Seven Long Years

related to the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. And let me tell you, folks, lord, last week started out like trash, with the horrific shooting in Tennessee, with the horrific trans bills, with just you know, it was just a heavy fucking week. So I gotta say for those that were in the media that we're telling folks now is not the time to celebrate. This is a sober occasion. Blah blah blah fuck that I hope that you all popped bottles all weekend long, because we have been waiting

seven long years for this moment. Now we know, right this is not an episode of law and order, And sadly, the trial and diet all of this stuff will not be wrapped up by the end of the month or the end of this year. That this is going to be a much longer process. There will be opportunities for Trump stooges to be able to appeal, They'll be all these things. But what we do know is that tomorrow Donald Trump is scheduled to be arraigned, fingerprinted, and mug shotted,

if that's actually a word in New York. Now, I have to tell you something that I think is beautiful about this moment, which is that this is as far as we've ever gotten with Donald Trump. I want folks to really like wrap their minds around this, which is that for years, for decades, Donald Trump has been operating a criminal enterprise in business. He has been sued multiple times, he has faced fines, he has had to shutter Trump University. But this is the first time that Donald Trump is

being criminally indicted. Right, this is the first time that a former president is being criminally indicted. Because what did we learn through the Mulla report is that Robert Mueller found ten ways in which Donald Trump obstructed justice, ten ways right in which Donald Trump broke the law, but through the guidelines of the Department of Justice, they were

not going to indict a sitting president. Now, I have said on this show and many others that that was all good and fine, if that's your fucking bullshit rule. But Merritt Garland, once Merritt Garland was sworn in as the Attorney General of the United States, had already had all of Muller's work on his desk and could have pursued those indictments on those charges that led to his second impeachment as soon as Donald Trump took off in that helicopter and left the south lawn of the White House.

But he didn't. Had he done that, maybe we wouldn't have ended up where we are right now. But nonetheless, it is safe to say that I do not believe that Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA would be bringing charges that did not carry any weight to go through what is going to be attempts upon his life, whether it is real or imagine via social media or like the letter that he received a couple of weeks ago after Donald Trump said that he was supposedly going to be

arrested on that Tuesday. We know that the judge that we believe has been assigned to this case is also going to receive death threats. New York City is currently and has been since the weekend, bracing itself because in New York is like, so we're not going to fuck around and have a surprise quote unquote insurrection in the way that Washington, DC did. And I just want folks

to let this sit with you for a minute. That the indictment of a former president of the United States who just did a rally in Waco, Texas on the thirtieth anniversary of Waco, right where it has become this signifying place for white supremacists and white nationalist and Donald Trump knew exactly what the fuck that he was doing to summon in the presence of this cult leader and at the site of a place where eighty people were killed right after following this cult leader who was a

pedophile and molesting and abusing children. But this is where Donald Trump chose to have his rally, and there he had his hand over where I assume he believes his heart is having the January six choir, bunch of insurrectionists singing the national anthem, showing pictures of January six, because that is a moment that Donald Trump is proud of.

Every analyst that has been on television said, I really hope that the Department of Justice is paying attention because Donald Trump wants to say that he had nothing to do with January six and the outcome and the insurrection, blah blah blah. All I did was give a speech. And yet he is using January six and the imageries of you know, his followers beating, abusing, and ultimately killing police officers. People died that day, and Donald Trump is

using it as his rallying cry. Because of that, the New York City Police Department is on high alert and they are putting up barricades and all officers are on deck. Right, So what does that say to you? It says to me that Donald Trump is fucking dangerous, right, So I'm confused again why we even have people pontificating in the news. Is trying to fake connect the dots that are evident.

If the police did not believe that Donald Trump could in fact incite a mob, that Marjorie Taylor Green, who is going to find her way to New York tomorrow, that these people are not capable of violence and inciting people to violence, right then there would be no need for the precautions that the New York Police Department is taking right now. And I want that to sit with people, because this is not normal, right, It is also not normal for us to have had a criminal as a

president of the United States. But we have known long since. Those people who lived in New York knew who the fuck Donald Trump was, right, knew who he has always been. So you know, we are living inside of history right now. And like I said, this is not a law and order episode, and this is going to play out over the course parallel to the twenty twenty four presidential election, which is fucking wild because apparently we live in a

developing nation. I don't fucking know. One of the most interesting things too, that came out of the announcement around the indictment is Ronda Santis's post that he did on Twitter which said that he would not cooperate with authorities and be a part of any extradition of Donald Trump from Mara Lago, which is in Florida with his current residence to New York. So Rohnda Santis is not interested

in following the rule of law. Republicans in general are not interested in law and order and the fact that a sitting governor would defy court orders because they honestly believe that they are above the law. Right so, because they don't like the way that the law is being applied right now, they're like, oh no, we don't have

to follow those rules. But when they were all chanting lock her up, lock her up, which came up with nothing, zero indictments, all of their investigation into Benghazi, all of these things come up with fucking goose eggs, they still chant lock her up, lock her up. Any normal political party right now would be you can champion Donald Trump and say we are going to see how this plays out because we know that the evidence is going to prove that Donald Trump is innocent. But that's not what

these Republicans are doing, right. They're calling out the entire system and saying it's a far saying that Alvin Bragg is a political hack. There you using anti Semitic terminology and summoning George Soros right as their code word for anti Semitic Jewish backing money, which is what it is that they are implying when they keep using Soros's name. But they don't want the systems to work. They want

the systems to break. They want democracy itself to break so that they can do what it is that they want, which is civil war two point zero insurrection two point zero, right, now the chatter on the far right wing sites is about acceleration, which I learned over the weekend on MSNBC that acceleration for them means that they need to accelerate the destruction and the breakdown of systems and the breakdown

of governments at all levels. Right. They need to accelerate the destruction so that they can rebuild their white supremacist fantasy model. We are living in a wild, wild fucking time, folks.

That is all I can say. And you know, I will continue to remind people that while you are taking this in and you may have been popping popcorn and drinking drinks and watching the news all week, and do understand that you do your body a disservice when you do not take breaks, when you do not get outside, when you do not connect with nature, walk, have movement, anything. Even this type of energy, even if it is celebratory, it really is showing where America is right now, and

it is not in a good place. So truly be mindful of how you take in the news over the next couple of days, next couple of weeks, months, and the year ahead. Coming up next, my pre taped conversation with our good friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, to discuss his feelings around the shooting in Tennessee, which the victims have said shooting were brought to his university's campus and so how that surreal situation landed on him and where he thinks we are in the gun debate.

That conversation is coming up next, folks. You know that whenever I have the opportunity to be joined by our friend in house, our in house doctor at woke affidaily, doctor Jonathan Metzel, author of the book Dying of Whiteness, I'm always pleased. But yet we never have a conversation about anything that is good. We never talk about puppies, we never talk about sprinkles or sparkles. Everything is always about death and destruction, and unfortunately this week is no different.

But Jonathan, I will say this that when the shooting took place in Tennessee, you're one of the first people, obviously that I thought about, because that is where you spend half of your time, if not a majority of your time as a professor at Vanderbilt University. And I just want to get your reaction to the shooting that claimed the lives of three children and three adults, as well as the shooter, the unfolding of protests that have

been happening in Tennessee. Just your feelings first and foremost about this another American travesty, another American school shooting. I mean, it's my feelings range from traumatized, too exhausted, too angry, to energized given what happened today over recording this on a day where there were huge numbers of students that protests at the Nashville State House. And so I can just tell you, I mean I was at work on Monday, Yeah, and in Nashville, we were no strangers to multiple victim

gun violets. I mean, we've had lots of shootings, We've had lots of kids getting shot. This is a year where we've had a lot of kids shot. But I don't know, I just there was a moment on Monday where first we started hearing all the sirens, and then we heard all the helicopters. And at first the sirens were going away from us, and then really quickly the

sirens were coming toward us. And what that meant was that the people at this shooting, two miles away from work, were being brought to the Vanderbilt Hospital, and so it just I've never seen our campus like this. Honestly, it just went quiet. It was like pale and blanched and in shock everywhere, and so people were just either didn't know what to say or they were checking their phones

to make sure their kids were okay. And a lot of people have their kids in school there or nearby, so this was this really hit close to home, really close to home for a lot of people. And then I just think that there's something about kids in school getting shot that is just unfathomable, Like it just honestly doesn't mean you just can't process. First of all, who

would do that? But second, like parents drop off their kids at school, assuming they're putting them into another safe space, and so just this trauma, this fear of not being safe there is just so so palpable. And even for me who's studied mass shootings for a long time, but watching this play out, I just I can just say that it was there was something about this shooting that

really hit a nerve. Before then the entire shooting jumped right into the entire culture ward polarized politics, which is kind of how it's been playing out now, you know, Jonathan will One. You know, I'm just I don't is sorry is not even the word that you had to experience that and are going to still be experiencing the trauma, right, because that's what this is. Right. We are a nation that is traumatized consistently, Rinson repeat, from gun violence, from

mass shootings, from school shootings. But I think that to know that those victims were coming to your campus to the hospital, and then to know later that they were all pronounced dead is just beyond you know. And I've been interviewing and talking to folks that are saying they are parents, and they're saying to me that the scariest time of day nowadays is dropping their kids off at

the bus stop or dropping them off at school. And that's not like, this is not hyperbole, right, it is the fear of what it means to live in the United States that is uniquely you know, a part of our experience. And so I guess the question that I have for you right now is Tennessee is a gun state, right. It is a state where the governor you know, recently loosened you know, whatever what was left of gun laws

in that state. And so when you see the protests that are unfolding, and you see the parent that went viral for jumping in front of the cameras and saying to reporters, aren't you sick of this? Aren't you sick of covering this? What's the energy of the people in

Tennessee right now? I would say it's honestly divided. I mean very clearly, and you just see it so personally and again, like, my trauma is nothing compared to the trauma that happened two miles away, or the trauma of people who didn't know if their kids were going to come home or their you know, spouse was going to come home. But but first, I would just say that being in this experience, it makes you see how trauma ripples outward in a way like a blast radius, where

everybody kind of feels some connection to this. And so I would just say first people were commonly and communally traumatized, and then that it was a woman mass shooter, or no, it was a mass shooter who would identified as transgender

or whatever. Like it's just all these pieces came out that were so linked to already the divisive politics of Tennessee, where I can just tell you factually trans people are not going around attacking people, and yet and they are much more likely to be under attack and victims, and they're being victimized by the state apparatus now And so all of a sudden, it just jumps so quickly into the can call it the culture wars or the divisive politics, and then all of a sudden, you were on one

side or another. And so even though, of course guns themselves are very polarizing issues, but this shooting also highlighted how mass shootings don't happen in a vacuum, and that gun politics link to politics of race and gender in America, and so all of a sudden, we were like on an on steroids version of the divisive politics that have been dividing Tennessee anyway. Now, I will say they're a fair number of people I know who were gun owners who feel always that a mass shooting makes them more

pro gun like. They feel like their biggest fear is that something like this will happen and they won't have their gun available, or that only bad guys have guns, but good guys have guns regulated. On the other hand, we've we had thousands of students literally take over the Statehouse today demanding change, saying enough is enough, and I am really honestly torn. I'll just be really honest with you.

I'm really torn because I want there to be changed, and I feel like we're facing an issue right now that then it's just as a big issue and the

answer is that we have there's no answer. There's no easy answer right now, you know, even like let's say that the protesters get their way and we have red flag laws and we have background checks, I mean background checks as one example is a point of sale intervention, Like when you go to buy a gun, they do a background check, but we already have four hundred and fifty million guns in this country, and so even a

background check is not going to stop mass shootings. And so I just I feel like there's this there's just this divide. I mean, what we're calling for it just feels so basic. It's just almost like an acknowledgement of how hard this problem is. And I don't mean to sound defeated on I want there to be positive steps, but I would just say it's just like, you know, honestly, like fuck, how do we get here? You know? Yeah,

it's really how it feels. Yep, you know, It's funny because the other day I interviewed Medi Hassan from MSNBC and he had an interesting point that he made, and I want to run it past you where he said, you know, the right is already on their grievance trip about you know, the left trying to take their guns and repeal the Second Amendment. And he's like, fuck it, Why don't we have more conversations about repealing the Second Amendment?

Why don't we start to have policy conversations about the fact that, like the Second Amendment was never about having access to military grade weapons. Why don't we say that the Second Amendment, it is time for it to be reevaluated. Right? What do you think about that argument? Because to your point, background checks are about people who are going to purchase guns. It is not about the four hundred and fifty million

that have already proliferated this nation. Right, Like, you know, you can do mental health checks and have red flag laws, but the reality is is that we need to take the guns. So, like that's the real shit, right, Like the AAR fifteens and the weapons of war, they need to be confiscated, they need to be taken, right, and there needs to be a ban on them, and there needs to be you know, high penalties for selling them, for owning them, and that just needs to be the call.

And so this whole kind of playing around the edges, I think that we're past this. So I wanted to get your thoughts on what medi you know posed. I mean, it sounds great, just like expending the Supreme Court sounds great, and many other things sound great. And I can also tell you living in Tennessee that it's not going to happen. So I think it's great. I think it's great as a strategy. I would I don't. I don't. I just I mean, I'm all for pushing the envelope here, you know,

I'm all for thinking radically. I think there's a common sense on the left that we're proposing Honestly, it's just not working, right, I mean right, I mean that was his point. It's it's it's we're we're coming to we're coming to a gun battle with facts and a policy paper, and they're coming literally with bazuokas. But the other thing

is even the interventions we support, I don't know. I just feel like we have a really shitty tool kit, to be honest, if you're if you're arguing for background checks, for example, background checks king people, who are the histories of incarceration? Um, that's what that's what a background check. It's a federal database. Um that pings somebody with an incarceration. So who do you think gets pinged on a background check? Um?

And if a red flag law, we're all out there arguing for red flag laws, but a red flag law is basically inviting the police to do a welfare check on your relative. It's inviting the cops into your home. So who's going to get wary? Who's going to be aware of that? So there are racial politics on all

sides of what we're proposing. So I think there are many reasons why I think we should rethink public health based gun reform because I just don't think we've said so long it's common sense, it's not common sense and um, and so I'm all for rethinking this. Um. I just i'd rather I mean, and I'm happy to be bombastic and challenging, but I just can't see, at least where I live, I can't see that taking people's guns away

is gonna light to a good outcome. I mean, you know, but here's the thing, because I am trying desperately to find a hopeful place on this issue. Well, let me just say something though, because I mean, for me, the issue is you have to see guns in a bigger context. Right,

Why are there so many guns? It's not just because of failed public health strategies, because the right had a as you and I've said a million times here, a fifty year strategy that like that meant seating the courts with judges and winning elections like it's it's the reason there are so many guns is because there are so many judges and candidates. It's like a fifty year strategy. And I don't know, you and I've talked about this

a lot. We need a long game strategy. If we could turn the anger and frustration now into Okay, I'm gonna say something kind of weird. Good, But I study gun form. But when I hear the people say on TV, and I've probably said it too, oh like eight percent people support background checks, and I just want to scream when I honestly hear people say that, because it's probably true. I would be probably eighty percent of people do support

background checks. But that doesn't mean that eighty percent of people are going to vote as single issue voters in an election based on background checks. It means that they support background checks, but that's not how they're voting, honestly, and so I think the issue is the right. If they do gun rights, people just vote based on gun rights, and that means that pro gun NIRA politicians, even before Jerremandering, were never afraid they were going to get voted out

of office. Yep. I just think we need to broaden the frame because the minute you people start fearing they're going to get voted out of office for this position, that's when things will change. Honestly, that's when all of a sudden things are going to be on the table. But it's not the case. There's no threat that people are going to get voted out, at least where I live.

And the NIRA has been really good at putting in candidates who are not going to I mean, you saw the whole world saw the Tennessee I mean, but it's natural selection. When I saw what the representatives of Tennessee sound like and what their ideology is like, I was just like, what the fuck is going on in this state? When you can have not even the bodies of those children have been transported yet into the ground. And you were talking about, well, we're not going to fix it.

Crime is just going to happen. And that person say that so confidently, knowing that they're not going to be removed from office. But how did that person get into office? That's the point of trying to make It might not be obvious to people who are just seeing Tennessee for the first time. Twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, there were Republicans who also said we need background checks or something like that, any little thing, and those people all

got nright, they all got kneecapped. Yea, And all of a sudden, the minute you did anything that was against the NRA, the NRA would go after you. They would put up billboards, they would rally people. It would remember all those crazy people that showed up at the CRT school boards. Those people were all trained during the gun debate to show up about somebody who was going to

take away their Second Amendment rights. And so in a way, the people who are in those positions now are like the result of twenty years of just whacking out the moderates. And in a way, so I just I just want to highlight that people who are paying attention to this are rightly mortified, and they're also seeing this at the end of a progression that's been happening for several decades where they developed a playbook to put in the more

extreme people. And it really, I mean, I've seen it firsthand in Tennessee that anytime people would say, like, we had a bill one time that was a four year old kid shot a five year old kid, and we proposed a bill that was going to be to make parents responsible for putting their guns in gun safes if they had kids under five years old in their house,

and the Republican person said, I support that. I think there should be gun safety laws, so if you have a kid five and under, And that person lasted maybe three more months in politics after they came over to our side. So it's just been like this that's not even a fucking side. It's if you own a gun, lock it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, look look it up. It's called it was. The thing was called Micayley's Law, it was Newsweek wrote about it, a bunch of other places.

But it's just like this stuff's been happening, and you know, while everything else has been happening. It's no critique, but this has been happening, and so all of a sudden people are seeing it now, but it's they're seeing it at the end of a of a really long progression of the NRA just very powerfully taking over state apparatuses and then really making anybody. I mean even in New York.

Remember there was a there was that Buffalo shooting and a Republican politician said, I think it's time for us to come together for gun reform, and that guy got primary by the NRA. So even in New York that happened. And so they're so effective at making people tow the party line or lose their jobs. And so I guess my point is just I'm not I mean, great for Maddy if he wants to take all the guns, I'm

all for it. But I would also say we need to maybe a bit more unified political strategy for countering what the NRA has done, which is, like, I mean, the minute people who support background checks all start voting only on background checks, that's going to change the debate, right, It's going to be if we can mobilize voter blocks that vote with consequences, that that's where things will change.

But we're not there. I mean, there's a lot of research that shows that people support gun rights, but they don't vote based on gun rights, whereas gun owners all support all vote based on gun rights. Well, here's what I'm proposing, Jonathan. Yes, and I've been and I've been, you know, I have started it because like I am literally at my wits end, and I don't research this and haven't been in this in the way that you have for your career. But I'm calling for a national protest,

like I'm calling for a national boycott. I want to shut the country down. This is ridiculous, Like we cannot call ourselves an industrialize you know country. We're so wealthy but yet so morally bankrupt and continue to just go rinse and repeat and go on like normal and children die in their classrooms. Why they're collering, Like, we have to shut this shit down because there's something radical needs to happen to shake this country out of its malaise. Well,

there are two things. Number One, pay attention to what's going to happen in Tennessee. Students are doing a massive walkout, So pay attention to what's happening in Tennessee and see how sustainable that is. I hope it is. I hope it's sustainable. The March for Our Lives organization, like, there's a lot of student mobilization around this, and that'd be great. I really hope the next generation leads us. But I

would also say that it's not just about attitudes. Yeah, and it's really that the NRA controls the Supreme Court and they control the judiciary, and so it's I don't know, I just I want to push students, which I do, to say, if you're really going for this, it's not just about red flag laws or background checks like that.

Is that is not going to make a difference. I mean it will maybe a little bit, but they're still going to have the same problem, which is this is a power issue, not just to help this sue yep, yep,

Doctor Jonathan Metzel. As always, you know, I appreciate your insight, your analysis, and you know, again my heart goes out to you, your students, and the community that you live in in Tennessee of you know, what you've had to deal with and what you will be dealing with for you know, for weeks and months and years to come. Thank you. So much, and again, let's just keep mobilizing

around this. And you know it's humans created this system, and humans can create a different system, so it's not inevitable. Thank you, Jonathan. That isn't for me today. Dear friends on Woke a f as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.