cbah. How much would you pay to keep that in place?

Right?

Yep?

How much would you pay to keep it in place?

And I haven't seen many people talking about this part of it, But the Chicago Bears signed Jalen Reeves Maybin this fall.

Oh my god, right to a betterment deal. I looked it up.

I think he played like forty special team snaps for them this season. But that resets his clock. That resets his clock to be president of the Union. So now we get to the end of the season. Yep, Jailerry Vaven runs again to be president. I'm not sure anybody ran against him. No one's told us who the other Cannions were, yep, if there were other candidates, And now he's the president of the Union again after he was

No right? Like I would. I watched every game of that team, y'all. I guess they're like two that I missed for those on planes.

But like no, but okay, but but somethink about it from disrespect. If you are an owner and you have this power structure that is generating billions capital b billions of dollars back in your direction away from the people that they represent, would it be worth five hundred thousand dollars keep that dolling and a little roster spot at the bottom. Absolutely. Now that's the part that I haven't seen people you know bring up as much because it get stuck on Trader. But Treader's right hand man was

To get those reps.

Some outside guy like coming into play special teams that you know that's it's.

Unnecessary, it's unnecessary.

It's been out of the lead too, Like, yeah, there's no reason to do it unless you, as a power structure, are interested in him having eligibility to keep funneling you money, yep, at expense of the players.

Yeah, and I've really changed my tune like on players not carrying over the past month, just from talking to guys, like because I used to cover the Jets and the Giants like for a newspaper here in New York City, Like this is what I've done for the past ten years.

I've met a lot of guys.

They are like curious because You're like, what is this mechanism? Yeah, that is allowing you guys to operate with so much secrecy where you have J. C. Tredder, I mean shout out to like the people who ran against him or were there for a minute, but functionally, like practically he ran unopposed for the executive director role, and so you whittled it out from three hundred candidates to three and one of them is J. C. Tratder and the other

Because now we're coming up.

On a new CBA negotiation, they're probably going to get an eighteen inch game in eighteenth. Like you you have gone from in twenty years. You've gone from a spot where you had revenue majority, even if it wasn't the sixty percent fifty two fifty three, that's better than forty seven.

Comfort for a few years. Oh it's sad.

Yeah, it's like it's the actual poverty draft. It hits way way way more people than the military does, like significantly more. And I think it's something that's really really really badly understood on the left because it's like people on the left head not to care about sports stuff, but it's like football is a structural part, but the

And I understand, like why left these like they don't care about spor us, Like I get it. But if the NFL were to cease existing tomorrow, that would be like a major collapse within the US economy. Yeah, Like I'm not I'm joking. Basically everything you watch, especially now, is subsidized by some NFL game, right, Like yeah, that's that's why these companies exist. If you if you go back every single year and you look at the top one hundred most watched TV shows of the year, ninety

Yeah, maybe like maybe the World Series, right, maybe the World Series.

Like right, maybe the Oscars can like maybe the Oscars versus like Jets Bills like Week twelve, that's.

Not flow like throw on a Thursday night like right, But that's.

How big this is.

And I would implore people to not say, hey, who cares about this? It's important And also like there's there's there's also just like clear like you look at a game, there's clear racial divides. Yeah, and who has to play this game and who doesn't have to play this game? There are studies that show that like upwards of eighty percent of black boys who play sports want to be professional athletes.

I mean, because that's that's it.

Really like it's that or I'm gonna go do I don't fucking know, and and those are really your options. And that's why I say, like I've used I've used the NFL to kind of figure out my way like through you know, how I feel about things, because there's such real like desperation for these people to get out.

Football is like a major accomplishment in the rown.

And the fact that you can go from that to making three hundred thousand dollars in a year at twenty one, that will distort you as well, because now you've made such an extreme jump so fast, probably gonna be a little bit complacent. You might not be thinking about what's next because, and I say this for like a twenty one year old person, you spent the last twenty years of your life fucking fighting, like just to get to

Bill this month?

Yeah, he's a five star starter on your team that is generating millions of dollars, and you could get in trouble for sending his mom like two hundred bucks to

Ideos it's scum, and it's it's.

Sad and just everyone here deserves better except for the people at top. Yeah, and there needs to be some answers on why are you guys doing this? They're not doing for no reason. There has to be something there. That's the part that we don't know.

One thing I want to kind of go back to you for seconds, like how they're able to do this. I don't know the exact mechanisms of how they specifically have been able to do this, because every union is

And yes, that that's what has happened.

Yeah with J. C.

Tradder yep again, Pabla Tori.

He released an interview two weeks ago with you know, longtime security officer who was basically one of the people who was like Hey, Yeah, what's going on here with DoD j C try to Alloyd house stuff?

And they fired him for that.

Like the union five the security guy who've been working like keep been working there since Like Dean I'm show I was working there. So he he's part of the old guard that is there for like the material like improvement of players' lives, like as far as they can take it without you know, dealing with the real bounds of like we got to kind of get this number for the season or our worker base is gonna be

The other thing about this, right is that these guys don't have even the basic concentive that even like the UAW and their moost In Trench had, which is like, if you fuck this up enough, there won't be a union.

Yeah, yeah, I want to know those benefits are. I just want to know.

Yep, me too. I would love like really.

Because when it gets down to like how much is your soul worth? Man?

Yeah, like j C is one of those guys ultimately who has made enough money playing in football where he.

Doesn't have to do this. Yeah, you know, he doesn't have to go around like this.

Like it's it's a little baffling in that sense, Like and I know that, like I guess something that I guess I struggle sometimes.

Like why are y'all doing this fuck up shit? Like why?

Like it's really like that, like a couple more bucks really means that much to you, Like you're really willing to sell out all these people? But the answer is yes, The answer is yes. Personally, I can't reconcile that it's abhorrent.

Army is not good.

No, it's just well, I think that's a decent point to sort of end. Don unless you have a Yeah, do you have anything else? Do you want to make sure people know about this whole thing?

I would say, like, if you're not watching football, you should. It's a great game. I look, I say this as somewhere football has like materially harmed me. Like my back is messed up. I've had two hernie a dis my back son seventeen, I turned thirty two this year. It's like half my life, you know, would I do it again?

Fuck?

Yeah, I don't know, don't I don't know?

And like this this is where like my my like the people who know me, they like, man, you're wired a little differently, But I think that standard for football players. Like it's a really complicated relationship, but like all my best friends are still like football related in some way, whether it's college or journalism now or you know.

Going back to high school back in the day.

Like I still talk to so many people that I played football with, Like I'm watching like I'm the guy watching these like crappy like Division two games like on a on a Friday night. It's it's awesome. So like you know, yeah, you should check out Lamar Jackson, Like just go on YouTube, just look up a highlight and then.

This is it's just wild. Like you know when you when.

You've watched football or really any of these sports, like they are just inescapable. I hate to even say micro consins of like American society because like this is obviously this is this is American society. Like when you just look on the influence that football has, like the economy as a whole, and the way that people who are less fortunate are able to be extracted and run into the ground, yeah, and forgotten even by the people who

So I would just.

Implore some of our our fellow leftisium don't be the who cares about sports, because whether you know about it, sports is interacting and directly impacting your life in this country every single day. And I think it's important to kind of care about some of the labor practices that are going on. Even if you know the labor practices are around Lamar Jackson getting paid you know, sixty million dollars a year over fifty million dollars a year, but it's still it's still important.

Yeah, you know, And I think there's I think there's two there's two points I can make there. One is that like, yeah, I don't know, like it was it was. It was the fucking like transwomanted college sports thing was like one of the two avenues through which like, oh wait, hold on, a bunch of us just don't have fucking rights now. Yeah, And you know, and like and that that kind of like cultural stuff that comes out of places that we're just not usually.

Right right, and just to tack onto that, as we've seen over the past few months and as many dangered and misrepresented and punched down communities have said to y'all forever and I say this as a black person. If they do it to us, yep, we'll do it to you. At some points, it's just sad that like we've gotten to the point where, you know, you've been fighting and screaming for so long, like, bro, could you just turn your head this way and just look you see, Like.

Bro, we're the same man. We're all just humans out here trying to make it.

That thought process is just so violently opposed by the powers it be, and it's just so ingrained in our society, like certain people have to get stepped on that you will let yourself get stepped on. And now, shit, we got videos of you know, people getting executed in the street in Minneapolis, and what's happened.

Nothing, just like.

Every other police shooting, you know, of a black person or or a transperson getting killed, Like, yeah, nothing happened, and nothing keeps happening, and ultimately we get to a point where that's just the norm. So shit, there's a lot of stuff to fight. But you can even see like how the NFL union has followed that stame like deterioration.

Yep.

Shit, you know, you go back to the twenty eleventh CBA, you threw the rookies under the bus, and then what the omners do? They came and took your money too, right, And then when it came down to you know, the twenty twenty CBA, you guys have set such a precedent of us running your pockets that we will set the hard, non negotiable stance of an extra football game and you will capitulate. That's everywhere, man, that that is everywhere in the corporate structure and lafe of America. So yeah, yeah,

Yeah, I think, I think.

I think.

The one last thing I want to say is that, you know, the reform calock is taking over the UAW with something that was seen as impossible. Like it was like literally, I mean like every union has a reform caucus, they normally lose every single time, and then one day they won and it like completely changed what the labor movement in America is. And you know, the thing, the thing about organizing reform caucuses is that I know that

Two, I mean, I mean yeah, and if you just think about the basis of the NFL PA, because now it's an anti trust blocker, right, that's what it is now, But the roots of it, yeah, there were guys trying to get rights for they trying to get paid for the amount of time that they put into this job. One of the base complaints is when the league was smaller and you had like kind of other leagues you know that are defunked now or were absorbed by the AFC or the NFC before it all merged the NFL.

They would ban you for five years. Man, that's your whole career, right. Yeah, And I don't know if this made the show, if we're talking about before the show, but.

One of the things that got the NFLP like organized in the fifties was guys were doing training camp in preseason games for free. They weren't getting paid for it. But these are just regular men who are just like, fuck it, I'm tired of this. Yeah, And sadly it has been co opted into something that does not represent what it was before. But you know, this stuff is started by reckless people who are saying, fuck it, I'm tired of this. We got to make a change.

Yeah, And I think on that note, where can people find your work?

Yeah, you can find me on blue Sky or verts.

You can find me on Yahoo Sports Football three oh one podcast. I'm trying to be found a little bit less these days.

That's so reasonable blue Sky can find for.

The most part. Yeah, you know, it's a little less.

I get there's a read. There's a reason I'm not putting by handling.

Yeah, but I will say this is not necessarily a friendly blue Sky count. I'm not one of those guys who's just gonna let you pop off. We do clap back around here, right.

We do, in fact love to see Yeah.

Hello everyone, and welcome to it could happen here. My name is Daniel Kurd. I'm a researcher of Arab in Palestinian politics. Today I'm joined by Molli Krabapple, an award winning writer and artist.

She's written three books.

Is co author of the book Brothers of the Gun and Illustrated Collaboration with Syrian war journalist Montjuan Hisham, which was a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the twenty eighteen National Book Award, and her memoir Drawing Bud also received global praise. Her most recent book is Here Where We Live Is Our Country, The Story of the Jewish Bund, and it'll be out on April seventh.

I've already pre ordered. I'm very excited.

So I wanted to talk to Mollie today given how relevant the history she outlines in her book is to this current moment, especially for the American Jewish community.

So thank you Mollie for joining us.

Thank you so much, Donna for having me. It's my total honor to be here.

So you describe in the book The Bunns Philosophy of doy k or hearness as a rejection of the idea that Jews need to seek a homeland elsewhere to find safety.

How did you come to understand this concept personally?

And why do you think it was, at least from my perspective, so thoroughly erased from mainstream Jewish historical memory after the Holocaust.

I mean I came across dokit through studying the Booned, which I came across through the watercolors of my great grandfather Samuel Brothboord, who was a post Impressionist painter who was a member of the boond as a young man.

Back in Russia.

And the concept of dokite or heereness means is it's a defiant assertion of rootedness in a place that wanted Jews dead. Jews had lived in Eastern Europe for over a thousand years, but in the eighteenth, nineteenth and at the dawn of the twentieth century, these countries were some of the roughest places to be a Jew in the world. In the Tsarist Empire, Jews were racialized minority. It set it on their papers. They could only like live in

But it wasn't just that.

It was also that after the genocide, countries like Poland were so psychopathically violent to Jewish survivors that it convinced the overwhelming majority of Polish Jewish survivors that they had to go somewhere else. There are about a thousand Jews that were murdered by nationalists in the aftermath of the Holocaust, including you know, dozens who were burned alive in this

After surviving Auschwitz. The majority of Jewish survivors probably.

Wanted to go live with their families in America and in other countries that had large Jewish communities, But the Western democracies, And tell me if this sounds familiar in the current moment. While the Western democracies preached a language of human rights and universalism, in practice they were quite content to let impoverished refugees wrought in camps. Does that

From the very first days of their founding. They opposed Zionism as.

A capitulation to the same European racists that wanted to kick Jews out of their home. And not only did they oppose Zionism because many Jewish groups opposed Zionism. The Satmar Pasidic community where I live also opposed Zionism. It wasn't just the Boon's opposition to Zionism that made Zionis so angry. It's that Zionism is built on this very

They fought for it with brass knuckles and with guns.

The statement here where we live is our country isn't something that has the same meaning as it would mean if I said it in New York City, like, of course New York is my city.

It's fucking awesome.

When they said it, I always felt like there was an implied motherfucker at the end. Here where we live as our country, motherfucker. Whether you like it or not, we're born here and it's ours right.

It's so powerful.

And I'm glad that you mentioned other kind of ideological like resonances, like the Black Panthers. They don't really exist in the same way anymore, but they're still resonant in

I think that decent people of all stripes are seeing what Palestinian journalists and Lebanese journalists have risked their lives exposing. They're seeing a genus live streamed on their smartphones, and you know, live streamed by these amazing journalists, you know, who are living in killing cages. And anyone who's a decent person, whether you're Jewish or not, will turn away from the ideology that is responsible for that genocide. So I wouldn't say it's a bondust resonance that's making people

These stories for the world to know at least see.

However, I think that there's something a little bit different going on, which is that, you know, young Jews are seeing the Israeli mass murder machine for what it is.

But if they've gone.

Through like the standard issue you know, like Hebrew school education, they don't really learn a lot about Jewish history. Like the way you would learn about it would be ancient kingdoms, the par Kocopa revolt maybe if you're lucky, and then like a big, long, you know, two thousand year gap of horror and murder where nothing interesting or go what ever happened, and where you were just a victim of all of history, and then you know, glorious creation of the state of Israel redemption.

Like that's the sort of bullshit narrative you'd get.

And when young Jews reject that narrative, as they should, you know, when they learn about the reality of what Zionism means, a lot of them are left with a real hole in them because they haven't like learned anything positive about their own heritage. They've just been fed fairy tales that are meant to you know, legitimize this state, and so you know, there's like a lot of a lot of shame, rite a lot of pain over that.

And I think what a lot of.

Young Jewish people are trying to do is they're trying to look back to like their own grandparents and their own great grandparents. And for Jews in America, like most Jews in America come from Eastern European backgrounds, you know, it's a different, different sort of demographic breakdown than in Israel. And that sort of Jewish socialism is something that's very,

On the one hand, I'm witnessing what you're saying, you know, like we're all kind of witnessing, like I said, it's not specifically to the Jewish community, but because the Jewish community has been fed, you know, this idea that is really so integral to their Jewishness and to their safety and to this, to these kinds of things, there is a very maybe specific way that they are metabolizing that

They put out.

Polling results where thirty seven percent identified as non Zionists and seven percent of their polling identified as anti Zionists.

But it was an interesting.

Poll because it's like both people who were like critical of Israel and those who were supportive of Israel took it to mean that it, you know, confirmed their biases because despite the fact that the genocide has happened and is happening, that anti Zionism component hasn't really risen very much. And then still a lot of polls show that, like people presume Israel is vital to Jewish continuity.

So how do you make sense of that contradiction? Well, that's one question is how do you make sense of that contradiction?

But the second question is like, do you think rediscovering bundestaught like offers a way through it?

I do, actually, I mean I think that you know, people have not just like been fed this idea that Israel is you know, like essential for their safety for continuity, but also that it's like an essential part of themselves. And I do think that it's very life affirming and important to know that you have something better that you can reject this shitty ideology.

I mean, in terms of polls, I often feel like, I.

Mean, maybe I'm maybe I'm just wrong about Americans, but I sometimes feel like people don't even know what the hell they're signing on to with poles, like I will see something where people be like, we want strong borders and to like you know, deport all the illegals, but also we fucking hate Ice, And I'm like, you just you just want like wildly contradictory things.

And I wonder like how.

I don't know, like how educated people even are, and how much like the framing of questions affects what people think.

I mean, I'm trying to think of what to make of it.

I mean, I do think, you know, very sadly, like there are a large number of you know, American Jewish people. And in some way I'm talking like outside of my own experience because my own family's not Zionist, so this is more like my speculation type thing.

But you know, they're they're very progressive. They believe in you know, like ETI kid for all.

They believe in you know, they believe the cops shouldn't be constantly murdering black people as they do in America all the time.

They believe even ice should be abolished.

But they also have this like unthinking emotional attachment to Israel, even if they literally hate everything that Israel's doing. And I feel like a lot of those people, what they'll do is they'll try to blame it on net Yahoo and not on the entire system, Like like I would see people who supported the protests, you know, over the judicial reform, but they weren't willing to like fully confront the absolute fucking horrors not just of the occupation but of Israel itself.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I've also, you know, obviously experienced that kind of block, you know, where it's easier to blame a particular government than to maybe think about, i mean the specificities of Israel's founding and Israel's ideology, but also like the violent nature of nation states, and like just kind of thinking through that I think can be a little bit difficult for people. And as someone who works on polling, like, yes,

It's difficult to tell. I think some parts of the American Jewish.

Community like, hey, Israel's not a safety valve for you, when in fact there's so much anti Semitism now in the United States.

I mean, I feel like it's a self reinforcing loop.

Though.

I mean, on one hand, you have Jewish institutions who are literally sticking up this fucking flag of a state that is conducted by the ICC of doing genocide and you know, waving that flag around and having soldiers from an army that's doing a genocide speaking there like honored guests and saying like, this is what it means to be Jewish.

It's that we back Israel.

And on the other hand, you have these wormy little neo Nazis like Nick Fuentes who have always hated Jews, and not because of Israel. Nick Fuentes also thinks all women should be put in reading camps and all black people should be locked behind bars.

Keats Jews because he's a neo Nazi.

Who are seeing the rightful anger that people have with the ongoing genocide, and they're seeing people's disillusionment with both political parties who are continuing to provide weapons and QN cover to Israel, and they're exploiting that. And that's something that fascism has always done, right, Like fascism has always

And I always think about this with Tucker Carlson.

I mean, for me, like, okay, like he's like, you know, standard issue he has anti Jewish shit, that's like standard issue Christian shit. But like, for me, the thing that's so I hate so much about seeing smart people boost Tucker Carlson is that Tucker Carlson advocates the ethnic cleansing of the United States of immigrants. Ten months ago, he was on Megan Kelly praying about how he wanted one million people deported in Trump's hundred days.

He was even saying, we don't have to put them into tention centers.

We can just force a million people, a million people over the border into Tijuana and quote, let the Mexicans deal with them. This is hardcore white supremacist ethnic cleansing, and it's not just a speculative thing. There are tens of thousands of immigrants right now in concentration camps in

It's madness. And I just I mean, I know that.

People are so traumatized and so heartbroken and you know, even being like driven crazy by the ongoing genocide and by the American enthusiastic collusion with the genocide. But there has to be a certain basic level of solidarity with other groups who are also under threat, like all the other immigrant communities that are getting round and I've been putting in concentration camps right now.

No, absolutely, I mean there has to be a basic minimum level of solidarity and like a basic minimum level

Who are the forces today?

What are the institutions today that benefit from something like the boond and like its philosophy not being revisited, and what did they stand to lose if these Buddhist ideas become widely known again.

I feel like the vast majority of mainstream Jewish institutions, I mean, there's obviously like the ADL, right, you know, a ridiculous group that I almost feel like primarily exists to try to like terrify elderly people, so that Jonathan Green Blat keeps getting his ridiculously inflated salary and keeps getting to like prants around like he's important. There's you know, like the campus Hillales right, who claim that they're just you know, a neutral thing for Jewish identity, but make

In no way responsive to young Jews. They're not responsive to.

Like ordinary people, and they want to keep having their sort of stranglehold on getting to be the like spokesman for.

These very very very diverse communities.

And I think that, you know, as the boond and as other anti Zionist forms of Jewishness are discovered and rediscovered, that these spokespeople are terrified because I mean, the biggest thing that they want that they're so terrified about is they're terrified.

About losing the young people. The whole project.

It's about, you know, like this Jewish continuity, they call it. And you know Jewish people like getting married to each other, you know, having kids, like contributing money to their institutions, you know, maybe making Aliyah to Israel.

And if people are like.

No, I reject this, I reject this state that's committing a genocide, and I reject this ideology built on supremacy. And actually it's like fine to live in New York City and to you know, live and love and struggle alongside my neighbors. That's directly antithetical to their project. And I think that's why the Boon has not just been

Lol, Like what do you say to this, right, that's so disstic. Yeah, the boons was all gassed. Lol, you want you used to be gassed? You know, Zionists are thriving.

And I'm like, this is the most psychopathic to talk about self hating, right, mocking people for being murdered in the Holocaust. You know, it's because the Boone's ideology of solidarity cross difference of heereness and of socialism is profoundly threatening.

And honestly like what Thriving was happening, Like people in Israel are terrified. There are missiles raining down like a garrison. State cannot keep people safe. No such Ethno state can keep people safe. But and I'm reminded also from your answer about Maril Angel's article, I think last year and Jewish currents, we need new Jewish institutions. I think it's like they see the writing on the wall that this is something that's going to happen.

And with books like.

Yours, with kind of a revisiting of this history, it only hastens, you know, this kind of political project coming to fruition. My last question that I have for you is more about the memory project nature of it all. You write in your book about your great grandfather. You've already mentioned Samuel Rothbert about how he painted these memory paintings to kind of resurrect the vanished world of Eastern Europe, and you've also kind of written this book in the same way.

What do you think the relationship is between this.

Kind of recovery of erased history and building a politics for the present.

Thank you, I mean, I spent seven years on this book. I learned Yiddish.

That's wild, by the way, that's amazing.

I know, right, You know, I resented because I studied Arabic for so long and I like had finally gotten like I don't want to say good, but mediocre at it. And then I feel like Yiddish pushed it out of my brain and I'm just like, no, I want my Arabic back.

But yeah, I studied, I learned Yiddish.

I went to, you know, all the countries that I could that the boond was active in. I wasn't able to go to Belarus or Russia, but I went to like Poland, Latvia, Lithuania. I went to Ukraine during the Russian invasion. I translated so many books. I think I'm probably the only person who has read all five volumes

It was always going to be like this.

There is no alternative, as Margaret Etcher said, And what you do when you preserve these repable histories is you show that that's not the case. It expands our capacity for fight, it expands our capacity for imagination. Things could have been differently and people still can change the world.

Yeah, there's nothing inevitable, and you always have agency. I think that that's like the thing that like, I gang goose bumps thinking about when I think about these kinds of people, because they give you so much hope in the present that things could be different. Thank you so much, Molly. This has been such an interesting and provocative conversation.

And thank you so much for learning.

Yiddish and for tessetting all those books so that we can read your book.

And we don't have to do all of that.

Exactly, so you don't eat it out, have to suffer through the world's dullist socialist pro stylings.

Yeah, no, You've done it for us. And I'm so excited for the book. I'll put it in the show notes. Everybody should read it. Thank you so much, Molly.

Thank you so much, Danna.

For decades, people in northern Nigeria have been suffering the violence of Jihadis. Groups in the region, more recently fall in the lobby in of some questionable interest groups and figures. In the United States, President Donald Trump has dropped American bos on Nigeria and soil. What exactly is happening in Nigeria? Hello, and welcomed it could happen here. I'm Andre's age Andrews on YouTube and I'm joined again by James.

I'm glad we're doing this one.

Yes to talk about what's been happening in Nigeria since it has captured Trump's attention and thus Western media interest as of late. So, first of all, what away is Nigeria? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Nigeria's West African country with a diverse geography and an even more diverse population, hundreds of languages, one hundreds of ethnic groups, several religions in the most populous country in Africa and one of the

Yeah, just to be clear for Anyone's not the way. Nicki Minij not a person from Nigeria or with any particular insight into the situation there.

She's also not Trinardi and I just want to clear that up. Yes, her certificate is from the Republic a Trinianto vehicle, but we do not claim her since her statements about how COVID and the vaccine and her cousin's balls like, from that moment onward, people who have been like distancing themselves from her enterdiddo.

Anyway, I can see why.

So in November twenty five, according to a BBC report, Trump also said that he would send troops into Nigeria guns are blazing if its government continues to allow the killing of Christians. Then in December twenty twenty five, according to another BBC report, the US has launched strikes on the twenty fifth of December as a Christmas present against militans in the Islamic State Group in northwestern Nigeria.

What should be noted.

Though, is they did not strike Bokoharam, which is based in northeast Nigeria.

Yeah, it was really interesting to look at the bill that I wrote about this bit for my newsletter. But the US was flying intelligence gathering flights essentially for some time of a Nigeria right. Clearly like they must have been some kind of agreement with the Nigerian government to allow this right, but they were clearly trying to identify like where it's what and Baccaharam were and like you could see them winding up to this strike. I guess they waited to Christmas day to go for it.

Yeah, yeah, so there was the Christmas present of the US bodman there. Yeah, and this happened less than a week by the way, after the Alliance of Sahel States that'd being Bikina, Faso, Niza and Mali commissioned a joint military force of five thousand comment terrorists. And that move was following the Economic Community of West African States or equa's plan to launch a two hundred and six one

End quote Sex and analysis from the Church. I'm surprised going from that source that I'm glad it, did you know?

Yeah, Catholic change of all places. So he even claims that the kidnappings of priests have little to do with religion. And I'll quote him again. In the last three years, seven of my priests have been kidnapped, two have been killed, and one has been in captivity for three years and two months. Four released in fifty of my parishes. Priests cannot stay in directories because they are targets. They are seen as an easy source of money for a ranser.

Yeah, so it's not.

Unheard of for a group to target its own core religionists for its geopolitical economic combusures.

If we talk about specifically the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. Right, isis as opposed to the Islamic State in West Africa, like get killed more Muslims than anyone else, Right, exactly, those were the bulk of the people it murdered.

We could even look at a very old historical example, the Latin Crusade. You had all these Christians from Europe, Goyana Crusade, and because they didn't get paid, they decided to ransack their core religionists in Greece and you know, in the wider Byzantine Empire, and eventually, you know, deconstruct business the empire entirely and establish their own Latin Empire.

Yeah.

So I didn't want to gloss over the real challenges that Christians specifically are facing in North Nigeria. Though, since nineteen ninety nine, serial law has been introduced and enforced in twelve northern states, and according to the same archbishops that I quoted earlier, this has ensured that religious persecution in the North is systemic. He said, and I quote,

So there's a.

Danger of future EQUAS deployments overlapping with AS operations and potentially lead into clashes. And if there isn't the escalation of tensions between EQUAS and AS, we can end up seeing interstate wars that would devastate communities in the region and give the insurgents opportunities to expand. It could very well set up another proxy battleground for global powers and some kind of new Cold War.

So they have to.

Find some way of avoiding this clash and see if they can build a cooperative security framework despite their vastly different interests.

Yeah, and to a degree, we already see like global powers right like Russia has been honing its most horrific war crimes in parts of West Africa for a long time, right with its like private military contractors exactly Ukraine has sent special forces to assist the people fighting against the Russian private military contractors, like we've seen Nigeria's own government kill its own civilians and its counter terrorism operation like all of this just makes life less livable for people

So that's a geopolitic analysis, and I suppose been the long term. I think there's much to be done to rebuild the revolutionary front within Nigeria, led by Nigerians themselves, to chart another path for the future of the country. Are we from the status of Vassalich?

Yeah?

You know, Left and Left of Jason Wovemans were very diminished in relevance and credibility after the end of military rule in Ingerior in nineteen ninety nine due to several reasons that we could get into at another time. But by the time we got to the Ensar's movement in twenty twenty, Left forces were present but didn't have the level of organization and strategy necessary to rise the occasion. But according to an article in Progressive International by A.

This is it could happen here. In Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis to name, joined by James Stout, Mia Wong, and Robert Evans. This episode, we are covering the week of April first to April eighth. The DHS shutdown has surpassed

It's just gambling.

It's so cool that the whole world, all media is now.

Just ESPN incentives to be right again, like people are. There's like one of the sub markets within Calshi is people like bringing in lawyers to make threats over like tiny differences in grammar that invalidate them either losing money or mean that they should have won the art like like none of this is about what actually happened. It's it's becoming as much about what you can game or

Yeah, no, it's it's just turning politics into like a corrupt casino.

Yeah, it's just mob sports betting.

It's worse than sports betting because sports betting is actually based on like real odds. Right, These odds are completely created by users with their money. Like it's it's it's completely manufactured. There's no actual basis for a lot of these bets, right, Like like the betting on the papal conclave. There's no basis for an American pope getting elected, right, there's no actual odds that were like mathematically certain.

It's just created through through money. Well, to be fair, the sports odds are also just kind of made up. Yeah guys too, but like yeah, you no, real's just a tidy fit.

Vibes based like it's people looking at horses. It's a lot of what's happening in sports betting, yes, making approving. Yeah, I think I saw that something close to a billion dollars was bet on oil prices as we approach Trump's deadline.

We already had that just play the oil futures market too.

Complicands for people. I guess God, damn it, No, it's really bad. According to a March poll from the Institute for a Middle East Understanding Policy Project sampling almost six hundred Texas Democratic primary voters, seventy six percent say Israel's committing Jena, Siden and Gaza, and eighty percent support ending weapons funding to Israel. Forty four percent of Tallarika voters said his criticism of Israel was important to them and

Yeah, these data centers are really staggeringly unpopular. There's been a bunch of reporting on even the ones that are attempted to be built, something like fifty percent of them are just not able to do it because of massive public local backlash.

Because it makes life worse around them. Nakey power bells go up there loud.

Yeah, it's like it's like old school. It's like old school environmental nimbiism, sort of like I don't want these assholes in my small town stuff. There's just like the Antai sentiment in general, They're hideously unpopular and this kind of stuff is just going to continue as these data centers continue to be built.

Okay, time for me.

So.

Donald Trump has said that he will discuss the United States withdrawal from NATO for those who work in the New York Times as a North Atlanta Take Treaty Organization with Mark Rutter, who is the NATO Secretary General, during their meeting, which will happen today which is Wednesday, April eighth.

If question Mark this happens, it would be utterly aparcal, Like it would be one of the two things they're going to point out as like the dawning of the New.

Era of Yes, seismic shift.

Yeah, like what geopolitics is, this is like the fundamental basis of this in this week, or like ceasing to exist. Yeah.

Shelly Kittelsen has been released by Katipos Bula after they made her read a video confession in which she confessed and to be very clear, this is very clearly extracted fashion. Yes, the thing in this is it is true. But in the video they made her confess to passing information to US consulate in Baghdad. In one point in the video she said she had been collecting information on leaders but forgotten their names, which is very credible and true.

Most real con fashion, Yeah to Ludigris.

Her release came after IRAQ released several catigue Has Boller members, so seems like a straight swap, which is what this was about in the first place. Right, it's not about her or her work per se, It's about her being a trading chip that they can create. Finally, Republican Brandon gil has sharply criticized the dignities like Dignity dald Act recently, and this has become like something of an online discourse topic on the right. I'm not exactly sure why it's happening now.

Rep.

Salazar from Florida has tried to introduce this act several times in the last few years. We've actually covered it when it was introduced in twenty twenty five on this show. It's a bipartisan act to reform the immigration system.

That is bad.

It creates what's called a dignity status, which is essentially like an underclass of people who there is no pathway citizenship, there is no pathway to voting, but it comes with the right to renew it and the right to residency right, so it creates it's like a sub citizen class. It's bad that it's not a progressive immigration reform.

But is Brandon Gill criticizing it from the right?

Gil is coming from another perspective, then, I am. They think it gives incentives for illegal immigration and it's an amnesty.

Okay, Yeah, so he's criticizing from the right.

It's interesting to see the split among Republicans on this, and that's why I wanted to bring it in. Right that we spoke last time about the Florida sheriffs breaking with Trump on mass deportations. There are a number of things which indicate that there is clearly a faction of the Republican Party, which is realized massive deportation of people who have not been accused or convicted of any crime. It's not a popular stance, especially when you keep killing people.

Right before we get to Iran, which there's a lot to discuss, there is another news story a little bit closer to us that we think deserves some fair coverage. Statements made on a podcast last year by a top FEMA official resurfaced this last week. Greg Phillips, who is in charge of disaster response, claims that he once teleported to a waffle house in Rome, Georgia. Phillips also says he experienced a separate instant in which he teleported in

Look, anyone who's gone drunk to enough waffle houses knows that that's true.

Right, So there is an aspect of the story which is very believable, but there's some details that Phillips has included that makes me a bit more skeptical of his characterization of this incident. Let's listen to his claim on this podcast right now.

We had a teleport at incident, two of them, which transported me about forty miles from from where I was and near Albany, Georgia, to the ditch of a to the ditch of a of a church chained up at a waffle house like fifty miles away from where I.

Was to that. So to defend these statements, Phillips has taken to truth Social to share biblical accounts of teleportation as supporting evidence of teleportation.

Great.

Employees at the three waffle houses in Rome, Georgia were interviewed by The New York Times, and they say they do not recall anyone being transported there by means of teleportation, nor did they recognize pictures of Greg Phillips. But in a follow up statement by Phillips on truth Social, he said he was going through cancer treatment at the time of this alleged teleportation incident. Quote, I was healed of

Yeah.

I love how he uses cop voice like a teleportation incident.

Yeah, but however, I'm gonna point out that Garrison the next thing you're about to read, he was not heavily medicated when he said this, So.

Phillips added to this truth quote, the word teleportation was not mine. It was used by someone else in the conversation, reaching for a language describe something with no easy name, which.

Is not true. He said teleport.

He said teleport.

I think what he means is he didn't wasn't his like initial term, then started using it.

Yes, he keeps using it, he continues.

Quote.

The more accurate biblical terms are translated or transported, not new ideas for people of faith. If you believe that God moves in ways we cannot fully explain, as I do, then having faith is not a SoundBite.

It is the whole point. I believe in miracles. All caps, God bless America. He has risen unquote. Now, one detail from the podcast that has not been mentioned as much, I think offers to help some idea of what's what's really going on here.

It was an incredibly frightening moment to experience yourself in your car flying through the air.

It was possible, it was real.

He was teleposted in his car.

He was in his car, which for me changes this entire thing, because these headlines were kind of kind of imagine as if his body like dematerialized somewhere, remateialized in a waffle house something that's you know, you know, certainly he.

Just blacked out while driving, which is very different, which is very different.

When we were driving around Texas.

Yeah, I tell I teleported on Xanax one about thirty hours into the future.

So the fact that he was owned doubt while driving and ended up at a waffle house much more, much more explainable. Because many many people in slightly and slightly all downright downright outside of waffle houses in their car.

I've seen UFOs at a waffle house before.

No, right, the wabble houses are you know, are have some kind of poll that I think attracts people like a magnet who are in US in an altered state, towards them as like a beacon.

Yeah, that that poll is smothered and covered hash browns.

Yes so. And the fact that I'm right open at four am.

Oh, and bathrooms you can do heroin in don't forget that says it on the sign.

I also want to make sure that we mentioned that. In the same week in which The New York Times, the guy who was writing the headline didn't know what NATO stood for. They also titled the initial title of the article they wrote about this was anti quote. FEMA official says he teleported to waffle house. Experts are dubious. This is this might be the worst. Experts disagree Headlight. Ever, I think this is good.

I actually, out of out of the two poles of New York New York Times headlines this week, the data one is this one. Fully I fully agree with I fully agree with their their choice to say that experts are due because about teleportation.

This does make me sad because in New York Times is also the outlet that ran what is, in my opinion, the best headline ever written. It was about the fact that moray good Okay. It was other subject of a scientific study which looked at moray eels and their ability to climb a ramp out of a pool to eat some food, which proved in theory that moray eels could hunt on land, and the headline was when an eel climbs a ramp to eat a squid from a clamp.

That's a more ray title from a better time.

Yeah yeah, what a different Yeah yeah whoever wrote that. I hope you're doing well.

We will now teleport to an ad break and remterialize to discuss the back and forth ceasefire not ceasefire with Ron.

We're back and depending on when you listen to this, we may either read back to War with Iran the straight up four moves could be closed or open. We're in like uh just this this beautiful? Like uh uh roadingers. No one knows where it's gonna.

Go after this. Yeah, if you don't open your phone then and you never know how many wars since cease fires have started since the last time you opened your phone.

That's right. They can't make you believe that a war is going on if you choose to not be informed. Yeah, other than by looking at gas prices.

Yeah, yeah, that that is a thing.

God.

All right, let's let's try and do this in chronological order, because this week has been bonkers. So let's start with last Friday when you last listen to ed listening to Baby released a good Friday, And that is kind of important because a United States Air Force fifteen eighth Strike Eagle belonging to the forty eighth Fighter Wing, crashed in southwestern Iran last Friday after being hit by a manpad that the manpads is a shoulder fired surface to air missile.

Male, right, would be a military aged Yeah.

Yeah, this is like one of the most sickening terms US warfare is invented.

Yeah, military age mail is like anyone anytime people are using that, like you got a doesn't pass the SNIF test.

No, it could be anyone from to like fourteen years old to like sixty nine exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You'll be surprised who looks like an adult when you're a scared man with a gun.

Yeah yeah, or looking from thousands of feet up on its own camera.

Right.

Yeah.

It's a term invented for we are just going to start shooting at the people. We have no idea who they are, were just going to kill them. Yeah, and it's hideous.

I was recently rereading I think it's called a Theory of the Drone. It's a philosophy book about drones and drone warfare, and there's a scene in the opening of that which I think is which you can probably get the free preview of the book if you have a kindle and read that scene. But it's very illustrative of how vague this term can be. The rescue operation saw the planes land at an airstrip. Then a little bit helicopter took off collected the airmen who had been evading,

Incredible.

Yeah, I mean, I guess normally they would do some kind of soil sampling, but I think there probably just wasn't time. Yeah, So the United States elected to destroy those aircraft in place and send three more aircraft to recover their personnel. And we can see that Iran has published footage to that. Right, it seems that they also

Just watch.

Praise be to Allah.

I love the president.

Yeah, yeah, that is a that is the leader of the free world. Yeah.

My extremely low staged conspiracy that this was not Trump. This was written by Trump's staff because it's slightly off, it could have been.

It doesn't sound like him, really.

Yeah, he's not normally a like he gets.

Yeah, a lot of stuff isn't really him. No, that's a weird thing for him to throw it.

I can very easily believe that this is that this is him like going nuts on something.

Yeah, like he could have done possible. I think there's a low chance that this was what this was like a staff written thing.

It's just it's it's it's weird wording from him, like it's a strange message, although the last couple from him have all seemed kind of strange.

Yeah, he is just out of it.

The one he put up after the ceasefire announcement where he's like where he puts in quotations that the navy will be hanging round. Yeah, yeah, that's that's not doesn't sound like him much either, But also like who else would he let write that? It's He's it's just but it is weird, right, that does not sound like any previous Trump post hanging round to say fuck.

In a Trump in a presidential tweet, Like, I don't know why a stuffer would do that.

No, and I.

Agree with you, Jays.

These things are usually transcribed like usually he reads these out loud and someone writes them down and then he looks at them and and then and then and then they hit post like that. That's that's how all of his truths were structured in that documentary.

Yes, does he dictate the capitalization.

When he looks them over like he may.

Okay, because he has a fascinating and quite unique approach to capitalization.

Like specifically like there will be nothing like. It is definitely like a Trump a Trump verbal text.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a super Trump line.

Yeah. But then like the next part, I is weird.

But hanging round that's that's not really a Trump sounding line.

Okay, sorry, it's weird. We we've all been distracted.

So to talk about what he said on Tuesday, Power Bridge Day. Yeah, he said, quote A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be bought back again.

That's a Trump line.

Yeah. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change where different, smarter and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something maybe something way. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not so sure. Maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows. We will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. Forty seven years of extortion,

I think that is. I think that's a threat of genocide. Yeah, like this has been which by the way, is also like if you say this and then kill one person, like you are guilty of the crime of genocide. Yeah, yeah, like the genocide.

Like it's not good. It is not good. Let's talk about what actually happened. Right since then, just before the deadline, a huge number of strikes hit a run, including the Ministry of Intelligence building at Chiraz. There's some evidence that may have had some tunnels underneath it, Aerospace Research Institute, bridges and aluminium factory. Brigadier General Majid Hademi, who is the head of IOGC Intelligence was also killed in the targeted strike, and we hit carg Island again. Good, finally,

Or nuclear weapons a lot, right.

Yeah, right, we've seen this right again. When the president's saying you're gonna wipe out it doesn't make me feel calm. You should you should assume that the president might actually try to wipe out a culture. I mean, I like that is my strong stance on this, is that based on what he's saying, it is not unreasonable for people to flip out over this statement. It's absolutely not People should be outraged that a president said he they're pretty

Yeah, Like he should be hauled up in front of a tribunal like Meloshovic, Like I am not on team.

We should just move past.

This, like it's easy because everything's so insane to be like another insane thing everything. This is a guy who has the trigger for all the nukes saying he's going to wipe out a civilization, like I would love.

To be the nothing ever happens. Nothing happened here, it's fine, Like, don't don't yield to Trump? Derangement syndrome. Guy, because it's a lot easier, but like this is not something anyone should move past. He should go on trial for like this, like outside of the other stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah, Each of these tweets would constitute a reason for a trial in any previous presidency. Since then, Pakistan offered to mediate a ceasefire and these are negotiated Toro on going as Donald Trump was true thing. Iran reportedly made a list of its own demands. This is a translation from Persians, so not a word for word quotation, right.

The Iranians originally put forward a ten point plan that was fundamentally unserious, unacceptable, and completely discarded. It was literally thrown in the garbage by President Trump and his negotiating team. Many outlets in this room have falsely reported on that plan as being acceptable to the United States, and that is false.

So she was pretty emphatic about that. Trump attacks CNN for publishing the plan this morning. Trump has said that the Israeli attacks on Lebanon were quote a separate skirmish. Striket Lebanon a hundred times in just over ten minutes today they dropped whole tower blocks in Beirut.

That that is not a skirmish.

Now he said they're not part of the deal because as Buller's not part of the deal. Of course, in it. Ran state media are pushing that they've they have somehow achieved all of their ten points, which I think were their sort of goals for negotiation or a basis for negotiation. Trump has said to one reporter that the tolls on the street could be a joint venture between the United States and Iran.

Which suggest there are some parts of this of this deal that that are that are true, that he has kind of agreed.

On, that are at least on the table. Right, Like these are the bases, which was how they were initially reported by CNN and others, that these have been accepted as a basis for negotiation. They had not been accepted whole cloth. Some people of some whom I think are acting in bad faith, have said since this more warning. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the tolls will be paid in cryptocurrency or Chinese one yeah, and that around it is broadcasting VHF messages. It's very high frequency.

The tolls about like two million, right.

Well, there have been various proposals. Some I said two million dollars. I've seen different dollar sums per barrel of oil transiting the straight. I guess it would depend if it's if it's if the US Iranian partnership. You know how we're going to account for the exchange rate. Everyone has to get their peace right. Yeah, but yes, the two million dollars number was thrown around a lot.

Yeah, and it's worth noting that the strait is not open now. It is simply not.

The number isn't a lesson stopp launching strikes.

Well, even if they wanted to open it right now, they would have to remove the mines that they've put in it.

Right, We don't know how many minds there are.

If there are, so there are still ships going through, there's not many of them, like there's I think it was. The number I saw for today was four. Yeah, yeah, like so like like it is technic, it is possible to go through. But four is like one of the lowest numbers that has happened since the Strait was first closed. So it has has simply not been reopened. Trump says this constantly.

It's down to one channel, would be my guess, right, Like, it's because and then that they're advising those ships. I'm guessing we're sending a pilot craft perhaps to go between the mines.

Yeah.

I haven't seen any reporting on how they're getting them through.

Yeah, I haven't.

The extent to which they've laid minds is really unclear. Yeah, Like all we know is that they have the capacity to do so, in that the US has been striking craft that are set to lay minds. But like, I haven't heard of any evidence of a ship getting hit with the mine yet.

Right, Yeah, neither of I s Perhaps they haven't.

Laid any or we don't know what they've done. They may have decided that that was more of than they needed to do at this point.

Yeah.

Yeah, And so far, all of the attacks on ships have been with other more conventional weapons.

Yeah, either sea drones or missiles of various kinds.

Yeah, shooting them with guns in a couple of cases.

Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Garrison, let's start with this clip of JD. Vance talking about the inclusion of Lebanon in this ceasefire.

First of all, I actually think and there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot.

Of bad faith.

You know, propaganda going on. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn't. We never made that promise, We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran, and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies. Both Israel and the Golf are of states.

So yeah, let's talk about Israel, right, a country which famously loves to respect a ceasefire. Israel has continued to strike inside Iran. It has not stopped since the announcement of this ceasefire, right, it has shown no indication of wanting to stop. It is also continued, as I said,

Yeah, I mean, the whole situation right now is very unclear and is literally changing by the hour.

Yeah, like by the time we're done recording this.

Right, Yeah, so we're recording this Wednesday afternoon. By the time this comes out Thursday night slash Friday morning, there could be a whole different situation.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll try and record a pickup if we have to.

But yeah, as of as of Wednesday afternoon, this is what the sort of ambiguity around around the deal looks like and the level of compliance regarding Israel and the United States.

Yeah, there are two more things I want to talk about that have been reported on the list. Obviously, this has been reported on widely because it is a threat to all of our lives if we're going to start a nuclear war. The pak is Curtis Down Freedom Party, says it's leaders headquarters. This was interally reported as home. They did send me a text to use the word home WhatsApp, but I think, judging by what I have heard from other reports in a region, it's better described

Don't have guns. You know, we send some guns the group that was supposed to give which I said, what happened to my people? I said it.

I called it exactly.

We sent guns, a lot of guns.

They were supposed to go to the people said they could fight back against these ducks. You know what happened. The people that they sent them to kept them because they said, what a beautiful gun.

I think I'll keep it.

So I'm very upset with a certain group of people, and they're going to pay a big price for that. But the Iranian people who will fight back as soon as they know they're not going to be shot and as soon as they can get weapons.

This is one of the most seed It's up there with him threatening to new Karam the Easter Bunny, and it's.

I hesitate to use the word Lynchian because that work gets misapplied a lot.

And Tufa asks him, and this is not a perfect.

Invocation of Lynchian either, but it's getting closer with the sort of one of the.

More Lynchian things to have pay real life.

It's incredible up with like the Easter jazz in the back crash of vibes. Yeah, as there's like flowers over the archway. Yeah, I think half co No, there's sort of the sort of juxtaposition, right, which I think is that is the key part of leedge is like is this surreal with the mundane and you have parts of this here where you have this sort of intensity of the stuff Trump's talking about with the Eastern jazz and his like purple tie and the easter like decorations in

Stunning piece of history.

God yeah, I saw this yesterday and I thought I need to expose my colleagues to this, like one of the most incredible thirty seconds of video. To come back to topic at hand, various Rogulati groups have denied this, and it would be an extreme logistical challenge to provide weapons to Curdish arm groups, most of whom have most of their personnel in Iraq, and for them to transit

What guns would they give them that they don't because if these groups tend to be pretty well supplied with small personal arms we're talking about like your battle rifles and you know, long range precision rifles and the like, what they lack is man portable anti aircraft and man portable anti armor. Those are kind of some of the most precious pieces of gear to them, and I doubt Trump was offering to send that into Iran, among other things.

Right now, Like that s babfire.

But that's the only shit I could see these different groups wanting to take for themselves.

Yeah, it's especially strange because, like I watched a lot of videos of armed attacks on uh, like Iranian police in January of this year, and they were using very basic weapons, to include quite a few of the pak using pumpacked shotguns.

Yeah.

I don't think the US sent them pump action shotguns.

No, that would be a weird We don't. The US military doesn't have a lot of pump action shot is just laying around. Yeah, that's not like the first gun they'd have a bunch of to hand over to somebody. They've probably got more ak's than that.

Yeah, and like there were ak's used as well, but like these are very basic episodes, as you say, like this doesn't seem like anything that would come from the US. Also in Kurdistan and Iranian drones struck Zagazawi village, killing Musa anwar Rasul, aged thirty nine, and his wife Musta

It's all pretty bleak and disappointing.

Well, you know what else disappointing. Every week we have to do this. It's an ad break.

All right, we're back. We still have three or four important stories that we're gonna do here before we close. James, want to start with your section on the threat to press freedom.

Yeah, so I think this is import President Trump has said that his DOJ will seek to prosecute the person who quote leaked the information that the fifteen's weapons safety officer was missing an evading caption in Iran. Quote we're going to go to the media company that released it, or we're going to say national security, give it up, or go to jail, Trump said, quote The entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life.

Right.

I can't quite find who broke the story because it's not really a story that broke. It didn't require anyone to leak anything to know that someone was missing, because the wreckage and without seeing the wreckage. People weren't really willing to publish the story rights they had no confirmation

Was an F fifth Strike Eagle.

Yeah, and there are single seat to F fifteen variants, but I don't believe any of them are active. Dut US Air Force Strike Eagles will always have two people. It's not a single seater, right, So nobody had to leak that information for it to be obvious that if they had collected one person, then there was still one person. This does represent quite a serious attack on the First Amendment. People are killing and dying over Irun, and our tax

Yeah.

Well, and it's a very important part of the of the last little section of the Newsroom TV show. There's a whole plot line about death and at shows. Yes, yes, yes, Gareth, they're sure is so I just thought that's worth mentioning.

You guys have told me not to watch Size. It'll make me angry, and I've respected that that.

You should not James Will, you will lose your mind. It's not good for you.

There's a lot of stuffs making me angry right now. So I'm going to give that one.

Too much sork In at the moment is very quickly becomes toxic.

Too much. Sorkin has really fucked up a lot of people in this country.

Yeah, speaking of things that will really fuck you up, are beautiful tariff music, right.

Locking, locking.

Lockingspot Ah, So glad that we're back to talking about tariffs.

So okay, if we have a couple of a wrong related tariff things, Garrett, are we playing the nightmare clip?

We have to play the nightmare clip.

We're playing the nightmare clip? Okay, this is okay. When when inevitably, in the course of humanity they have to make a museum to explain to people what capitalism was, this is what they are going to show.

This is a clip from the quote unquote news agency CNBC.

Deadline that President Trump has sat a PM has threatened to destroy a civilization.

How how does how does an investor process that?

Is it?

Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?

Big upside risk, onside risk to genocide?

She kind of looks up and then just goes right in.

Like when when they have to like explain to people, right, like how how eight billion people were like consumed into these like roles that they were forced to inhabit by the machinations of capital. This is gonna be the one.

Oh god, it turns out, uh, the markets responded very positively to Trump's threats to destroy a civilization.

It's I, you know, what if what if we didn't have market? What if what if there wasn't a line? I oh god, okay, so speaking of bad things, I guess so. On Wednesday, Trump posted on truth Social quote a country capital CE country supplying capital M military weapons to Iran will be in immediately tarriffed on any and all goods sold to the United States of America fifty percent effective immediately. There will be no exclusions or exemptions.

No, and Trump doesn't seem like a big set up a commission guy.

I mean, well, thing is that they actually have done

Now fantasy good sme.

Yeah, So, like, okay, there is a small chance that, like you, the listeners may have heard of the Smoot Holly tariffs, and that's because it's the one that made the Great Depression worse. Yep, and no one's ever used them since it's not even clear if they're on the books anymore, because like this is a legitimate thing of academic discussions like whether these are even still in effect because they haven't been used, they're technically still there, but

It would be China era pajamas what he's going for there? Right in China's so weapons to Ryan.

Yeah, And like there's also a lot of speculation, like I think Reuters reported this that this might be a thing because there's going to be a trade summit with Beijing, but if you're a trade person in Beijing, you also know that he can't do this, so it's not real leverage. I don't know, nightmare. Let's talk about some relatively fun I guess news back at home.

Interesting certainly.

Yeah. So one of the things that happened this week was there was a series of elections and the result of those elections was the Republicans got absolutely hammered, like all up and down the ballot in Wisconsin. They did. They performed terribly in Georgia. So the big Democratic win was in Wisconsin. So polls had Chris Taylor, who was the Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, up by about seven or eight percent. Chris Taylor won this election

Yeah, this is like one of their biggest Republican like stronghold victories, and like they will always win this seat.

Yeah, you know, and this is something that like everyone from wast also we're talking about, which is if they can't win here, they can't win Wisconsin at all. Yeah, there's there's no way, right. And again, like you know, I'm gonna get into this more in a second, but like the Democrats were projected to win this seat and this is obviously a by election, and this this is this the Supreme Court seat that they won is like

Wow.

Which is astonishing part.

Of Again you mentioned the a bunch of these, like school board elections in Wisconsin. It's not just Wisconsin, I mean in a lot of the most conservative tarot to the most conservative counties in Texas. Over the last like year, basically every school district that was taken by the Moms for Liberty types has been completely like they have been completely thrown out. And that has been happening around the country.

And they went crazy.

They not crazy, They got really pissed off, rightfully, so, and I think this is going My hope is that this turns out to be one of their worst strategic missteps in this period of time, is their belief that we can just go fucking ape shit on schools and no one will care.

Yeah. Well, and this brings me back to something I've been talking about for a while, which is that, so, like, what of the other results that we're sort of looking at here. So, there was an election in Georgia in this like as a Stev's special election for the seat that was Mergory Taylor Green's old district. This is like one of the most unhinged Republican districts in the entire country. Trump won it by forty and the Republican Clay Fuller, did win, but he only he won by twelve points

It's just there's like a deep fluidity here. Right, There's a lot of people who supported Trump because of economic conditions which were blamed on the Democrats, and they moved for Trump, and there was a lot of these same people are not like Trump or Republican loyalists. They're they're reacting to the economic conditions and the messaging from each party. And this is reflected in you know, the number of Trump's Zorn voters, even the number of people who vote Trump and AOC in New York.

Right.

Yeah, they're not like mega loyalists, right, But but it's showing how there is a big fluidity among among the types of people that do decide elections.

Yeah, but then there's all. There's also and this is I think the the other side of this too, right, is that there's once people who haven't voted, just didn't give a shit at all, and those people are suddenly being mobilized, and this is turning into like the Democrats are like winning a whole bunch of like rural counties

One, even immigration.

Immigration was the one that was kind of close, okay, between that and like a every single other one was down double digits. Okay. If you look at like CDF versus like AB or if you like ignore c right, it's so much more in the category of like d's and f's.

On the negative side in general.

Yeah, yeah, like this is for every single issue. I'm guessing it's kind of a binary distribution, right, like a lot of a's or a lot of f's and not much.

There's actually a surprising number of b's, but that's interesting. Yeah, and like a decent number of d's. But yeah, it was like mostly f's and then everything else is kind of spread up between other ones. I mean, all of this is before the like I'm a civil stationable die tonight.

Stuff, which which did cause negative reactions from people in the in the conservative base. Yeah, and people voting in Georgia and and Wisconsin. I want to play this clip here. This was a clip from from from Georgia of a Georgia voter who was interviewed on election day.

It's giving war crime. You can't do that. We don't just annihilate people because we can and you know, make a grab for the money and the old and that's what we've done in Venezuela, and that's what we're doing in Orion.

It's giving war crime.

It's giving war crime.

I need to take it.

This is this is it's beautiful positive.

Yes, that's message and the Democrats to come up with on this.

This is this is like a well then in her thirties or forties holding holding a kid at nine. This broadcast was at nine thirty three am in Rome, Georgia, on election day. Yep, it is it's giving war crime.

Yeah. And you know, if you look at that, like the yug of Economist poll, which is from like April first, but like even at April first, he had just an atrocious thirty five percent approval rating, which is that's like that's like end of the Bush administration shit. All of this.

Speaking of people who are pissed off, there's one final story that I'll go through pretty quick before we close this episode. Last Wednesday, to celebrate April Fool's Day, Trump fired Pam Bondi as Attorney General. Trump told Bondi about his plan to fire her while in the car together to watch the Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship.

Why Jesus, there's video of it. There's video of it. It's amazing, like credit to Fox, but they got a shot of them in the limo and Trump is clearly telling her, and it's when we know he was telling her. It's an amazing little artifact. All you can make out is their faces kind of and their body language. But it rips it's so funny.

Bondi tried to convince Trump to let her stay on till at least summer, but to no avail. Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve as acting Attorney General until the President nominates a full replacement. On Tuesday, Blanche said, quote nobody has any idea unquote why Bondi

Wait, so he's a troop cop, military magistrate, troop judge.

He's he's served in a few roles.

Yeah, that's troop cop. Shit.

He served as a prosecutor and a judge.

They hated and reviled troop cop. He looks like maybe he at some point went to law school there, right.

He went to law school in New York, either during that time or beforehand. It all kind of takes place around because I think he got out of law school around thousand and four. At at the time he was the youngest person to finish law school in New York. Oh wow, he was in his early twenty After he got out of the military or out of active duty, he briefly served as an attorney for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and also private practice for a little bit before he went into the State

Right.

These these sorts of frequent changes were a hallmark of first of his first term. Yeah, and for the start of his second he seemed to not want to do that and instead got like his ranks of loyalists that he was going to work with. But since Christi Nomes firing, that has clearly changed, and this is prompted speculation about who could be next, from people like Tulci Gabbard to Cash Bettel or Pete Haig Seth. Think Gabbard is is

There have been rumors that some of the reason that heg Seth has been sort of purging high command in the military is that he has concerned that those people would be his replacements, like alternates for him sec death. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ptel was under more heat. I feel like during following the shooting of Charlie kirk Great the assassination and that their failure to find the assassin for some time.

Yeah, and his and his UH plane tickets and his trips with his girlfriends.

Yeah, the failure with Savannah Guthrie too.

Yeah.

Trump Trump did not like that clip of him in the hockey locker room.

H yeah, yeah. There have been quite a few. Now you mentioned them.

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