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This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today. I'm joined by James Stout and Robert Evans. You are this week, we are covering the week of March twenty to March twenty six.
Short week because we did a late recording last week.
Yep, we did, so it's it's minus one day if my math is correct. It's been a hard week for any of us because we all really care about group chats and group chat security is super important, oh yeah, to kind of anyone involved in politics, and whenever we see a breach of this magnitude, it's really a warning and like a threat to all of us. So it has it has been. It has been a tough week.
Yeah, Like a threat to one is a threat to all. So like that's way I see it. Any group chat that gets compromised.
First they came for whovps group, that's right.
Next they're gonna come.
Be any of us, could be any of us, Jeffrey Goldberg could be lurking in your small group that's you and your girlfriend talking about what kind of pizza do order? He could be there reporting for the Atlantic. You wouldn't know unless you like looked at who was in there and saw his name, then you would know. Which is true of all of the people in the hoothy PC small group.
I guess it is actually pretty easy. You didn't know.
Maybe maybe Giffrey Goldbug's signal name is like like Cia Superspy or something, and everyone just assumed you along there.
I'm gonna start at the beginning because I do assume that actually, like as impossible as it sounds to those of us who like wake up and imbibe fucking social media in the morning like an addict takes their first hit of crack cocaine, but in a way that's less healthy for both our hearts and our brains. A decent number of people who listen to this podcast have just kind of like heard vaguely like some bits about this.
Yeah, they're wondering what the fuck we're talking about?
What are you doing? What are you guys doing? So we're going to talk about this group chat. So first off, couple of basics. So Signal is an app that is end to end encrypted. That means that if you have signal and your buddy has signal, and you're messaging each other, it's encrypted, and it is very hard at this point unless one of your phones is directly compromised by a nonstate actor or an x who's really good with the computers, no one else can see what you're messaging each other.
So if you and a friend are like planning what to order on fucking grub Hub tonight when you go play Super Smash Brothers or whatever, you can keep that secret. Or if you and a friend are planning what substances to buy that the government might not want you buying,
you can keep that secret. Or if you and your friend simply don't want various media companies taking every detail and phone carriers taking every detail of your life's conversations and turning that into analytics data, you can stop them from doing that. And if maybe one day you might be engaged in speech that the government might not like, you can continue to age in that speech privately without danger or with less danger, yeah, or with with as little danger as it is possible to do.
Especially if your messages automatically explode after anywhere between five seconds to one week, right, which is a feature signal has.
Yes, you can automatically set it to delete stuff over a period of time you want to. If you're going to use it, turn off the thing where it like pushes messages so that you can like see visible notifications.
So yeah, not if you.
Turn them off, because that's a that that'll function.
Up because then your operating system can read the messages without the encryption. Similarly, never open a QR code.
This is the yes.
Really the only way that Signal can can get compromised on like scale right now beyond like physical infiltration right like what accidentally happened with who the PC spell group.
But the main other way.
That Signal can get compromised is through malicious QR codes and unknown links. So really be careful about links as always on the Internet, and especially be skeptical of QR codes.
Yeah, there's there's a quote from Herman Garring, I think it was from Herman Gehring. When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver. And I have adapted that gearing quote to the modern era. When I hear QR code, I reach for my clock nineteen.
That's right. Do not use crew argots yeah, the work of Satan. Let's explain what who these PC small group is for the people. Well, I'm getting to it. So you've got you've got this app which is normally used by and has been used for a long time by like protesters and dissidents and journalists to communicate with sources
because it's very secure. The Trump administration takes office, one thing that they are annoyed about is that when you are government employees, even if you're doing top secret shit, especially if you're doing top secret shit, the kind of meetings about national security planning for like military actions that you are supposed to only have in something called a skiff. And a skiff is basically a room in.
You know, the West Wing, I think, or the Pentagon, right, I'm not one hundred percent sure where all the skiffs are, but it's like a room that is incredibly secure, and it is the the only place that you are supposed to have certain kinds of conversations. And in fact, if you are having one of those kinds of conversations in a skiff, no one, not even the president or the vice president, is allowed to have a phone in there. It is a very strict rule. You don't take phones
into the skiff because none of them are fucking secure. Now, the problem is all these communications, all of this stuff is documented and potentially foiaable. Maybe not immediately because there's always security concerns. They have the ability to redact stuff, but in twenty years perhaps, but at some.
Point, yeah, it might be archived even if it's not flable.
People who are in charge of our military now didn't like that and were like, hey, what if we all just did it through a single group, and they did to plan for an attack that started March fifteenth against the Hoothys. Now you will remember the hoothis from the episode James and I did. I mean from other stuff too, because they're all over the news.
You know, the Hoothy stuff.
James and I did an episode recently about it regular naval warfare, and you check it out. That's all still pretty relevant.
Better known for their other work, yeah, better.
Known for their other work. The Biden administration was like, we can probably take care of these guys with air strikes, and it didn't really work. And the Trump administration was like, we can do a better job of taking these guys out with air strikes, and at this point it's too early to say if it worked or not, but I'm gonna guess probably didn't.
Probably not, just generally given the history.
Maybe they say they killed a lot more high value targets and top missile guys.
The main missile guy quote.
I don't know. I'm not I don't know. I'm not privy to the information they're working off of or how much it matters at this point.
Right.
So we'll see, you know, in that signal chat, Rob, I'm not in that signal chat they have, not accidentally.
I'm in too many signal chats, frankly.
Yeah, yeah, I could be, and I might not know.
Ye, we all are in too many.
I might be in several government ones and be totally unaware of it because there's too many notifications on my.
F that shit's mute and I'm not seeing that.
Yeah.
So they decide we're going to plan an attack on some Hoothi's. We're gonna be hitting them with stuff, and we should probably all get we need to get all of these different kind of people from different chunks of the you know, the government together. So we got to have JD. Vance and his representative because usually Vance is too busy to respond, and we got to have the Defense Secretary Pete hegg Zeth and his representative. We've got to have the d n I Toulci Gabbard her representative.
Weve got to have the head of the CIA his represent you know that kind of thing. There's a few more people in there, Mark Rubio, Mark Rubio, right, Sex State, you know, and his representative Rvian Miller, Steven Miller. I don't know that Miller had a representative. He feels like he handles a lot of this stuff on his own, but yeah, on his phone too much Steven Miller.
Yeh, chronically online Steven Miller.
Yeah, and you have you have the head of I think Sincom was in there. Anyway. You got all these people in there, and while they're setting this up, all the invites are going out. Because the way you do it with Signal is you click a button that says like start a new group. You name the new group. In this case, they named the group HOOVPCS right, and uh, what does PC stand for?
In this politically correct? Which, honestly I thought that we were over.
Yeah, you'd think so, huh, don't Sandy slurs in the group chat that says what. It's just a reminder.
Yeah, yeah, no slurs in the small group chat.
Planning committee, I'm guessing, yeah.
Planning committee. Who the planning committee, small group. Sorry, I had that written down somewhere. So they make this group chat and they invite a bunch of people. And here's one of the ways signal works is that, like, if you're just importing your contacts in the signal, it'll find the guys who have signal and it'll just like show you, based on whatever your name you have for them in their phone right that they're on signal, and you can
just invite them. Otherwise, you can set what your signal name is going to be, and so when people type in your phone number or whatever, they'll see that, or if you send them an invite, that's the name they'll see. And this brings us. I got to take an aside to talk about a guy who is not a member of the Trump administration and who is not a member of government, a man named Jeffrey Goldberg born in nineteen sixty five. He is currently the co editor of the Atlantic.
Prior to this, he had what some people would call an illustrious career. He grew up in Malvern and long Eye and I'm Maulvin. Yeah, I'm looking at his wiki here, which just has the line that his neighborhood was mainly Catholic and he described it as a wasteland of Irish pagramists.
Oh he had a fun childhood, So okay, interesting, interesting Jeffrey fascinating stuff there. Interesting.
So after college or kind of while he's in college, he leaves and he goes to Israel because he wants to serve in the IDF during the Infata, the first one as a prison guard Jesus Christ, which is where Palestinian participants in the Intefub were being held. And yeah, he he had like an interesting conversation with this PLO leader who is also like a math teacher, who I guess they were able to like discuss their Zionism or whatever in some way that he found useful anyway, weird guy.
Not I bring this up to be like not a left wing radical.
Like not one of quote unquote to our guys.
One of our guys. Not a guy who's probably broadly opposed to most of and in fact to most of what the Trump administration is.
Doing over especially the air strikes.
Frankly, yes, now he has pissed off It's fair to say he has really pissed off Trump a number of times, right, because he wrote some articles. He wrote that twenty twenty article in the Atlantic about when Trump said got caught saying that Americans who died in wars are losers and suckers. Yes, which is you know, based on sourcing that he had.
So he's also attracted their ire. But he's again generally I would say, like more on the bootleoker east side of things, Like he's just kind of like a NATSEK cheerleader, right, that that would be a fair way to describe Jeffrey. I don't know that he would entirely disagree with that description of himself.
Yeah, like a neo lobe guy.
Yeah, that said, he's not so much of one that he's unwilling to report critical stuff, which is what happens here. So he gets an invite on his phone that it just takes him into this PC hoothy small group and people have done the work. There's another guy in the Trump administration whose initials are.
JC John Greenbrier I believe, Yeah.
I think it was John Greenbrier and the person who because there was some debate initially about like who invited him, because after this came out, there were allegations that he snuck his way in or whatever. We now know based on the evidence that he was inadvertently invited by National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, right.
As evidenced by the signal screen shot.
Yes, yes, yes, there's lots of screenshots. Jeffrey did his you know, the job of document eventually, yes, well he documented it right away.
Yes.
So now here's the thing. From the beginning here, Jeffrey is having the natural reaction. I will say this wrong my critiques of him. He has the reaction I think any minimally competent journalist would have. Someone's fucking with.
Me, Yeah, yeah, this is like something to get me.
Yeah, you don't get invited into a chat with the sect deaf and the head of the CIA planning a military strike, right, But that just doesn't happen.
I'd bit of Johna's for a while. That's not a good to me. Yeah, that's not does not really go down.
So he's like trying to figure out what the fuck's going on. I'm like, what's happening, and he's like he's making a note he's documenting stuff is there, and they're talking about like weapons packages, like these are the kind of weapons, this is where they're striking. And then as the strikes going, they're being like this guy headed into his girlfriend's house, we're hitting it. The house blew up.
He's dead.
Right.
Particular exchange was very funny because the way he phrased it was like it completely baffled JD Vance. Yes, let me pull this up because it was it was pretty funny. No please please uh. Michael Waltz VP full Stop building collapsed, full Stop had multiple positive ID full stop, Pete Carilla, the ic amazing job. JD Vance replies, what Michael Waltz typing too fast full stop the first target, M Dash
that top missile guy, M Dash. We have positive idea of him walking into his girlfriend's building and now it's collapsed, and then Jdvbarnes replies, excellent. At this point, Michael Waltz responds with the fist emoji, American flag emoji, flame emoji.
Yeah, so it's great and once it becomes very clear what's happening, Number one, rather than stay in the group, see if maybe he could get invited to other groups, just kind of like keep track of what was going on again being a guy who's like primary concern and I really do think Goldberg's primary concern here was the security of US soldiers, like.
The national security of the United States.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, as opposed to like is any of this legal?
Are they?
Like what like his is just like these people are not being secure like with I mean like this this could if the wrong person got invited to a group like this, it could potentially endanger the lives of airmen and stuff. That's on my primary concern with all this, right, But that is his, you know. And so he hops out of the group. He leaves, and he puts out this article and he redacts most other than the what's happened,
which is a story in and of itself. He like goes out of his way, like there's people who are in intelligence that are in this that he has their names, and he's like, I am not naming them because they're serving intelligence officers, and that's a no no. He doesn't like specifically give up other than that this is happening anything that's like particularly dangerous, right, But this is the kind of thing as soon as it comes out obviously it's a it's a fewer and it's unlike most of
the time when everybody gets like pissed, it seems to like it might have some legs because it's just such a what the buch moment, right.
And it's so contrary to like so much of the messaging coming from from the Trump administration regarding you know, like digital security, Hillary's emails.
Prosecuting individual soldiers for any like like you're losing a night vision goggle. Right, it's kind of a classic.
One leaking information house.
Administration is gonna gonna crack down and all information weeks, you know that sort of stuff.
At one point, Excess says we are clear for op sec, which I thought was pretty funny.
The funniest message in this signal group is that we're all good on op sec. Yeah, that he's in a group chat with internal.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's super funny. Yeah, everything that's happening here is very funny. I basically want to move on to like what's what's going to happen next, which is they are going to try to nuke Jeffrey Goldberg, Like they're going to try to send him to a prison, if not a literal like El Salvadorian work camp, right, like that that is going to be their next goal here.
He embarrassed these people, like yes to an extent that it's I mean, anyone in uniform would have been court martialed for this kind of security fuck up.
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean in times of war in the past. If like the version of this had happened in World War Two, they would have just executed whatever soldier did.
This, Like, yeah, you don't have to be a spy if you're incompetent enough to just bumble into a shit, it's the same result. I did want to address really quickly, like a couple of things. One, I saw this USA Today article that was like, oh, it's so relatable that they made this mistake of adding someone to the group chat. That was not the mistake. The mistake was coordinating things
that should be classified. Things it should be quote unquote side on personal devices using signal as opposed to a state department or government issued device which doesn't have your personal contacts to avoid all this, like a device which is not hackable, advice which has not a bit exposed to QR codes, for example.
Yeah, to make sure that in your context there's not two guys named JG.
Yeah, yeah, so you.
Might add the wrong JG to your Yemen bombing.
Chat, haven't we all added the wrong person to a group chat. And it's like, I mean, yeah, but I've never like bombed Yemen.
Yeah yeah, like bomb yeah yeah, it's not the same thing. It's not the same thing as a birthday party.
Yeah, Like I have two friends named John and I added the wrong one to a group about like planning a mutual friends birthday party. But like, again, minimal damage, yeah yeah, no no service. People's lives are put at risk. I did also want to point out this.
At one point, Waltz says of Michael Walls, who's a national security advisor. Yeah, not not the other one. Yeah, that would be pretty funny. They have him as well. He was just in there.
It seems in the ground, like to shoot.
Parent friends with JD vans wouldn't be so.
One of the things Wolf says which is bizarre is that like European navies are incapable of defeating hoothy weapons systems. It just isn't true. Like there was a coalition of twenty different states running operations in the rest he last year.
And against like France has a navy, like they've got a nuclear submarines they could in the world.
To cite one example, HMS Diamond, which is a British ship, shot down a Hoothy missile last year. The UK also struck Houthy targets last year.
Yeah, I've watched the UK carry out air strikes.
I've like they're very capable. Look what the Iranian what the Houthis have is Iranian three fifty eights to just get really nerdy for a second, right, which are not really a threat to modern fighter aircraft. It's like a loitering munition.
Maybe a drone.
Yeah, but no, no like aircraft, not a manned or personed aircraft.
The primary point of like how the Hoothies are conducting their strikes is not we're going to knock all of these ships out of the sea. It's it will It will create an unsustainable insurance situation for a lot of merchants. If there's just always kind of missiles, even if we never really or almost never hit anybody, that doesn't really matter. You got to deal with the insurance thing.
Yeah, they're going to make that much and more expensive, and that that particular part of global trade much more difficult to conduct. So far, the Trump administration has doubled down in its response. This is pretty funny karn Levitt on Twitter X, I guess called Goldberg.
She's the White House Press secretary. I believe press.
That's correct. Yeah, why has press secretory? She called Goldberg a quote Trump hater and also claimed the story was a quote hoax and a quote sensationalist spin. They are also right now claiming that quote war plans and quote attack plans are different things. The information they lead to was too specific to constitute a war plan. Both of these things are kind of ludicrous claims, right, very clearly,
this is stuff that should be classified very clearly. It's stuff that put those people's lives at risk in the event that the whoth he's had any means to respond to like F eighteen's, which I don't think they do really now. But you know, Iran, who absolutely is a state backer of the who he's, does have the ability, at least in theory. They they kind of haven't. They've kind of shown their ass a bit in the last year or two with Israeli strikes in a run.
Yeah, it's not the ability to like easily interdict these kinds of strikes, but certainly the ability to and more importantly kind of the ability to survive them, to like mitigate the damage that they can do.
Sure, sure to go underground or go somewhere else, and like those planes are vulnerable when they're like certain points in their trajectory, I think. So, you know, yeah, it's generally very poor to broad to broadcast exactly what you're doing, when, where and how.
It's kind of just a basic of like military stuff that you really don't want people to know exactly when you're sending dudes in to do what.
Yah.
Yeah, there was a very funny meme going around which basically had like imagined if the same discussion had been had about D Day in nineteen forty four, And yeah, that wouldn't have gone so well if they had brought a lot of great posts. I'm looking at one by
Katie and Autopolis on Twitter right now. Having read through the full Hoothy PC small group logs, I've come to the sad realization that I'm the Jdvans of my group chats, overly emotional, slightly and professional, confused by what everyone else is saying because I won't scroll up continually derail's plans with later jactions.
So good, that's so good.
It is that is that is really funny.
That is brutal. Yeah, it is interesting to see their dynamics. It's interesting to see kind of Stephen Miller seemed to have the decisive word on let's go ahead with ye Miller, Oh, yeah, speaking directly for the president.
That's what's interesting is no one ever says the president has approved this, the President has said do this, Like Miller says something along the lines of like, we're going forward with this or I've been told we're going forward with this, yeah, which is again not in terms of like it's a very Hitler way of doing things right, right, Like there's this I talk about this in the show.
There's this decades long debate about like the Hitler literally order the Holocaust or did he just kind of like keep making it clear to people that if they kept moving in a more holocausty direction that would.
Like endear them to him.
Aspects of both are true, but like, yeah, this is definitely kind of example of that ladder thing where Trump is probably like, yeah, somebody should probably fuck up those hoothies.
And then Steven.
Miller goes like, yeah, Trump said, you know, we're good, keep moving forward. But he's also Miller's not dumb. He's not gonna say Trump he's been doing this. He's gonna say.
He's been delegating so much more than his first term, to the point where his presidency is just projecting a certain vibe that then other people have to carry out all of the details for it.
Yeah. This is very similar to the Hitler regimes.
Yeah, yeah, there is a term for this at the time in the third reck. It's called working towards the Fueryka right where you're not going to get direct guidelines, your supposed to figure out what he wants and move closer to it.
Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, No, that's kind of been his new governing style.
It's a lot smarter in terms of like just like.
You know, getting documents to sign and then projects certain certain like slogans or vibes that then everyone who works under him, which is at this point's maybe like roughly twutored people tops have to all like figure out to like how to enact this thing that they think he wants.
Yeah, Like, even to the extent that he himself was saying he didn't sign the evocation of the Alien Enemies Act that Rubio did. Yeah, his signatures on it in the federal record. But clearly it's kind of a Rubio or it seems from that it's a Rubio concoction that he just greenlit. Just a quote from Miller in case anyone's wondering exactly what he said. As I heard it, the President was clear colon green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return.
So yeah, it's he never he never specifically says the President has okayed this, But yeah, that's obviously people in Europe really pissed. I've seen some statements from government ministers in the United Kingdom like the sort of maligning of Europe and its military powers is obviously going to piss those people off. Talking of pissing people off, should we pivot to advertisements.
We should, which does not piss me off. It makes me really happy to consume.
Garrison personal consumes all the products and services that support this show.
Yeah, that's definitely not true.
It's the only thing that Garrison concerns, which is why they have Polegra.
I don't know what that is, but sure, here's here's the ads. All right, we are so bad?
Mm hmmm, yeah, what's rending my auditions?
James?
Yeah, okay, I'll just start so very amusingly is that's probably concerningly for him. Judge Boseberg, the same person who issued a restraining order against the Trump administration for the rendition of people to Venezuela, has also been assigned the signal lawsuit American Obsite versus HeiG Seth. So that guy that the one who Trump already called for his impeachment
right has another crucial case in front of him. What the Trump administration has done in the court case pertaining to the rendition of people to El Salvador is invoked the state secrets privilege in court. Very ironic or very very ironic. They're talking about state secrets now, having just added Jeff Goldberg to the group yet, But that's what they have done. You can go back last week to understand sort of a bit more about where that's coming from. If you didn't listen to last week's.
Yeah we did, we did a whole episode on it last week. Ye.
It's also continuing to claim that it didn't quote unquote remove migrants after the tepative restraining order was issued because they'd already been removed. The removal happened when they were loaded onto the plane. Is this argument concurrectly with this as a panel hearing? So that's a panel of three judges right which the government is appeal the attentive restraining order.
During this hearings, CAULLT Judge Patricia Millet said, quote, the Nazis received better treatment under their Alien Enemies Act than these Venezuelan migrants. Which is true. The Nazis had hearings in the nineteen thirties and they didn't just get loaded onto play in the central work camp. Not a great reflection and where we're at. The Trump administration is trying to challenge the jurisdiction of Bozburg, saying that they should
have filed the same claim in Texas. Meanwhile, Thenezuelan government thirties are filing a colegal claim in El Salvador to deliberate their citizens from SECOD. It's worth noting, of course, that these people, some of them, have been tortured by the Venezuelan government right and chose to flee at no small risk to their lives, Like if people haven't listened to some of our older stuff, like I've been to the Darien Gap, which is the way that the vast
majority of Venezuelan migrants come. You can listen to my episodes about that if you will know more about why people are leaving Venezuela. We have a little more information on some of the people detained. One of them is a makeup artist who's a gay man who was beaten by guards as a US photojournalist. Watch. Another one, the Miami Herald is reporting, had been granted legal refugee status, So it seems that they sort of randomly grabbed tattooed Venezuelan's.
Some of these people have been through background checks already, right at which they will have disclosed their tattoos. That's one of the things that they'll be asked about, and they would have disclosed those. So whether they control left it or quite how they came across these people as to a little bit unclear. A couple of other things regarding to immigration enforcement this week that have come across
my radar but probably don't merit a whole episode. It's been reported that the IRS is close to an agreement to hand over the tax records of undocumented people. It's claimed for decades if it won't do this. This is why most documented people pay taxes, right, yeah.
Which is something that the conservative is just like don't believe.
Yes, so like all these undocumented immigrants are aren't paying taxes like the rest of us, Like no, actually they are.
What they're not doing is receiving benefits from those taxes.
Yeah, and yes, and this is a great way to have people want to pay less taxes if they're gonna get their information sent over to like the Gestapo, Like.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The whole point was to not provide a distance. This is similar to why California gives driver's licenses to undocumented people and allows them to ensure vehicles, right, because you don't want to provide a disincentive to have a driver's license, you don't want to provide a disincentive to have insurance. We have now provided a disincentive to
pay your taxes for undocumented people. So yeah, that will have consequences, and it will have consequences, especially in industries right like agriculture and construction, and my large numbers of people tend to be undocumented. Talking of undocumented migration, the COMMA secretary Howard Lutnik reports it. He said it's on the All In podcast. He has claimed to have already sold one thousand gold cards. So gold cards. If you didn't listen to our previous.
Oh, I feel like I thought, I'm getting dizzy.
I'm just like, yeah, I am all yeah.
Yeah. There is no pro for applying for receiving a gold card yet, so it's extremely unclear what this means in immigration law terms.
So he just got like a thousand texts from millionaires being like, yeah, I'll buy one maybe, Like.
Yeah, well multimillionaires five million each, right, like so yeah, apparently not quite clear, Like and like he claims that he sold them, Like is he going around shopping these around? Is this how they're going to replace a tax revenue from undocumented people? Like oh my god, No one knows, no, no one knows what this means. Who do you pay? Like very unclear? So yeah, that's great that that is
that it's the current situation with immigration. I also wanted to add at least three people who were aware of died in San Diego County on the fourteenth of March in a storm while crossing the border. One young woman who survived was found next to the remains of her father, who died of exposure in a winter storm out here. So yeah, the border continues to be doing violence to say of the most martinized people alive, which is great.
We should pop in here. A story just dropped. Michael Waltz, the National Security advisor who invited Jeffrey to that group chat journalists have found his public venmo every time with the quote, unquote it's full of journalists. I'm just gonna read a quote from an article on Prospect dot org.
Yeah.
Unsurprisingly, Fox News holds the highest headcount for reporters in Mike Waltz's phone. Griff Jenkins, who's Fox dot com bio listen as a Washington based national correspondent for Fox, is joining the list by Brian Kilmead, co host of Fox
and Friends. Porter Berry, President and editor of Fox Digital, also made the gut But what right wing reporters are not the only ones represented in Waltz's venmo list, which appears to be less than clean on obsec as Secretary of Defense Heggsceth throat Leland Vintert, a national correspondent for News Nation, is also listed on the digital account, as is Breonna Keeler, American journalist who currently serves as co
anchor of the afternoon edition of CNN News Central. Lauren pike Off, an executive producer at MSNBC, is also in Wallas's contacts. Earlier this year, Trump tweeted about the network, Wow, Rachel Maddow has horrible ratings. She'll be off the air soon. But amidst the broadcasters, producers, and talking heads, one name stands out from the crowd. Judith Miller, who was summarily fired from The New York Times after it was revealed that her reporting on the Iraq war was categorically false
and obtained almost verbatim from Vice President Dick Cheney. Her dismissal was the price paid for cozying up too close to an administration set on war. It's just like, okay, we don't check any of this, we haven't locked anything down.
Good having your public venmo itself is crazy. The fact that he's like the fact that he's like getting like dinner with journalists to be like, I'll I'll send you a Venmo requests for this sushi.
Oh man.
They've downloaded his entire friends list and you can just scroll.
Yeah, I know you can see everybody.
Oh my god, he said to get like a fifteen dollar venmo requests from Bryan Kilmeade for getting drinks at a bar, Like, what are we doing?
What are we doing? Yeah? Oh so yeah, how well these people make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, two dollars you it makes so much money bucks. Yeah, yeah, it's just one drink in DC.
So funny. Oh my god.
Now I think it's time, folks that we take a little bit of a detour and talk about tariffs.
Sorry, locking Jasp, rocking jazz botry, locking, locking.
J locking Jasp. Oh my god, I love playing that song. I love playing that song. We don't actually have anything to say about tariffs. MIA's not here. I will note there's a graph going around about the potential cost of Guinness under Trump's tax plan, which is usually around seven dollars per pint in the US, and we'll now I'll be twenty two to twenty seven dollars after Trump's you know, new new tariffs for imported alcohol that.
Reflects its true value. Because it's also yes.
Yes, absolutely, anyway, We're done. That's all I have to say on tariffs.
As long as the twisted tea pricing doesn't get affected, I'll be fine. Then that's good.
Good long I comment.
Now.
In some more upsetting news, another student at Columbia has been forced into hiding as ICE targets her for deportation. Unsouchung is a twenty one year old permanent resident who immigrated to the United States from Korea with her family when she was seven. On March ninth, she'd received a text message from Homeland Security Investigations reading, Hyensau, this is
Audrey from the police. My job is to reach out to you and see if you have any questions about your recent arrest and the process going forward.
What are you available for a phone call?
So this this message was allegedly friends to being arrested, among others at a recent sit in protest at Bernard College at Columbia. She was charged and then released with misdemeanor obstruction. So after receiving that like sketchy text, right, something that you should never never respond to, you should
immediately send to your lawyer. But after receiving this text, Chung got an email from Columbia Public Safety reading quote the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has asked us to inform you that Homeland Security Investigation agents are seeking to make contact with you in connection with an administrative warrant for your arrest. Consistent with university's practice, we wanted to share this information and their
request with you. If you are represented by counsel, it may make sense for your lawyer to speak directly with DHS now. That same day, ICE agents showed up at the home of Chunk's parents, and Chung's lawyer called quote unquote to Audrey from the police, who revealed she was actually an ICE agent and stated that there was an administrative warrant for her arrest and that the State Department
can revoke Miss Chung's residency status. Yes, we're going to talk more about what's happened with miss Chung after this at break.
All right, we're back.
So, when ICE failed to locate this Columbia University student, they started to enlist the help of federal prosecutors. I'm going to quote from the New York Times who broke this story. Quote on March tenth, Perry Carbone, a high ranking lawyer in the federal Prosecutor's office, told miss Amaud Miss Chung's attorney that the Secretary of State Mark Rubio had revoked Miss Chung's visa. Miss Amad responded that Miss Chung was not in the country on a visa and
was a permanent resident, according to the lawsuit. Miss Carbone responded that mister Rubio had quote revoked that as well unquote. So this similar to like a Mahmudkali like demonstrats that like they have no idea of the of the actual residency status of the people that they are going after. They are just going after non citizens and may eventually
start going after citizens too. Like they're just going after people that they assume have like the least amount of protections, whether that's a Green card holder, whether that's someone on a student visa or a work visa. They don't really know going in there. They're just going after people. Then, on March thirteenth, ICE searched two residences on campus with warrants,
citing a statute for harboring non citizens. The Trump administration is arguing that Chung's presence in the United States hinders the administration's foreign policy agenda. One twenty one year old student who was the valve victorian at her high school is hindering their foreign policy agenda for attending a sit in protest. Her lawyers note that Chung was not, by any means like a movement leader. She was simply one of hundreds of students who joined in in nationwide protests
against Israel's actions in Gaza. Her lawyer's right quote, Miss Chung has not made any public statements to the press or otherwise assumed a high profile role in these protests. She was rather one of a large group of college students raising, expressing, and discussing shared concerns. Chung herself had previously faced a university disciplinary process, which found that Chung
was not in violation of any university policy. So in response to the actions of ICE on Homeland Security to try to locate and deport her, Chung went into hiding. Her whereabouts are still unknown as the time of recording, and her lawyers fouled a lawsuit to prevent her deportation, claiming that ICE actions against Chung are illegal and unconstitutional.
The lawsuit reads quote officials that the highest echalons a government are attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike, including Miss Chung's speech. ICE's shocking actions against Miss Chung form part of a larger pattern of attempted US government repression of constitutionally protected protest activity and other forms of speech. Now, this past Tuesday, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order halting efforts
from ICE to detain or relocate Chung. The judge said that there is quote nothing in the record indicating that Chung is a danger to the community or a quote unquote foreign policy risk, or that she is communicated with terrorist organizations. The judge said that there would be quote no trips to Louisiana here, quote, referring to the movement
of Khalil to ICE attention in Louisiana. A DHS statement said that ICE is going to quote investigate individuals engage in activities in support of hamas a foreign terrorist organization unquote.
The statement also claimed that Chung would have an opportunity to present her case before an immigration judge, which is like contrary to incidence of ICE just deporting people before they're legally required hearings, even like in defiance of like extra court orders mandating those hearings, Like ICE is just lying here and I think it's worth pointing out, like what types of people they are going after right now.
One type of person that ICE is going after is like non citizens who were arrested at protests, regardless of what they actually did.
Right.
This can be anything from standing in the street to doing a sit in protest to just like being arrested on campus and removed by campus police or NYPD, right, like, just just any arrest like on record that shows you at one of these protests.
Yeah.
The other in the cases like Khalil, like he was never arrested. He was the subject of a mass doxing campaign by other students at Columbia, professors and other you know, quote unquote anti Semitism organizations which target high profile activists to create like public pressure against them, and those same lists are now being used by the Trump administration to target students.
Yeah, Pita had one, right, Beta, the ultra Zionist people who are going around like attempting to fucking present people with pages, I think they were one of the groups that had created like a quote unquote depote list. So we should just mention that a tough student, romeaser Oz Turk, was essentially abducted on her way to university. Right, there's video which will link in the show notes here, very very frightening video of her just standing on the sidewalk.
As first one man approaches her in like a in like a like a navy hoodie, put mask on his face, approaches her, stops her.
And then as soon as they start engaging in conversation, she gets surrounded by like five other people, all wearing like what I would describe as like a gray man block essentially that they then like pull out badges and
they like detain her. And it's interesting like as they approach, most of these people are unmasked, and then as soon as people realize what's happening, like like like people in the neighborhood it realize what's happening, they all start pulling up like a like half faced mask like gators.
Yeah, gators.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They looked to me more like than anything the way prowdboys dressed a lot in like Jordany in nineteen twenty twenty. Yeah, it's yeah, like.
Like it's extremely concerning, Like yes, when you you start seeing at these people mass people snatching people off the street. Right, she asked if she asked if she can call the cops and they say, we are the police. It looks like her phone falls out of her hand at some point they take her bag. We know this because it seems like somebody was filming from a building just above, and you can hear that people say like why are you covering your person?
Saying why are you wearing masks?
Why are you covering your faces?
Yeah, yeah, the guy, the guy filming, is like doing about what he can, given the fact that you have to assume he had no real idea what was happening initially other than like something visibly fucked up, Like I'm glad he said the things that he said.
But yeah, so yeah, she's a Turkish citizen who is in the States on a student visa in Boston, Massachusetts or outside Boston, Massachusetts.
Yeah, she's on a F one visa. So just a couple of dates to a few days before she was seized, she was like Her name was published by Canary Mission Right. Canary Mission is a desionist group that has been boxing for Palestine or anti genocide people for several years now. She had co edited an op ed in the Toughest Daily last year. It seems to be how they were
able to identify her. But as Garrison said, right like, in terms of how they're picking their targets right now, it seems to be heavily tied disease vigil anti Zionists, far right groups. I did see that a judge has already ruled that she shouldn't be left, she shouldn't be removed from Massachusetts without further consultation with that judge.
And we don't know if she has been or not already.
But this is this is continuing to happen, right. We talked about it this last week.
I'm going to do a whole episode next week about this, about this issue.
She is in Louisiana. Sorry, update, she has already been moved to Louisiana. Yeah, so I'm just reading a truth out piece here. Officials initially did not specify wells have been taken and Canarbi it's her lawyer was unable to reach her. Later on Wednesday, Hanabis said an emotion that she was informed by a senator's office that the student was already transferred to Louisiana.
It's like in a matter of hours they worked to get her like outside of yeah, her like home state or she probably has more legal protections.
Yeah, it's not something that's super uncommon. I've seen them do this with what they called lateral transfers under Title forty two, where they would move people. Under Title forty two, they can immediately return people to Mexico, right, And what they would do is laterally transfer them along the border and return them to another location in Mexico, which obviously led to them being completely dislocated when they were dropped in Mexico.
Something else that I want to note is the use of this harboring non citizens warrant. Like, one problem that ICE can run into often is that people can choose just to not answer the door. I usually likes to rely on people that have already been arrested or already detained by like police. Right, that makes it much easier for immigration officials to find people. Without that, locating people
can be a little bit harder. With the use of this like harboring non citizens warrant, that shows like there's trying to create this precedent for being able to actually break into more people's homes even though you know she had a permanent resident status. This is just like in terms of the tactic being used, similar to like you know this all these like gray Man block people approaching you on the street one by one. That's like a tactic to take note of. The use of this type
of warrant is also something to take note of. We are already at that point where people are like are like going into hiding. Right, This is like very very like dystopian ya coded stuff where you're like you are literally as like as a twenty one year old like junior, being forced to go into hiding because federal agents are after you because you sat down. Yeah, you sat down in front of a building in protest of a genocide.
You're a You're not even a movement leader, and this this type of thing shouldn't even happen to quote unquote movement leaders.
Right, Yeah, there's the very First Amendment protects your right to do that exactly.
Yeah.
But like regardless of whether or not you're involved in like the planning the organization, whether or not you're making statements depressed, whether or not you're you're you're giving speeches, if you just attend these sorts of things, you are you are a target by what is like very obviously a modern version of like gestopo like actions.
Yeah, I think it's also quite revealing that she's somewhat successfully gone into hiding, right, Like it suggests that, yeah, their intelligent operation is not sordvioleance that they were able to immediately find her.
Well, No, because again, the resources to do stuff like trace somebody down by their shoes from like surveillance camera footage exists. We saw it used on those lawyers who let police vehicle fire twenty twenty. But like, there's not really much in the way a crime's going on here. And there also there's so many of these people, Like the idea that you would you would pull all of the footage that you would need to track every one of these, it's just it's just not feasible.
Yeah, and I think they'll just go off to someone else right to get the headlined. But I'll be following this one with interest because it's sort of it's sort of an alternative outcome to the other ones that we've seen so far, So it'd just be revelatory to see how it goes. Yeah, So if you want to con take us about any of this, maybe if you're seeing things happening on your campus, if you have anything you'd like to share, things that you think we've missed, you
can do so. The email address is cool Zone tips at proton dot me. Proton Mail is an encrypted email service. It's only end to end encrypted like signal. If you send it from a proton mail address, don't copy any Atlantic journalists on your email and you should be good to go.
Thank you to everyone who's been sending those messages. It does take time for us to go through all of them. Not all of them will have a response, but we are reading them.
Thank you.
I am still working on a piece in the Lavender scare. There's a lot of stuff happening regarding, you know, suppressing and going after trans people in the military. This takes time, but we are working on that slowly but surely, as well as stuff regarding ice targeting students and what's going on in Columbia, so we appreciate that. The last thing I want to talk about is this past Monday, the IDF killed two Palistinian journalists in Gaza in separate air strikes.
Mohammad Mansour, who works for Palestine Today, was killed quote in his house in southern Gaza, alongside his wife and his son without any prior warning. According to al Jazeira. Later that day, the IDF killed a twenty three year old Palestinian journalist, Hassam Shabbat, in a targeted airstrike while he was driving his car in northern Gaza. I want to read this statement from Hassam quote. If you're reading this, it means I have been killed, most likely targeted by
the Israeli occupation forces. When all this began, I was only twenty one years old, a college student with dreams like anyone else. For the past eighteen months, I've dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza, minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, intents, anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months,
yet I never left my people's side. God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now I am finally at rest, something I haven't known in the past eighteen months. I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people. I ask you now, do not stop
speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away, keep fighting, keep telling our stories until Palestine is free.
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