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Good morning, Crystal. If viewers were watching this, what they actually just got from the overhead shot was Sager's booster seed. You could see it in the overhead shot, So stealing all the seat here. Yeah, welcome to Breaking Points everyone, where we sit on booster steed so that we can be at the big kids table.
Well, longtime viewers know I have an exceptionally long tourso so everyone has to, you know, literally up their game in order to equalize with me. So it's really my fault, not so yeah.
It's all about Crystal stores.
Though, well, Christ to start the show this morning.
Yes, yes, we do the big show though, because the protests are continuing, not just in Los Angeles now, they're spreading around the entire country. New York is seeing some protesting, Atlanta is seeing some protesting. And we have some video clips both from Los Angeles and around the country to start the show off with today, and we'll break down the updates the latter's updates in the clashes between those cities, particularly again between Los Angeles, California and the Trump administration.
Because Crystal, this new cycle is not slowing down.
Yeah, not at all, And I'm interested to get your thoughts. Be your first chance on the show this week to weigh in. Trump also gave rather disturbing, in my opinion, a speech in front of troops at Fork Bragg yesterday. And it's all kind of part and parcel building up to this big military parade this weekend that happens to be on President Trump's birthday. We've got tanks rolling into DC. We've got some footage of that, and widespread protests planned
for that day as well. Trump saying that those protests are going to be met with force, really not making a distinction between whether they are violent or peaceful protesters. So extremely ominous developments that we can report on this morning. We've also got speaking of ominous, strange video that was put out by TOOLSI I'm curious your take Emily on
what is going on there behind the scenes. But she's warning rightfully so about the dire consequences of nuclear war, and of course comes at a time of dramatic escalation between Ukraine and Russia, so that will be an interesting one to get to.
Yeah, I mean, what's happening right now in Ukraine is also just sort of being buried. I'm not saying wrongly, But in the domestic news cycle, we have a really crowded news cycle. So we have updates actually on some more deadly attacks that we will cover, especially in that block and Crystal Stephen A. Smith on the Daily Show. We have a clip that everyone is definitely going to enjoy enjoy, But if you hear Steven A. Smith on the Daily Show, then you already know that you're joined
the clip in all likelihood. And some more updates from Zora Mamdanie's race in New York City.
Yeah, looks like he has all the momentum will it be enough? Big question there, but some interesting new poll numbers. We've also got updates out of Israel. We've got some comments from Greta Tundberg and the wake of her being what President Trump calls kidnapped, which I think is accurate by Israel and detained there for a while. Some of the other activists are still being held in Israel, but she's speaking out. We also have some new video of
the AID horror scene and new reporting about another AID slaughter. Meanwhile, my Kakabee, who is our ambassador to Israel, saying, hey, we're not too big on this whole two state solution thing, really significant change in official US government policy, and we're going to be joined this morning by tarn Steinbrckner Kaufman. She is an AI expert coming at it from the sort of liberal perspective, and so wanted to get her
take on a bunch of developments. In particular, Meta is ponying up a massive amount of cash to try to win the race for AGI, or artificial general intelligence. These are extraordinary developments that could upend literally all of our lives. So interested to see what Taren has to say about all of that.
Well, Crystal We should also mention that BP free not free gasoline, but that free monthly trial is still going on. If you go over to breakingpoints dot com, you can try out the premium experience of Breaking Points as a premium subscriber free for one month. That means you get the second half of the Friday shows and all kinds
of other good stuff. The show hits your inbox early and with no breaks every single morning, So if you've ever been curious about trying it out, now is a great time because it's free.
Yeah.
Absolutely, and thanks to everybody who has availed themselves of that offer. One last news update before we jump in. We don't have this bus as an element in the show, but apparently Elon I don't know, sometime late last night tweet it out that he regards some of the things that said about President Trump, so real four going on there.
I don't know what times on us in, but it came at three or four in the morning, and he said exactly what Crystal just mentioned. I regret some of my posts about President Trump last week. So I guess we'll stay tuned.
For more, Yes, more intrigued there, and I'm sure we will continue to cover it all right, let's go ahead and get to these ice protests anti ice protests that really at this point are spreading across the country. And we've got some video we can put up on the screen that shows all the different places where these protests are.
Now going on.
You know, to be fair, there had been protests prior to this moment, but they've certainly exploded in size and scope since you know, things kicked off in LA, and since President Trump decided to send in the National Guard and now also deploy the Marines. Word is that the Marines are supposed to actually arrive in LA today. This is the some of the images from LA from yesterday. We've got New York City, you saw Chicago earlier. I
know Atlanta had protests as well. I think there are just protest plan for even more cities put today and going into the weekend, including places like Minnesota. You can see Boston here as well. My understanding, Emily, I don't know if you saw anything different this morning, but that LA was relatively quiet last night. The mayor imposed a curfew in the one square mile area of the downtown where the protests had been located, centered around that federal
government building. So she imposed a curfew. I think anyone who tried to defy it basically got arrested, and you know, I think that's mostly what went down in LA yesterday. Here you can see protesters i think, blocking a thoroughfare in Los Angeles from yesterday, and we also can show you fairly disturbing. You know, you're starting to get some of the videos from the police response here. And remember this is LAPD, this is not the National Guard, and
they have certainly had an overwhelming show of force. I heard Soccer and Ryan talking yesterday about how difficult it is to tell actually between the ordinary police and National guardsmen or you know, marines, because the local police departments are so kitted out with all of this military gear. This really happened in the wake after the War on
Terror and the war in Iraq. All of that military equipment started to come home and you know, basically every major police department throughout the country now has looks like
they're going in ready for battle. So in any case, to go ahead and show you this video that is you know, really going viral, showing a woman who reportedly just like lives in the area of where this protests were and was trying to get home and approaches a line of the LAPD cops who are there on the scene doing crowd control, and they pretty much shoot her with some sort of non lethal projectile, probably rub bullet, point blank.
Let's go ahead and take a look at a little bit of that.
They're telling her a move, but that's a public sidewalk. They're telling her to move. Watch if they shoot her. Whoo, holy fuck, they're gonna shoot.
We're bling stop, she's anger. Come on, we gotta get a pup free.
So shoot her point blank and she says, I'm just trying to get home. We've seen a few incidences that are like that. We also showed you previously on the show that reporter from Australia who is also hit with a rubber bullet. And yeah, they're not going to kill you. They're les lethal I think they call them emily, but they can do some damage. I've been seeing the injuries
come out in any case. Before we get into the latest from Gavin Newsom and Trump's speech and all of that, just wanted to give you a chance to give kind of top line thoughts about what you make of this situation and how this is all unfolding.
Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, I think I tend to think people have, from a political perspective, a hierarchy of priorities, and I think that a lot about Trump. We're like analyzing Trump's decisions to do various different things, whether it's you know, deporting people for anti Israel op eds, students for anti Israel op eds, are attempting to deport them for anti Israel op eds, or you know, going
turning the screws to Harvard in novel ways. I tend to think that sometimes it's the people don't like the way that Trump approaches the situation, but they still and this is a mistake. I think that some like mainstream Democrats make the average American still, though doesn't like what the actual status quo policy is less. So it's not that like people really really are, you know, on board with Donald Trump militarizing responses to protests and they just
love it and all of that. I mean, I think a lot of average Americans look at that and really don't like to see the militarization of like local law enforcement. Where to the point that you were saying, Sager and Ryan were discussing, it looks like they're like in Fallujah when they're policing like regular demonstrations, and you know, far
bit for me to defend the LAPD. Which I'm not surprised at all by that video that we just showed, which I think was sourced from Reddit of a woman just getting popped by rubber bullet, which as she's trying to get home, doesn't seem to be a threat to anybody, isn't with a crowd. So yeah, I don't think anybody
likes to see those scenes. I honestly personally think that when we have tens of thousands, I mean I pulled up this Homeland Security report from last year of the non detained people on the national Docket or ICE at the time. So this was July twenty first, twenty twenty four, sixty two thousand people for assault that were non detained, convicted criminals convicted of assault roaming the country. Same thing with dangerous drugs is how they classify it, sex crimes
homicide thirteen thousand people. So I think for a lot of Americans, they are probably more similar to me aligned on that question of like, there are tens of thousands of people who are not detained, who are convicted criminals who came into the country, even if they're dropping the
bucket for you know, I agree with that. I think, actually like the Cato Institute statistics are probably correct, the pro immigration statistics are probably correct that the average migrant commits crimes at a lesser rate than the average world. I don't take any issue with those statistics, but I think there are a lot of dangers. I see sanctuary city policies, sanctuary state policies, California basically a sanctuary state.
I see those as subsidies the cartels, which allow people to go into the country and not be detained, not be well I should say, I shouldn't say attained, but not be deported, And that allowed a lot of trafficking of people across the border, and cartel's made money off of just about every single one of them. So I don't like how Trump is approaching it. I also really don't like I think I like less how California has approached it over the course of the last decade. But we likely disagree on that.
Crystal, Well, well, let's be clear you are at odds with Steven Miller on that. Yes, because yes, what he explicitly said and the and has implemented through ICE. He explicitly said to the leaders of ICE, why are you going after criminals? Go to the home depot, go to
the seven elevens. So the priority is not on dealing with, you know, criminals, because the problem is that, yes, of course there is some number of undocumented inmmigrants who have committed crimes, been convicted of crimes, been accused of crimes, et cetera. It is not the millions of people, and it would not provide the mass show of force that Stephen Miller wants. So you will find very few people, including myself in this country who say, yes, we want
to keep the convicted criminal undocumented immigrants. The approach that they're taking will make it more difficult to remove the actual dangerous individuals that you're speaking about, and instead they are targeting the you know, kids, the elementary school graduation, the day laborer who's out just trying to get a
job and has no criminal record whatsoever. That's who they're actually going after, and that is what sparked these protests in la in particular, which have now really spread across the country.
You know, the big picture for me here.
Is we now have a stat of truly authoritarian, terrifying actions being taken here by the Trump administration. I mean, to bring in the National Guard over the objections of local law enforcement to handle some pretty run of the mill protests, the type of thing that you see after like you know, a football team wins the Super Bowl, or a basketball team WINBA Finals or whatever like that's
where these things started. To call in the National Guard over the objections of the governor insane, unprecedented, truly in terms of these dynamics. To bring in the Marines is utterly deranged. Then you have this speech that we're going to show you some clips from here in a moment in front of active duty troops getting them to cheer for, you know, calling GAVINUS a news scum and going after
the fake news meeting. I mean, it's just a hyper partisan speech that you're getting active duty soldiers behind you that you handpicked, by the way to make sure that they had the right politics to be behind you to cheer for. Then you add to that this military parade planned for his birthday for this weekend, where he says any protester, not just smiling person, any protesters are going to be met with force and you know, the pattern
is pretty clear here. And then you mentioned some of the other actions that have been taken, whether it's the you know, arresting students for writing an op ed or you know, the attacks on me, the tax on universities, all of this amounts to an extraordinarily dangerous authoritarian power grab. There is nothing and I'll play the Gavin Newsom sad in a moment where he makes this. I believe he
makes this point in the SOD as well. There is nothing that limits this federalizing of the National Guard to just LA or to just California, or to just sanctuary cities or sanctuary states or wherever it is that you know you have a policy issue with them. There is no limiting principle on it. And so it certainly seems like part of the goal here is to normalize the idea that it requires the US military in order to just enforce the law. I mean, we showed you the
clip of the LAPD. They're not coming in all like
hugs and cuddles. They have thousands of cops. You know, the Republicans are supposed to be the ones who are all about law enforcement, like they are the ones who are actually supposed to be trained to deal with people who are lawbreakers, and so the notion that you have to bring in marines who are trained for combat to be deployed against American citizens is something is I think a red line that every it's truly un American and is a red line in my opinion that absolutely no one should accept.
This could get worse because to the point that you're making, there's protests now popping up all over the place. There is no is not necessarily a element on the Trumpet administration's interest in expanding around the country. If anything, I mean, I think the Trump administration is eager to have that, and it's because I think the reason, like the political explanation for it, and I don't think we disagree on the politics from the Trump administration's perspective, but like they
want to look like they're leaning into this. They want to look like the you know, Gavin Newsom. They hope Gavin Newsom gets as much airtime as he can. And we actually have a clip of Gavin Newsom giving a primetime television address last night and have gotten a decent It's gotten a decent bit of play just over the last twelve hours or so so let's actually go ahead and roll at e x three to get a taste of how Gavin Newsom addressed people last night.
This is about all of us. This is about you. California maybe first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has.
Arrived, and crystal before we get to the Fort braggspeach, which we also, as you mentioned, have clips from the I just want to say my frustration with that is the sanctuary state policies are why it's hard to get the tens of thousands of convicted criminals, not even people with chargers, but just convicted criminals like that. That's why it's actually hard for law enforcement to do it, is that they're able to be in California and in these
places like it does genuinely make it really hard. And so I feel like what would be really de escalatory is for Gavin Newsom to do what like Muriel Bowser has done here in DC and start walking some of those policy policies back. But now it's just everyone's kind of has dug in because a Trump administration responded in a way that Gavin Newsom politically is responding to in this way and not entirely without reason. They're calling it for his arrest, so you can see why Kavin Newsom
would react as he did. But we're absolutely no closer to solving the legitimate problem. And many such cases, I guess, such as the nature of American politics in twenty twenty five.
Well, I'm pretty sure Texas is not a sanctuary state, correct me if I'm wrong, And they're using the same type of tactics there, the same type of protests are being sparked, and there is a a couple of white cities are I think, like Houston is. But yeah, and there are quite a large number relatively equivalent population, you know, per capital number of undocumented immigrants in Texas as there are in California. So, you know, fine, to debate sanctuary
city and sanctuary state policies, I disagree. I think it's important and actually is good for elimination of crime and violence to make it so that immigrants feel like they can go to the authorities without fearing like they're going to, you know, break up their family and be deported out of the country.
Fair to criticize, you know.
To have a debate about that legitimate policy argument, not legitimate to send in marines against American citizens who are protesting at a time when you know, the governor, when their protests are relatively limited, not out of control in some way that the LAPD can't handle, and again zooming out as part of a broader authoritarian crackdown and power
grab against dissent overall in this country. And you know, I think part of the reason why they're now using National Guards so you know, these active duty soldiers with semi automatic weapons, they're using them in ice raids now in California, I think, is to present an image of criminality, because when you see this force coming in, you assume this must be for some you know, super bad guy, super villain to create that impression, even though who you're
really going after is like, you know, again like a day labor at home depot or you know, a mom with an American citizen kid, and you know, those types of more sympathetic cases. So by militarizing the response and having that look of the masked ICE agents surrounded by the kitted up National guardsmen, you can create a perception that these must be hard and criminals they're going after
when that is, we know not the case. I mean, even the guys they sent to Seacoat to rot in a slave labor camp for life, the vast majority of them were not criminals in any respect, had no arrest record whatsoever. And you have to assume the reason that they did that is because they just have They just there just aren't the number of undocumented criminals that they
want to project to the nation. So, you know, I think Newsome, who I am no fan of in general, has actually done an excellent job and a very you know, most Democrats are so slow on their feet in terms of responding and engaging, and they're only going on the mainstream mountlets and only doing these prepackaged things. He gave this trimetime address which I thought was relatively effective, but he's also been out there mixed it up on Twitter.
He's done a bunch of different podcasts. He's been very aggressive about combating narratives in real time in a way that listen, I think his star had really fallen. I think he'd really misread the moment early in Trump two point zero, and there's just no doubt that this is hugely elevating for him. With the Democratic base, and you know, definitely makes him more of a contender. Not that that's
the most important thing right now whatsoever. But we've mentioned now a couple of times Trump went to Fort Bragg and gave this speech in front of the you know, the active duty soldiers that are there, hyper partisan, hyper political, typical like Trump rally speech, which you know, I know nobody cares about, like the way things used to be
or the norms. But this is something that would have been completely completely unthin thinkable, out of bounds whatsoever, Like the idea of soldiers even like overtly expressing partisan political beliefs was something that was completely out of bounds until you know, really the Trump moment. So let's go ahead and take a look at some of how that went down.
And before going further, I want to say a few words about the situation in Los Angeles, California. Have you heard of the place where I've deployed thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to protect federal law enforcement from the attacks of a vicious and violent mob. And some of the radical left they say, oh, that's not nice. Well, if we didn't do it, it wouldn't be a Los Ange it'd be burning today, just like
the houses were burning a number of months ago. Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home, like is happening in California. Commander in Chief, I will.
Not let that happen.
It's never going to happen in Los Angeles. The governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles, they're incompetent, and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists. They're engaged in this willful attempt to nullify federal law and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders.
That's what it is.
Very simply, we will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again.
It's happening very quickly.
But they proudly carry the flags of other countries, but they don't carry the American flag.
They only burn it.
Did you see a lot of the flags being burned.
They weren't being burned by people from our country or from people that love our country. People that burned the American flag should go to jail for one year.
It's what they should be doing.
That last piece there, something he has repeated multiple times. You know, it has been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but I'm sure is a you know, if you pull it is fairly popular to criminalize the burning of the American flag. But in in case, Emily, what do you make of the dynamics of the President Derek giving this hyperpartisan speech and you know, eliciting cheers and booze from the active duty soldiers there.
At Fort Bragg. I agree with what you said as we were queuing up the video that it's something if Barack Obama did it, if even John McCain did it, nobody would be happy to some extent, because it's Donald Trump, it's something that we're numb to. And I also think not without reason, because he's still, at least for now, an exception to how he handles a lot of these situations. I mean, even I can't envision jd Vance doing anything quite like that. I can't envision a Democrat who I
think would do anything quite like that. But we don't really know what happens to these norms after Donald Trump is no longer president. So yeah, it's just one of the sisters, like, I don't know if this is something that we are still in this like temporary Trump moment, or if this is something that continues afterwards.
I think that's a good point because perhaps at this moment, he's the only one who can get away with this, treating the military as his own personal army effectively, and that's certainly the way that he wants them to behave, that's certainly the way people want to perceive them, and maybe now at this moment, because he's so outrageous in so many regards, he's the only one who can even
remotely get away with that. But once that bridge is crossed and that approach to you know, the military deploying the military against US citizens and routinely using Marines for law enforcement in American cities, once that sort of thing becomes normalized, then it doesn't just stay with Trump. There's a bridge that's crossed and a genie that's out of the bottle that's very hard, if not impossible, to put back in. And I think that's what is so incredibly
alarming to be and others about this moment. It just give you a little bit of backstory. Jane Cousten was able to obtain the sort of like memo that went out about how they picked these guys to be standing there behind Trump. She got this note that says they need everyone seated by this time. Soldiers sitting in the bleachers are to be fit and not look fat. Classic soldiers in the bleachers will not be allowed to have water,
so they must hydrate in no colored patches. If any soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration, and they don't want to be in the audience and they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out. Basically, they don't want soldiers not audio is rolling their eyes or shaking their head in disagreement,
et cetera. So they basically put out like a casting call here to get the you know, the guys with the right political views are going to be loyal to Trump, who aren't going to be rolling their eyes or shaking their head or you know, not enthusiastic enough, not cheering and laughing and applauding at the laugh lines and the
cheer lines, et cetera. And so that was how they, you know, were able to create this this moment, this authoritarian strongman moment for president Trump where it appears like the military is serving as his sort of like you know, personal uh, marching band, cheerleaders, his his force directly rather than the servants and protectors of the American people. There were also I mentioned before, he's got this military parade
coming up this weekend in DC. That is going to be a very you know, that's going to be a troubling moment because he announced in the Oval Office yesterday that those any protests, which they're already protests planned for Saturday, for that day, that any protest will be met with force, making no distinction between peaceful and violent protesters.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Maybe there a little bit, but it seems to be getting less and less because they're going there. They met with a very heavy force, and if they weren't, you would have that say right now, would be on fire. It would be burning down the rest of it, what's left over, because the other fire was started because they wouldn't allow water into LA. They wouldn't allow water into California because they had it all shifted out to the Pacific Ocean. Then I turned it around, called him up
to tell him kind to do a better job. He's doing a bad job, causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death. If we didn't send out the National Guard, and last time we gave him a little additional help, you would have Los Angeles would be burning right now.
The reaction to these large scale height operations in Los Angeles, should people expect to see similar operations in the.
Rest of the country and we'll similar protests.
The out and what was always as you know, we're moving murders out of our country that we're put here by Biden or the Autopen.
The Autopen really did.
A very simple rule of engagement. If they're dangerous, if they're throwing concrete or bricks, if they're spitting in the face of the police or whoever's in front of them, if they're punching people, if they're doing all of the things that you see done for the last three nights, that I would say is engagement.
So that was actually more specifically about what's going on in California. I think we have the sought for the next block about the military parade where he says, you know, protesters, we met with overwhelming force, but you know he's making these claims, say oh La California and beyond fire if
we hadn't sent the National guardsmen. The reality is most of the National guardsmen that have been sent I think it's like four thousand at this point, have not been given orders, are not really doing doing much of anything. In fact, local law enforcement LAPD is having a divert resources to protect the National cartsman who've been given no orders, in nothing to do, which underscores the fact that, I mean, even Trump himself has said that things have quieted down
in LA. Of course he wants to take credit for it, but underscores the fact that, as Newsome and Karen Bass have been saying, the scope of the protests which were within like largely within like one square mile a few city blocks in downtown LA, were well within the capability of the LAPD to handle. And you know, bringing in the National Guard did nothing but inflame tensions and make the protests much larger than they would have been otherwise.
So also to the point Crystal about where this goes from here, let's put a two on the screen. This is an indication that the protests are going to continue to spread to other cities. As a report from NBC News, we should also go through a three. This is Jennifer Griffin of Fox News noting that the seven hundred Marines ordered to help in LA have not yet arrived to help control the riots. The Marines will remain at Seal Beach south of LA and will be undergoing training for
a few more days, which Crystal. A few more days of training in a situation like this sounds like a delay that's intentional to make it look like the Marines were involved without ever actually putting the Marines in the situation. Because after a few days of training, which is already rather nebulous, I don't know that they actually are going to find a situation where they put the Marines in Los Angeles. So that's an interesting one to watch as well.
It almost is like Pete haig Seth wanted to respond to Donald Trump's suggestion and said, Okay, We've got the Marines on it, and they're they're undergoing their training for you know, civil unrest, and then while the riot's over.
Yeah, well, I mean the reporting I saw as are supposed to arrive today, so we'll see. I hope that your analysis is the correct one. It also just underscores the case like Marines are not trained for crowd control. They are trained for offensive combat missions, not to go in and act in a law enforcement enforcement capacity against American citizens. So, like I said that, what I saw is that they're meant to arrive today. We'll see what happens there and what use they're put to.
And if they're already arriving after the mayor has implemented a curfew.
Curfew that basically quieted down. Now, I do think there's another major flashpoint this weekend with the protests, and you know, ice rates are continuing. What I read in the La Times this morning is they're actually expanding outside of the city into more rural areas, you know, going after farm daily laborers and things of that nature. So you know, the ice rates are not going to stop. So the provocation that originally sparked the protests are not going to
end either. So you know, certainly the conflagration, I think it's way too early to say that that is over. There's a lot of reasons to still be really concerned about where this is all headed.
Now.
There has been some some legal action that we wanted to update you on. Gavin Newsom put this up on the screen. Voden emergency motion to block Trump's I believe and he agrees a legal deployment of Marines and National Guard in LA. He was asking for this a decision to be made on this and a tro to be issued within two hours. The judge said, no, we're not going to issue a tro in the timeframe that you want. Instead, a hearing is set for Thursday to consider the merits
of the lawsuit here. And you know, in terms of the legality, Trump has not invoked the Insurrection Act, which would give him much more broad powers. Instead, he used these it's called Title ten powers that seem on their face to require the consent and for the governor to actually be the one that issues the order to federalize the National Guard, I mean, the deployment of the Marines.
I don't even know.
What legal pretext they are using to justify any sort of use of the Marines in a law enforcement setting in LA. So that seems to be to be even more tenuous. But we'll see what the courts have to say about all of this.
Well, christ to say, actually we have a five. This is the next element to put on the screen. This is from the San Francisco Chronicle, reporting that says, we obtained a memo from DHS Secretary Christie no I'm asking d D Secretary Pete Haigsatz the grant soldiers the authority to detain or arrest quote unquote lawbreakers in LA. This would be a step towards the Trump administration invoking the
Insurrection Act. Experts say, so to the question that you just raised, are they trying to pave the path to the Insurrection Act with some of this? I think is an open question as well, especially with the reporting and actually what we saw last night about expansions into other cities.
I think it's quite likely.
In a six Stephen Miller has been really leading the sort of propaganda charge, and he says here that this is the definition of insurrection. LA and California leadership demand the right to illegally import unlimited foreigners into America, to control America's entire immigration policy by FIAT, and if they're not so permitted, they'll allow mobs to target Ice with impunter I mean, this is just absurd. First of all, you know, we we've had court rulings at this point.
Steven Miller is always using the language of invasion. We've had multiple courts rule at this point in the context of alien enemies ec this is not an invasion. This is you know, absurd, like, this is way beyond the bounds of what that language would imply. And it's not like Newsome and Bass were standing in the way of Ice rates. You know, he makes it sound like they were blocking lawn for the ICE from doing anything and going in and you know, deporting immigrant. That's just not
the case whatsoever. But I think the important thing here is the use of the word insurrection and the attempt to lay the groundwork, the rhetorical groundwork to build up to an invocation of the Insurrection Act, which I've been pointing out. On Day one, Trumpet signed an executive order saying, hey, check into it was Christy Doom and a couple other off I think heg Seth, I don't remember a couple other officials. Hey do an analysis and tell me whether
I should invoke the Insurrection Act now. So he's been looking for an excuse to do this. We've also got reporting now that he's been from the jump looking for a pretext in order to send in federalized National Guard, send in troops, potentially invoke the Insurrection Act. So I certainly think it is very likely that we are building up to exactly that, especially as protests build in cities, in blue cities across the country.
In particular, you pulled out this quote from a Wall Street Journal report yesterday. This is a seven that basically it shows this is I'll read it. In Coral Springs, Florida, at least eight agents and tactical gear shields and rifles surrounded a home with guns raised to arrest a father with no criminal history. And Irvine, California, ICE agents drove a phalanx of military vehicles in the Orange County suburb
to arrest a person, though not for legal immigration. They were seeking a resident son who had allegedly posted flyers alerting neighbors to the presence of ICE agents. Crystal, that goes to the point that you were making earlier in the block about actually whether some of these excessive and arguably incompetent instances of trying to subdue you know, either non criminal aliens or American citizens, does that actually hurt ultimately the effort to take convicted criminals out of the country.
For the Trump administration to take tens of thousands of convicted criminals out of the country. It's certainly a hell of an anecdote there from the Wall Street Journal.
Yeah, I mean posting flyers is clearly protected First Amendment activity. And so you're sending in a failanx of military vehicles to go after someone's son who posted some flyers. I mean, this is insane and I think you know the first instance was with regard to it was in Florida, again not a sanctuary state, but they felt that the numbers, Steven Miller felt that the numbers were too low when they were largely focusing on, you know, trying to find
criminal undocumented immigrants. So they are taking much more aggressive tactics. As we've discussed before, part of the plan here is to be so insane, so cruel, so over the top that you scare people into self deporting themselves. That was the point of Seacott. There are also plans now that have been reported out to send thousands more immigrants, largely
actually European immigrants to Guantanamo Bay. And so you know this is the goal, and it ties in also with the quote unquote big Beautiful Bill, which would provide vastly more resources to ICE, both in terms of manpower and in terms of partnering with private prison contractors to build out these massed attention facilities. So you know, these shows of force are very intentional, even though they are in
certain instances unconstitutional and wildly, wildly unnecessary. Again, I do think part of that is when you have this show of huge numbers of agents coming in fully kitted out in military vehicles, you know, with their military gear, the public perception of some is so they must be going after a criminal, even when it's a dad with no criminal record, even when it's a sun for posting flyers. So this is, you know, this imagery and this approach,
it's all very intentional. I also find it really disturbing the way that they the ICE agents have taken too oftentimes wearing plane clothes and fully masking and obscuring their their face. And I think that is, you know, deeply un American and deeply disturbing, and it's led to some instances. Already there was a there have been a couple instances I've seen where people have posed as ICE agents and
in order to themselves commit crimes. The other thing that I think it's important to note is they've diverted resources in the FBI and other you know, law enforcement agencies within the federal government to this mass deportation effort which takes them off of other the ability to go after
other criminal activity. So, you know, back to your original point about what you would like to see happen at how you'd like to see this focus on, you know, getting people who have committed crimes and who are on documented immigrants out of the country. That is not at all, you know, they do not at all have a focus on criminals, whether it's undocumented or otherwise.
Instead, the focus really is.
On creating the sense of terror and horror among the entire immigrant community so that people will themselves self deport so that their base will get the red meat that they want, and also, I think partly to try to you know, to trigger a reaction from the public that justifies even more of an authoritarian crackdown, which is exactly what we're seeing unfold right now.
It's a very frightening state of affairs because I actually am sympathetic to a lot of these agents like our run of the mill and were likely to disgroun on this run of the mill ice agent who you know has a family, is trying to provide for them and is getting you know, videotaped and shot all over social media all of that. But it's part of the job
at this point. And so it's one of the frustrating things I think about the Trump era in general is that the responses to a lot of I think legitimate problems and problems with you know, I would say like sympathetic at least from my perspective on the right problems, the reaction is it does go and sometimes, like you use the phrase anti American, I mean, I do think having masked law enforcement officers pulled people off the streets is and some of them have been citizens, by the way.
We've seen videos of that, so you know, it's it's a fright state of affairs when you have people who are in the country illegally not even wanting to show up to the court hearings because they're deporting people at the court hearings, which again it's another sort of like get it if it's your job to deport people who are overseeing visas and are in the country illegally, But then people don't even participate in the process anymore because
they're afraid of being deported. So it's setting up they as a response to a very legitimate crisis I think created by the buy An administration. It's it's setting us up for a lot of unrest. I feel like, actually, Crystal, this this really is just the beginning. But uh, we've earned a laugh. So I think we should watch the Waymos fleeing.
Yes, wamos are exiting La here they are full service in downtown La amid ice protest. The Waymos are fleeing the scene after a new novel protest tactic of summoning wamos. I didn't even realize, to be honest with you, that WEIMO use was as widespread as it is in California. But to be honest, that's that's kind of interesting of itself.
But the tactic is summoning the Waymos.
To like them on fire.
So it's kind of funny.
It is kind of funny, kind of funny. What I said, don't do what I said.
I don't know if this was on air air, but what I was saying is like, listen, if we have an organized war against the robots, I'm here for it, Like, yes, let's do that. But if we're just doing this as like I am one who I'm not particularly sympathetic to the usefulness of setting a weamo on fire and jumping on top.
Of it with a Mexican flag. Look, I get it.
I'm not like it's not a moral issue, but I don't think that it is. You can see the way the Trump administration is like jumped on these images and absolutely loves them. So it's not the most helpful thing in the world, no.
But the way most fleeing in unison, I think it's just helpful from a levity perspective because we could all use it. At this point, Christal, we've talked a lot actually about the expected military parade here in Washington, DC on Saturday, So let's get to the updates on that story. Massive presence here in Washington. There are lots of videos going viral. You can see it of tanks being loaded
in brought on flatbeds to the city. Let's go ahead and listen to what Donald Trump had to say about this yesterday.
We can roll b one celebrating big on Saturday, We're gonna have a lot of and if there's any protesters once to come out, they will be met with very big force. By the way, for those people that want to protest, They're going to be met with very big force. And I haven't even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.
All right, So estimated price tag between twenty five and forty five million dollars. We can start dozing.
Bring elon and the chainsaw back. Let's doje it.
Here's B two. You can actually see why the price tage just as high as it is. This is tanks rolling into DC, the Washington Monument in the background. It's going to be down I believe Constitution Avenue on Saturday between like six and nine pm I think is roughly when it's scheduled to go for And this is yeah, I mean you're you're looking at tanks rolling down the streets now, Crystal. Before we tossed to whether the roads are equipped to handle this, that's a different question. Trump
the legend here. Everyone remembers Trump tried to do this in his first term after going to France seeing a French military parade and wanting to bring it back to the United States. People like Gematis were uncomfortable with it. In Trump one point zero. But now Trump is you know, much more staff by loyalist Pete Hegseth is an obvious
example of that. People who are ideologically aligned with him and aligned with sort of going along with his mission, or they're aligned with that sort of that loyalty to Trump. Let's put it that way, and have really no hesitation about going along with this. There is a scheduled day of defiance or a planned day of defiance, more protests on Saturday. The Washington Post is reporting this is B three. We've heard about this actually since Trump said he was
going to do the military parade here in DC. We've heard that they're actually needing to put metal plates, and I've seen some of them. Actually, they're not fun if you're like biking around, but they've had to reinforce the road with metal plates to prevent damage. When you have one hundred vehicles in addition to, as the Post reports, thousands of soldiers, dozens of tanks, and more than one hundred other vehicles scheduled for that procession along Constitution Avenue.
The gross weight so the ones that are supported by the government, that can be supported by the government vehicles would be eighty thousand pounds, but the Abrams tanks each way about seventy tons. There's twenty eight of those planning that the administration is planning to roll down in the parade again for the Army's two hundred and fiftieth birthday,
which I will say actually is on Saturday. It actually does coincide with Donald Trump's birthday and Saturday in the summer, sort of a I don't know Chrystal, whether that's an unfortunate coincidence for Trump, it's clearly a fortunate coincidence, But I think he would be doing something for the Army's two hundred and fiftieth birthday, to be honest, anyway, he really wanted to have this military parade. Maybe what would
the what would the QAnon people say about that? Maybe there's something we're supposed to be reading into this, something.
I've lost I've lost the threat a bit with where the QAnon people are at this point. I think there's splinter factions. I know there are some who had turned on Michael Flynn, some who were still, you know, still in league with Michael Flynn.
So I've lost touch a little bit with with where they are at this point.
They're probably out there justifying Palentiner, taking all of our data and creating this giant panopticon as somehow fighting the deep state is probably what they're up to at this point.
But trust I mean process.
Listen, if this was a one off and you were just having military parade and there wasn't not guardsmen who'd been federalized over the objections of the California governor in the street, marines being deployed against American citizens, a US congresswoman who was just indicted on charges that could get
hurt seventeen years in prison. By the way, if you didn't have Trump out there saying that we are going to meet protesters with overwhelming force, making no distinction between whether they were peaceful or whether they were violent, maybe then you'd go. And that's a waste of money. It's going to mess up the DC streets, which really don't need that. You know, DC budget really doesn't need the extra tens of millions of dollars is going to take to repair the damage, et cetera.
But is it the biggest deal in the world.
No. When you put all of those pieces together, it really does feel like you are building to a crescendo of authoritarian power grab sorry, fascist imagery that is quite intentional and quite frightening and quite overwhelming. And that's not even to mention the things that we talked about before, the attacks on public universities, the crushing of descent and free speech. The counter terrors are basically framing anyone who is a protester of any of these administration's policies as
providing material support for terrorists. The afore mentioned Talenteer database that seeks to surveil and compile all of the data on everyone who's in the country, you at, citizen and not so that that crushing of descent can be wielded much more effectively. When you put all of these pieces together, troubling does not begin to describe it. And so I think this is a very fraught, combustible moment with potentially dire and far reaching consequences for the direction that this
country goes in. And especially, you know, when you do have large scale protests that have been pre planned, which you know, people should have the right to protest their government. That's kind of, you know, a core American value. When you have those protests planned, when you already have Trump and Stephen Miller and others providing the rhetorical justification to
launch this mass crackdown. I think everyone, I don't care where you are on the political spectrum, I think everyone should be deeply concerned for what that means for your rights, for the rights of you know, your friend's family, your neighbors, for your ability to dissent from anything this government or a future regime does as well. I think we're on very very treacherous ground and that it will be difficult to walk back from some of the things that are being done right now.
In this time.
Let's put before on the screen. This is a local news breakdown of the expected cost here. So Trump has said on Meet the Press that the cost is peanuts compared to the value of doing it, but again that number is potentially as high as forty five million dollars, and they broke down even like six teen million of that could come from just repairing the roads afterwards. So you know, they're also advertising really heavily in the area within like five hours of DC, roughly five hours of DC,
trying to get people to come to it. I think that's another open question about this. What we can look at here on B five is counter protests that are planned to spread throughout the country, and one of the things Crystal. Building on what you were just talking about, I wanted to mention is these are being rallied, These are being organized under the banner of No Kings, and so if you look at the map here there are planned counter protests all over the country, but no Kings.
I think it's really interesting branding. And I think it's really interesting branding for a counter protest movement Jax opposed with the resistance movement of twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty because No Kings is implicitly and inherently patriotic, and I think appeals to the patriotism of the average American in a way that resistance never did. So I'm curious what you make of that, Crystal, because I think, uh,
that's actually a very for the left. Positive development.
Yeah, I think it is a smart framing and I think app and that the cat has just joined.
As you see behind.
Kings except for Salem, except for Salem, and Salem as are that's definitely the king in this household.
But No, I think it is. I think it is intelligent branding.
And this is why you know, I know Soger and it seems like you feel like, oh, the crackdown in LA, like this is going to play into Trump's hands. And you know, I'm like really leery at this point of offering political predictions because I think things have been so difficult to predict ultimately.
But I don't. I think this is too much, too fast.
Where the fears of Trump and the worst, you know, worst concerns, the gravest concerns about how this man would behave if you gave him the power of the presidency again are just undeniably present. You know, if you look at the polling, people are not crazy about the protesters. People are never crazy about protesters. Although actually, with the exception of the BLM protesters, they were overwhelmingly popular. But even if you look back at like the Civil Rights movement,
you know, those protesters were also not popular. If you look at Trump's response to it, using marines against protesters, wildly unpopular. His ratings on immigration still okay, they're his best ratings, but he's barely above water if he is at all. That's in like the best polls. Some of the polls find his deportation like ratings even on things like deportations deeply underwater.
Americans they don't want a king.
I do think there is a reaction against this, very clear like power grab, and there are so much in the floods of the zone strategy that is hitting people in the face right now that I would not be so confident if I was the Republicans that this politically is to their benefit. Now, maybe their plan is for it not really to matter that much what the American people think about it. Maybe their plan is to continue with their power grab such that dissent is crushed, that
there is limited ability to voice your concerns electorally. I'm not talking like, oh, they're going to cancel elections or whatever, but you can see scenarios where the pretext of crushing protests is used to take control of some of the voting apparatus.
You could certainly.
I mean, it's very easy to imagine situations where they just outright reject whatever the election results are that are unfavorable to them. So maybe they don't particularly care about the politics of it, but to the extent they do, I think this is much more treacherous than they imagine, especially when you know the reality of what who is being deported in the way that it's being handled. Is
staring people in the face. You know, they're having to grapple with the pregnant mom who's married to an American citizen, or the you know, the dad with no criminal record who has all the agents show up at his house, or the son who's just like posting flyers and is
being met with this insane use of force. Because the truth of the matter is emily that there is no ability to do a mass deportation strategy that doesn't involve a massive police state that is going to impact literally everyone, and I think we've already seen that with the crushing of the you know, the pro Palestine dissent, because by definition, you have to sore down, okay, who is citizen and
who is non citizen. That means that you were going to have to you know, inquire and have your surhil and state hit citizens as well.
The money that's in the.
Budget for the big beautiful bill for ice for detention centers, there's no way to just keep that confined to whatever population it is. I think it's mostly like, you know, if you look at the pulling people very comfortable as they should be with deporting like criminal and documented immigrants. You go beyond that the numbers actually really fall off
a cliff. And when you ask specifically about people have no criminal record who have been here for a long time, I'm talking it's like seventy five twenty five that people feel like, why are you.
Messing with these people?
They are just like living their lives and not causing people any kind of harm. So again, maybe they don't care about the politics, which is what is a terrifying I think in real possibility. But to the extent they do, I don't think they are as on nearly as firm a ground as they feel they are right now.
No, I mean I think they care about the politics. I think they're also some of them are very online. But I actually I also still think on the narrow question of the riots, I do think it's I do more soccer on that life, like it's it's helpful to Trump because people like Gavin Newsom still haven't addressed the problem that voters care more about in a satisfactory way.
But that aside, the no kingsing is really interesting to me because I feel like that's sort of this man is having a forty five million dollar, potentially forty five million dollar military parade, happens to fall on his birthday, and he is like in some cases encouraging snowflakery from like law enforcement that has to cover their faces and
anti americanly. I think there's something that Dems can tap into that is almost emasculating, but not in the way that the Resistance thought that they had him by claiming there was a pe tape and you know, having those disgusting blow up balloons of him everywhere he went where it was like naked, it was just weird, didn't work, and Crystal, you know this because you live outside of DC,
like there was something. There is something very real for a lot of people who maybe don't love Trump but continue to vote for him and continue to sympathize with him or agree with him over Democrats on some of these culture war questions because they do love America. The people can disagree with this, but they feel like Trump
loves America. And again, you could disagree with that. You can hate that everything's wrong, but that's something that people like about Trump is that he seems to like the country. And I do think that's a mistake that Democrats made in the resistance era was not meeting so many people where they are on that question, and it allowed them to look unpatriotic and allowed the American people to think that they're unpatriotic because they weren't kind of leading with
that question in particular. And I think that's why the No King's branding is actually very very smart for the left.
Interesting, Yeah, I mean, I think that it is an intelligent branding, and especially I mean, this is the way he behaves in everything, you know, even with the tariffs, wanting people to come and like, yeah, been the knee, you know, he wants to make it so that Fema is ad is dispatched at his bequest, you know. Is this is the way that he operates in every respect, and so when you put the label on it, all these pieces fit together, including the use of the American
US military as his own private force. Secretary of the Army actually called it Trump's army or his army this morning on Fox News. So they really are pushing that and trying to normalize that sense that this is a force that should be wielded at the whims of the president, which is not the way that obviously that is fundamentally anti American, un American, and that is consistent with the way that a king would behave, not a duly elected president of the United States. So yeah, I agree with
you that I think it's it's intelligent branding. We'll see how widespread the protests are, We'll see what the crackdown is going to be. And the last thing I'll say on this is I also think that there is just something deeply disturbing about watching all of these tanks being rolled into DC that hits on a visceral level as well. You know, we talked about the optics of the protests and what people take from that, et cetera. And you know, I'm not one that says like, oh, that doesn't matter
and we can't talk about or whatever. But I think equally damning are the optics of tanks rolling into the nation's capital for a celebration of the president's birthday. That's just with many people, that is just not going to sit right.
Speaking of the Teriffs, brothers, tiny bit of news on this front, actually massive bit of news in this front. Trump has posted while we were recording Crystal that the deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Sheet and me full magnets and any necessary rare earth will be supplied upfront by China. Likewise, we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities, which has always been good
with me, he says. And we're getting a total of fifty five percent tariff. China is getting ten percent, And of course he ends his post in my favorite sign off, thank you for your attention to this matter. So, Chris, so, thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yeah, well, they apparently really I guess didn't think through the whole rare Earth situation. Kind of freaked out about that. So that is interesting. I'm sure Soccer and I'll dig into that more tomorrow. I feel like we talked too long about la and Trump, So maybe should we should we skip over Tulsi and her weird nuclear warning video and jump straight ahead to John Stewart.
What do you think people can look up the weird Tulsi video. They should look up the weird Tulsi video. There would have there's maybe we'll talk about it on Friday, but there's there's some interesting stuff to dig into.
It is a good Friday topic. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it for Friday.
I mean, the response to it is like probably even more unhinged video. But to me, top line take, this is like what happens when you have someone who is an influencer put in a position of power. They never really let go of their and my quick take hold on the influencer world.
My quick take is that Tulsi's freaked out by all of the deep sit people that she works with now and we should mention before we let the guoks. We teast it up at the top crysal that there have been significant escalations in the Russia Ukraine conflict that are getting buried in the domestic news cycle. The BBC headline this morning is record number of drone attacks signals dangerous, dangerous shift in the war, large gale, Russian droone attacks
on Ukrainian cities are on the rise. There was a bombardment Monday night, and so this is not We've covered this many times in the last couple of weeks, but this is not de escalating with the presidency that promised to end it in twenty four hours, even if that was sarcastic or hyperbolic. We are into June here, so about six months in so nothing seems to sadly, there does not seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah.
Indeed, indeed, a very very troubling situation and series of escalatory actions that we've been watching unfold there, you know, with the with the Russians, but with the Ukrainian drone swarm attack inside of Russia, and now Russia responding with an aggressive attack directly on Kievs.
And Telsa Gabbert's video. The connective to she was that she was talking warning about the imminent
Threat of the consequences of nuclear war exactly