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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. Joining us now is Andrew Chanhe's the co owner of three sixteen, a powerhouse fashion brand here in
the US of which I am a customer. And Andrew recently did a video talking about the effects of tariffs on smaller fashion brands like himself, and so we thought that it would be great to actually have him on the show and to discuss So the video you put out is three ways that the new tariffs will affect for fashion brands like yours, So why don't you just
break some of this down for the audience. Andrew and tell us at some point do you actually run one of these business clothing textiles, something that obviously there's been a lot of outsourcing on will affect somebody like you.
Thank you for the opportunity to come on today, and yeah, we're still trying to navigate all of this. There's a lot of uncertainty in the air. But the number one thing that we wanted to touch on was the increased costs that we face. We bring in all of our fabric for our denim, which were Denim Brand that's what we make the most of from Japan, and the new tariffs are we're looking at about a twenty four percent
additional cost on fabric that's coming in. I think something that's difficult for customers to understand, and we saw this in the comments section of the video that we posted, is that a ten dollars increase in raw materials doesn't just result in a ten dollars increase at retail. You know, we're part of a value chain model, which means that we buy the fabric, we contract a factory to produce it for us in the US in San Francisco, so we are made in America company, and then we wholesale
it to retail stores around the world. These wholesale accounts are store owners. They have small boutiques in parts of America, in Europe, in Japan and Asia, and then they need to mark that garment up in order to sell it to their customers. And so if our costs go up by ten dollars, in order to preserve our margins, we have to increase our wholesale cost, and then that wholesale cost needs to also translate to a higher retail cost.
So that's why a ten dollars increase in just materials could result in a forty to fifty dollars increase once it hits market. And we've found a lot of customers calling that like that's greedy.
Why can't you just increase.
It ten dollars at the at the very end and call it a day. And the reality is that, like everybody has a business to run, we all have employees to pay, we have healthcare to cover, we have in our case, we provide retirement accounts for our small team. You can't do that if your margins continued to decrease. So that's a really difficult thing. The customer is going to face some sort of price increase, and it's going to be a lot more than just the straight raw materials that.
Are coming in. A second thing that I talked about was uncertainty.
As a fashion brand, we don't just design things and then release it to market. We have to design it, We bring it to trade shows, we have people pre ordered garments, and then we go to production on it based off of whatever orders they place. That helps us to be more efficient. We're not just guessing at what to make in these cases. We have to quote a price so that the retail stores can decide like is
this something that my customers can afford? Is this something that I feel like I can present at a reasonable cost to them? Now, we already just went to Paris in January to sell our fall Winter twenty five collection, and we had to give them prices on it. This is pre tariffs, and so we produce garments in the US, we produce them in Peru, we produce them in India and in Portugal. So Peru's the only one that's subject
right now to the flat ten percent. India has a twenty six percent additional tariff, and the EU also is facing additional tariffs. So now we stand to have to pay more for that finished garment to land in the US than what we had quoted the price on. And that's really difficult for us because somebody is going to have to take a margin, you know, a margin hit on that. It could be us, the brand, We could just eat it and then we end up not making any money at wholesale.
It could be the retail store.
We might have to split the difference with them if they don't want the cost to go up too much, or we might all decide like, hey, there's no way that we can function as businesses and we're going to all have to.
Increase the cost.
That's going to cause some stores to bow out of their their commitments. That means that we now have to you know, hold extra stock and be more inefficient as a company. That means we're going to have to discount or offload somehow. We try to be very careful with the quantities that we set. We try not to overproduce,
but that's just unavoidable. We've already had some Canadian customers cancel orders this spring season because of the game of Chicken that you know, we played with Canada and Mexico just a month and a half ago with the five percent tariffs, there was too much uncertainty. They were like, hold our shipments, we can't take anything right now. Wow, they had already placed orders for fall winter twenty five. I'm almost certain that they will cancel orders. And then
the third one is just deterioration of overseas markets. What happens when trade wars begin is that other nations or other regions begin to try and find ways to cooperate because they need to get their products from somewhere. So in twenty nineteen there was a free trade agreement that was established between the EU and Japan, and so all of our EU accounts are now able to bring in great denim and great clothing from Japan. This is the same country that makes our fabric, so they're very good
at making this niche product that we do. And if you're a retail store in Europe and you can buy stuff from Japan with no tariffs, and then you have to be faced with the decision of am I going to buy from this American brand that's going to cost me even more than it did before, You're probably going to make your decisions Accordingly, business just goes in the path.
Of least resistance of course.
Yeah, we spent a decade trying to cultivate this market in the EU and we're finding success and stores like the brand, they like the product, it just becomes cost prohibitive for them.
So, Andrew, let me ask you this.
So I think what the President has supporters and people say, you know, this is good for the long term for the country. What they would respond is, you know, it's short term pain. Yes, we get it. We understand that this is going to cause issues for you, and it's going to cause potentially prices to go up for consumers, but it's going to create an incentive structure for business owners like yourself to bring the entire supply chain for your product here internally to the US and will create
additional jobs in the US. So over the long term, this is going to be a better direction.
What is your response to that?
And also, you know, just walk us through, like what would it entail for that to actually occur for you?
Yeah, I mean what I would respond to that is that a lot of these small brands don't have five years or ten years to be able to build up infrastructure and to reshure these things that America doesn't do anymore, and I'll just keep it super super focused on genes because that is what most customers know us for, they come to us for. And so a lot of people who are not familiar with our brand, when they saw this video go viral, they're like, why don't you just
make it in America? And to the extent that we're able to, we do. We employ a factory in San Francisco that used to make genes for Levi's before they offshore production. We entered there fifteen years ago as the smallest brand there and now we are their biggest client and they rely on us business. But the fabric that we use, and I don't know if this is getting
too niche, but it is salvage denim. It is denim that is woven the way that denham used to be made in the forties to the sixties, when it was more than just a work where fabric it was something that people needed longevity out of. And it's a slow and almost antiquated way of making denim that is largely unavailable in the US. There are a few small mills that still exist here, but the biggest one was Cone Mills White Oak in North Carolina, and they closed in
twenty seventeen to lack of demand. Customers are not accustomed to paying for clothing. Derek Guy die workwear on Twitter and Blue Sky. He shared on one of his threads. In the early nineteen sixties, US household spent twelve percent of the income out apparel, and that would be four one hundred and fifty seven dollars in today's dollars. In twenty sixteen it was four percent, so eighteen hundred dollars. But that's not because people are buying less clothes. They're
buying more clothes, they're buying cheap clothes. We're in niche brand, we're small. We try and make clothes the way that they used to be made. We pay attention to fabric, details, construction, and the best denim in the world is being made in Japan. It's not because they came and brought up all of our old looms.
That's a rumor.
Japan has a long and storied history of textile development, and they've invested into this industry, and there's also a domestic appreciation for that craft and that level of authenticity and fabric and it's just not achievable at that level. And I know that may hurt for some people to hear, but as a brand, it's our prerogative to make the best possible product for our customers, and so it's not a matter of us being scared that this is going
to cost too much. We just want to maintain a level of quality, and so there are no options for us. For a little story, about six or seven years ago, an email came in our inbox. It almost seemed like a scam, but someone's like, do you want to buy all these shuttle looms? Shuttle looms are the looms that make this salvage dentim and we like, there's no way this could be. It turned out that they were. They were looms from the shuttered you know, Cone White White
Oak mills. In order for this whole story to work for us to offshore, you're asking us as a brand to come and buy looms, start a factory, start making fabric. We have no expertise in this. We didn't go to school for textile development. We do know how to manage a factory. There would be so much inefficiency, we would probably mess up a ton. We would probably shut We definitely would have shut down. There's no way that there was this would have been an option for us.
So basically, if you were to pursue this path of I would just do it all in the US. You would have a lower quality product and it would cost more.
It would cause it would yes, if we were not going to go and own our own open our own mill, it would not be the product would not be at the level that we would want.
And that's I think that's very important for people to understand, is that the administration is putting this all on you. They're not offering you any tax break, They're not offering you any relief for anything in the interim. And then even on the cultural point, I think this is so important.
You know, as you.
Said about Japan, they have a literal decades long history of appreciation for craft. They have a cost structure built in to preserve that their tax incentives, economics incentives, cultural incentives to build an entire ecosystem which actually does produce something that many of the people who push this policy extensibly want a return to quality away from fast fashion.
And so as somebody involved and again creating an extremely high quality product, something that I literally purchase myself, what are thus you know, what are the headwinds that you are swimming against with the rise of fast fashion, which ostensibly is something that they're trying to stop and boost someone like you, Is this policy actually just going to perhaps, like you know, increase the amount of fast fashion consumed, cheaper goods that people will turn to in a time
of depression, Like have you seen a reduction perhaps in demand like you said with Canada and Mexico. What is the net effect of all of this?
Yeah, I mean the only way. So we already talked about customers going to face they are going to face increased costs. There's no way around it. I don't know when that's going to happen. I don't know when it's going to take effect. Even for us, I don't know when our next shipment of fabric is going to get hit. We have a huge shipment of denim that's supposed to land in three to four days. I don't know if
that's subject to the new terraffs or the shipment after that. Like, we're not going away, so we're going to have to take another shipment. But customers will face increase costs. For the brands, it's going to be difficult because every brand is going to have to decide whether they want to increase costs or lower quality, or maybe some metric that involves both of those two things. If they feel that their customers cannot stomach and increase in costs, they're going to have to reduce quality.
They're going to have to cut corners in terms of the.
Fabrics they use, that construction, they may have to move to a different facility, any number of things. So there is a cost all the way around. And we've already established that. You know, it's not that people are buying less clothes, they're just spending less on them, and so I don't really see that changing.
Yeah, last question for you. Your video went viral. You know, people who are trying to understand what this means for individual business owners. I think really got a lot out of it. I certainly got a lot out of it watching it. Are you nervous at all about its virality? Given you know this president can be very punitive if someone is speaking on against him. You know, you see the way that a lot of business leaders have made efforts to getting close with him so that they don't
face retaliation. Is that something that concerns you all at all? In just speaking out on the basics of how this will impact your business and your future.
I mean, I'm talking to the t also.
Not too nervous anyway.
No, it's been surprising.
I think when we meet the video, we just tried to speak from the heart, and we also tried to speak in a non partisan ways, just like, hey, this is what's happening to us, this is our perspective.
There was no political leaning.
I don't think in the things that we shared was just the reality of like the types of decisions that we're going to need to make in the coming weeks and months. We're a pretty small fish. I hope that, you know, we're not really attracting that kind of attention, but you know, I do think that people want to hear from small businesses.
Like ours, definitely that are you.
Know, we're actually really trying to like making stuff in America is has been central to what we do. When we started making jeens in two thousand and eight, our first samples came from China and they didn't come in construction wise at the level that we wanted. So we went we found historic factory that had been making geens in America for decades and decades and they're staffed by I don't know if I'm opening another can of worms here,
but they're staffed by immigrants. The people that make your clothes don't in America, don't always look the way that you think that they do. They're all legal citizens, but they all came to America with a skill set that America does not cultivate in a meaningful way either anymore. Right, I mean, like I want to, I had homec class in middle school. Maybe that dates how old I am, but I don't think that that really exists anymore. People don't even know how to put a button on their shirt anymore.
Yeah.
To expect this to come back, and to expect American citizens to want to embrace these jobs. If there hasn't been a high value placed on craft and manufacturing, it's going to be tough.
Yeah.
Well, I think Soccer's point and your point that in theory, this policy is meant to support people like you. You know, it's meant to push people more towards Okay, spend a little bit more, but it'll be higher quality and it'll be you know, from companies that put an emphasis on making things here. And so the fact that even for someone such as yourself and your business. You see this
as a major challenge to have to overcome. I think is very illuminating about the practical realities of the policy.
Andrew.
We can't thank you enough for taking the time out to talk to us and explain your perspective on all of this.
Thank you, Andrew. Thank you for making the clothes that you guys do. As I said, I'm a loyal customer. I'll continue to be and I encourage everybody out there if you can, we'll put a link down on the scription.
You should go check them out.
Thank you for the time and the opportunity.
See it's our pleasure.
All right, let's go ahead and get to bib Netanyah, who's meeting with Trump at the White House. We can go ahead and put this up on the screen. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he did once again push in the seat for his dear friend, the ICC indicted war criminal bb Netanyaho. It's especially galling because this comes on a day when we found out that the Israelis have murdered another American. This was a Palston American child who was shot dead. Two others were shot and wounded by Israeli forces.
In the occupied West Bank reporting from Ryan our friends over at drop Site News. By the way, make sure and help them out because they appear to be getting significantly suppressed and buried over on Twitter. If you try to search for them, they don't come up, So make sure you're supporting Ryan and drop Site and Jeremy over there. In any case, let me go ahead and read their report and keep this up on the screen.
Eric, they say.
Omar Mohammad Ravella, a fourteen year old Palestinian with US citizenship, was shot and killed on Sunday by Israeli forces near the West Bank town of turmas Aya. I'm sorry, guys, northeast of Ramala. Two other Palestinian American boys, age fourteen and fifteen also shot and wounded, one in the abdomen, the other in the thigh. Both were taken to a nearby clinic. There's no dispute from the Israelis that they
were responsible for this killing. They say that this American citizen was throwing rocks towards a highway, so that was the reason for his killing. The President making, i guess, not exactly making news, but reiterating his commitment to the US having a peacekeeping force in a Gaza Strip that has been ethnically cleansed of all Palestinians.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he had to say.
Well, you know how I feel about the Gaza Strip. I think it's an incredible piece of important real estate, and I think it's something that we would be involved in. But you know, having a peace force like the United States there controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing because right now all it is is for years and years, all I hear about is killing
and Hamas and problems. And if you take the people, the Palestinians and move them around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that, and you really have a freedom, a freedom zone. You call it the freedom zone, A free zone, a zone where people aren't going to be killed every day. That's a hell of a place. It's a you know what, I call it, a great location that nobody wants to live
in because they really don't. And when they had good living, when they have good living living, where Hamas and all of the problems, the level of death on the Gaza Strip is just incredible. And I've said it, I don't understand. Why is your LEVI gave it up? Is you loaned it? It wasn't this man so I can say it. He wouldn't have given it up. I know him very well. There's no way they took ocean front property and they gave it to people for peace.
How did that work out?
Not good?
Just insane, just insane. It's ocean front property. Oh, incredible killing. There the guy who's doing the killing and sitting right next to you. But in case Sager, he is apparently not joking about this.
About this plan, freedom zone is like a two thousand and five like fever dream of Paul Wolfewad. Not even they would have the audacity Paul wolfo WIT's and Douglas truth to suggest the United States should take occupation of the Gaza Strip. Their mere idiocy idea was let them have elections and then we won't, you know, basically acknowledge the result of set elections and effectively allow occupation from that point forward.
I don't know not.
I can't even express the rage which is necessary for this idea. It just shows you that if you're my age, everything just comes around. You get to live to see twice too great recessions and US troops in the Middle East as a part of it. Literally tax dollars and global treasure going to fund foreign wars which are basically inconsequential. We just did a whole thing about trade and about China. US bilateral trade with Israel is like fifty billion. It's
like a pimple on top of China. Yet with this entire domination of our politics occupation there as if we have any strategic.
Interest, the whole thing is preposterous.
It's not to mention the humanitarian disaster that we would eventually be responsible for. The only bull case for this is that he's bullshitting and then it won't happen. That's not really a good case to be made in the middle of a massive trade conflagration.
Yeah, that we are right now.
So yeah, I'm going to take him seriously. I think he definitely wants to do this and at an American boot on the ground in Gaza, occupying this area is asking for a global ignition of terrorism, of attacks on our troops, and of further conflagration intervention in the region.
Like anyway, Yeah, well, and I think if there's one thing we've learned about Trump two point zero. It's that you should take him both seriously and literally.
Yeah, like the idea.
Oh, he says things, but he doesn't relate. No, he's doing the things. So the fact that he's said this multiple times, he's never backed away from it. He's been very consistent. I think you have to take it seriously. And also in the context of baby grabbing onto him, this.
Is the greater.
Yeah, you've opened up he said something like, you've opened up possibilities that never existed before. They've been actively reaching out to countries be like, hey, will you take Palestinians. So the plans are being put into place, and you know, at the same time, the genocidal cartage continues in the Gaza strip with our weaponry and our bombs and our blessing.
And the latest horror is these fifteen paramedics who were shot and killed and some of them appeared to have been shot execution style, and then they were buried and the ambulances were buried by the IDF to try to cover up their blatant war crimes. They lied to the press and the international press and said that oh no, no, they were approaching us suspiciously and they didn't have their
lights on, and that's why we responded in this particular way. Well, they did not retrieve the phones of the paramedics who they had slaughtered, and one of them was recording a video of everything that happened. That directly robuts the IDFs lies and Trey yinst Over on Fox News, who, to his credit, I think, has covered this onslaught in Gaza with a lot of integrity, including standing up for Palestinian journalists, something that almost none of the American press corp outside
of him has actually done. He did an excellent report on catching the IDF in these blatant Wise, let's go ahead and take a listen.
Paramedics from the Palestine Red Crescent dig through the earth of southern Gaza. They're recovering the bodies of their colleagues killed by Israeli forces. On March twenty third, first responders were dispatched to this area of Rufa. When they arrived, Israeli soldiers opened fire.
Health workers should never be a target, and yet we're here today digging up a mass grave of first responders in paramedics.
On March thirty first, the IDF provided a statement to Fox News saying quote several vehicles were identified advancing suspiciously toward IDF troops without headlights or emergency signals. Video released five days later by the Palestine Red Crescint directly contradicts that statement. The IDEF also claimed in the initial findings that nine out of the fifteen medics operatives in Hamas and Islamic jihad. Asked multiple times for evidence to support
that claim, none was provided. Funerals were held late last week for those killed by Israeli bullets. Families mourning the dead, mothers trying to make sense of the senseless. He went to save the martyrs and injured, and we've been waiting for him for a week. We were told that he was either martyred or injured. But I realized that they had killed them from the very first moment. They had
killed them and buried them underground. As bodies of these medics rest inside white plastic bags with a photo attached, the face of refat Radwan stands out the man who recorded his final moments with a final message forgive me mother. This is the path I chose to help that, he said, Sam Pinium.
And Sager we were talking about is about this like if you are a journalist who's interacting with the IDF. At this point, how do you ever believe a word? And I'm not even just talking about this incident. How many times have they just lied flat out two journalists, face to our face. It just they'll just make up anything, and only when confronted with indisputable evidence that their narrative was complete and total bullshit, then they'll do some you know, bullshit.
Oh well, we're going to conduct an investigation. We're going to figure out Okay, sure, yeah, we've heard that one before.
No, I mean, it's genuinely sure.
I mean, the thing is is that we just have to sit here and acknowledge the bravery of trade to even put that on the air over at Fox News. You know, I have rarely seen anything like that in the Western press. I guess the problem is is it becomes it's only whenever it's genuinely something is completely undeniable, is it able to make it to air? But then all these other bullshit claims, oh they had rifles or there.
That was all also pushed by every MSNBC, you know, all these New York Times, I mean, the New York Times. Scandal of it is insane I remember Ryan alerting me to that, just being like they literally just took the Israelis word for it and then buried it in the bottom of a paragraph.
Right.
They didn't call anyone at the Palestinian or were sorry the Red Crescent, and we're like, what's going on here? You know what, like what actually happened? They did no reporting on the subject, and this is an organization which won a Pulitzer Prize for their Gaza reporting.
That's right.
I mean, it's just nuts, But I don't know, it's I think it's horrifying. The Freedom Zone, the continued, uh, you know, the continuation of the war. They did say some words about a ceasefire, but you know, nobody's particularly optimistic right now.
Well, I guess the one thing he didn't give BB is I think BB wanted the tariff's taken off of him.
Yeah, that's rank.
He didn't get that Trump is Trump is current. What's the joke is like Trump is currently employing bds. Yes, Trump is currently BDS in Israel.
More.
I mean, let's also just linger there on the propos and this is where you know, uh, you have a country which would not exist save for the United States, which provides it some three billion per year, which basically backstops their entire economy and extends this nuclear security umbrella over them. Where do you get off having any tariffs on American goods?
It's all They don't.
They actually don't.
I think he rolled them back, okay before, but before then.
When the trade war was threatened.
How is this?
Who do you think you are? You're tariffing? Are good? You wouldn't exist if it wasn't for us. Many such cases. Let's move on to Iran.
This is some very important news that's coming out about potential deals. This is a potential bright spot and negotiations that are going to begin to start with Iran. Here's Trump sounding off about them, much to Bebi's discomfort.
Let's take a listen.
I think if the talks aren't successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger. And I hate to say it great danger because they can't have a nuclear weapon. So you know, it's not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That's all there is. You can't have it. Right now, we have countries that have nuclear power that shouldn't have it. But I'm sure we'll be able to negotiate out of that too as part of this later and down the line.
But Ran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and if the talks are successful, I actually think it'll be a very bad day for a rant if that's the case.
So Trump says that that we are going to be continuing direct negotiations with Iran that will begin on Saturday. It does appear that they are legitimate, and there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Put E two please up on the screen so people can see. Christ is from Barak Revid the Netsa Nyah who whisper quote Natanya, who thinks that the chances of a US Iran deal are extremely low, but will present to Trump today how a good deal should look like. Netsayah, who wants the
full Libya model, the full dismantling of Iran's nuclear program. Christal, can you enlighten me as to why no country on Earth whatever agree to the full Libya that's the point.
How did that go for Libya?
How did that go for the leader of Libya who is now dead and gone. Yeah, I earn on camera the which is that is the intent of Venettnya, who is to offer a solution that he knows Iran would in no country would.
Ever agree to.
And so that's why I think we should all be glad that there are potentially direct talks happening and that there is at least some gesture towards making a deal with the run. But of course the content of those talks is going to matter very much. And if BBE is pushing the quote unquote Libya model, if Trump is taking that seriously, then that is obviously going to be
a non starter. We don't know whether Trump is taking that seriously, whether he has his own ideas Our friend doctor Tree to Parsi was pointing out things that Trump himself has said in the past about the quote unquote Libya model when it was being pushed visa the North Korea. He this was an attack on John Bolden. He said,
what would John Bolton, one of the dumbest people in Washington. No, wasn't he the person who's so stupidly set on television Libyan solution when describing what the US was going to do from North Korea. I've got plenty of other Bolton stupid stories. So at least in theory, he knows what a dumb idea. This is whether in practice it applies in the situation.
We'll have to wait to find out.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's where we all just really have to be very careful about what's all happening right now. For example, let's put E three up on the screen. There is massive movement of US assets in the Middle East right now, quote from Haretz, record breaking US deployment in the Middle East amid Trump's nuclear ultimatum for Iran. More US assets in the region than at any time since October seventh. Don't forget, you know, despite signal gait, it wasn't just
the one off what happened with the Hoothies. We continue to bomb the Hoothies on an almost daily basis, basically continuing the Biden you know, the Biden operation that was a complete failure. Here Trump, for example, we can put this on the screen. Uh, this is a video that was released a couple of days ago. Trump says, quote these who these gathered for instructions on an attack. Oops, there will be no attack by these who thies. They will never sink our ships again.
This, by the way, this was this was not who they militant rebels. These were tribesmen who were gathered for a religious ceremony. And I do think we also have to reflect on the fact that it once was a scandal when the US.
Yeah, they would just classify this murdered civilians.
I mean, this was you know, one of the major revelations of wikileace that created you know, international and certainly domestic scandal. And now the president just posted himself and brigs about it like that's.
Yeah, no legal authority, no justificating, like, no release of like who exactly these people were, what it all meant.
It's just baked in.
You're basically killing people to feel good and for purposes that's not actually working. There's been no reduction in the amount of attacks from the Who theis there is no military solution to this, say for a genuine invasion of Yemen.
Well, and I didn't sign up for that.
And they're they're considering it, Yeah, they are considering it. So we can put this up on the screen from CNN. So they kind of, in my opinion, bury the lead here. They say, far from being cowed by US air strikes, damons who this may be relishing them. But then they go on to talk about how there are plans being formed for us to potentially assist the previous Yumeni government that you know, there's a big civil war between the
who this and the Yumenis. The Hohothis basically ultimately won that civil war.
But apparently we're.
Gonna use our troops to support the Yumenis, maybe for a ground another ground invasion, in order to deal with the Houthis since the you know, just relentless bombing has only continued to embolden them, not that they haven't taken on damage and that they haven't you know that significant Huthi members have not been killed and their capabilities diminished, but they are still able to operate, and you know,
it sort of only does strengthen their domestic position. Really, so this is these are the plans that are being hatched right now to potentially get us involved in a ground invasion in Yemen.
That worked really well for the Saudias and their bombing campaign. And finally, I don't know, I still don't yet know what.
To make of this.
Let's put this on the screen. This is from Tucker Carlson. Whatever you think of tariffs, it is clear now it is the worst possible time for the United States to participate in military strike on Iran.
We can't afford it.
Thousands of Americans who die, We'd lose a war that follows. Nothing could be more destructive to our country, and yet we are closer than ever thanks to unrelenting pressure from neo cons This is suicidal. Anyone advocating for conflict with Iran is not an ally of the United States, but an enemy. I don't know what the impetus for this is. I can only assume that it's clear that he knows something that I don't know, or is hearing something clearly and takes it seriously enough to be able to put
this out there. Because if you put together the bab visit, the military assets there, the houthy military campaign, the fact that Mike Wallace, the moron, gets to survive and live another day in the White House.
They keep assuring me he is going to be fired in a few months.
Not going to hold my breath.
For that one.
I think there's obviously something that's happening, like the drum beats are there. I also saw the attack on this was that it was unpatriotic to say that America would lose a war that follows or to say that it's preposterous that thousands of Americans would die.
Does anyone want to alert all.
Of these neocon geniuses to the number of US troops that are currently in the Middle East? Like what you think They're just going to sit there quietly the Iranians if we do start some sort of military conflict with them, is there any reason to put any of those people's lives at risk? And also, do you know how much it's cost the current just Trump military campaign two hundred and six million dollars for the current Houthy operation. I
don't see dose anybody talking about that. Think about it, if you had a two hundred and six million dollar operation which was an abject to complete failure, continuation of a failed policy, that sounds like a perfect job for Doge, don't you think.
So.
There's so many layers upon layers of a lot of this stupidity that's happening right now.
There's also some past indications that are troubling about the way Trump thinks about a potential Iran war. So he had famously claimed in twenty eleven and twenty twelve that Obama is going to start with war with Iran in order to get reelected.
This is something that he tweeted.
Out, thinking that oh, that would cause this rally around the flag effect and that that would help get Obama elected, which isn't I mean, that's just insane to me that to think at this point, especially where we are now, that there would be any sort of US domestic appetite for some giant war in the Middle East is complete insanity. But at least in the past he has thought that way. And so, you know, is he thinking that this would be a way to bolster his flagging domestic folitt standing.
I think that's a possibility. I think when you put together so ken Klippenstein has of course been doing great reporting about the war plans that have been hatched, including potential nuclear options for a war with a RN. He's also reporting on this mass buildup of military assets in the region. I'm just read a little bit from his
latest report. He says the largest single deployment of self bombers in US history, the Pentagon has sent six B two Spirit aircraft to Diego, Garcia and the Indian Ocean. The long range bombers, which are uniquely suited to evade Iranian air defenses and can carry America's most potent bunker busting weapons flew in from Missouri last week in a little noticed to operation. The B two is carried not just bombs, but a message for Iran. Do you see
our sword? As one retired general told Newsmax this week. Now there is a possibility, Sager, certainly, that all of the military build up is meant as a credible military threat to try to secure a better deal with Iran. That's what we should all hoping for. But I do think there are a lot of troubling indications. And all of the neocon think tanks in DC. You cover this from Quincy Institute that's been tracking this, they are beating
the war drums. And you know, if you have people like Tucker, who are obviously very well read in and very well sourced in this administration sounding the alarm, I think we should all be very concerned. So Sixty Minutes did a fantastic piece on Sunday breaking down what they were able to figure out about the men who were sent under the Alien Enemies Act to that notorious prison in El Salvador.
We can put this up on the screen.
So the government has not released the names of these individuals these two hundred and thirty eight migrants who were sent to this Salvador In mega prison. But they were able to get their hands on some leaked government documents and dug into their you know, purported criminal records and what they found, because remember we were told these are gang members, these are the worst of the worst, et cetera. What they actually found is that for seventy five percent
of these Venezuelans they had no criminal record whatsoever. There were about thirteen percent that they were not able to determine, and for the remaining twenty two percent, they did have criminal records, the vast majority for things like theft, shoplifting, and trespassing. At the same time, we can put these images up on the screen. They delved in particular into
the case of Andre. He is the gay makeup artist who was legally applying for asylum and was accused by the government of being a gang member based on his tattoos. They spoke to his lawyer. They also were able to track down these horrific pictures of him being sentenced into this prison from which no one can communicate with him. He may be here now for life. And they also went back through his social media postings and found absolutely
no indication of gang involvement whatsoever. So at the same time, the Supreme Court has issued a significant victory for the Trump administration with regards to these deportations to El Salvador.
Can put this tear sheet up on the screen.
They're lifting the temporary restraining order on Trump's removals under the Alien Enemies Act. However, this was a five to four decision. There were important to sense what this means going forward, both for people here and for those who have already been sent to This prison is a little bit complex. So we wanted to bring in some legal backup here. Let's go ahead and bring in Pisco. He's a YouTuber, but more importantly for our purposes, he's a lawyer.
He's a a litigator and has done pro bono work in immigration. I've really been relying on him for his analysis of the legal challenges here.
Great to have you, Peace Go appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Crystal.
Yeah, of course. So let's just start with the most basic question. Was this a true win for the administration.
It was a true win for the administration. There is a core unanimous holding here that is generally good, but It's kind of something that but most people think take for granted, which is that people who are going to be deported are, you know, have access to basic procedural
due process. And so a unanimous Supreme Court nine zero held that the Trump administration was violating people's procedural due process rights, or at the very least was they're entitled to notice an opportunity to be heard before they're sent off to this gulog in El Salvador. But at the end of the day, the temporary Restraining Order, which was protecting a lot of these migrants, were in fact vacated
by the Supreme Court. And that's a huge win for the Tump administration for reasons that we can get into.
So can you explain the upholding of due process as I understand it, It is a different way that they can apply for scrutiny. There was what was it, the Administrative Procedures Act, and instead they rule the Supreme Court says that there must be an access to a habeas corpus, but in the jurisdiction of where they're being held. So just translate the things that I just said into something a normal person can understand.
So what they said was the exclusive remedy for individuals who are labeled alien enemies under the Alien Enemies Act is to go through a habeas petition and hevieous corpuses Latin for produce the body. And it essentially it's a specific kind of old writ that has traditionally been used in these kinds of cases where people will be allowed
to challenge whether they in fact are alien enemies. And the court actually said maybe even suggesting they could challenge the proclamation as a whole, and contrast that to the Administrative Procedures Act, which is what some of these a remedy for a lot of these sort of agency type actions trying to strike down large agency action, and under that procedure they could apply kind of on the general policy as opposed to an individual petition to sort of
attack broad policy that the petitioners think is unlawful, and in that situation you could file in DC. The ultimate effect of this is you're going to be funneled into all of these pro trump courts and tech in Louisiana in the Fifth Circuit, where they're a lot less willing to, you know, give these detainees the time of day than in DC or New York.
Okay, so let's talk a.
Little bit more about this, because I think this piece is really important because on the one hand, you go, okay, well, they said the Trump administration can restart these deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. On the other hand, all my justices said, what you've been doing is illegal because the administration's position was no due process whatsoever. Steven Miller has been very vocal about this.
Christine know elm etcter no due process.
Supreme Court is saying unanimously that is not correct. You have to offer what they describe as quote unquote reasonable notice, an opportunity to file habeas corpus lawsuits in the jurisdictions where they are being held. Can you talk to us on like a real world, practical basis what this will actually mean for immigrants who are being threatened with deportation to present under the Alien Enemies Act, Especially because you
know the definition of quote unquote reasonable notice. It's not like they say you have to give them a week. You have to give them even twenty four hours. They're leaving it up to the administration to define what, in their view is quote unquote reasonable notice.
Yeah, you totally hit the nail on the head.
Like, on the formalism of it, it totally makes sense right that this would be a great holding. Right there, they're holding that you have procedural due process rights, you have a notice to be an opportunity be heard, and you have the right to notice, which, by the way, the Trump administration was in court arguing that we don't even need tell their lawyers where they are. So on that basic premise, you would think, wow, it's a great holding.
The problem is we're leaving we're living in the real world, and the reality of the situation is the Trump administration is already running the government on emergency basis. You can see this with the tariff situation, where they're declaring fake emergencies and they're to invoke this limited kind of teriff
authority to have these broad standing tariffs. And the same thing is true in respective immigration, that you can't rely on this administration to be good faith about this situation and actually give them their habeas petitions that they seem to admit that they're owned.
Right.
One of the lines that the majority of the Percurium decision relies on is a notion that the Trump administration admits that these people are allowed to have habeas petitions, but that right is meaningless if you're throwing them onto a plane and taking them out of the country before they have a chance to like hire a lawyer or talk to their family. You know, most of these people
probably don't have access to lawyers. Most of the people who are actually deported unlawfully, now that we know from the Supreme Court, didn't have an opportunity to have a real chance to file a petition. The problem is, of course, is the government's interpretation and the Trump administration being bad faith and they're going to interpret reasonable to me, who knows, you know, a day thirty minutes, this administration is you know, willing to do whatever it takes to get their agenda done.
And you saw as soon as the decision came down, Stephen Miller is saying, you know, we're starting the planes right now, We're going to deport them right away.
And so that's the big problem is that we.
Live in the real world, and in the real world, all these cases are going to go to Texas in the Fifth Circuit, where they're not going to be as sympathetic, and we have an administration who's not going to be you know, inclined to give them their actual due process rights, and right now there is no order directing them not to do so, it's just like the general opinion of the court that they're not supposed to violate.
What is the practical meaning of reasonable time, like, let's say, compared to a criminal justice proceding or a normal deportation hearing.
Yeah, when you say what the practical meaning.
Is, what, like, you know, obviously it's a term that is being said to the government. I assume they can interpret it to some sort of standard. What does it normally look like?
Yeah, So it's like in the law, if you've ever seen that the picture of Atlas holding up the world and the underneath it, it's like the word reasonable. And so I can't define in strict contours what the exact amount of time is. You know, in a typical case to respond to a complaint, it's you know, a matter of weeks, two three weeks, you know, a month to respond to like a civil complaint or something like that,
sometimes a bit longer. And so I think that if you were to give these individuals some weeks maybe a month to respond, I think that would be reasonable. Given the other kinds of general litigation practices.
That we have and the other kind of time limits.
But again, you know, is there a strict legal holding about what reasonable means in the context of removal proceedings. The government also has access to expected removal procedures peceadures in the context of the Immigration Nationality Act, where there's not much time at all and there's not much procedure other than you know, hearing before an immigration judge.
And so it's a good question and one that we need to contend.
With now that you know that's the words of the Supreme Court that the administration is left to interpret.
What does this mean for the people who already were wrongly sent to El salvad Or with no due process. I mean, we I just covered the sixty minutes fantastic piece that they did, you know, uncovering this government document listing. Okay, here's who they actually sent indefinitely into this notorious Megaprison, seventy five percent of whom.
Zero criminal record.
The administration themselves has already admitted that at least one was done in complete error.
So what is is there any.
Recourse for these individuals who have already been sent and illegally sent at this point, according to what the Supreme Court had to say to this person.
It's a great point, Crystal, this and the descent brings this up. You should think of this opinion as dovetailing with what's happening to mister Abdergo Garcia. In the case
of the individual, he's Salvadorian. He was granted with holding a removal and the administration accepts that it was illegal to deport this individual to El Salvador, to scat And you're asking what can now be done for these individuals who are already deported illegally right because they weren't given their day in court, as the Supreme Court has now recognized.
And the answer is, this does not resolve that question.
There's another petition that's going to be before the Supreme Court asking the uncomfortable question, which is, once you are in the hands of a foreign government, can the court order the US government to bring you back? And there are complications. I want to give you a sort of an example of the Trump administration.
Well, and let me put while you're talking, just guys through five F five, I believe up on the screen, which refers to the recent Supreme Court movement here with regard to this particular case where they've now temporarily blocked the order requiring an immediate return of this wrongly deported migrant, but they haven't made an actual decision on the merits here.
So the Supreme Court issued an administrative stay. You shouldn't read too much into that decision. It's not a merit to stay, which means there's no indication from where the Court's going to lie ultimately on this decision. But it's important to think about this issue because it's a thorny issue.
On the one hand, think of the government's perspective. Imagine that there were an order from a US court that said some of the effect of, hey, you illegally sent someone over to Gaza, and now that US citizen is a hostage, let's say we're ordering you to bring him back. You can imagine how that might seem like an unwarranted intrusion into the executive prerogative to negotiate with Gaza. Or if it were think about Britney Grinder in the hands
of the Russian Federation. Supposed that the government is alleged to do something illegal that brought about that situation, and a district court somewhere just orders the United States to bring them back out of Russian detention. That could seem like a crazy standard to allow all these courts to intrude them to the executive progatives. So you have to
understand the government's perspective there. But the difference here and what I think is the right outcome and why the Fourth Circuit did not get rid of this district court order to bring mister Bregogarcia back, is this is not like those situations. This is very much like a contracting relationship. The US government is hiring the El Salvadorian president to
essentially operate immigration attention on the US government's behalf. And based on their statements, in the fact that the US government is not willing to say that they can't bring him back, it seems obvious who's in control here, who has the power here, and that the US government, if they wanted to, could absolutely bring mister bregog Garcia back.
And it's shocking that they have admitted that he is illegally removed from to l Salvador, but they haven't even tried to bring him back at all, or even state that they couldn't. They're just saying that we don't have to and we don't have to listen to any core that says we do.
What about on the merits of the Alien Enemies Act yourself? You said that they had not ruled on that and that these future future people could be able to challenge that. What does the landscape look like with respect to that as a result of this court.
Decision, as Crystal laid out, a lot of these people have really good factual cases for.
Not in fact being alien enemies.
The proclamation declaring the or invoking the Alien Enemies Act said that you had to be a member of thrend that AHUA. The President actually limited the scope of what the proclamation could be if you wanted to and if it were a valid invocation, he could target at every single even as well and including Green card holders, but he limited himself to thn that AWA members. And so a lot of these individuals will have good factual cases to challenge whether or not they're in fact alien enemies.
There's an additional legal question, which is is this even a valid invocation of the Alien Enemies Act at all? Which is, can you consider then that AWA a foreign country or if they're not a foreign country, are they actually in cahoots with the Venezuelan government, because you need that link to a foreign government.
And then the additional question.
Of are they invading the United States or are they threatening to invade the United States, or are they having a physical incursion into the United States. And so there are two kind of substantive merits legal questions, which are the fundamentals of the proclamation itself related to whether this is all fake and obviously it's all fake. There's no actual physical invasion into the territory of the United States.
By then that ahwa.
And then there's the related question of are the people actually designated, assuming the proclamation is valid, actually alien enemies and the sort of the reporting that Crystal pointed to, it seems that many of them are not. You know, there's someone with a they were just picked up because of their tattoos, someone with a tattoo for their autistic brother, some of the tattoo. You know, who's a gay barber who obviously is not a member of the by all reporting.
And so those are merits determinations that are now going to be made much harder because they have to be individualized. There's not kind of a broad class action challenge, and so they've made it more difficult, but hopefully.
So even that determination on the whether or not the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act itself that has to start on an individual basis with these habeas petitions.
Is that what I'm hearing you to say.
So if a court, like an appellate court, held that the invocation or proclamation was invalid people, and they had like direct appellent overview of whatever court system that were most like the Fifth Circuit, it would have presidential effect and the effect would be that more courts would deny the validity of the proclamation. One of the problems with doing all these individualized petitions that you could start to
see divergent case law or something like that. So the end result might be that this might all be funneled into one on the actual proclamation itself.
Gotcha, But it would have to start there. It couldn't start with this like kind of large case.
Gotcha.
And my last question for you is a piece go. I watched some of your stream last night, which was very helpful, by the way, and everybody should go subscribe to Pisco's Hour, which I've you know, really been enjoying
glad to see that your growth over there. But you mentioned that you thought Roberts might be kind of playing politics here, like thinking, OK, I'm going to give the administration some w's here, so maybe I build some credibility so later on if we have to give him some ls, that'll have more you know, purchase, because we gave them
things that they wanted earlier on. I've also been thinking about the fact, I mean, this is an administration that is at least playing with outright defiance of court orders. And so if you're the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, you want your institutions still to matter. So maybe you're thinking about, like, I really should go along with as much as I can so that I don't end up in a situation where he does blatantly defy a court order and then all of our purported power is just done,
it's over. So what are you thinking? What is your analysis in that regard? And one last note which I also thought was interesting. Conservats were very upset about the fact Amy Cony Barrett actually joined the Liberals on the descent, which was also noteworthy here. And also there was a lot of gender dynamics that play there, since you had all the women on one side and all the men
on the other side. But in case if you could lay on your analysis of what you think might be going on with some of the John Roberts politics here.
Yeah, I get that impression, because, first of all, there's inside reporting that Roberts is concerned about the legitimacy of the court, and so there's direct reporting talking to that that's a state of mind. He released that statement about Judge Boseberg, who issued the opinion the District Court, and that how do you interpret that other than sort of a signaling political act. And so the fact that he's saying, hey,
we shouldn't impeach this judge. The proper course to complain about overreach by the court and about whether or not you're defining orders is to repeal. And by the way, the defining orders portion of this is very much still at play. Just because the order was ultimately deemed invalid because there was no jurisdiction and doesn't mean that you still don't have an obligation to follow that order, but that it was inherently sort of a political signaling act to defend the legitimacy of the court.
And so I see Judge Roberts.
As very much concerned about that based on reporting, based upon his statements, and based upon these decisions, And the same thing with Trump versus the United States, where they're always trying to split the baby have a kind of middle ground approach which is not giving a full win to Trump and where the opinion seems completely untailored to precedent and completely like preposterous in view of the actual
real world. Think about the Trump the United States case, where he's really putting blinders on and not realizing that justice delayed, you know, is justice denied with respect to what happened in the January sixth cases. So that seems to be his approach from what I can gather in my intuition about it and based on the reporting that
we're seeing. And I think it's a dangerous game because these Trump you know, sick of fans, the administration officials are not going to be loyal to you or not going to respect you anymore, just because you've issued a couple of middle ground decisions.
And I think it's one that he's walking.
It's also one of the reasons why I think you couldn't you shouldn't read into too much of the administrative stay into the mister Barreirogarcia case, because in that situation, I feel like one of the reasons why he might issue an administrative stay is to if you were going to rule on the right side, in my opinion, you know, trying to get mister Bererogracia back would be to gather
a consensus to actually have an opinion. If there's going to have to be a standoff between the courts and the President, have it be with the Supreme Court as opposed to the Fourth Circuit. And so I very much see him in the game of trying to protect the legitimacy of the court and the institution.
But I just think that he's off the mark.
I do have one last, sorry legal question for you.
Piece goes.
There was a question of whether or not the administration did defy court orders with regard to you know, the judge had said, even if you have to turn the planes around, this cannot go forward. They did not turn the planes around. They say the planes were gone, so we couldn't do anything, or we didn't want to do anything, we.
Didn't have to do anything.
And there were hearings continuing to determine whether they should be held in contempt for defiance of those orders. Wipe that out? Is that still ongoing? Like, are where do we go from here?
Yeah?
No, you're supposed to follow court orders, even if ultimately it's determined that the court does not. It was not right in the initial instance to issue the order. And that's very much, by the way true. The holding of this court is that Boseberg did not have the jurisdiction, did not have the right venue to issue these orders. But that doesn't mean that you're not still obligated to
follow that order. And so this does not eliminate the contempt proceedings and the hearings that are occurring before Bosburg about whether or not in fact they violated the order. To me, it's completely obvious that they violated the order. I mean, they're all but bragging about it. And if you look at the timeline about when the order was given, it was an oral order. But there's nothing less binding about an oral order. They're completely aware about the existence
of the order. Boseburg is like talking and asking who even up to like individual lawyers, was aware of what's going on, and so he's doing some fact finding there.
But they knew about it.
They knew they were supposed to turn the planes around, and it's preposterous the notion that courts could not order a plane to turn around if it had, for example, US citizens on board and they were trying to abscond illegally. Which is also one of the reasons why all these decisions are very problematic, is because they apply at their maximum also to US citizens that they couldn't, you know, give that order.
The order wasn't valid.
And at this point, you know, they're not even trying to hide their defiance. They're invoking the state secret doctrine when they're blatantly like posting the times of when it landed and where the President of El Salvador is like meaning over the orders and flouting them. And so to me, there's not no question really about the defiance and the descent all but accuses them of flagrant disrespect for the rule of law and the judge's order.
Will we see a resolution of that at the court or is that a Boseberg contempt?
Like would it stay within his jurisdiction?
It could definitely be appealable, and I expect this administration appeals everything, and so I would always expect them to appeal it. They're supposed to give deference to the factual findings of the lower court. That's one of the principles here. But you know, they're also not supposed to appeal tros. And there's not supposed to be jurisdiction to the Supreme Court for any appellate court to hear a kind of
disagreement on a TRO. But there's always seems to be special rules when the president's evolved, special rules when Trump is involved, And so I don't know if they're going to pay deference to Judge both Boseburg's findings, and I very much expect them to appeal the order and for them to say that it's invalid if if he finds, for example, that they violated the court order, to say that that finding is not applicable as to the president, I don't think the President himself is involved, but as
to the other officials, and so yeah, I don't think it'll be finally resolved in the district court, even though they're supposed to pay deference to those factual findings.
I don't know.
All right, Well, this has been very illuminating. Thank you so much for taking some time to break these issues down for us.
Peace go.
Great to see you, thanks man, Thanks so much, guys, Yeah, appreciate Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow. We will see you all later.