Hadred listeners. We're back from a short summer break.
Today we are.
Bringing you an episode from our sister podcast, Spill. That is where we break down climate news, general trends, talk to other writers, journalists, researchers about what they're doing, and generally keep up to date on the climate story. Once a month I bring on my former Hot Take co host there Mary and a se Hegler, and we talk about something that is coming up in a lot of climate conversations.
This week we talked.
About Project twenty twenty five. You've probably heard of it. It's hard to avoid. We thought it was worth talking about that and climate policy in general in the lead up to this week's debate. Check it out. Hope you like it and subscribe if you do wherever you get your podcasts. Mary, how's it going, Hey, Amy, how are you?
I'm good? I'm good. Yeah. Enjoying this election season? Oh my god. No.
Actually, I keep waffling between like being glad I'm not in the US during the election and then kind of wanting to be there following everything more closely, like, but yeah, man, it is.
It's just, you know, I'm in such a weird place with it because on the one hand, I don't feel and maybe this is just because something has broken deep down inside of me. I don't feel the intense sense of dred that I felt in twenty sixteen. It doesn't feel like Donald Trump is eminent, and it felt that way in twenty sixteen and in twenty twenty, so as that demonstrates I have been wrong before in my life. Does that mean that I'm like super crunk and excited
about Kamala Harris. No, but I don't know if I'm capable of getting like that with any politician ever again. But yeah, Donald Trump feels like I'm gonna be sent to.
A gulag, you know what I mean.
I've said enough shit publicly, and he's crazy enough that feels like eventually he would get around to rounding up people like me in bulogs or whatever. So yeah, it doesn't feel like his victory is imminent. It also doesn't feel like Kamala Harris is eminent or that she's going to be fantastic either, Like I need this chick to say she's gonna stop arming Israel.
Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
It's just she's definitely not She's saying the offices.
And I'm not happy about that. I'm not happy about that at all.
Let me ask you something someone asked me recently, and I was kind of like, oh, I think that's true. Actually, they were saying that it seems like climate is just not being discussed as much at all now as it was. I feel like, actually the last election cycle it was pretty from the center. But it's really, like I sent from the conversation right now.
It's absent from the conversation. You barely heard about it at all at the DNC, and even folks who I know who are in the climate space are still just like, well, this is not the time to push the administration. And it's just like, see, this is why y'all are not serious as a movement, and largely why I don't think I see myself as part of the climate movement anymore. Between this and just like utter spinelessness and the silence on GAZA, lets me know that we don't want the
same things. And if that's the world that you want to preserve, I don't want to be in that world.
Yeah. So yeah, I.
Just don't see myself as part of the broader movement anymore.
Damn, Mary, that's a big public announcement. I think you've been saying it though.
I think I've town that through my action.
You know, like do I want a Liverpool future, Sure, but I don't think they do.
Well. That's the thing is.
It's like, again, have heard people make this argument, and I've seen it actually with people criticizing Greta Tunberg for protesting in favor of Palestine, saying, you know, you're muddying the waters. It's the same argument that's been made over and over again. Right, don't muddy the waters on climate with labor rights or civil rights, or reproductive justice.
Or with climates or you know what I mean. It's just like, well, climates, these are the name people will say in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, now it's not the time to talk about climate change because we don't want to insert politics. These are the same people who will say during an election like this, it's not the time to push the Democrats to talk about climate because we don't want.
To muddy the election.
Just say, you don't want to do shit, you want to go hide in your low closet.
Yeah.
It just it reminds me every time of the conversation that we had with rev Yer would probably like two three years ago now where he was talking about the origins of the environmental movement and how it was all the people that didn't want to be part of.
Any of the other social justice that history is alive well or went away and having worked, you know, in environmental nonprofits, the quote unquote big Greens.
I knew plenty of folks who were in those positions because they wanted to go somewhere where they felt like they could be unproblematic. Right, They felt like science was just inherently unproblematic, and it's like, okay, girl, but you know, once upon a time for anology with science.
So I don't know, we have a lot to talk about today because we're going to talk about Project twenty twenty five and all of the many different layers of including some of the specific plans and are laid out, but also how people are talking about it, how people are and aren't understanding it, how the media is covering all of that stuff. So we're going to take a quick at break, and then we're going to get back to that conversation.
This is Spill. I'm Amy Westervelt, I'm Marianna east Heckler. We'll be back.
Okay, So this bitch is long as hell. Project twenty five is like nine hundred pages.
I have the pdf open right now and it is nine and twenty two pages long exactly.
And yeah, like so many of our listeners, likely we have shit to do.
So I have not read this entire thing.
I have read some of the parts that are relevant for climate, in particular the EPA chapter, so I feel like that's where we should start. And as I was reading it, I have written down some questions for you, starting with before we even get to the thing, that the author is someone named Mandy m Gana Sakara. I think that's how you say it, and I wrote down here, who the fuck is this bitch?
Many many has like a very interesting background.
She is.
She doesn't have a science background that's important to know, that's important, No environmental science background, no science background period. She has like a polyscide degree and a law degree, and she immediately went to work on Capitol Hill as an aid for various senators. She is the person on Senator Einhove's team who handed him the infamous snowball on
the floor of the Senate. So I don't know if people remember this almost ten years ago now, where Senator Einhove held up a snowball in the Senate and was.
Like, it's snowing outside. Global warming be happening?
What snowing outside that day? Or did they just happen to have a snowball in the pre was.
Knowing it was knowing.
And there's this hilarious picture where like he's doing that and Mandy is very smugly smiling behind him. She's so pleased with herself. So yeah, she's been kind of in the sort of climate denier network for a long time.
She went to work for an organization called the CO two Coalition, which is this organization that basically argues the more CO two is actually good for the planet because we're going to grow more plants and that you know, yeah, okay, sure some places won't farewell well, but other places will and then it'll all balance out in the end. And people are like being unnecessarily freaked out about CO two. So like, just vibes, vibes, totally vibes. She worked for them.
I remember her.
She actually was the Republican witness who testified during the first hearing that Congress had on climate disinformation, which was in twenty nineteen, Jamie Raskin held this committee hearing about disinformation and the oil companies, and she was the Republican witness, and she gave this whole testimony, yeah, about how actually we need fossil fuels for poor people in Africa and all of this kind of stuff. So she's she's just
kind of like been awork, right. And then she also was in the Trump administration and working at the EPA under Trump, so she was the chief of staff for EPA Administer Andrew Wheeler. So I would not be surprised at all to see her put forth as a potential ep administrator. She's a director the Independent Women's Forum Center on Energy and Conservation. The Independent Women's Forum is this organization that was kind of set up to do all
the things that Phyllis Schlaffley did. Phillip Schlaffley was the conservative woman who fought against women's rights in the eighties. That's kind of what the Independent Women's Forum is. It's like, we need to put conservative ideas in the mouths of women, and these are the women who do that.
Mm hm.
So anyway, that's who Mandy is, yes, and she's definitely not someone who remotely has the sort of scientific background that a lot of people think should be guiding the Environmental Protection Agency. She has no scientific back.
Do anyone help her with us with any sort of scientific background?
I don't think.
So.
There's not a lot of science in it, that's the thing. No, it's a lot of science political out of it. So yeah, let's talk about that.
So one thing I see over and over again is basically removing scientists and science from decision making processes and replacing them with political appointees. And they're doing this amy because the EPA is already too political.
Because it's so crazy, right, It's like, it's like, the EPA is too.
Political, so make it more political.
What you fight politics with politics? What are we doing? I don't get it.
It's also strange because it's like, well, I guess that works for you in a Trump administration, but then as soon as anyone else is in power, isn't it a problem for you? Again, I don't really understand the logic here.
I mean, just this sentence.
The challenge of creating a conservative EPA will be to balance justified skepticism toward an agency that has long been amenable to being co opted by the left for political ends against the need to implement the agency's true function protecting public health and environment and cooperation with the States.
So there's a.
Lot here about anything related to climate change, especially if that thing related to climate change is related to climate justice. That is leftist ideal ideology, politics or whatever. That is not science, that's not proven, even though it is like bulletproof science. At this point, they are characterizing it as automatic politics exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
And the interesting thing too is that so there's there's a real problem on the right when they talk about environmental policy, because most conservative voters do actually care about clean air and clean water, right, you kind of need you always have to straddle this line of being anti
climate but pro clean air and clean water. But when you read into the details of what she's suggesting in this chapter, it's walking back a bunch of the science based regulations on air pollution and a bunch of the science based regulations on clean water that actually don't have anything to do with climate and are.
Not political at all.
Sorry, there's a leaf blower in the background of my audio. You guys are going to hear it.
It's so yeah.
Anyway, So it's this very strange piece of writing where she's talking constantly about the importance of clean air and clean water and public health while also suggesting eliminating the things that provide clean air and clean water.
Exactly.
I saw that in the clean water section, and one of the things they want they said they want to exclude speculative analysis regarding future potential harm, which would mean
they wait for the disaster to happen. So if I come to you and bring you evidence that running this pipeline underneath this body of water is really dangerous and has a ninety percent chance of that oil getting into the water and contaminating it, You're going to call that speculative analysis, as opposed to everything will be done basically after the fact, correct.
Yeah.
And then actually, we have a really good example of why that's a bad idea in Standing Rock. So the Dakode Access Pipeline was built despite the fact that the environmental impact assessment was very much still up for debate. Pipeline got built in the meantime. Now finally, like the environmental impact assessment was only finalized earlier this year, and
the analysis says, oh, this is actually potentially dangerous. They've now done an analysis on what could happen if they remove the pipes, and they're like, oh, it could cause all of this environmental disaster, so like we don't want to do that, but it's like, yeah, the same exact thing was possible when you put the pipeline in.
So one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is what the fuck happened to QAnon? And right is this big book conspiracy and it kind of just seemed like it dissipated. But I was reading an article about it last night and they were talking about how basically QAnon doesn't need to exist anymore because so much of that ideology and just like even the language has been adopted by the actual mainstream Republican party.
And I got to say rest. So reading through this.
I felt like I heard a lot of a lot of echoes of the q Andon sort of ideology.
So just take you through that.
There's a part where they're saying they want the EPA to take a more supportive role toward local and state efforts, building them up so they may lead in a meaningful fashion, and that to me sounds like states' rights, but for the environments there, they're demeaning the EPA's pursuit of a globally focused agenda by participating in the Paris Agreement, by giving globally to developing countries.
And that's just America first and globalism.
And then there's another part where they're talking about the EPA should make public and take comment on all scientific studies and analyzes that support regulatory decision making. And they're talking about take comment from regular ass people like people like Mandy who have no scientific background whatsoever, And that to me sounds.
Like do your own real arch, which is a huge, big part of Q and I. So this is a q Andon agenda. Yeah.
Yeah, the whole like taking public common thing is part of a proposal that's been floated for a long time.
It's the transparency in.
Science or getting rid of secret science at the EKKA, it's how it's like referred to.
That is a Steve molloy joint. Oh wow, that was so smooth.
Ami sooo, he was a facult lobbyist for a long time. He worked on all of these organizations that helped to suppress the science on secondhand smoke, and then he went to work for coal companies and he has had a b in his bonnet about air pollution forever, and he's been warning the right that if environmentalists and or the left ever really get it together to do their messaging, air pollution.
Over for a.
Bunch of fossil fuels anyway, because combustion of fossil fuels is what generates most particulate matter, right, So he's been saying that for a long time. And he came up with this proposal in the nineties and then like basically dusted it off and included it in the Transition plan for Trump for the EPA, and they almost got it passed at the end of the Trump administration, it didn't quite land, so they are bringing.
It back again.
And I think that, yes, scientific research should be as transparent and open and like open to me and all of that stuff as possible, right, But he tries to kind of be like, oh, like they're doing a human testing that they're keeping secret, and like because of that,
people are dying. There's this one woman who took part in an air pollution study who did end up dying, and the circumstances of her death are very shady, and I think there probably is some liability for the people who did that study or whatever, But he kind of points to that as being indicative that there's a bunch of shady and mysterious science happening at the EPA, and he wants to institute rules that would basically make it impossible for needs scientific study to be used for regulation.
It would have to meet such a high bar that it would just make it impossible for the EPA to regulate anything.
Which, by the way, the EPA already struggles to regulate things that they fully know cause cancer. So I'm working on a story right now about an herbicide.
That everyone knows causes Parkinson's and yet the USPA cannot ban it because are.
They able to ban pfos? I mean, has that been a big word. But now part of this Project twenty twenty.
Five thing, they want to roll back any restrictions on pithos. But that took what twenty thirty years worth of litigation and hundreds to thousands of people with cancer and all sorts of other things.
To get that done.
The EPA is not good at regulating things that harm the public.
Now we should talk just really fast about what pifos is, in case anybody doesn't know. It's polychlora acol substances, and it's in mad shit like maga's.
Like the stuff that makes your clothes waterproof or your cookware nonstick. It's a coating that's used for a bunch of different fabrics and products and stuff, and you know, do Pullen and three m there again absolutely knew what the potential in the stuff were. And in those cases, it's not just that people are getting exposed through consumer products, which they are, but also that the manufacturers that we're making it were dumping shit in local waterways, So people's water is contaminated.
Yeah, and we're running around with plastic all in our goods. So there's that. Yeah.
So another thing that the Project twenty twenty five folks want to do is they want to get any get rid of anything dealing with environmental justice, like a fucking heat seeking.
They really do. They're just like get rid of yeah. Yeah.
So the Biden administration had created in Environmental Justice and Civil Rights office off the bat, they want to get rid of that. They feel like that should be in the office of the administrator and under the guide of a.
Political appointee because right go wrong.
And then they want to get rid of any funding going to work that they deem superfluous or not really related to the environment. We all know what that means. That's environmental justice. And one of the main tools it seems like they want to use is pause and review. So Amy, can you talk about what pause and review is.
It's like a way to kill things without killing them. It's like, oh, we're just going to pause this program and review what kind of a return on investment we've been getting, what the impact is, and then we'll come back to it and decide if it should still have the same budget or maybe it should be folded into another agency or whatever. It's a very like diplomatic way to get rid of something without saying that you're getting rid of.
It, right, You just stall install install right. It's like when you're trying to make plans with your friends and they don't want to just outright and say I don't want to go, so they just.
Maybe maybe.
Spot I don't know what you're talking about. Mary, all your friends to you immediately. Okay, No, this is a problem with being a millennial. I think I have a lot of friends who get like overwhelmed by the thought of making plans anyway, So yeah, it's it's a very clear way of saying no without saying no. And so this is gonna sounding my friends like me, I swear that's totally ding.
I absolutely had those conversations.
Yea, right, does so just like, yeah, so that's what they're planning to do with environmental justice. And then there's also all these parts where they just explicitly want to get the fuck rid of it.
They feel like it's reverse racism.
They actually mentioned that, And that's interesting too, because that is a whole thing that's underway as well.
I keep meaning to write.
About this because I feel like a lot of people are not seeing how much that is a continuation of an effort that started in the eighties and nineties.
With some of the same people.
And the only reason I know that is because I worked on this show, This Land with Rebecca and Nagel, and we were looking into these constitutional challenges to the Indian Child Welfare Act, and they were being brought by a group of different attorneys, and there were all of these organizations that were filing briefs and it was all a lot of the same people that are involved in
Project twenty twenty five. Actually, it was like Heritage and Cato and all of these like right wing think tanks, and the more we dug into it, the more we realized, like, oh okay, these guys have been trying to do this for a really long time. And it's interesting because in the eighties and nineties it was actually Clarence Thomas helped them develop a better strategy because he was like, you guys need to stop with the reverse racism thing. You sound like whiny white boys.
Was he on Supreme Court at this point.
No, he was working for the Equal Opportunity Commission, gotcha right, right? This is before Anita Hill and before Anita Hill where he worked with a Neda Hill.
Yeah, oh okay, this is during Anita Hill.
Yeah. So he was like, you guys need to you need you need a better strategy. He basically was like, make it about equal opportunity on a reverse racism because that's never play well. And they did, and it was a very successful strategy. That is how they rolled back a bunch of civil rights games.
And now they've kind of gone back.
To the old school this is racist against white people things.
Yeah.
In all these cases, this guy Stephen Miller, who was you know, Trump's chief of staff has a new legal organization, and they're going after things like there was a venture fund that had a contest for black women founders and they've gone after them.
Mm hmmm for being discribed. It doesn't surprise me at all. That doesn't surprise me at all. I could see them, you know, really going after anybody who's ever worked in DEI. Yes, and in their next or any organization that's ever had a d they offer.
They want they want to get rid of DEI entirely. They want to get rid of any kind of any kind of straightforward attempts to address racial inequality, that's it.
Or any kind of inequality, right, yeah, exactly exactly so, and you see that in this EPA chapter too, where it's just like, oh, why should these communities get special treatment whatever. Yeah, And the other thing that they really want to get rid of or newter is the Inflation Reduction Act.
Yeah, so can always you talk about that.
They're basically like, well, it's a spending bill, so you don't actually have to spend. That's their strategy is they're like, you could just not.
Which, yeah, if they're going on there, right exactly, that is a flaw in the IRA.
That's been pointed out time and time again, is that it doesn't it's all spend no regulation, there's no there's absolutely nothing that requires that money.
To be spent. Mm hmmm.
I think they will struggle with some of those programs, and they're going to have a real interesting juggling act to do because the fossil fuel industry loves the IRA because they have figured out a way to fund carbon capture.
Sure.
Yeah, all these bullshit hydrogen hubs. It's a real bonanza for them.
Mm hmmm.
It's like very sy Yeah, so they're kind of struggle to I don't know, like they're going to have to find ways to shut down all the parts they don't like and keep the ones they do like going.
But you know, yeah, I mean, obviously I would give this chapter an F is bad.
I don't want we could talk about it forever.
But there's also other ways that the environment shows up through projects twenty twenty five in particular, we run to talk about NOAH, the National Oceanica Atmospheric Administrative Administration Administration.
Yeah, the thing that gives us our weather reports.
NOA is the other one that, just like the environmental justice stuff, they're very explicit about just getting rid of it. They're like, there's a couple things in there, those can be folded into other agencies and other on.
This shouldn't exist.
So Noah is the reason why I know whether or not there's a tropical wave that could turn into a hurricane and can start planning my evacuation without Noah, as I understand it, like they could privatize weather reports, so creating right now we can all see the weather for free, as in as much details we want to. That actually is a space where like the science is open and transparent and open for public comment. Like Noah is a perfect example of what they're saying they want at the EPA.
And then it doesn't but they want to kill Noah and get rid of the exactly that function.
Yeah they're talking about.
They actually make this argument that weather forecasts from private companies are more reliable than the ones from Noah, which is weird because I'm reasonably certain that a lot of the private services use Noah data.
Those private services would have to pay for Noah's data, or they would have to inducted themselves.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, like take over those satellites themselves, or I don't know, anyway, then they also talk about they actually specifically talk about the hurricane monitoring, so the National Hurricane Centers. They say that it provides an important service. But this is what they say in this chapter, data collected by the Department should be presented neutrally without adjustments
intended to support anyone's side in the climate debate. What the fact are they taught about this idea is not at all subtle insinuation that they're manipulating the data to make it look like there's something to be said about the link between hurricanes and climate, and it's like, oh my god, Okay. So really, basically, what they're saying is the only way that any of Noah's current activities can can to you or should continue is if they're not
allowed to attach any of it to climate. And then they're also saying to fold a bunch of it into the US Coast Guard, the US Geological Survey, the entire Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, you want to get rid of because they say it's the source of much of Noah's quote climate alarmism.
My goodness, they're alarmists about climate alarmism.
Data collection is very important and necessary, but that can just be collected and then like made available to companies.
That's kind of all we need.
To do their general approach.
Am I correct?
And assuming this could create a world where there is a hurricane coming and we don't.
Know absolutely, I think it could certainly lead to that. Even though they're saying like this that this public service component is important and that they would they would basically want like the Coast Guard to take that over. But like, but then there's nothing in here about like okay, but there's already a system in place. There's a whole system in place and it works pretty well. Like yeah, what's the plan for the Coastguard taking that over without the step that runs that system?
Or you know what I mean.
It's just sort of like, I just I don't know why you would want to up and in an emergency alert service in the right And.
I mean, I.
I shudder to think what they want to do with FEMA and with disaster response because you know, and we we've talked about this one on one before, but Project twenty twenty five is alive and well in places like Florida, Louisiana, Texas, right, And I'm thinking specifically of Texas and Houston and what happened during Hurricane Beryl, which came aground as a Category one and shut a major city day and flooded a major city for days at a time, and it barely
made any sort of news because you know, there's so much chaos going on. But also like, you don't see this governor who's a media hog. You don't see him out there talking about it. You don't see him really even caring about what happens in Houston. And so to me, that feels like, you know, a portal to what we could expect for a disaster response.
Yeah, I'm just like just like briefly scanning for FEMA mentions here. So two things that I'm just like, oh my god.
Why.
One is that they want to basically bring the private sector in to the post disaster loan.
Oh, that's a bad idea, but the insurance companies are already like fuck New Orleans.
Yeah exactly. I'm just like, uh what.
And then they also are talking about moving FEMA into the Apartment of the Interior or possibly the Department of Transportation, possibly like combining it with another agency, So that that to me sounds like downsizing FEMA. Which yeah, I'm like, at a time when disasters are increasing, you know, right, so downsized FEMA and disasters are increasing, they want to take the loan governance thing away from the SBA and put it in the hands of private sector.
So you're gonna end.
Up with totally predatory post disaster.
CATO exactly and by design. Yeah, but by intricate design, not an accident. They absolutely are doing it on purpose. This isn't a case of we couldn't have anticipated that these things would happen. We know what climate change is going to look like. Hurricane Katrina is in the rear view mirror. We know what happens when you don't prepare for a disaster. We know what happens when you leave people, you know, to fin for themselves with no sort of order whatsoever.
So they're doing it on purpose.
They looked at Hurricane Katrina's response and saw inspiration and not horror.
Yeah.
No, they refer to FEMA's preparedness grants in this project twenty trive document.
As quote pork First states, I'm surprised they didn't call it soy.
I just you know, and it reminds me of I know, I said earlier I don't know if I'm.
Part of the climate movement anymore, but like the whole reason.
I feel like I got involved in the first place was you see those images from Katrina. You see that those people look like you, and that is what is waiting on me and climate change.
Yeah, and lo and behold here we are.
And we have folks in the climate space being like, now it's not the time to push on climate change. So enserious, So I'm serious.
Yeah. Another component to this which was really like you kind of see hints of it throughout this document, but then in the undercover reporting that the Center for Climate Reporting did where they had someone sort of pose as a prospective donor to Project twenty twenty five and get more detail on their plans, definitely a huge erosion in civil rights and a militarized approach to dealing with protests.
So they in that in that right the right up of like their meeting with the Project tween twenty five people, the Center for Climate Reporting wrote. Later, a reporter asked what will happen if there are left wing protests in response to deportations, which is this is another there's a I mean every I mean, they're very I want to deportes pro full like anti immigration thing as well, and lots of people being deported.
They're talking about reporting deporting pro Palestine protesters, and it's like, where would.
They deport me to? Yeah, yeah, it's just Africa in general.
Wiperpol Yeah, I guess this is the kind of thinking that that is happening here. So they asked them, okay, but what if there were protests and response to the deportations, and they said the plan would be to bring in the military. And the person who's like speaking to them from Project twenty twenty five says, I think they would attempt a color revolution.
What is a color revolution? Do I mean a race war? I think they mean a race war. Yeah.
He goes off to say, where they have riots, where they have everything you've seen in other countries. George Floyd obviously was not about race. It was about destabilizing the Trump administration.
Off.
Our view is that the president has the ability, both along the border and elsewhere to maintain law and order with the military.
Okay.
So that is disturbing, and that is the point where, like, you know, when Joe Biden was still the nominee and just incredibly hawkish for Israel. Books were saying that Trump and Biden are like what and what when it comes to Palestine, And I get it, I really really get it. Joe Biden like heartbreaking when it comes to Gaza. But also I do think Trump would be worse in the sense that he would criminalize the protest again protests, right,
not just even criminalize it. I think it would like make it a death sentence, you know, like shoot on site type of situation, because he wanted to do that several times during his prey and the military wouldn't do it. And now I think, you know, he's learned fine. Lackey's so fine, yes, men, And there are plenty of them. There are plenty of them out there. So I don't know. It's just like like I was saying at the beginning, like I'm not you know, google Gaga over Kamala Harris.
I definitely see the problems, but I have to admit that Trump is just untenable, Yeah, just untimable. And I don't I also don't think that means that we have to that Kamala Harris is above criticism.
No. I find that whole idea that you cannot criticize the Democrats at all, because that's basically giving the election to Trump.
To see that at all. Yeah, just am like a lot of people think that.
I know, I know in fact, actually it's because I don't want to see another Trump presidency that I want the Democrats to improve, because I know that that will bring in more voters.
You know, right. And I think where I'm at is I can bring myself to vote for Kamala Harris, but I cannot bring myself to campaign. I definitely can't bring myself to like chastise anyone else who's like, yeah, she's got too much blood on her hands for me. What am I supposed to say to that? Yeah, you know, like I don't see the blood too, you.
Know what I mean, certainly not trying to distance herself from it.
I haven't heard her much since the DNC. I did not enjoy her speech where she starts talking about her support for Israel. But what was very noticeable to me is like when she talks about Gaza. First of all,
I noticed the introduction of the passive voice. I didn't like that, But I also noticed that those same words coming out of the mouth of Joe Biden would have been just like utterly shocking and like would have sent us all into a tail span like him actually acknowledging the suffering of Gaza in the detail that she did would have been very shocking. So yeah, I do think we have to say that that is it's not nearly enough, not even a fraction of enough, but that is a difference.
So that does feel like a little bit of a distance to me.
It's not nearly enough. I have to keep saying that.
And what I also noticed is that when she's articulating the suffering of the Palestinians, that is when she gets more of a response from the crowd. And so I just think about what would it have been like if they had gotten a Palestinian speaker, like they would have gotten a standing ovation, I think, And what would that have looked like on.
All of those cameras.
Yeah, because this is not a fringe issue, and this isn't even a divisive issue.
I refuse to pronounce divisive as divisive. I'm so sorry. I can't do. It's divisive too.
Exactly divisive And anyway, it's not a divisive issue. The vast majority of Democrats, the vast majority of people in this country want to see spire.
This is not controversial. Yeah, that's right, even people kids. I feel like it was.
Pretty telling when Amy Schumer was like, never said, I'm not for a ceasefire. I was like, I'm sorry.
We needed to do something about all of these amys.
I know, I'm sorry for all the amies.
We gotta like, until we figure out what's going on, Yeah, pause and review on the amies.
Some work to do. That's true, it's true.
But I did want to ask about the Center for Climate Reporting. So they used some tactics that a lot of American journalists don't use. Is basically like a sting operation. You're journalists, Yeah, famously, So what are your thoughts on that?
Actually, I this The whole way that I met the guys who run the Center for Climate Reporting was that I kind of the first time that they did a big sting was actually back when they were working for Unearthed and they did the Exxon lobbyists sting. So they posed as you know, someone who is hiring, and they did interviews with these guys and they just like spilled all the beans and yeah, at the time, all of
it was really good. Yeah, And at the time, a bunch of campaigners oh, like, why can't our journalists do stuff like this? And I was like, well, that's you know, like activists can get away with that, but journalists can't because we would be sued this, that, and the other. And Lawrence Carter, who runs the Center for Timer Reporting, was like, excuse me, but like I'm a journalist and blah blah blah. So actually I had him on to Drill to talk about it because I was like, oh,
tell me more. So he kind of walked me through the history of using that tactic in the UK and that they have a pretty solid kind of checklist for what warrants a situation where that kind of tactic should be used, and then how do you do it in an ethical way and all of that kind of stuff.
And I started.
Looking into it more and I was like, actually, US journalists did used to do that affair of bit and it was largely Herb Schmertz and mobile oil that put an end.
To it, and always a roughly to Herb all roads. Yeah.
Yes, there's like there's some archival footage of him during this sixty minute panel where he's ranting, oh, you know, it's it's unethical and journalist shouldn't do it and this to the other and then could it hurt and several other corporations too, not Justble, but herb was definitely like, you know, the guy rallying everything around this really got together and filed some lawsuits against organizations that were doing it and kind of kicked up enough of a fuss
and made it clear that there would be expensive legal threats to the point where it almost never.
Happens in US media anymore.
But then you've got like the Project very toss guy who does it on the right, and like, yeah, he does it in a really unethical and very sloppy way. So that's the only reference point people today have is.
Like that guy.
So they see that stick and they go like, oh, that's not you know whatever. But I think there is an argument to be made for and this, this is a good example of like how else would we get someone from Project twenty twenty five to honestly lay out what they're trying to do.
I mean, I honestly feel like maybe they should do it for polling right, because Republicans are far less likely to respond to a poll, which is why, like, I don't know, I've been complaining about this on Twitter and no one's listening, But we're seeing all of this news about like Harris is ahead in the polls and blah blah bla blah blah, and the polls ain't been right for the past two elections.
So I don't know how much try to pull that.
So, like, what is anybody doing that sort of reporting where they go to Trump rallies and talk to Trump supporters and see what they're saying, like is he Are the crowds still packed? Are the supporters still participating? Like what is what's the vibe at the Trump rallies? Because that was the part that no one, no one wanted to seriously in twenty sixteen. His supporters were like riled up and like, so is he Are people not showing up for him anymore?
I know one thing. So two things that I know just from like reporters that I know who live in swing states or rural states or conservative states.
One is that he is not.
On the campaign trail like almost.
Yeah, yeah. Apparently he has very.
Few field offices even which is strange, which.
I think was he really took this for granted. He thought he was running against Biden.
And it is also an old man who wasn't going to be getting out much and also didn't have a lot of fields.
So, you know, Kamala.
Harris even she's not young, but she seems like a common compared to these guys.
I know.
He's also you know she Black people don't age like that, you know what I mean. So, like a black fifty nine is not the same as Tim Walls can show you they're the same age.
Brain, you are kidding me, They're the same age. That's hilarious.
Actually, it is hilarious. He's funny about it. He's like, yeah, I ran the school lunchroom for like ten years.
You don't leave that job with all your hair.
So well, anyway, she's showing up everywhere, you know, like they're doing a bunch of events and whatever whatever. So with Trump, it's like he's having significantly fewer Rellys, which is interesting.
Yeah.
And then a friend of mine who's in Pennsylvania was like, yeah, actually, like I drove through the part of Pennsylvania that's like most Trump trumpy trumpy, and she's like, the signs were out, but definitely not as much as like twenty sixteen, probably about half as many signs.
That's interesting.
I am seeing online, like a lot of the all well, we can't call him all right, but like the far right white supremacist screws are starting to break with him, like Nick Fuints is frustrated with him. And at first it started with a lot of these types of people saying that they were turning on the Trump campaign. They still like Trump, but they felt like the people around him they don't like doing what they wanted. And they were like, until the Trump campaign corrects itself, we're.
Heading for a loss.
And like Nick Klint has like declared war on the Trump campaign. And now I'm singing he's frustrated with Trump the person, because Trump is saying things like he's acknowledging now that Biden is the president, because he's saying like there was a cup against.
An American president. Isn't that terrible?
He's saying things like I lost by a sliver in twenty twenty, So Nickquints is like, oh, I'm sorry you lost thought I thought it was stolen. What happened to stop the stale where all these people like had their lives ruined trying to get the election back for you.
Now people are starting to get pissed at Trump, and then There's something about the abortion stance, right, Like he had this vote on abortion rights in Florida and Trump was saying he was going to vote against the Desanta's bill or the pro life bill, and because it was only like six weeks and he was like, I think people need more time. So he said he was going to vote no, and then there was this big backlash and he went back and said now I'm going to
vote yes. And so he changed his mind in public due to pressure from abortion votes. So those are the things that make me feel like this is not he's losing support.
And so.
I don't want to say that gives me hope because Kamala Harris is not, you know, my favorite person in the world either, but I'm a hell of a lot more comfortable with her in the White House than I am with other people. And it's like the way that we think about elections, I think maybe needs to change, right, Like you're not electing a friend, you're electing in aponent.
So like who do you want to organize against? And do you want to organize against Donald Trump or do you want to organize against Kamala Harris.
I'll take Kamala Harris in a heartbeat.
That's it for this week. I hope you liked this episode of Spill Again. You can subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back with more Drilled next week, and we are busily working away on a couple of new narrative seasons for you as well. In the meantime, you can also find lots of articles on our website at Drilled dot media and all over the
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for listening, and we'll see you next week. M