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All right, let's go ahead and move over to some of the latest things that are happening with regard to immigration and deportations.
We touched on the.
Increasing unpopularity of what Trump is doing and how he really has already lost public trust with regard to his immigration agenda. Let's go and put this latest event upon
the screen. So, a judge in Wisconsin was arrested by the FBI after she had allegedly directed an an undocumented immigrant out of a side door that is usually used for jury members, and she was upset that ICE agents had been coming to the courthouse, coming to you know, her courtroom and waiting for immigrants to finish their hearings and then sweeping them up and arresting them. She was upset about that, reportedly, and so she directed this one immigrant and his lawyer to go out a side door.
Now the side door apparently led into a public hallway, and he was ultimately arrested anyway, But Ryan, they have now arrested her and charged her for you know, their claiming that she obstructed their ability to arrest this particular immigrant.
Yeah, and this happened to come, or I don't think I wouldn't say habit to come. It did come shortly after another judge in New Mexico was also arrested, and so it created this this feeling of like, okay, there's a crackdown now on judges. The other one, though, was a this this utterly bizarre case. This is a magistrate judge who had actually stepped down because of this scandal
that he ended up getting arrested. For magistrate judge in the county means like you're you're handling like very low level disorderly conduct cases and stuff like this.
This is not somebody who has you know.
Is out there like stopping ice busses from deporting people.
So it's completely separate.
This guy's judge, Judge Jose luise Cano, and his bizarre case was he had three guys living in his guesthouse in Mexico who were like handymen, like he met him as handymen for his his property and they late they in February, there was a raid and it was claimed that the three men and they say they have lots of evidence beyond like oh, he was wearing a Chicago Bulls cap, like actual evidence that they were Trend de Aragua members, and so they were, and then they arrest
the guy and his wife for hiding these men that Trump had, you know, declared a member of a group that are now that Trump declared them a terror group while he's in office, so like after they've kind of moved into his little guest house. So his defense was I had no idea, there's just handymen like okay, And he even said, like I've got grandkids who come over here and played with those guys. If I was told that they were gang members, I wouldn't have let my grandkids play with them.
What they were arrested for was tampering with evidence.
We don't know exactly what evidence they tampered with, you know, judges and innocent till proven guilty. But in general, like some people when they find themselves in trouble, they quickly are like deleting all of their text messages or something, and that's easy to see or whatever. You know, who knows what if anything they did. But they didn't even
charge them. It seems like with like housing them. But anyway, and then the second the first case, since you know, we don't have soager emily here when you normally have somebody trying to defend the case, let me try.
Let me see if I can make the best case.
The best argument for the fact that she committed a crime is that she was quite hostile with the ICE agents. Didn't absolutely did not like them in her courthouse, Yeah, and was like whispering in the.
Court room like hey, come here, make a murmory, like go out this.
Way in a way that suggests like some consciousness of trying to like usher them out. Now your point like that that that led to some that led to a public hallway anyway, Like the argument would be she was trying even if she didn't succeed, and there is a federal law, whether that law should be constitutional or not, I think is open to question. I don't think it should be because I think you should be able to I think if if like it's called basically it's like
a harboring and immigration fugitive. And I guess, you know, on one level, if there's like if there's a murderer running around and you're like hiding the murderer and you know they're a murderer, Okay, I guess that should be a crime. But you there's another case. I don't think
we have it in here. It's going on Tennessee. Did you see this one where no, maybe it was in Virginia actually in Charlottesville, Yes, yes, yes, yes, you want to talk about that one where they're trying to prosecute like a couple activists who are like, we just, oh, we do have a deal because you've got these plane closed kind of thugs who were just grabbing people, and you have a prosecutor. And then you have a couple of activists who are saying, let me see your warrant, let me see some ID.
Who are you, show me your badge right, because there's I wish we had grabbed the video, but we showed it previously. We played it because it's it's quite chilling. I mean, there's no law that prevents ice from making these arrusts in courthouses.
But it used to be like.
You don't do that, right, right, And now that has been explicitly like there was I think a memo that went out for the Trump administration like nope, you can go to the schools, you can go to the courthouses, you can go to the churches, et cetera. And so you see these plane clothes individuals, one of them completely masked, who come in and are kind of aggressively arresting this guy. And yeah, I assume his lawyers and these activists are saying, where's your warrant, where's your badge number?
Who are you with?
And they're just you know, being stonewalled on nearly all of these questions. And so now they're charging these individuals who were just saying, hey, what is going on?
Like are you just kidnapping this words? Like what is happening here?
They haven't charged the activists yet, but they're investigating them.
Right, Oh okay, yeah, yeah, so in any case, you know, this is threatening to This comes amid also it's important the context. You obviously have the Republicans constantly said we're
going to impeach the judges. What was Steven Miller, We got to get these communists judges out of here, like Trump asserting that, you know, he is effectively the personal representative of the will of the people, and so if core are disagreeing with his lawless actions, then they are thwarting the will of the people and they are therefore illegitimate.
We see this administration obviously like outright defying court orders, whether it's turning the planes around or refusing to facilitate kill mar Abrego Garcia's return even though the Supreme Court said you have to do that. So it's amidst that climate that you now see this. You know, look, I'm not a legal expert. I want to talk to Pisco or someone else about the strength of this case, but to my reading, the very weak case leading to the
arrest of this judge. And they also did it in a very provocative public way where you know, I mean, no one thinks this judge is like a threat to public safety or whatever. You could have if you wanted to charge her, you could have had her voluntarily surrender and not have the images of the handcuffs and all this sort of stuff.
So there's no doubt.
I think there is no doubt that this is an intentional signal that is being sent to the judiciary, to anyone who may try to defend the rights of immigrants. I recall also Tom Homan going on TV and saying they might charge AOC because she had done one of these like know your Rights type of seminars, which is something that other members of Congress you know, have done, which is just about skating people. Pay Literally, here are your rights, here's what you can do, and here's what
you can't do, et cetera. So I and Ken Clippenstein has reported on how sab Gorka, who is the Counter Terrors are as a significant position within the administration, saying that he believes that people who protest the Trump deportation policy may be aiding and embedding providing.
Material support to a terrorist.
Group, which would also, you know, indicate criminal potential charges against you know, activists or others who would resist the direction that Trump administration has gone in.
Yes, if you ever read any journalism or history about any authoritarian government throughout history for hundreds of years. As soon as the idea of terrorism became a thing, authoritarian governments seized on terrorism as the reason that they were cracking down on particular on their on their enemies and right and saying, okay, this is, this is and so here the case would be, okay, it's it's whether it's trend awuagua or let's say Hamas, like, okay, you are
protesting Israel's genocide and Gaza that is supportive of Hamas. Therefore, anybody involved in any of that can be surveilled. And by the way, the Democrats deserve of an enormous amount of criticism for this, for expanding surveillance authorities to which allows uh, the NSA to basically collect information and communications of people who were here on student visas or green card green card holders.
UH.
And so they're they're they're basically able to surveil every WhatsApp group, every you know, every you know. If this is assuming they can get through whatever the encryption is onto your phone, and then if their American city on there, and then they're reading their stuff too, and they're all
and they're doing it all in the name of fighting terrorism. Yeah, and it's exactly what Steve Miller said, We're gonna get these terrorists off your off your streets, right when that's not actually what how people understand uh immigration, even even mass immigration or even mass deportation. They I think people understand it as these people came here illegally and we're going.
To deport them.
Like those the supporters of Trump's immigration, they don't think they're terrorists.
One of the innovations of the Trump two point zero campaign is previously even you know, I would say Trump one point oh, there was a mixture of this, but Trump two point zero was more of the pure embodiment. Previously, the conversation about immigration was like they're taking your jobs and Jade van Zutaro, they're causing the cost of housing
to go up, et cetera. Trump talks about immigrants almost exclusively as criminals, right, and so you know, they really sought to betray this group, even though we all know the data that undocumented immigrants have a lower crime rate than the native born population, and documented immigrants have an
even lower crime rate than the native born population. But he really sought to portray every immigrant and you see this in this administration very clearly as a criminal and a terrorist, and you know that is I think in real time people are realizing that was not accurate, because if that was accurate, you wouldn't have trouble.
You wouldn't be having to round up.
You know, andre the gay makeup artists who had a mom and dad tattoo, or the autism awareness guy and throw them in an El Salvador dungeon, hoping that no one would be able to figure out who these people are, and actually dig into the fact that they have no criminal records, they are not gang members.
They had They're the only thing.
And some of them actually had followed the government process and were in the midst of seeking asylument, had done everything right that they were supposed to be doing in that process. If there were you know, if we were overrun with millions of minal gang member terrorists, it wouldn't be so hard to find two hundred of them to
be able to ship off. And even though you know, on a principal ground you should still not support anyone even if they did have criminal charges, being sentenced with no due process for life to this torture dungeon I'm not under no illusion that the public would really object too strenuously to that having been done. So, I think it exposes the lie upon which they built this whole
anti immigrant hysteria. And you know, so in addition to your point about the way that this is being used to erode everyone's rights, and they really make no secret of this, especially with Trump, make the connection to hey, this has happening for immigrants. Now homegrowns quote unquote are next.
And the crackdown on universities that already directly impacts US citizens their ability to pursue a degree, their ability to marry the people that they want to marry without having them shipped off or you know, arrested and kidnapped in the middle of the night, or you know, on the broad daylight with multiple ICE agents, et cetera. Put C three up on the screen. It is this administration's position that if an ICE agent believes that they are, you know,
they are pursuing a quote unquote alien enemy. So it doesn't require any sort of process or anything like that. If they believe they're pursuing an alien enemy, they can go in your house without a warrant to look for migrants. So that is an extraordine I think. I mean, to me, it's blatantly unconstitutional. But as we all know, it takes time for these challenges.
To make their way through the courts, et cetera.
But you know, if you don't think that this applies to everyone, then I would beg you to consider what we've already learned about the way that they have gone about this policy and the way that they will. You know, they'll snatch up anyone what we've got, you know, US citizen kids who are being deported now with little to no due process, et cetera. Two, we can put this
up on the screen. One of them has cancer. Another one judge is already saying, I think with the I think with there was a four year old.
The judges the four year old I think has cancer.
The two year old, I think is the one that dad was, you know, in the process of arguing no, this child should stay here in the US and not to be deported alongside her Honduran mother and sister. So uh so, yeah, I mean this this has implications not just for the immigrant population, which in my opinion, you should care about, but certainly has implications for the entire population here and I feel.
Kind of just stupid, like saying like, is you know, couldn't you do your like far right wing policy without doing this?
It's like, I guess you can't like this.
It's kind of the you know, the the cliche during Trump one was the cruelty is the point, and it's like, you you can't if you can't do this mass deportation policy. I it's not even mass actually, it's just spectacular deportation policy. Because mass would you're not reaching anywhere near the numbers like you've you've got dhs celebrating, you know, if they get over like a few dozen deportations. If you can't do it without deporting a four year old with cancer or.
I don't I don't know the details if it was the four year old or the mother or.
Somebody like, but if you but if you can't, if if this and if this makes up like a significant portion of your deportations, right then.
Then yeah, you sold it wrong. And that's and that's the key point.
Like he sold it based on a lie, which is that these are all criminals, right therefore you have to apply a kind of criminal justice standard to it. Yeah, and it doesn't work, And so you have to then, you know, put cuffs on a four.
Year old, right and yeah, and vanish them before anyone can have a chance to look into the veracity of your claims.
Right, Well, that's shame they're in Honduras.
Now, yeah, there, what can you do, It's not in our problem anymore.
Just to reiterate your point about the use of terrorism designations to claim power and authoritarian regimes. I mean we already see this with you know, multiple groups, not just obviously immigrants. That's really clear cut, with supporters of Palestine with the hands off protesters according to Ken Klippenstein reporting, also, you know they're looking at hands off protesters. So basically, any resistance to Trump as being you know, as being terrorist,
domestic terrorists. You're you know, the anyone who would oppose the deportation policy, anyone who harbors ill feelings about Tesla, anyone who's on there Luigi posting. These are all groups that this administration is beginning to view as domestic terrorists. And we also have seen the way that they have used basically emergency or national security powers to consolidate power in the executive Alien Enemies Act. Perfect example of that. You're supposed to be at war. Right, It's only been
used three times. All three were very clearly We're of eighteen twelve, World War one, world War two. Those are the three times the Alien Enemies Act has been invoked prior to this.
And we declared war then, yes, Congress declared war.
Yes, And they're making this preposterous claim that we're at war with Venezuela because they had trend to Arragua invade US. I mean, it's I hope and expect that this will likely eventually be shruck down by the courts. You never know, with the Supreme Court, you know, stacked as it is, but I expect that will be the case. But not only that, the tariff powers are also claimed through a
national emergency. And you know, I think this is this is the playbook for Trump two point zero, is that they use these supposed terrorism or national security or national emergency assertions, which courts have previously granted presidents broad discretion to be able to invoke. They're using these assertions to be able to circumvent due process, to be able to grab powers for the executive that are really clearly delegating the case of terrorists to Congress and be able to
sort of unilaterally effectuate their agendas. So that has been the playbook for Trump two point zero, and it goes far beyond you know what's happening with the immigration system.
Senator Alyssa Slockin had told Bernie Sanders and AOC to stop using the word oligarchy because they're confusing our simple, little American public. Bernie Sanders was asked about that on Meet the Press.
Let's Roll.
His response, Democrats should stop using the term oligarchy because it's a phrase that doesn't resonate with all Americans. Are you missing a chance to speak to a wider audience.
Senator, Well, jeez, we had thirty six thousand people out of Los Angeles, thirty four thousand people in Colorado. We had thirty thousand people in Fulsome, California, which is kind of a rural area. I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Mislocked and thinks they are.
Are.
They they understand very well when the top one percent owns more wealth than the bottom ninety percent, when big money interests they're able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy. And these are precisely the
issues that have got to be talked about. Are you living in a democracy when mister Musk can spend two hundred and seventy million dollars to elect Trump and then becomes the most important person in government or an apac and other super PACs have enormous power over democratic candidates. Those are issues that we have got to talk about. That is the reality of American society today. The very rich getting richer, working class people are struggling, eight hundred
thousand people sleeping out on the streets. If we don't address that issue, the American people will continue to turn their backs on democracy because they're looking around them and they're saying, does anybody understand what I am going through?
Response, and we can put up D two here was simply to put up the dictionary definition of oligarchy for anybody who.
Needed although surveys showed that actually people don't need it.
That people were asked if they could define it, and they basically could.
It's it's not that it's.
Not that complicated word like a bunch of billionaires running everything well.
And Alyssa Slotkin many pointed out, had no problem using the word oligarchy when she was applying it to Russia. Oh yes, they were all sorts of opposed to her talking about Russian oligarchs and oligarchy or whatever. It's only when it's being applied here at home that the former CIA spook has a problem.
Yeah, so, yeah, you know, I'm always on the lookout for the left of adopting some faculty lounge language that might be that might be a kind of off putting. I don't think that's what's happening here, but I'm curious for your take. But for me, if it works in two different ways, because it works for independents who you know, feel like the system is rigged and is control old by billionaires. It works for people on the left who
buy into the entire thing. But it also works with kind of resistance libs who have been really energized around defending democracy and the left and some others kind of scoff at that this whole like, oh, democracy, that's not real. It's a distraction from you know, fighting for the working class and for improving people's material conditions. But oligarchy is
a frame that covers that. Right, Like, if you are somebody who is worried about our democracy eroding, Yeah, who's the one doing Who's the one eroding it, right, it's the oligarchs. So you capture everybody under that's under that umbrella.
I think that's really well put. And the proof is in the pudding. Like we know who is turning up to those Bernie AOC rallies. It's not just quote unquote you know Bernie Brows from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty.
It is a lot and we talked to Dave Wigel about this.
It is a lot of normy Democrats, which is why AOC is shooting up in the polls in terms of who is the leader of the Democratic Party. And so yeah, I think it's an incredibly helpful frame. As you said when we were talking about this on Friday, I think voters actually appreciate being treated as adults who are capable of understanding concepts that like oligarchy, which I think we are all getting a rapid lesson in how that takes shape and what it means.
For all of us.
So, you know, political consultants have been trying to come up with this like sort of focused, grouped language about how do we connect the fight for democracy with like people's you know, with the price of eggs, or whatever, and usually that ends up in a very torture direction where you're not really making a good case either about the material circumstances or about the genuine threat to democracy.
And I think the framing of oligarchy really does serve those ends incredibly effectively, incredibly effectively, Like you can see the no one else in the Democratic Party has the level, has garnered the level of energy, attention and excitement as AOC and Bernie have you know, I would I guess next, I would put like Chris van Holland taking a genuinely I would say, courageous action going down to Solvador, like
actually doing something out in the real world. I will say a lot of liberals are very excited about Corey Booker's speech. That one didn't speak to me personally as much, but I do want to say a lot of people were really excited about.
That because it at least showed some fight.
But you know, viewing what is happening in the Trump administration through this lens of oligarchy, I think really does unify the left the liberals and creates this sort of powerful coalition that is also somewhat oppositional to the like think tank driven abundance conversation that Alyssa Slotkin. I don't know, she like calls herself like an abundance person, but she would be more in line with that. And the last thing I'll say about it is AOC and you you
could speak to this better than anyone. She has really positioned herself previously as being one to work within the boundaries of the Democratic Party and not wanting to get too crosswise with leadership, et cetera. The fact that she and Bernie are both taking a much more directly adversarial position vis a the Alyssa Slotkin firing back, I think is also kind of a sign of the times and the sign they feel that the public is on their side.
Yeah, a lot of times in the past, the party establishment or Slotkin types would fire at Bernie or AOC people in the squad and they wouldn't even fire back, That's right.
They would just take the arrows yep as.
And be like, we're being part of a team, not as a kind of team is this it's just constantly shooting at you. But now they're feeling better, like they're feeling their oaths and they're ready to fire back on that front. We have news out this morning that Justice Democrats is making its first endorsement not just of the twenty twenty six cycle, but even of the twenty twenty four cycle.
Well, not that they didn't.
Endorse anybody in the twenty twenty four cycle, but they didn't recruit anybody to challenge sitting incumbents because they put all of their energy into protecting the squad, four of whom they you know, survived, two of whom, famously Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman, after tens of millions were spent, did not. So this is the first time that they're
going back on offense. And it's Donovan McKinney, who is a state rep in Detroit who's running against Shri Thanadar, who we'll talk about in a moment and is quite a fun, fun guy.
To his characters. He's he's quite quite a character.
So this would give you two Justice Democrats in Detroit, because Rashida Talib is there as well. He's a former climate activist, grew up working class in Detroit, and he talks about that in his biography, which let's let's roll his launch video which is which is rolling out this morning, just to get a sense of you know where kind of the justice Democrats left is in in thinking about their positioning again against an incombent Democrat.
So let's roll this opening ad.
People across this country and even the world, no Detroit, or they think they do.
They know our music, our sports, our struggling.
But what people always forget as none of this is possible without our people.
This district is.
One of the poorest places in America. But the ninety thirteenth knows hard work better than anyone is the people who clock in generation after generation, shift after shift that get forgotten first. Somewhere along the way, we got convinced we should settle for less from the people we elect to represent. Us are running for Congress because we deserve better. We deserve a Democratic party that leads the fight against the billionaires robinus blocs, that stands up it's a corporate packs.
Our country and our children can afford nothing less. People like our congressmen, Sita at our are the problems. A long time millionaire who spent millions to Bia Sea to Conye, who has more in common with Donald Trump and Eli Munk than people like us. I was born next to smokestacks. We moved thirteen times as a kid. Sometimes it was an apartment, sometimes it was a family member's house. Sometimes it was even our own car. But wherever it was, my mom and Grandma made sure it felt like home.
I spent my life trying to give back to help the place and.
People I love.
I've never forgotten my roots or the two purpose of why I served, so always put the people first. When things are darkest, it's when you fight the hardest. I'm running for my wife, mother and grandmother and all women who deserve Congress that fights for the rights. I'm running for my baby boys because the block you live on shouldn't determine how far you'll go. I'm running for you because,
like all of you, I know we deserve better. This is my home, this is our community, this is our future, and the choice is our I'm Donovan McKinney, and I'm running for Congress to take back this seat for us, always with the people.
So what do you make of that messaging?
I mean the touch, the vocabulary, new deal Medicare for all, like that type of stuff that was stuck in twenty eighteen wasn't really in there.
But what do you think of the messaging, Yeah, it's.
A class raming. This guy's on a touch. She's in there. He has more in touch with Donald Trump and Elon Musk than he does with you and me. I'm going to you know, I'm connected to this community and I'm going to be the one who's there to actually.
Fight for you.
Now, the funny thing is who he's running against.
You just can't make this guy up so well the next elements. Zed Jalani busted this guy in absolutely hilarious fashion in twenty eighteen when he was running for governor of Michigan. He was actually the front runner for governor ahead of Whitmer when Zed wrote this story, and the story was that he met with a bunch of consultants ahead of the race, both Republican and Democratic, and they asked him like, tell us about yourself, like we're going to if we're going to represent you, what what party
are you going to run? Ass Like are you a republic your Demmer? He's like you tell me, oh my god, it's like I want to be governor.
Tell me what I need lane? What's the lane? And tell me what I need to say? Like he was like confused, Like wait a minute, I'm going to tell you this. You're the consultant. Oh my god, you tell me what I think.
And the one thing that was consistent in his conversations with these consultants was that he had a visceral disdain for Bernie. But Bernie was hot then, so he ended up running as Bernie. He was going to do Medicare for all for Michigan, and like, he did a whole Bernie campaign and was spending his own money and as a result, was at the very top. And then this came out as like and then other things like he was just just a complete mess.
So then in twenty twenty two.
So the Bernie brand initially actually was, it was working, it.
Was actually working for him, and then he faded and Whittmer wins. Then in twenty twenty two he runs for Congress and spends millions of his own money as a leftist again. Oh first he I guess was twenty twenty. He wons like a state rep seat or something, So he buys a house in the legislature. Okay, then he runs for Congress. When he was in the legislature, he signed on to resolutions that called Israel an apartheid state and said that it should not get any US funding.
So because it's a common popular position in Detroit, he runs for Congress saying similar things. Apak spent like four or five million dollars in twenty twenty two trying to beat him, and he overcame it because he spent so much of his own money. So he's then elected to Congress. After he's elected to Congress, Apak takes him and his
family on a trip to Israel. He comes back, he's reformed, does a complete one eighty, so that in twenty twenty four, activists in Detroit recruit somebody to run against him, and Apax spends millions defending Street then because now he's a full on pro Israel guy.
That's so funny though that he had already defeated them and then completely it's like, you know, the move is to be John Fetterman and just be like, I don't.
Want you in my race. Let me.
So Apak has now is it from the jump?
They have now spent like ten million dollars on him, half of it against him, half of it for him. His opponent, her name was Mary Waters. She raised only about two hundred thousand dollars, So what she didn't really run.
She was serious, but she didn't have the money to compete, gotcha.
So what you're telling me is Donovan is going to be facing millions of dollars.
In He's definitely gonna be facing millions. But he has already.
The other thing that makes this a much different Justice Democrats race is that he already has the support of like a ton of like establishment Democrats. Interesting, just because Street Thanner is just a ridiculous figure. Interesting, it's so it's so weird to them, and it's just it does not helpful to them to have a member of Congress who you you can't you can't trust, you don't know like what he's going to believe a week later.
So even if you're just a machine politician, that's not helpful for you.
It's almost like the George Santos of the left.
He's he's yes, like it, and and there are allegations of fraud which you can find like it.
It's a real Santos of the left kind of situation.
And so even regular Democrats, and I think sources in Detroit say that this could be the first JD candidate out of the gate to actually have like organized labor.
Support, which is like that's the that's the coalition that you need.
You need the kind of DSA or whatever you call it, you know, plus organized labor you know, get uh to like actually take over the party.
So how much offense is just as Democrats, it's in a position to go on a cycle.
Not a ton.
And they've never pad their spots and they've never really you know that the first year when they did AOC and Corey Bush and set Leave Milanalm or all the others they endorsed like one hundred plus people. They've never done that since then because they couldn't. All they could do is endorse right, they could only really go in on a couple.
So we'll we'll stay now.
If they if they team up with our guy, what's his name, the d n C vice president, Oh, David, Yeah, David Hogg, who's you know talking about spending millions of dollars going after.
Bernie's recruiting candidates as well.
Yeah, and if and if you know, they're threatened to kick him out of the d NC for doing this, which he's got to leave the DNC, right like if you if he capitulates and walks back from that that's the end.
Of him, right in my opinion, I guess it wouldn't be The name of him is like, you know.
Party functioning. It could be a party functionary that doesn't seem to be.
What he wants to be.
Yeah, and he has enough of his own profile he doesn't need the DMC.
Right, Yeah, that's what I would think as well, DNC vice president vice chair. What is that done? Even gets paid for that?
I have no idea. Yeah, I have no idea.
It gets you like, you know, you get into the suites with the fancy corporate boxes and whatever.
Yeah, I guess you.
Get some boxes.
Yeah.
So Donald McKinney taken on Street Danadar. It'd be interesting if he knocks him off.
But in some ways it would not be like when AOC took out Joe Crowley.
Yeah, that was a blow to the structure of the Democratic Party.
Now they replaced him as caucus chair with the King Jeffries, so the structure restructured itself. But taking out Street danad Art nice.
But it's like.
There's plenty of establishment Democrats who would be on board with that as well. Gotcha, Okay, all right, we wanted to make sure to cover what is unfolding in Indian Pakistan? Because you know, these are two nuclear powers always at odds with one another, but tension has ramped up significantly after a horrific terrorist attack last week.
So let's go ahead and get to our guest.
Indian Pakistan continue to be at the break of all out war, it feels like, and joining us to discuss it is drop Site. New South Asia correspondent said, Darth you Roy joining us from are you you?
And Deli now said yep, I'm in Duddie. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
I want to start with this Donald Trump clip on Air Force one where he was asked about the rising tensions.
Let's roll this, well, any message for that?
I mean, you're going to be talking today.
The earth close to India and I'm very close to Pakistan as you know. And they've had that fight for a thousand years in Kashmir. Kashmir has been going on for a thousand years, probably.
Longer than that. And it was a bad one yesterday though, that was a bad one.
Over thirty people that you concerned, and there's now tensions on the border between them that you concerned them?
How are you concerned?
You about one of their.
Are pretensions on that border for one thousand, five hundred years, so you know, the same as a spin.
But they'll get it figured out one way or the other. Appeture that is, I know both leaders.
There's a great tension between Pakistan and India, but there always has.
Been, so not sure about Trump's history lesson there. But the approximate cause of the tensions is a brutal terrorist attack that was carried out last week which killed.
I believe twenty five.
Twenty twenty six, almost all Hindu tourists, aists, all Hindo tourists, and the details of the attack are absolutely.
Absolutely chilling.
Gunmen going person to person asking are you know, basically are you Muslim? Are you are you Hindu? And if they find Muslim, just executing them on the spot, including one Christian as well, who you know was killed after some mention of Gaza apparently as well, like so absolutely horrific. Being my understanding is in India they're talking about it as kind of our October seventh and we know what
happened in Israel after October seventh. So you said from you're saying, are we going to get war here?
I hope not. I hope you're not.
India Pakistan decided better than to go into war with each other because these aren't This is not an Israt Balasagin conflict. This is a conflict between two nations who are pretty much armed to the teeth with nuclear stockpile. So a war if it breaks out between these two countries, the escalation will go to really bad places. But it's not just hope that I'm counting on. It's also history,
it's also reality of today. A direct war doesn't really help either the ruling dispensation of India or that of Pakistan. These formats of attacks, you know, what they call proxy war in these parts. This has been happening for quite a while, and usually we see a pattern that there is some terror attack as they call it. Then the victim country, the leadership there, starts making big statements that we're going to go to war, We're going to do this,
We're going to do that. Completely diverts or deflects attention from the fact that there has been a massive intel failure, a massive security failure on their site. And then it goes through this dangerous greame of brinkmanship and they start pulling out the piling up their forces and tanks and everything. But we haven't really seen a full on escalation. And may I mention here that India sent out its navy towards it's big warship towards Pakistan day before yesterday, but
that ship is not back in the dogs. So no, I don't think there is an immated chance of escalation.
Let's go and put E three up on the screen. Guys, you wrote an incredibly prescient piece for drop site saying Mody's Hindu nationalist project in Jamu and Kashmir has become a nightmare for Hindus, really sadly Prussian effectively predicting some sort of horrific terrorist attack as the one that we just witnessed last week.
Perhaps you can explain a.
Little bit of the recent if you want the longer term history, you can give President Trump here a little bit of an education on where the tensions actually originally stem from, not one thousand or fifteen hundred years in the past, as he seemed as he asserted there. But what is the different approach that Mody has taken with regard to this region and what have some of the consequences been. Why were you able to predict that we would see something as horrible as what we did just see.
Unlike Trump, who or for that matter, mister Modi or General Laseimonair, some of US journalists actually spend time in Kashmir and trying to understand what's happening on the ground. That's why we are able to see certain patterns. The principal thing that Modi did was he scrapped a very important part of the Indian Constitution which granted a very large amount of autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
When he scrapped that, he made a sweeping declaration that there's scrapping of, as they call it, the apbrogation of Article three seventy. It would usher in a need of absolute peace and terrorism would finish once and for all, very much like what we keep hearing President Trump saying every once in a while. Instead, what happened is that the abrogation led to the suspension of the elected civilian government the state of German in Kashmir.
And.
It became completely controlled by New Delhi, which in turn meant that the intel networks, the ground level human intelligence networks, which actually worked to feed information preemptive measures were taken basis that information.
They died out slowly.
Principle among them is it's not spoken about very widely, but one of the biggest sources of intelligence for the New Delhi government are the political parties who work on the ground in Kashmir. When you have suspended elections, when you have effectively debarred them, taken away their franchise, they do not want to cooperate. And that's what happened here. Last, but not the least, we have to understand what sort
of politics Mesumodi espouses. It's one which is unbriddled hatred against the muslimp even if he may not say it in as many words anymore. His teams are out there abusing, demeaning, defaming Indian Muslims all the time. How does he expect the local population to cooperate and give him intelligence of these sorts. That's what we spoke about in our story, in our investigation, and I wish it wasn't this way, but yes, we did tell the world so.
And can you talk a little bit about the group that initially claimed credit for the attack but then very oddly kind of backed off of that a few days later. And what is understood in India to be the.
Backing of this attack.
So the group is called the Resistance Front. The Resistance Front appears to be from all our sources, from government records, nothing but a rebranding of the of the lashkar At taiba one of the largest militant and terrorist organizations in the world, which is based out of Pakistan primarily and
is focused on secessionist activities in Kashmir. What we saw not only in this attack, even in the previous attack which we've mentioned in our report rac I think it was where the TRF claimed responsibility and then I.
Don't know, it wasn't us.
But that doesn't really matter that that that's not something we need to look into too much because if the TRF is merely the lashkar At Taibad, then they've been around for a while. The Indians technically speaking, have not given any proof on the table showing direct involvement of Pakistan, but even a cursory history, a look at history of how the LIT operates. I mean, the chief is sitting and alive and under the project of the Pakistani government
though he's under several international sanctions. This is the all roads kind of lead back to Pakistan, and the Indian population is quite convinced, and interestingly enough, even the most bitter opponents of Masumodi across parties, they have voiced their anger and condemnation against Pakistan for enacting this attack, and they've likened it to the twenty six to eleven attacks in Mumbai.
Yeah, it's it's an interesting dynamic because on the one hand, like you said, there's no evidence that's been presented that Pakistan had any.
Direct role in this particular attack.
But of course the fact that the organization exists, is armed, and is so strong can't be separated from its relationship with Pakistan.
So I.
Asked Wakasakman, who was drop sized Pakistan correspondent, you know, for his take from the Pakistani side on what the role of the Pakistan government was in this and he had, I thought, a pretty nuanced and interesting response, and we recorded this as a pre interview. So let me roll a little bit of this and then get your response to his analysis.
So far, India has not presented any official evidence that Pakistan may have backed this terror attack, but interestingly, the Pakistani Interior Minister called for a neutral inquiry into this attack. And the Pakistani Defense minister called on Russia, China or a Western country to be a part of these investigations. And that's not normal. Pakistan had actually been trying to get closer to India for the.
Past few years.
Pakistan had been abiding by the ceasefire agreement broken by General Bajwara in twenty twenty and as you also reported that Pakistan had been looking the other way as Indian intelligence carried out a string of assassinations inside Pakistan targeting former Kashmiri militants and sick Acti activists. So it seems unlike that Pakistani military will break the ceasefire for nothing.
That brings us to the more interesting question, why is the Pakistani military the primary suspect whenever something happens in India? And that's the core of this issue. There's this dynamic that has existed between Pakistan and India for a long time. India and Pakistan have used proxy war as a strategy against each other, so automatically, whenever there's an attack in one country, the other country is blamed. And this is
a knee jerk reaction at this point. So every time this happens, there's a threat of escalation between these two countries. The problem with this particular conflict is that the escalation ladder goes as far up as nuclear. Hence, the only way out of this issue, this threat, this danger to the world is this long standing unresolved dynamic between these
two countries must be resolved. But with the far right, borderline fascist go arnment in India, with Prime Minister Moodi and this totalitarian military regime in Pakistan, it seems impossible that either side has the will or the imagination to resolve this issue once and for all.
So said an interesting point there that on the one hand, Pakistan doesn't immediately it kind of clashes with Pakistan's more recent kind of conciliatory approach to India. Yet at the same time they have been funding these proxy funding and backing these proxy groups for many years. So of course at the top suspect, what's your.
Response to what you heard from Okas?
There?
workAs is absolutely on point in what he is saying is and I agree that India has technically not put any evidence.
On the table.
But if you note that the ministers from the Pakistan side of Kashmid, the Pakistani occupied side of Kashmid. They did a press conference right after the Pelgam incident and in that you can hear the ministers are on record saying that you can't be funding anti Pakistan activities in Balotastan and then expect your civilians to be safe. For every civilian you kill here, we will make sure we
kill Indian civilians. So this very well could be a tit for tat and may I add here with due question because this is only preliminary in both we are getting. Two of our sources in Pakistan have mentioned that this was this attack was in retaliation of the Jaafar Express hijacking that had happened recently, just a couple of weeks backs in Pakistan. So this is very much true that this proxy war or tit for tat a thing between India and Pakistan.
Yeah, it's like they want to have it both both ways.
Sid Roy, thanks so much for joining us.
I encourage O go read his piece for drops and it's just Google drop site news and kind of cash bere and I think his piece will come up and you'll have a good sense and if you would have read it when it came out, you would not be surprised that this had just happened, said, thanks so much for your reporting and for joining us.
Thank you.
Canadians are headed to the polls today and what has turned out to be an absolutely extraordinary election, which has a lot to do with our own president and his trade war and what's going on there. So to break it all down for us, very happy to be joined by David Dole, who is host of The Rational National. His YouTube channel is absolutely blowing up and it's great to see you, David.
Thanks for joining us.
Great to be here.
Thanks, Yeah, of course.
So let's go and throw this first element up on the screen that just shows the polling trends between the Conservative and Liberal party.
Here you can see the Liberals really.
Were down and out and then suddenly Trump launches this insane trade war and their fortunes changed significantly. So now they go into an election day at least somewhat as the favorite. Here, just break down for us the contours, who's running, what are the dynamics, what accounts for this dramatic shift.
Yeah, So the Liberals have been in power since twenty fifteen under Trudeau's Liberals overtaking a Conservative government at the time, came in with a majority government have been in power for nine years and then up until you know, a couple of years ago, Poling really began to shift post COVID due to the affordability crisis and I think largely as well due to people just being tired of having
the same people in power seeing Trudeau every day. And then it got to a point where in December it was like they were down and out, and Christia Freelan, essentially Trudeau's second in command, decided to come out against him and resign from her post as there was about to be a cabinet shuffle and she didn't want to change her position, so that was sort of the first
thing to drop. And then after the new year, Trudeau decided to step down and have a leadership race, So there was a race between Christian Freelan, Mark Carney, and a few others. Kartie ended up winning that and ever since. So it was a combination of both Trudeau stepping down and people being tired of him, as well as Trump and just the ongoing threats, the threats of annexation, the
fifty first state governor, Trudeau, all this garbage. So that combination led to this dramatic shift which you know, I'm reading the analysis of the history of Canada and these sorts of elections. There has never been a shift like this this quickly in our history.
And how much of this is the trade war and how much of this is Trump's fifty first state barbs?
Where at first you're like.
Ha ha, that's kind of funny, right, you're joking, right, this is this is a gag, and it's like, oh, wait, I'm not so sure this is a joke anymore. Like so, yeah, because if you look at that polling collapse, it predates him even being sworn in. It dates back to him making all of his fifty first state jabs.
So what's been the response there?
And if you had to wait the two things the tariff, the tariffs in the trade war and the fifty first state stuff, which is kind of more significant, and obviously they blend together in some.
Ways, it's really more of the fifty first state stuff, the annexation stuff that, like the trade war is an issue, but I don't think people are really necessarily feeling it right now.
Essentially.
I mean, you know, there's been so much back and forth on the tariff that it's hard to even know where things currently stand with that, but it's the threats for sure that where it was just like, you know, even people that didn't already or didn't like Trump already were sort of surprised, myself included, like, there wasn't a whole lot of talk of Canada in the US election that prior to Trump whitting and all of a sudden, you know, there was I think there was a comment
or two about potential tariffs, but there wasn't much about you know, fifty first state Governor Trudeau any of this stuff. So that I think really led to this sort of defense mechanism in Canadians where there's all this national pride that we didn't know we had before that has come out and we're sort of banding together and deciding that no, we don't want this and we want somebody in power who's going to be stable. You know, Pierre Poliev the
leader of the Conservative Party. For the past two years, as he's been leader, he's been running essentially against Trudeau, and once Trudeau left, he was sort of left scrambling to try to apply his prior arguments against Mark Karney, who's a completely different person, isn't even currently an MP, and it's hard to make the same arguments against him
when they when Trudeau and Carney are different leaders. So Pierre Pouliev's inability to really find a coherent message, in addition to the fact that he has like he is, you know, far right in terms of Canada, has been endorsed by people like Elon Musk. So when you have those sorts of connections to a Trump administration that is so deeply disliked, it hasn't helped this case.
Yeah, I'm sure you get the Elon Musk endorsement. At this point, you're like, thanks, Mark. To that point, I pulled a Carney ad and I pulled a Poliev ad. Let's go ahead and start with the Poliev ad. What was no about this is that he actually doesn't appear in it. So I want to get your reaction to that and the way that he has had to quickly scramble and reorient himself in his campaign. This is f three guys, Go ahead and play it.
How's your son, David, Well.
It's been a tough few years for him.
It just can't seem to get ahead.
Yeah, we had to pay for Sarah's down payment last year. Things are tough for her too.
You know what Mark Karney says.
Come on, do you already think that a fourth Liberal term is going to change anything?
You know, I've been thinking the same thing.
Are we really going to give these clowns a fourth term? I'm voting at servative.
There you go, Yeah, for a.
Change your reaction to that particular ad.
They have purposely taken Pierre Polyev out of their ads. So this is you know, not often explored, but even while Trudeau was unpopular, even while the Liberals really really unpopular, if you look at Pier Polyev's actual numbers, just the approval of him and power people, how people felt about him, they were not he was not doing well. He was
still underwater. So the the the Liberal the lack of Liberal support before Karne came in was largely really due to the combination of the affordability crisis and people being tired of Trudeau. It wasn't because people loved Peer Polyev. So when that became even more clear during this election, uh, you know, essential the last week, last couple weeks of the election, the Conservatives have put out three new ads, all of them not featuring Peer Polyev either his face
or his voice. So that's the one ad you saw there with the golfing. Another one is former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, you know, saying I worked with both Karne and Pierre Polyev, and I support Pierre Poulyev, which of course he is. He's the former prime minister as a Conservative, so like that. And then another one's you know, a few people discussing how how how terrible things are, but Peer Polyev was so unliked that they had to completely
remove him from their advertising. And it's just like, it goes to how how inauthentic Peer Polyev is. This is an other element that people often you know, aren't attuned to, is just the fact that Mark Carney is oddly authentic even you know, he's former governor of the Bank of Canada. He's a central banker, but he's authentic to that. He's not pretending to be anybody else. He's running as.
Like technocratic liberal, yes banker.
He's running as a guy that led Canada through the o White financial crisis and then went to the UK to help the UK through breaks it. He's running as that guy. Whereas Peer Polyev has a twenty year record in parliament. He's been a parliament for twenty years, twenty year record of fighting against the working class, fighting against labor, and now he's coming out to pretend that he cares about the working class and he's going to make life more affordable, Like where were you.
The past twenty years?
It comes off as so fake that people, even if they don't realize what peer Polypf's record is, you can feel it in his speeches and the way he comes up that he's not an authentic individual, whereas Mark Karney is who he.
Is, does Gulf code different in Canada, Like I can't imagine who's trying to like position themselves this pro working class being like you know where I need to go the driving room.
Semp who love golf, wouldn't put that in his head.
Yeah, it's it is odd like that.
I think that message there is they're they're afraid of losing the older vote, which they are. Like what's kind of been surprising with the election is if you look at the breakdown by age sixty five plus is well in support of the Liberals, like it's not even really close, whereas it's really under thirty five that has that where
the Conservatives have a slight edge. And again that's really I think due to last ten years of affordability and millennials and gen Z really being hit by that and not really knowing where to put the blame there, But
everybody over thirty five big support for the Liberals. So the attempt there, I think was really to connect to older voters who have kids who are struggling and people that you know can relate to that and think that yeah, we need change, but like good change or what sort of change will be talking about here, becausef we're looking at actual platforms. Mark Carney has the I would argue, the best housing platform out of all of the parties, even to the NDP, which you know are have no
chance at all of forming government. But Mark Karney has has a plan to make or build five hundred thousand homes per year, essentially start a Crown Corp to overlook all of the the building of the housing, and and doing it in a way where he is focusing on both affordability and prefab housing to essentially be able to build houses at a faster rate, also focusing on you know, Canadian lumber and Canadian jobs. So there has been a real focus on investment from the Liberals, which I think
benefits them in terms of the NDP vote. As the NDP the floor has completely dropped out of the NDP and a lot of those voters have moved to the Liberals, seeing as both a rejection of the Conservatives but also a you know, supporting what Mark Karney is arguing. In addition to the fact that I think Mark Carney comes up as somebody who is a stable leader as opposed to you know here.
And it's an interesting point because if a central banker told me that he's got a plan to build five hundred thousand no houses a year, and here he's going to do it.
Here's the labor supply, here's the wood supply.
And here he's sketched out of be like, okay, actually, you know, I trust you could actually probably pull that off.
This is you're not trying.
To like do something like that that out of the ordinary. Here it's like building houses, and you should be able to do it. On the authenticity point, the funniest thing I think I saw in this race was Pierre Poliev getting out and having a press conference right after Trump started going after us a I d he Ald.
I don't know if you remember this.
He held a press Conference saying that he was going to end all of Canada's foreign aid. It's like, come on, you, Like the US is barely doing anything when it comes to foreign aid relative to our spending.
Canada stop and now it's half.
I guess he's cut that to now we're going to cut half of US or half of aid, which is like, again, there's so many cues from Republicans that Peer Polyeff has taken that you know, have added up to the point where it doesn't it hasn't benefited him. Like if nothing had changed in terms of the in terms of the liberal leadership and Trudeau was still running, I think it's very likely you'd be looking at still a conservative majority,
maybe at worst a conservative minority. But you have a like a situation where Peer pauliev has has spent years aligning himself to MAGA and now you know, the chickens are coming home to roost, and you have a situation where people really do not want Trump style politics in Canada and he is the face of it. So it's it's not worked out well for him.
Yeah, I would have to think at this point, with the trade war being so important too, the fact that he's a central banker, and you know, has some deep understanding of the bond markets and their impact is affirmative benefit for him as well. But I mean, how do you handicap the race? D I saw the polls have titaned some coming down the stretch, you know, giving Conservatives
some hope that they may be able to prevail. How what do you think is going to play on or what are the odds of what's going to play on?
Based on everything I'm reading, it's it's really appearing to be a liberal majority at worst a liberal minority. And it's important to note that even if the Conservatives had a slight lead in the overall vote in polling, they still likely would not be able to win a minority government just the way that the seats play out and
how the Conservative vote tends to be concentrated. So the consent would really need, you know, several point advantage in polls to be able to be in a situation where they're going to form government, and they're just not anywhere near that right now. Now, of course, we've seen polling be a little off in the past, but Canadian polling tends to be fairly accurate, so I'm really it'll be
curious to see how it holds up this time. As you know, you could argue maybe there's sort of this hidden conservative vote that we've seen in the US, and maybe that's going to come out, you know, this time in Canada.
But the way things look right now.
It's liberals should be pretty confident that they're going to be able to form government.
Let's finish with a Mark Carneiyad to see, you know, kind of what his message is.
Let's roll that here.
No people are anxious right now. President Trump has created a crisis.
He news from walls, pressures, react to the sweeping tariffs.
Well, I've led people through crises my entire career. I've worked with prime minister from both parties to solve big problems for Canadians, and right now we're facing the biggest crisis of our lifetimes and we need serious leadership and a real plan.
Is that pretty representative of what his approach has been throughout this short campaign.
Yeah, stability leadership.
And he's been benefited as well by you know, people like Premier Doug Ford in Ontario, who is a is a conservative, I mean he's head of the Progressive Conservatives. I know that's a confusing term for Americans to hear. But he is a conservve and you know Calvis scandals. I've done many videos about how terrible Doug Ford is. But he's somebody who is able to read the room. Yeah, and has been very forward and being very you know against Trump. It's been on all you know, US networks
discussed here. Yeah, yeah, his approach. So he's not endorsed Polyev. He's kind of stayed out of the race. He's he's somebody who you know, Him and Polyp don't really have much of a relationship. So the fact that Ontario is so important in the election and he doesn't have the support of Doug Ford in any capacity, I think has hurt him as well.
Interesting.
All right, David Dole, Everybody go subscribe to David's channel and I'm sure you'll be covering whatever happens with the Canadian elections today. So thanks so much for breaking it all down for us.
Thanks for having me.
All right, guys, thank you so much for watching.
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