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Liddle Marco, Happy At Last · Political Junkie Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: There's not a war.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we are a war against drug trafficking organizations.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not a war against Venezuela.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Hello, listeners.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm Claire Potter.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Neil Young.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: And this is the Little Marco Happy at Last edition.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to be talking about Venezuela today.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be talking about the place of the Secretary of State,
0:44
SPEAKER_01: who's also the National Archivist,
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Neil.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think he has two or three other little jobs.
0:49
But we are going to start with the news item about which I am
0:54
incandescent.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: which is the murder of a woman in Minneapolis by an ICE officer.
1:03
Now,
1:03
we know actually that the Trump administration has no regard
1:07
for human life.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: They have been murdering people in the Caribbean.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: They have been murdering people in Venezuela.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: They send...
1:16
SPEAKER_01: people off to be tortured in places like Seacott.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: But for some reason, this particular murder feels like a pivot point.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday,
1:27
SPEAKER_01: 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good,
1:30
SPEAKER_01: a poet,
1:30
SPEAKER_01: a mother of three,
1:31
SPEAKER_01: and a United States citizen,
1:33
SPEAKER_01: let me underline,
1:34
a United States citizen who had no obligation to respond to an
1:39
ICE officer,
1:40
SPEAKER_01: was murdered by an ICE officer
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Now,
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I was going to say he has yet to be identified,
1:45
SPEAKER_01: but in fact,
1:45
SPEAKER_01: it appears that his name is Jonathan Ross.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I am getting that from The Intercept.
1:49
I hope that's true,
1:50
and I'm not slandering somebody else named Jonathan Ross.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: Confronted by ICE vehicles for unknown reasons,
1:57
and there are a lot of stories out there about what Renee Good
2:00
was actually doing
2:01
SPEAKER_01: on the street,
2:02
SPEAKER_01: whether she was trying to interrupt the ICE agents,
2:05
SPEAKER_01: whether she was actually waving them around.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: We have no idea what she was doing there.
2:10
The officer,
2:11
let's say it's Jonathan Ross,
2:13
ordered her to get out of the car.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: He was screaming at her.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: He was cursing at her.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: He was waving a gun.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: And Good was in the car with her wife and dog.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And as she attempted to leave the scene,
2:25
which any sane person would do if they were being screamed at
2:29
by a masked man with
2:30
SPEAKER_01: a gun,
2:31
SPEAKER_01: he shot her three times.
2:33
Her car continued to move because when you die,
2:36
your foot goes down on the accelerator.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: It slammed into another vehicle.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, what has been the response of the Trump administration, Neil?
2:43
Well,
2:44
I think the easiest way to put it is just straight up lies
2:47
about what happened.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Kristi Noem is calling her a domestic terrorist,
2:51
SPEAKER_00: the woman who was murdered,
2:52
SPEAKER_00: that this was an act of defense on the part of the ICE agent.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, similar statements along those lines.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: I think,
2:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:00
SPEAKER_00: this feel,
3:01
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
3:02
SPEAKER_00: it's just so disgusting and horrific and terrifying what has happened.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Also,
3:08
SPEAKER_00: we've all seen the video,
3:09
which is also horrific and terrifying that we live in a world
3:13
where this is what
3:13
SPEAKER_00: we're subject to constantly.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And yet,
3:17
I think there's something important about both bearing witness
3:20
to these atrocities
3:22
and also being able to point to a clear piece of evidence of
3:26
what actually happened
3:27
SPEAKER_00: and to know that
3:29
SPEAKER_00: no, she wasn't an aggressor here.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: She wasn't a domestic terrorist, that this wasn't an act of defense.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: This was a violent provocation and a murderous one.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: And what else is there to be said?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And also that this was
3:42
from what we've heard more generally reported about ICE's
3:46
engagement on the ground
3:47
SPEAKER_00: in Minneapolis,
3:48
this was the very provocation that their whole presence is sort
3:53
of meant to bring
3:54
SPEAKER_00: about,
3:54
SPEAKER_00: right?
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Like sent, is it a thousand ICE agents into Minneapolis?
4:00
SPEAKER_00: To terrorize in these ways.
4:02
And obviously,
4:04
and not surprisingly,
4:05
it's going to end in these types of events.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think part of what is enraging about this is,
4:14
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
4:16
we have all seen the video and all kinds of experts have taken
4:19
a look at the video.
4:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
4:20
I've seen prosecuting attorneys who have looked at five
4:24
different angles of this
4:25
SPEAKER_01: video and they're telling a story that is incredible.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: absolutely different from what is coming out of the White House.
4:32
And on the one hand,
4:34
people in the White House are telling deliberate lies about
4:37
what occurred.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: They are slandering this woman.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: And then they're saying,
4:41
SPEAKER_01: well,
4:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:41
SPEAKER_01: you should always do what an officer of the law tells you to do.
4:46
And if you don't,
4:47
you know,
4:48
it's really your fault if he turns around and kills you.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: And that is actually not true either.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: It is against the law.
4:56
And let me also say that I've seen a lot of stuff from real
5:00
police officers that
5:02
SPEAKER_01: say,
5:03
SPEAKER_01: first of all,
5:04
SPEAKER_01: the idea that this guy
5:06
SPEAKER_01: was about to be run over by a car.
5:08
Apparently he was run over and dragged by a car driven by an
5:12
immigrant that he was
5:13
SPEAKER_01: trying to arrest about,
5:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
5:15
SPEAKER_01: three months ago or something like that.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: All right, if he's still got PTSD, take him off the street.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: But second of all, you are not supposed to stand in front of a car.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: There is no police training manual in the world
5:28
that says if you're trying to arrest somebody,
5:31
stand in front of their car.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Second of all,
5:34
there's no police manual in the world that says that you should
5:37
shoot at a moving
5:38
SPEAKER_01: vehicle.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: I realize that this happens on television and in the movies all the time,
5:43
but it is not supposed to happen in real life because terrible
5:46
things happen as a
5:47
SPEAKER_01: consequence.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: It's very fortunate that Renee Good's car
5:52
did not hit somebody else as it was veering out of control with
5:57
her just sort of
5:58
SPEAKER_01: stomped down on the accelerator.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: Her wife was in the car.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Her dog was in the car.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: It was, it's just, I'm just enraged about this.
6:08
And I am particularly enraged that the Trump administration
6:12
thinks we are all so
6:13
SPEAKER_01: stupid that they can tell us anything.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: And,
6:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
6:16
you and I were talking before we got on the broadcast about the
6:19
fact that I just
6:20
SPEAKER_01: reread 1984.
6:22
One of the essential themes of Winston being reprogrammed by
6:27
the authorities in
6:30
1984 is that he has to come to terms with what he sees is not
6:34
true unless he is
6:36
SPEAKER_01: told it is true.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: That it is the regime that defines truth and that if you
6:42
SPEAKER_01: believe what is in front of your eyes,
6:44
SPEAKER_01: as opposed to what you're being told by the regime,
6:47
you just need to keep working on it until you get to what they
6:50
want you to believe.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: And we seem to be at that place.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: And I don't see any impulse to stop this in the Republican Party.
7:01
I don't know how much they want us to take before they're
7:05
willing to admit that
7:06
SPEAKER_01: there is something terribly,
7:07
SPEAKER_01: terribly wrong going on here.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: And I think only with that not happening,
7:13
SPEAKER_00: then the only other option is for things to get a lot worse,
7:16
SPEAKER_00: that this is not,
7:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:18
SPEAKER_00: the breaking point or the,
7:20
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:21
SPEAKER_00: point of clarity and,
7:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:23
SPEAKER_00: redirection here,
7:24
SPEAKER_00: but it's just a precedent that's going to be,
7:26
SPEAKER_00: that's going to,
7:29
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:29
SPEAKER_00: set other things in motion and then allow other things to happen.
7:32
And you said the,
7:33
you know,
7:33
your comment about like how stupid the Trump administration is
7:39
SPEAKER_00: regards us.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a big part of this.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And I would add to that also,
7:44
SPEAKER_00: which feels really clear to me in this moment,
7:46
SPEAKER_00: how much they hate us,
7:48
SPEAKER_00: how much they hate Americans.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Even if there's some sort of way in which this is politically
8:00
SPEAKER_00: legally justified to them on some terms,
8:03
you still speak about a moment like this with such gravity and
8:08
such humility and
8:09
SPEAKER_00: such depth of loss,
8:12
SPEAKER_00: even as you maybe defend it,
8:14
SPEAKER_00: right?
8:15
SPEAKER_00: There's none of that.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she asked for this is what they're saying, essentially.
8:21
And that is a disgusting,
8:23
disgusting degradation of American life that I think is
8:29
SPEAKER_00: writ large for them and how they think about most of us.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: And that is horrific to come from an administration.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: No, I agree with you, Neil.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I didn't expect,
8:44
SPEAKER_01: but I missed that would have come out of,
8:47
SPEAKER_01: say,
8:47
SPEAKER_01: a Reagan administration or a George W.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Bush administration would have been somebody getting up and saying,
8:55
SPEAKER_01: we are looking into this.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: This is, of course, a terrible tragedy.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: We will be investigating to see how it happened.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: The officer has been put on leave.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: None of that.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: None of that.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: It's just like everybody is wrong but us.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: And you're right.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: They do hate us.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: They actually do hate us,
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SPEAKER_01: which is difficult to know how to respond to because as Christians,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: you and me,
9:23
we know that responding to hatred with hate isn't going to get
9:28
us anywhere.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: But most of us don't want to give our lives for it either.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:35
And nor be consumed by that when,
9:37
because it's like,
9:38
it's,
9:39
you know,
9:39
nothing comes from that.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
9:41
I feel like we could have an entire episode about this because
9:44
it is so horrific
9:45
SPEAKER_00: and it's so important.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: I think the other thing I would say is because I think there's a Trump
9:52
SPEAKER_00: administration response to this.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: There's also a conservative media response to this and sort of a larger
9:57
SPEAKER_00: conservative American response to all this.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And those things are overlapping and reinforcing.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:01
But like there's going to be a moment at some point when this
10:05
man is identified.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And then what will happen?
10:08
SPEAKER_00: There'll be a GoFundMe page created for him.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: There'll probably be millions of dollars raised for him.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
10:15
SPEAKER_00: it's very easy to imagine him as one of the speakers at the next RNC,
10:20
SPEAKER_00: you know,
10:21
SPEAKER_00: will run for government.
10:22
I mean,
10:22
like all of the,
10:23
I'm saying that's somewhat unjust and not at all.
10:26
Like those things are very real possibilities because we've
10:29
seen them happen over
10:30
SPEAKER_00: and over again in other similar situations in the last couple of years.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it speaks to just the larger possibility
10:40
SPEAKER_00: culture of, I don't even want to call it conservatism, of MAGA, right?
10:44
SPEAKER_00: The larger culture of MAGA and all the ways it's distorting everything.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: Well,
10:51
and one of the things that I've been thinking about is since we
10:55
just passed the
10:55
SPEAKER_01: fifth anniversary of January 6th was Ashley Babbitt.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: And how,
11:01
SPEAKER_01: well,
11:01
Ashley Babbitt wouldn't have been murdered if she hadn't
11:04
entered the Capitol
11:05
illegally with an armed mob and been breaking a window with a
11:08
hammer as a Capitol
11:10
SPEAKER_01: police officer told her to stand back,
11:12
SPEAKER_01: stand back,
11:13
SPEAKER_01: stand back.
11:14
SPEAKER_01: She would not have been shot had that not happened.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: It was, in fact, a tragedy that she lost her life.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: But she became a saint and a martyr to the MAGA movement.
11:24
She became one of those white women who stands in for purity
11:30
and goodness and
11:31
SPEAKER_01: everything that needs to be protected in the United States.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: And honestly,
11:35
SPEAKER_01: I would just like to say to MAGA now,
11:37
SPEAKER_01: if Ashley Babbitt had stayed home,
11:40
SPEAKER_01: she wouldn't be dead either.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:42
And so there is this,
11:43
there is difficulty they have as they move from story to story.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: They don't feel like they have to clean up anything.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: All right.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: So we're sticking with Minnesota for a little bit with the news summary.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: The next topic is Governor Tim Walsh,
11:58
who has dropped his bid for a third term in the wake of an
12:02
alleged multi-billion
12:04
dollar scheme to divert federal dollars intended for Minnesota
12:08
subsidized child
12:09
SPEAKER_01: care.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: The state's popular senior Democratic senator,
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Amy Klobuchar,
12:15
SPEAKER_01: is said to be almost certain to run in 2026.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: If she wins, she or Waltz will pick someone to fill her seat.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: That person could run in the special election to replace her.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: Now, the question is, who's that going to be?
12:30
So I took a look at the congressional delegation and there are
12:33
a number of people
12:34
SPEAKER_01: there who might be interesting.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: But also there's the mayor of Minneapolis,
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Jacob Fry,
12:40
SPEAKER_01: who has been right out there with this recent murder in his city.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: And then there's Keith Ellison,
12:47
who was the former representative from Minnesota 05 and is
12:51
currently an attorney
12:52
SPEAKER_01: general.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: Now,
12:53
SPEAKER_01: he has been also a little bit caught up in this scandal,
12:57
but only to the extent that people are asking why wasn't the
13:01
attorney general's
13:02
SPEAKER_01: office on top of it.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: Neil, what are the implications of Waltz stepping down?
13:07
And what are the implications of Klobuchar making a move to the
13:11
governor's office?
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we can say it will not be Ilhan Omar.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: put in this place.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: I think,
13:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:19
SPEAKER_00: honestly,
13:19
I found this a little surprising to hear that Klobuchar was
13:22
like eyeing the
13:23
SPEAKER_00: governorship because I don't know,
13:24
SPEAKER_00: I felt like you could imagine a person like Klobuchar having several,
13:30
several more terms in the Senate safely and just sort of
13:33
building out a long career
13:34
SPEAKER_00: there.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: But I also think like
13:37
SPEAKER_00: There's a good, like, you know, she ran for the presidency.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: I think she has real interest in sort of executive roles.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And so I imagine that's part of it.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: You know,
13:47
I would have thought that Ralph Ellison would have probably
13:50
been the most likely
13:51
SPEAKER_00: one here to...
13:52
SPEAKER_01: You mean Keith Ellison?
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Keith Ellison.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Wishful thinking there.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Keith Ellison would have been the name.
13:58
But I do think,
13:59
like,
13:59
obviously,
13:59
Jacob Fry is having a big moment right now in terms of...
14:04
The visibility around what's happening in Minneapolis and what
14:08
a terrible reason to
14:10
SPEAKER_00: have that visibility.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: But I'm seeing so,
14:12
SPEAKER_00: so,
14:12
so many people repost this press conference moment he gave
14:17
yesterday or maybe this
14:19
SPEAKER_00: morning telling ICE to get the F out of Minneapolis.
14:22
So I could see,
14:26
as often happens in these horrific moments,
14:28
sort of skyrocketing to a bigger...
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm going to put my money on Jacob Fry.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: I think Klobuchar,
14:38
SPEAKER_01: who was a couple years behind me at Yale,
14:40
SPEAKER_01: and so I like her from way back then.
14:43
But she's from the Iron Range,
14:45
which is the northernmost part of Minnesota near Canada.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: She has always been a really good statewide candidate.
14:54
She even gets the vote in the Iron Range,
14:55
which is very,
14:56
very conservative.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
14:58
My sense of Klobuchar is that it's very frustrating to be in
15:04
the Senate if you
15:05
SPEAKER_01: really want to do things.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: You know,
15:07
SPEAKER_01: after she ran for president,
15:08
SPEAKER_01: she wrote a great book about regulating the internet,
15:12
SPEAKER_01: and it
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Fell flat.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: Nobody paid any attention to it.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: We haven't regulated the Internet.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: We wring our hands about it a lot.
15:20
But she had some very good ideas for how to use antitrust law
15:26
to bring the tech
15:27
SPEAKER_01: billionaires to heel.
15:28
And that kind of work is really mostly being done at the level
15:31
of the state nowadays.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: So I think she can win.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: And my guess is that she actually wants to do some work.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Senate just doesn't do anything nowadays.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's probably a huge part of it.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Like such a smart,
15:48
ambitious woman who I think has really shown throughout her
15:52
career and was very
15:53
SPEAKER_00: much part of her biography when she was running for president.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Like I get things done.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: And there's a sort of like scrappy Midwestern-ness to that.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Like the way she characterizes that sort of work ethic, right?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: And also I think there's like a little bit of a throwback feminism to it.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm the woman who's like gonna get stuff done when you men are like,
16:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:14
SPEAKER_00: dicking about.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: And I think also... Yeah.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think also...
16:21
SPEAKER_00: She really,
16:22
SPEAKER_00: really cares about,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
16:23
I think like there's been lots of profiles of her and many of
16:27
them are not all that
16:29
flattering of what she's like as a boss and then to work with
16:32
and all those things.
16:33
And,
16:33
you know,
16:34
there's been lots of gendered analysis of those profiles and
16:37
all the rest.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: But I think the takeaway I always had from that was just like,
16:41
SPEAKER_00: God,
16:42
SPEAKER_00: this woman is the hardest working woman.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And like, she's like frustrated with incompetence all around her.
16:49
You can see,
16:49
especially in the Senate right now,
16:51
that it's just a worthless body.
16:53
The desire to go back to a state that really matters and that's
16:56
really important in
16:58
SPEAKER_00: so many ways for the nation and the economy and all that.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: And just getting things done.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: No, I agree.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: And,
17:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:06
it's funny how it's always the women who get blamed for being
17:10
cruel to their
17:11
SPEAKER_01: staffers.
17:11
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that interesting?
17:13
And I never really know whether it's the staffers who actually
17:16
want something else
17:16
SPEAKER_01: from women and sort of kind of take advantage of them,
17:20
SPEAKER_01: or whether it's just like,
17:22
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:22
SPEAKER_01: a reflexive sexism.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I remember after I did that piece on...
17:29
SPEAKER_01: the women who were running for president back in 2015.
17:32
I was on MSNBC and the woman I was on with when the Amy
17:37
Klobuchar thing came up
17:39
SPEAKER_01: said,
17:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to hear about it.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Those men on the Hill work their staffers like mules.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, girl.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's jump to the next news item.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And this one should have the headline, Queer People Strike Back.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump added his own name to the Kennedy Center,
18:00
SPEAKER_01: not only outraging the ginormous Kennedy family,
18:03
SPEAKER_01: but causing numerous artists scheduled to perform there to cancel.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: And they canceled on Christmas Eve,
18:08
SPEAKER_01: and they canceled on New Year's Eve,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: and they have canceled until the end of time.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Neil, I'm so happy about this.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Good for them.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, would you want to go perform there?
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's such an easy and impactful thing to do, right?
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Screw that appearance.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
18:30
this is so stupid and yet so evocative of like so much that's
18:34
happening from the
18:35
just insatiable narcissism of this man and the complete
18:39
kowtowing of every
18:42
SPEAKER_00: spineless person around him.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And that like,
18:44
this is what so much of the efforts of this administration are
18:48
directed towards
18:49
SPEAKER_00: while everything else is falling apart.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
18:51
SPEAKER_00: they're also doing a lot of like,
18:52
SPEAKER_00: as we'll talk about horrific actions that are proactively engaged,
18:56
SPEAKER_00: but like naming the Kennedy center,
18:58
SPEAKER_00: the Trump Kennedy center,
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And like the next step is to take the Kennedy name off of this.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Like this is like, you know, stage four.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: But how will they hook John F. Kennedy up to Jeffrey Epstein?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: How will that happen?
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that's where that's where AI comes in.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Like we just need a bot to generate,
19:19
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:19
SPEAKER_00: a picture of them with their arms around each other.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Well,
19:24
SPEAKER_01: and,
19:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
19:24
SPEAKER_01: I saw Doug Verone of the Doug Verone Dance Company,
19:28
SPEAKER_01: which has been around for 40 years or so.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: And,
19:31
SPEAKER_01: you know,
19:31
Rick Grinnell came on and said that they were going to sue
19:35
everybody and they were
19:36
going to sue people for millions of dollars for canceling and
19:39
so on and so forth.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: And Doug Verone just said,
19:41
that is nonsense because every contract we sign has a clause in
19:46
it that either
19:47
party gets to pull out if something happens that would damage
19:50
their reputation.
19:52
So if the Doug Verone Dance Company says they are going to show
19:55
up completely nude
19:56
SPEAKER_01: and do a dance in the raw,
19:58
SPEAKER_01: the Trump Kennedy Center gets to cancel it and vice versa.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And if they say,
20:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:03
SPEAKER_01: this is not good for a reputation to perform there,
20:07
SPEAKER_01: that's in the contract,
20:09
SPEAKER_01: right?
20:09
SPEAKER_01: So, so there we go.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: All right.
20:11
So we've taken a wrecking ball to culture in the Capitol,
20:15
but now we have some good news,
20:16
Neil.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: In a four to one ruling,
20:19
Wyoming's Supreme Court has struck down two laws banning
20:23
abortion in the state as
20:25
SPEAKER_01: unconstitutional,
20:26
SPEAKER_01: including the first law in the nation to ban chemical abortions.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: So this law passed in the legislature was supposed to ban.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: chemical abortions completely.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: It would make Wyoming the only state to do that.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: The court,
20:39
SPEAKER_01: which has been appointed all by Republicans,
20:41
because I don't think a Democrat has been elected in Wyoming
20:45
for like decades,
20:46
cited a 2012 amendment approved by voters in the wake of the
20:51
ACA empowering adults
20:53
SPEAKER_01: to make their own health decisions.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: So actions have consequences, Neil.
20:58
SPEAKER_01: How did you parse this?
21:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there's a lot of ways to parse this.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: One is about just sort of a political analysis of Wyoming.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: And I saw so many articles referring to Wyoming as like,
21:11
SPEAKER_00: quote,
21:11
SPEAKER_00: a very conservative state,
21:12
SPEAKER_00: which it's true,
21:14
although I would say it is of a conservatism historically that
21:18
leans much more
21:19
SPEAKER_00: libertarian than sort of social conservatism.
21:22
And that seems really important here,
21:23
especially for the issue that we're talking about.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Because I think, you know, if you look at something like
21:28
SPEAKER_00: rankings of states by religiosity,
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Wyoming falls into the middle of the pack,
21:35
SPEAKER_00: which is to say that it's sort of like kind of religious and kind of not.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: But among conservative states, that puts them sort of on the lower end.
21:42
So there's not the sort of religious social conservatism in
21:47
Wyoming that there are
21:48
SPEAKER_00: in so many other deep red states that I think would...
21:53
SPEAKER_00: handle these issues much differently.
21:56
And so I see a sort of Western mountain libertarianism at work
22:01
here in this
22:03
SPEAKER_00: particular,
22:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
22:04
SPEAKER_00: in the sort of chain events that led to this,
22:07
both in terms of the constitutional amendment and the Supreme
22:10
Court's decision
22:11
SPEAKER_00: here.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
22:12
SPEAKER_01: and I would have to dig into this a little bit more,
22:15
but I think the fact that this amendment was passed in 2012 is
22:19
very significant
22:20
SPEAKER_01: because remember all that opposition to the ACA,
22:24
a lot of it was framed about the fictional death panels that
22:29
would be set up in
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Washington.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: that would decide that people were not gonna get medical care after all,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: we were just going to let them die.
22:36
Or that people could sort of illegally persuade their elderly
22:42
relatives that they
22:43
didn't actually want to give them medical care anymore and it
22:45
was time for them to
22:46
SPEAKER_01: die and so on.
22:47
But the idea that actually the ACA was making life and death
22:52
decisions for
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Americans,
22:54
SPEAKER_01: then I think,
22:55
SPEAKER_01: and I have to look into it a little bit more,
22:57
SPEAKER_01: but I think this is what prompted
22:59
a referendum to amend the Constitution to say that all adults
23:05
got to make their own
23:06
SPEAKER_01: health decisions,
23:06
SPEAKER_01: that they couldn't be made by anybody else.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Now,
23:09
what's significant about this is that this is also the first
23:14
state Supreme Court
23:15
SPEAKER_01: decision to define abortion as health care.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:23
And so the anti-abortion forces have spent decades trying to
23:28
say that abortion is
23:30
SPEAKER_01: not health care,
23:31
SPEAKER_01: that it's,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:32
SPEAKER_01: some kind of rogue birth control,
23:35
SPEAKER_01: that it's a crime,
23:37
SPEAKER_01: that it's murder,
23:38
SPEAKER_01: that it's this,
23:38
SPEAKER_01: that it's that.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: But this Supreme Court decision
23:42
SPEAKER_01: says,
23:42
SPEAKER_01: yes,
23:43
abortion is health care and adults get to make that decision on
23:46
their own and you
23:47
SPEAKER_01: don't get to ban it,
23:48
SPEAKER_01: legislature.
23:49
SPEAKER_01: So that is the one piece of good news that we have this week, Neil.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Now we're going to go back into the bad news.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Venezuela.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: On the evening of Saturday,
23:58
SPEAKER_01: January 3rd,
23:59
a special forces team from the United States supported from the
24:03
air penetrated the
24:04
SPEAKER_01: compound in Caracas,
24:06
SPEAKER_01: Venezuela,
24:07
SPEAKER_01: where President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Celia Flores were living.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: After killing their bodyguard,
24:14
SPEAKER_01: a group that apparently included a lot of specially trained Cubans,
24:18
SPEAKER_01: we should talk about that,
24:20
the team kidnapped them and took them to New York where they
24:23
were charged this week
24:24
SPEAKER_01: for narco-terrorism.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Neil, what are the issues we need to be thinking about in this case?
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, where do we start?
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Where do we start?
24:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
24:35
I think let's put the narco-terrorism aside for a moment and
24:39
just talk about the
24:41
SPEAKER_00: event itself and what that represents.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: U.S.
24:45
president invading another country without authorization by
24:50
Congress or even
24:51
briefing of the relevant committee of what they were doing and
24:55
kidnapping a
24:57
SPEAKER_00: president,
24:57
SPEAKER_00: extraditing them to the U.S.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: to stand trial.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, among the charges are that
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Maduro has violated U.S.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: firearm laws?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: What in the world?
25:10
How does any of this stand up in a court of law,
25:13
let alone adhere to the Constitution?
25:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very bizarre.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: And let's sort of mark out the things that we know are illegal.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: We know,
25:23
SPEAKER_01: for example,
25:24
that there is a convention that the United States has signed
25:27
off on that says you
25:28
SPEAKER_01: actually cannot try foreign heads of state in your country.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: Now, the United States has done this several times.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: The United States has also previously kidnapped a foreign head of state.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking of the president of Panama.
25:43
SPEAKER_01: What was his name?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: What was his name?
25:45
SPEAKER_01: Do we remember this?
25:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: I'll come to me in a second.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: All right.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: Anyway,
25:51
we kidnapped the president of Panama and also the president of
25:56
Honduras was tried
25:58
SPEAKER_01: in this country for narco-terrorism.
26:00
And we know this because Donald Trump just pardoned him and
26:04
sent him back to
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Honduras right before
26:08
SPEAKER_01: he kidnapped Nicolás Maduro.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: So there's that.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: The second thing is that the United States is making claims,
26:16
SPEAKER_01: and this is all very muddled,
26:17
because different people in the Trump administration are saying
26:20
different things.
26:20
And I'm not just talking about Donald Trump,
26:22
who says different things every day.
26:24
But Stephen Miller and Marco Rubio,
26:27
for example,
26:29
are saying very different things about why
26:32
SPEAKER_01: the United States did this.
26:33
Stephen Miller said,
26:35
the Western Hemisphere and everything in it belongs to the
26:38
United States.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: And the sooner all of these countries recognize that, the better.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: Marco Rubio is kind of like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
26:45
We'll talk a little bit more about Marco later and what role
26:49
he's playing in this.
26:50
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying,
26:51
SPEAKER_01: no,
26:51
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:51
SPEAKER_01: we're just going to run the country for a little while and do it until it
26:57
SPEAKER_01: stabilizes.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: Now they have left in place
27:01
SPEAKER_01: the vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, and she has in fact been sworn in.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: But the question is, is Delcy Rodriguez on the same page as them?
27:11
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday,
27:11
the New York Times obtained a 90-day emergency order issued by
27:15
the government by
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Delcy Rodriguez,
27:17
SPEAKER_01: but apparently it was signed by Nicolas Maduro,
27:21
SPEAKER_01: who couldn't have possibly signed it because he wasn't actually there.
27:25
Anyway,
27:26
apparently this is circulating and orders police to take into
27:29
custody
27:30
SPEAKER_01: anyone who supports the armed attack of the United States.
27:33
Trump is continuing to say,
27:35
if they don't do what we want,
27:36
we actually will invade them.
27:38
Now,
27:39
country of 33 million people,
27:40
the size of California,
27:42
more heavily armed than Texas.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, fine.
27:46
But then there's this whole thing about taking the oil and
27:51
selling it and keeping it in
27:54
SPEAKER_01: private banks in the United States and then using it to rebuild.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: What the hell is going on, Neil?
28:02
How do we give our listeners a framework for thinking about
28:06
this clusterfuck?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Well,
28:08
SPEAKER_00: I think one framework is that Trump is a psychopathic ruler,
28:12
SPEAKER_00: and this is his latest harebrained scheme.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: And clearly,
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Republicans were not briefed on this,
28:18
nor does this represent a coherent foreign policy objective of
28:22
the administration
28:24
that got everyone on board with it with a clear communications
28:28
message about what
28:30
SPEAKER_00: the strategy was here,
28:31
SPEAKER_00: as much as this was some
28:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, middle of the night decision.
28:35
And I think you see that in the fact that Republicans can't
28:39
even align on message
28:40
SPEAKER_00: here and it's all over the place.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: None of this is good.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, where to take this?
28:43
One of the things I found really interesting because the first
28:47
response from so
28:48
SPEAKER_00: many folks was like,
28:50
SPEAKER_00: This is all about the oil and stealing the oil.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's not a surprising thought given what's at play here.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the oil company executives are saying,
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Venezuela is a thing that we don't want to touch.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: The infrastructure there is unworkable.
29:04
It would require billions and billions of dollars in investment
29:07
just to get it into
29:08
SPEAKER_00: shape that we could actually use it.
29:10
That doesn't mean that it isn't in Trump's mind that this is a
29:14
gold mine that he
29:15
SPEAKER_00: can offer up to the oil companies for some sort of tit-for-tat exchange.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, there isn't a plan here.
29:22
And this is a minute-by-minute changing scenario because we
29:26
have the person that we
29:27
SPEAKER_00: do as the president.
29:29
But the latest statements today were that we could be running
29:32
Venezuela for years
29:34
SPEAKER_00: and years to come.
29:35
This is from the guy who five minutes ago was lobbying for the
29:39
Nobel Peace Prize
29:40
and saying that his presidency was going to end all wars around
29:44
the world.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Make it stop.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Well,
29:48
SPEAKER_01: and one of the things that came out of the White House is that Machado,
29:51
SPEAKER_01: who did,
29:52
SPEAKER_01: in fact,
29:54
SPEAKER_01: win the Nobel Peace Prize,
29:55
that the reason Trump didn't want her to be president is that
29:59
he thought she should
30:00
SPEAKER_01: have given him the Nobel Peace Prize.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: That when she went to accept it,
30:04
SPEAKER_01: she should have declined it and said,
30:05
SPEAKER_01: I want to give this to President Donald Trump.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: And she didn't do that.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Now,
30:09
SPEAKER_01: what he said publicly was that nobody in Venezuela respects her,
30:14
SPEAKER_01: which is,
30:14
SPEAKER_01: of course,
30:15
SPEAKER_01: not true because they voted for her.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
30:19
somebody else had to be on the ballot as a proxy because she
30:22
couldn't be on the
30:23
SPEAKER_01: ballot because...
30:25
they had outlawed her from doing that but but that was all
30:28
crazy i want to come
30:29
back to the oil question here because that is something that is
30:33
stumping me it
30:34
makes me think that a lot of what passes for economics in the
30:39
white house is not in
30:41
fact a conversation at all okay so oil is running at about
30:46
fifty dollars and thirty
30:47
SPEAKER_01: cents a barrel
30:49
which may seem like a lot of money,
30:50
but it's actually not a lot of money.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: And because I watch Landman,
30:55
SPEAKER_01: this is what I know,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: that if oil falls under $70 a barrel,
31:00
SPEAKER_01: it is not profitable.
31:02
That you can't actually maintain the infrastructure in the
31:06
United States to pump
31:07
SPEAKER_01: oil if oil is that low.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: And so that caused me to actually go on an internet search.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: And what I learned is
31:15
was that oil fields in the United States are laying people off
31:19
by the thousands.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: And all kinds of little,
31:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:23
SPEAKER_01: those little towns that are built up around oil fields,
31:27
SPEAKER_01: they're all sort of being broken up and going away.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: So I think...
31:32
SPEAKER_01: think if Trump was doing it for the oil,
31:35
we can confidently say that the energy sector is yet another
31:39
thing that he doesn't
31:40
SPEAKER_01: understand and that his Secretary of Energy,
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Doug Burgum,
31:44
SPEAKER_01: has not explained to him in any coherent way.
31:47
It's notable that Doug Burgum was completely absent from this
31:51
conversation about oil.
31:52
It's also notable that during this lightning raid on Venezuela
31:58
and everything that
31:59
SPEAKER_01: followed,
32:00
SPEAKER_01: J.D.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: Vance and Tulsi Gabbard were almost completely invisible.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: How do we read that?
32:06
SPEAKER_00: I think the disappearance of Vance is fascinating,
32:10
given the visibility of him just a few short weeks ago around
32:14
everything about
32:14
Charlie Kirk and the sort of where's Turning Point USA going on
32:18
and all that,
32:19
and the seeming coronation of him as the next Republican
32:23
presidential nominee via
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Erica Kirk.
32:27
I mean,
32:27
that was just a few short weeks ago,
32:29
and yet he's so visibly absent in this huge moment
32:33
At a time when also Marco Rubio is so,
32:35
so present,
32:36
which we'll say more about.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: But it certainly,
32:39
SPEAKER_00: I think,
32:40
complicates ideas about where the Republican nomination is most
32:45
likely to go in
32:48
SPEAKER_00: 2028.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And then Tulsi Gabbard, I mean, you say something about that.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what you think about her nomination.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: lack of visibility here.
32:55
Is it that like she has this long history of criticism about
33:00
this very sort of US
33:01
SPEAKER_00: engagement and where she to be found in this?
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Say more.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a big part of it.
33:08
I think one of the things that pointed me to is actually we
33:11
have seen almost
33:13
SPEAKER_01: nothing of Tulsi Gabbard at all.
33:16
She has not been available during a number of foreign policy,
33:22
national intelligence moments.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: She's not in any of the pictures,
33:27
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:27
SPEAKER_01: very often when,
33:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:29
SPEAKER_01: like when Bibi Netanyahu shows up,
33:31
SPEAKER_01: they line everybody up to,
33:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:34
SPEAKER_01: sort of create a stage set around Bibi and Trump.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: Tulsi's not there.
33:39
So she has been notably absent,
33:43
period,
33:44
from this administration for the last year.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: It is said that had they talked to her, she would have opposed it.
33:51
I do find it curious that they could do any of this without
33:55
going through here,
33:56
SPEAKER_01: because in fact,
33:57
it is one of those operations that required a massive amount of
34:02
intelligence.
34:03
My question is whether they went through the American
34:06
intelligence apparatus at all
34:08
SPEAKER_01: or whether they went through,
34:09
SPEAKER_01: say,
34:11
SPEAKER_01: Israel.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
34:12
SPEAKER_01: So that that has yet to be found.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: I also think Tulsi Gabbard isn't very smart.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: I've never thought she was very smart.
34:22
And so having her at the top of the national intelligence
34:27
apparatus may be filling
34:29
SPEAKER_01: that position with less with someone who is an advisor.
34:33
and more as someone who can just sort of fill a slot so we
34:37
don't have to talk about it anymore.
34:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
34:40
SPEAKER_00: no,
34:40
SPEAKER_00: I think,
34:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
34:41
I will co-sign that I do not think Tulsi Gabbard is an
34:44
intelligent person.
34:46
I think she has a very particular sort of radical base of
34:52
supporters behind her
34:53
SPEAKER_00: that,
34:54
SPEAKER_00: like,
34:54
SPEAKER_00: was...
34:55
politically useful for the Trump administration to make sure
34:58
they were appeased and
35:01
SPEAKER_00: happy by her promotion to such a position.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: I also don't think that even if she were smart,
35:09
SPEAKER_00: that intelligence is what is driving their ideas about intelligence.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that this is an evidence-based
35:19
administration you know i mean there's so much here that is
35:23
really worrisome just
35:24
from an operation standpoint including like that this was being
35:28
run out of
35:28
mar-a-lago right and like they just sort of put up a tent
35:32
basically yeah you know
35:34
SPEAKER_00: but her emails right right um
35:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: And reports today say actually it was a lot trickier than they made out,
35:44
that one of the helicopters that was bringing the special
35:47
forces in was hit by
35:49
SPEAKER_01: incoming fire,
35:50
SPEAKER_01: that they had to fight their way into the compound.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, 31 Cubans dead.
35:55
That's actually a lot of highly trained soldiers to go through
36:00
to get to your target.
36:02
I'd also like to say that today we do have news that the Senate
36:07
is showing signs of life.
36:09
They passed a bill invoking the War Powers Act with five
36:12
Republicans voting aye,
36:14
SPEAKER_01: Rand Paul,
36:15
SPEAKER_01: Lisa Murkowski,
36:16
SPEAKER_01: Susan Collins,
36:18
SPEAKER_01: Todd Young,
36:18
SPEAKER_01: and Josh Hawley,
36:19
SPEAKER_01: and John Fetterman.
36:20
And it wasn't clear that John Fetterman was going to vote with
36:23
the Democrats on this.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: This will now go to the House.
36:26
And that should be really interesting to watch next week to see
36:29
what the House does.
36:30
because there are a lot of House Republicans who are really,
36:33
really unhappy about this.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: Now,
36:35
SPEAKER_01: before we take the turn into Marco Rubio,
36:38
SPEAKER_01: I do want to make sure our listeners understand the Monroe Doctrine.
36:44
I know that sounds boring,
36:45
but the Monroe Doctrine keeps being invoked by the White House.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: And now Donald Trump is calling his foreign policy the Donro Doctrine.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: Neil, do you want to do the Monroe Doctrine or shall I?
37:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can get us started.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I think it's like,
37:03
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
37:05
is Trump invoking this because this is the one thing he
37:08
remembers from his history
37:10
SPEAKER_00: class?
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Very likely so.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: That might be true for a lot of us listening, right?
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Monroe Doctrine, 1823.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: President Monroe,
37:19
SPEAKER_00: he was delivering a message to Congress when he announced this,
37:22
but essentially it was this warning to Europe and to European
37:26
powers against any
37:28
SPEAKER_00: infringement and interference in the Western Hemisphere.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: The Western Hemisphere was the US.
37:33
The region was no longer open to European ambitions,
37:38
European engagement,
37:39
and it was
37:40
SPEAKER_00: a sphere of interest for the U.S.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: And that,
37:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:44
was a doctrine that shaped especially the following hundred
37:47
years of history in the
37:49
SPEAKER_00: region.
37:49
And I think,
37:50
you know,
37:50
continue to have real ramifications through the 20th century.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
37:54
I just have this sense that like this is one of three things
37:56
Donald Trump remembers
37:58
SPEAKER_00: from his U.S.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: history course way,
38:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
38:00
low those years ago and loves that it like he can make it rhyme
38:04
with his own name.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
38:06
SPEAKER_01: well,
38:08
SPEAKER_01: and,
38:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:08
part of what is interesting about the Monroe Doctrine to me is
38:13
that the sort of
38:15
revised history of colonialism in the Western Hemisphere says
38:18
that everything in
38:19
SPEAKER_01: the United States was illegal.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: Everything we did was illegal and so on.
38:24
SPEAKER_01: It was wrong, much of it, but it wasn't necessarily illegal.
38:28
And I think what most people don't understand is that in the
38:31
19th century,
38:31
SPEAKER_01: foreign policy relied on people just sort of making a statement.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: And the Monroe Doctrine,
38:38
SPEAKER_01: you're right,
38:38
SPEAKER_01: it was Monroe sort of standing up in Congress and saying,
38:41
SPEAKER_01: this is how things shall be.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: That was the law.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: And similarly,
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Theodore Roosevelt,
38:48
SPEAKER_01: when he became interventionist,
38:50
SPEAKER_01: announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,
38:54
SPEAKER_01: which said,
38:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:55
foreign powers were not to make investments in the Western
38:58
Hemisphere that could
39:00
SPEAKER_01: destabilize the region.
39:01
Yeah.
39:02
And that was the excuse by which Roosevelt occupied Haiti over
39:07
and over and over
39:07
SPEAKER_01: again and Cuba and so on and so forth.
39:11
So law in foreign policy prior to World War II was really much
39:18
more established on
39:19
SPEAKER_01: countries saying,
39:20
SPEAKER_01: this is how it shall be,
39:22
SPEAKER_01: and you will obey.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: That seems to be what the Donroe Doctrine is going back to,
39:28
SPEAKER_01: is Donald Trump saying the Western Hemisphere is mine,
39:31
SPEAKER_01: and I'll do what I want.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: So what are the ramifications of this, Neal?
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
39:38
and this ties back to what you said a few minutes ago about
39:41
Stephen Miller's
39:43
SPEAKER_00: defense of this,
39:44
SPEAKER_00: right?
39:44
Like this is aligned with his,
39:46
like this is ours and this hemisphere is ours.
39:48
So I think probably what's very likely here is Stephen Miller
39:52
has like brought this
39:53
SPEAKER_00: notion to Trump and that's what's shaping it.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: But sorry, you were asking a question about
39:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I mean, I think you're right.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: I think Stephen Miller has brought this to Trump.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: And,
40:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:03
Trump probably doesn't even remember three days later what he
40:06
thought the Don Roe
40:07
SPEAKER_01: Doctrine was.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: But I think there are ramifications for other places.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: And this,
40:13
SPEAKER_01: of course,
40:14
SPEAKER_01: immediately came up when Trump said,
40:16
SPEAKER_01: well,
40:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:17
SPEAKER_01: the president of Columbia better watch himself,
40:20
SPEAKER_01: too,
40:20
SPEAKER_01: or I'll just do the same thing there.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, Greenland and Greenland is back in the conversation.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: But this is,
40:29
SPEAKER_01: of course,
40:30
SPEAKER_01: I think,
40:31
SPEAKER_01: why the Senate has become active,
40:33
SPEAKER_01: because an attack on Greenland is,
40:35
SPEAKER_01: in fact,
40:36
SPEAKER_01: an attack on our NATO allies,
40:38
SPEAKER_01: is it not?
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: And to really get Europe...
40:44
engaged uh in opposition to us in a way that i don't think you
40:48
know a good chunk of
40:50
republican senators want to see happen right you know the
40:54
greenland thing like like
40:56
i think there's something like that feels almost entirely
40:59
psychological about that
41:01
for trump in a way that like i know you know all of this is
41:04
driven by like
41:06
SPEAKER_00: psychopathologies in so many ways but like
41:09
This is just something lodged in his head that he kind of can't
41:15
get away from.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: I do think the recurrence here...
41:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
41:19
who knows what's happening on these internal conversations with
41:21
the administration.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: But is Stephen Miller giving him sort of this runway where it's like,
41:27
SPEAKER_00: and these things are next,
41:28
SPEAKER_00: right?
41:29
SPEAKER_00: And then Greenland gets on the list.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: But just to see this back in play...
41:35
SPEAKER_00: when the conversation is also about Colombia,
41:37
SPEAKER_00: Mexico,
41:38
SPEAKER_00: Iran,
41:39
and Cuba is a little bit confusing if we're trying to put this
41:45
in some sort of
41:46
SPEAKER_00: rational foreign policy framework,
41:48
SPEAKER_00: but I don't think that's the right way to think about this.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think it's the right way to think about it either.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: And of course, J.D.
41:54
Vance has now jumped in and said,
41:55
oh,
41:56
no,
41:56
we're not going to invade Greenland.
41:58
SPEAKER_01: Actually, what makes the most sense would be to buy Greenland.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: And a reporter said, what do you mean we're going to buy Greenland?
42:05
SPEAKER_01: And he said, well, you know, like the Louisiana Purchase.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, Seward's Folly.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he mentioned Seward's Folly,
42:12
SPEAKER_01: but I immediately thought of Seward's Folly,
42:14
SPEAKER_01: which was,
42:15
SPEAKER_01: of course,
42:15
SPEAKER_01: listeners,
42:16
SPEAKER_01: Alaska.
42:17
And so the question is,
42:19
I think,
42:21
what you are raising here,
42:22
Neil,
42:23
which is,
42:23
what is the plan?
42:25
SPEAKER_01: The Trump administration keeps talking about national security,
42:28
SPEAKER_01: but it is unclear that any of this makes us more secure.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: However, somebody does have a plan.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: There is a man with a plan and that is Marco Rubio, little Marco Rubio.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about him.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: Who is Marco Rubio?
42:44
SPEAKER_01: You are a Florida whisperer, Neil.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: Tell us who Marco Rubio is.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Well,
42:49
SPEAKER_00: son of Florida,
42:49
SPEAKER_00: son of Miami,
42:51
SPEAKER_00: son of Cuban exiles,
42:52
SPEAKER_00: 54 years old,
42:55
SPEAKER_00: someone who really rose very quickly in Florida politics.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: So just a quick bio here,
43:01
SPEAKER_00: like Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives,
43:03
SPEAKER_00: I think at like the age of 35,
43:04
SPEAKER_00: he was elected to the Senate in 2010,
43:06
SPEAKER_00: which is now,
43:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
43:07
SPEAKER_00: 15 plus years ago,
43:08
SPEAKER_00: kind of
43:15
It's remarkable how long ago that was and also how early it was
43:19
in his life.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: He replaced Mel Martinez,
43:23
SPEAKER_00: who was the first Cuban-American in the Senate and was a very well-known
43:28
and well-regarded,
43:30
centrist Republican,
43:31
and also a foreign policy expert.
43:33
And fun fact,
43:34
Claire,
43:35
Mel Martinez lives one block from where I am sitting right now.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: I walk my dog by his house three times a day.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: He lives a block from where I'm staying here in Winter Park,
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Florida,
43:45
my hometown and where all my family is and where I spent a
43:48
couple of months.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's literally around the corner.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: So I see him like- Have you thought of knocking on his door and saying,
43:53
SPEAKER_01: we'd like you to be on our podcast?
43:55
SPEAKER_00: I can see if I run into him on this evening's dog walk.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so just a little personal aside there.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: But I think Rubio was very much,
44:07
SPEAKER_00: for much of his career,
44:08
SPEAKER_00: sort of in that vein of sort of Cuban-American,
44:13
SPEAKER_00: right of center,
44:15
SPEAKER_00: foreign policy expert,
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Republican senator from Florida.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: but who in the age of Trump has had to recalibrate in many ways.
44:27
Some of those I think are in real coordination with this
44:31
Trumpist moment and
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Trumpism,
44:33
and I think in some interesting way show points of divergence
44:37
that I think are
44:38
SPEAKER_00: consistent with some core beliefs he still holds,
44:40
maybe also consistent with or related to his own future
44:45
presidential ambitions.
44:48
you know,
44:48
that's sort of the overview I would give of him and his
44:51
political career.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: That's fabulous.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: And of course,
44:54
SPEAKER_01: he ran against Trump in 2015,
44:57
SPEAKER_01: sort of imagining himself as a Republican version of Jack Kennedy,
45:01
SPEAKER_01: I think,
45:02
SPEAKER_01: sort of man on the move,
45:04
SPEAKER_01: young man in a hurry kind of thing,
45:07
and then was utterly humiliated as everybody in that cohort was
45:11
by Donald Trump
45:13
SPEAKER_01: running away with it.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: And of course, Donald Trump
45:16
came up with the nickname Little Marco,
45:19
and he would actually spell it for people.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: He would say little, it's spelled L-I-D-D-L-E, Marco.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, horrifying.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: And the idea that Rubio has actually gone to work with him
45:31
with this man who was so horrible to him is also horrifying but
45:35
it also speaks to
45:37
Rubio's ambition not just to be president but to liberate the
45:42
island of Cuba and
45:44
this has been a long-standing obsession of Rubio's as it is of
45:49
many in the exile
45:50
SPEAKER_01: community another fun fact Rubio
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: Rubio grew up kind of poor.
46:13
So it's not like he was a member of the Bacardi family that had
46:17
to move their whole
46:18
SPEAKER_01: operation to Puerto Rico,
46:19
SPEAKER_01: but still wants to go back to Cuba.
46:21
SPEAKER_01: So this has been Rubio's dream for some time.
46:25
SPEAKER_01: And Venezuela is one step toward that.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: You want to talk to our listeners about that?
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
46:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
46:33
SPEAKER_00: I think,
46:34
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:34
SPEAKER_00: this is sort of the open door by which,
46:37
SPEAKER_00: well,
46:37
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Trump's suggesting,
46:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:39
SPEAKER_00: they can...
46:39
Venezuela is the stepping stone to a broader liberation in the
46:43
region with Cuba as
46:46
SPEAKER_00: the place,
46:47
SPEAKER_00: the sort of the...
46:49
SPEAKER_00: the, you know, the ideal place to culminate this.
46:52
I think,
46:53
you know,
46:54
first of all,
46:54
as you said,
46:55
Rubio has always been a hardliner around Cuba.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's in keeping with a huge,
47:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:01
SPEAKER_00: political movement in South Florida that I think has real,
47:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:05
SPEAKER_00: real,
47:05
SPEAKER_00: real influence on the Republican Party in general,
47:08
SPEAKER_00: but particularly in the Trump administration.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: And so I
47:12
SPEAKER_00: I think,
47:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:13
SPEAKER_00: first of all,
47:14
they're directly threatening Cuba's sovereignty and statements
47:17
that they've made
47:18
SPEAKER_00: recently,
47:19
SPEAKER_00: both Trump and Rubio.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: What else would you add to that?
47:22
SPEAKER_01: Well,
47:22
SPEAKER_01: one of the things I would add to that is in 1991,
47:25
SPEAKER_01: when the Soviet Union finally cracked apart,
47:29
the Soviet Union had been keeping Cuba going economically in a
47:32
variety of ways,
47:34
SPEAKER_01: educating people,
47:37
buying sugar that they didn't need,
47:39
which was really Cuba's main product for a very long time.
47:43
SPEAKER_01: And after 1991, the Cuban economy sort of dropped off the cliff.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: And the person who was there to save them was Hugo Chavez.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: And Chavez had just nationalized the oil fields in Venezuela.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: Chavez did not have,
48:00
SPEAKER_01: and he had lots of money,
48:01
SPEAKER_01: and there was a long period,
48:03
SPEAKER_01: and it's important for listeners to remember this,
48:04
there was a long period in which a lot of that oil money was
48:07
being redistributed to
48:08
SPEAKER_01: the Venezuelan people.
48:10
So there was a period of about 15 years or so where poor
48:15
Venezuelans became more
48:16
SPEAKER_01: educated,
48:17
SPEAKER_01: they became better housed,
48:19
SPEAKER_01: and they had better health because Cuba sent them doctors.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: And what Cuba got in return for those doctors was oil.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: Now, I had thought that this oil was just going to power Cuba's energy.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: But in fact, that is not the case.
48:34
Venezuela would ship them the oil and then say,
48:36
whatever you do with it,
48:37
do with it.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: And Cuba was selling it on the global market.
48:41
So Cuba's economy for the last 15 years or so,
48:47
20 years,
48:48
has rested on selling oil.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: Venezuelan oil on the global market.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: And that oil is now gone.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: That has been cut off.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: It is being blockaded into Venezuela.
49:00
SPEAKER_01: It's certainly not going to get to Cuba.
49:02
They were chasing down a bunch of oil tankers the other day
49:05
that were making a break for Russia.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: But Cuba is not going to have that anymore.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: And so when Trump was saying it's a really fragile regime, it's true.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: It will become more economically fragile.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: It has become fragile also because of U.S.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: sanctions.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I don't think Venezuela is done at this point.
49:29
You know,
49:30
and I'm having sort of funny flashbacks to Iraq,
49:36
which was over.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: The second Gulf War was over in about three weeks.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: And then the Iraqi people decided to fight.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: And
49:46
SPEAKER_01: Venezuela is really heavily armed.
49:49
They've got all of these citizen militias that were created by
49:52
the Maduro regime.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: They have all of these drug gangs.
49:56
So it's not altogether clear to me that the story of Venezuela
50:01
simply bending the
50:02
SPEAKER_01: knee to Trump is done.
50:04
It's also not clear to me that if the United States decided to
50:09
take control of Cuba
50:10
SPEAKER_01: in a similar way,
50:12
SPEAKER_01: that that would not be a terrible,
50:15
SPEAKER_01: terrible error.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: The Cuban people have been preparing for a U.S.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: invasion for 70 years.
50:23
And so I think this is a very delicate moment in which the
50:29
United States could,
50:31
SPEAKER_01: in fact,
50:32
SPEAKER_01: end up in a really,
50:34
SPEAKER_01: really ugly war.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think all of that...
50:39
SPEAKER_00: is right.
50:40
And there's,
50:41
you know,
50:42
lots of good evidence for,
50:44
for those,
50:45
for that assessment of it.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: I do think there's also been,
50:48
it's been striking to see the videos of like Venezuelans
50:53
dancing in the streets.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: So like, and all these things can be true, right?
50:56
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a country of 33 million people.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: There's lots and lots of different factions.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: Without question,
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Maduro was a terrible leader in all sorts of different ways,
51:06
including horrible rationing of food and real hunger and just
51:11
decimation of basic
51:13
SPEAKER_00: services,
51:14
of huge political repression and state-sponsored violence and
51:18
all the rest.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: So lots and lots of Venezuelans,
51:21
SPEAKER_00: both in the country and those living in the US,
51:24
SPEAKER_00: were celebrating this moment and also
51:27
SPEAKER_00: there's a powerful regime that,
51:29
SPEAKER_00: like,
51:30
he's not the sole actor in that I think is really determined to
51:35
preserve itself.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
51:38
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I think, like, this is really complicated.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: It was interesting to me,
51:42
SPEAKER_00: like,
51:42
to sort of take this conversation a little bit in a different
51:44
direction and think
51:45
SPEAKER_00: about it like American,
51:47
SPEAKER_00: like,
51:48
SPEAKER_00: public mind of the last week.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: You know,
51:52
I think so many Americans are not foreign policy experts and I
51:55
would put myself in
51:57
that camp and watching sort of like online real-time reactions
52:01
to this and like the
52:01
SPEAKER_00: confusion of like how to like understand this because it's like
52:07
SPEAKER_00: Trump invading country, taking a foreign leader hostage, bad.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: But also, isn't that foreign leader really, really bad?
52:16
SPEAKER_00: And aren't Venezuelans really happy?
52:18
SPEAKER_00: And so does that mean we should listen to Venezuelans and...
52:22
SPEAKER_00: Miami and New York say that they're happy he's been deported.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
52:28
I think one thing we haven't talked about as much here is
52:31
Americans grappling with
52:33
SPEAKER_00: these events and what that means.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: But I think thinking about
52:39
SPEAKER_00: the story or the example or the role of Venezuelans,
52:45
average Venezuelans both within the country and within the
52:47
American political
52:48
landscape and how those might shape coverage of what's happened
52:52
and even political
52:53
decisions around it is another aspect of this story too that
52:56
we'll have to watch in
52:57
SPEAKER_00: the days and weeks ahead.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking two things.
53:02
One is Iraqis were in the streets celebrating the end of Saddam
53:07
Hussein as well.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: I remember them pulling down the statue, blah, blah, blah.
53:11
And one of the things that should have been learned from that
53:15
event was that
53:17
The United States was wholly unprepared to deliver services to
53:22
the Iraqi people.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: So having invaded the country,
53:25
SPEAKER_01: having decapitated a functioning government,
53:27
SPEAKER_01: terrible government,
53:28
SPEAKER_01: but a functioning one,
53:30
SPEAKER_01: they then were unable to deliver power.
53:32
They'd knocked out the entire power grid,
53:34
which also meant that nobody had water.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: It meant that nobody could refrigerate their food.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: This is Iraq, people.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: So if that happens in Venezuela,
53:44
SPEAKER_01: and Venezuela has not had its services disrupted by the United States,
53:48
SPEAKER_01: they were ever so briefly,
53:50
apparently there was some kind of cyber attack to take out all
53:53
the electricity and
53:54
SPEAKER_01: air defenses.
53:55
But if the United States cannot deliver to the Venezuelan
54:00
people something better
54:02
SPEAKER_01: than they had under Maduro,
54:04
SPEAKER_01: that will be destabilizing,
54:06
SPEAKER_01: de facto destabilizing.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: Second of all,
54:10
Possibly one of the things that people did learn from Iraq is
54:14
that you cannot do
54:16
SPEAKER_01: what was then called de-Baathification.
54:19
SPEAKER_01: In other words, everybody that was in the Baath Party had to go.
54:23
And what was ridiculous about that is that you had to be in the
54:27
Baath Party to have
54:28
SPEAKER_01: a government position at all.
54:29
SPEAKER_01: It didn't mean you were a fan of Saddam Hussein's.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: So that, I suspect, is true in Venezuela as well.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: So they've left the regime in place,
54:40
SPEAKER_01: but there's a danger in that because,
54:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
54:44
SPEAKER_01: the knives have been out for Maduro for some time.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: There are people who want to take over from him.
54:51
Whether they see it in their interest to do business with the
54:54
United States or not
54:55
SPEAKER_01: remains to be seen.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we don't know.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: The second thing,
55:02
SPEAKER_01: Neil,
55:02
SPEAKER_01: and I think pointing us back to the United States is really smart,
55:08
SPEAKER_01: is that what Trump has done is kind of...
55:13
SPEAKER_01: Rejigger what he means by America first,
55:16
SPEAKER_01: because a lot of Magus came out and said,
55:18
SPEAKER_01: wait a second,
55:19
SPEAKER_01: no foreign wars.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: I thought we said no foreign wars.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: And he was like, oh, no, no, no.
55:24
SPEAKER_01: We didn't mean no foreign wars.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: What we meant was no foreign wars that were not in the national interest.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: And he decides what's in the national interest, right?
55:34
But I'm not sure that can cover up for the fact that nobody
55:39
wanted this war,
55:40
right?
55:41
There was actually huge popular support for the Iraq War and
55:46
the war in Afghanistan
55:47
SPEAKER_01: because of 9-11.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: Of course, yeah.
55:49
SPEAKER_01: Nobody in the United States,
55:51
SPEAKER_01: except maybe some enclaves in Miami,
55:54
SPEAKER_01: were saying,
55:55
SPEAKER_01: let's go to war with Venezuela.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
55:59
and I think no American families want to send their sons and
56:02
daughters there,
56:03
SPEAKER_00: right,
56:03
SPEAKER_00: for military engagement.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
56:07
SPEAKER_01: And it's not clear that we can.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at how Trump has used the American military, right?
56:14
SPEAKER_01: He's sending them all over the place.
56:16
He's got most of our Navy down in the Caribbean and in the
56:19
Pacific trying to keep
56:21
SPEAKER_01: the oil from leaving.
56:23
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he sent the National Guard all over to American cities.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: The military is stretched kind of thin right now,
56:32
SPEAKER_01: doing things that actually aren't that important.
56:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay, back to Rubio for a second.
56:37
Word out of Washington is that it was Rubio who persuaded Trump
56:40
to do this,
56:41
that this aggressive foreign policy is a make or break moment
56:46
for Marco Rubio.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: If it goes south, Rubio's cooked.
56:50
And he is making an enormous bet that this can boost him into
56:55
the presidency.
56:56
SPEAKER_01: But do Americans actually vote on foreign policy?
57:00
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's not what history shows us.
57:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
57:04
there have been presidents who care very much about foreign
57:07
policy and who sort of
57:09
foreground that in their campaign and in their sort of
57:13
justification for why they
57:15
SPEAKER_00: should be president.
57:16
But I think we have a lot of political science research that
57:19
shows that's never the
57:21
SPEAKER_00: issue that really moves Americans when they vote.
57:24
SPEAKER_00: I do think there's a way that Rubio can
57:28
Just gain a lot of visibility and sort of good coverage in this
57:32
moment that would
57:34
SPEAKER_00: afford him a real bump in the possibility that he gets the nomination.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
57:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you saw this little clip on CBS News the other night,
57:43
which we should probably do an entire segment about what is
57:46
happening at CBS News.
57:48
my god did you see this segment that closed out the cbs news
57:52
the other night which
57:53
was basically just straight up propaganda that ended with the
57:57
new anchor saying we
57:58
salute you right like this is state state television happening
58:04
so right right you
58:05
know there can be a lot more of that that like really increases
58:09
his fortune in
58:09
terms of getting the nomination you know is are american voters
58:14
going to be like i
58:14
SPEAKER_00: really liked
58:16
SPEAKER_00: Rubio's ideas about how to manage the crisis with Venezuela.
58:20
No,
58:20
I don't think that's what gets people to pull a lever in a
58:23
ballot box.
58:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
58:25
SPEAKER_01: And the only thing he gets out of this, as you're saying, is visibility.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: He's getting his face out there.
58:32
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
58:32
SPEAKER_01: really,
58:33
the vast number of American voters probably have no idea who
58:37
Marco Rubio really is.
58:38
SPEAKER_02: Yep, of course.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: What we have just told them is everything they know about Marco Rubio.
58:44
What is kind of interesting is that he's actually very much an
58:48
old media kind of guy.
58:50
SPEAKER_01: I can't see Marco Rubio on TikTok and Instagram.
58:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
58:54
SPEAKER_01: JD Vance can sort of barely be on TikTok and Instagram,
58:58
SPEAKER_01: but I really can't see Marco Rubio thriving there.
59:01
SPEAKER_01: So I think this is a big gamble on his part.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there is some piece of it that is just very close to his heart.
59:08
SPEAKER_01: If he could deliver Cuba back to the people who were
59:13
chased out by castro he would feel he had a life well lived and
59:17
maybe being
59:17
president wasn't important but this remains to be seen and
59:21
we're going to be coming
59:22
back to him i'm sure in the next few weeks so neil let's talk
59:28
about what we want to
59:30
go viral we've had like a month to come up with cool viral
59:35
things what's yours
59:37
SPEAKER_00: gosh,
59:37
SPEAKER_00: don't put it that way because what I'm about to say is not cool at all,
59:41
SPEAKER_00: but just,
59:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
59:42
SPEAKER_01: You're going to talk about Betty Boop being in the public domain, right?
59:45
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't even know about that.
59:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Betty Boop is now in the public domain.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: Good to know.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is more right up in my wheelhouse.
59:52
It's another article from Ruth Graham,
59:54
the incredible religion reporter at the New York Times.
59:57
SPEAKER_00: This came out yesterday.
59:59
The headline is Philip Yancey,
1:00:00
prominent Christian author admits to extramarital affair.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: He's
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: Did you see this?
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: Did you know who Philip Yancey was before you saw this article?
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: Well,
1:00:08
SPEAKER_01: when I read the article,
1:00:09
I then remembered those books that he wrote back in the 20th
1:00:13
century that were
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: incredibly popular and went well beyond a Christian audience.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: So why don't you tell our listeners about it?
1:00:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_00: So that's actually more what I want to talk about because like,
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: okay,
1:00:22
SPEAKER_00: apparently he had an eight-year affair with a married woman.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_00: And so he announced...
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: that he would be no longer speaking.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_00: He was going to retire from writing and public speaking.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: He's also 76 years old and he also has,
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm forgetting now,
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: he has some life-ending disease,
1:00:39
SPEAKER_00: so whatever.
1:00:41
There's a way that we could talk about this along the lines of
1:00:44
hypocrisy and
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: evangelicals and sex and all those things,
1:00:48
SPEAKER_00: whatever.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: Lots of ink has been spilled in that direction for many a person before.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I find interesting.
1:00:54
What I found more interesting is like Yancey is someone I knew
1:00:57
a lot about and
1:00:58
certainly was very familiar with his sort of public profile as
1:01:01
an evangelical
1:01:02
SPEAKER_00: writer and speaker,
1:01:03
SPEAKER_00: and particularly around the books that he wrote in the 1990s,
1:01:07
for which we should say more than 20 million copies of his
1:01:10
books have been sold.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, we should all be so lucky.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_00: There's two books that are like really interesting.
1:01:16
his best you know most well-known books that like really made
1:01:20
him famous and have
1:01:21
really sold well both of them came out in the 90s one was the
1:01:24
jesus i never knew
1:01:25
and i think the biggest book was one that's the one i read yeah
1:01:29
okay so like that
1:01:30
was hugely popular like you said it had a audience well beyond
1:01:34
evangelical circles
1:01:35
um uh and then the other book which was even bigger is called
1:01:40
what's so amazing
1:01:41
SPEAKER_00: about grace
1:01:42
And what I think is so interesting about Yancey and I think
1:01:46
Ruth Graham does a
1:01:47
really nice job of tracing here in this piece is the particular
1:01:52
contribution Yancey
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: made through his writings and his public speaking,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_00: but particularly through his books about
1:01:58
the notion and the theology of grace and the way in which in
1:02:01
the 90s it was suited
1:02:03
for the sort of touchy-feely soft evangelicalism that was
1:02:08
coming into shape in that
1:02:10
decades that was very much connected to non-denominational
1:02:13
protestantism megachurch
1:02:15
evangelicalism the sort of praise music of the era that a lot
1:02:20
of folks called jesus
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: is my boyfriend music like the softening of american evangelicalism
1:02:26
the feminization of american evangelicalism that a lot of
1:02:29
people have called it
1:02:30
both sort of derisively and and uh supportingly um that really
1:02:34
characterized this
1:02:35
era and so yancey was both like someone who shaped that history
1:02:41
and also was like
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: in step with the broader transformations that were happening in american
1:02:46
SPEAKER_00: evangelicalism in that decade
1:02:48
Really nice treatment of that and sort of his contribution
1:02:51
there in this piece.
1:02:52
But what I found really interesting was something I didn't know
1:02:54
about him,
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: which was his own biography.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_00: His father died when he was an infant and he never knew his dad.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: And he grew up in abject poverty.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_00: His mother never remarried.
1:03:07
And he grew up in a very sort of hardcore fire and brimstone
1:03:12
fundamentalism.
1:03:13
And it wasn't until he was in college and he came to sort of be
1:03:20
introduced to a
1:03:21
sort of more mainstream evangelicalism that helped him question
1:03:26
a lot of the
1:03:29
hardline fundamentalism he had been brought up with and that
1:03:33
really sort of brought
1:03:34
SPEAKER_00: him into education.
1:03:37
a sort of different theological position from which these
1:03:40
notions of mercy,
1:03:42
SPEAKER_00: grace,
1:03:42
and forgiveness made a lot more sense to him and were sort of
1:03:48
the truer form of
1:03:49
SPEAKER_00: mercy.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: Christian theology and his belief.
1:03:53
And so knowing that sort of biographical background was so
1:03:57
fascinating to me in
1:03:59
SPEAKER_00: sort of illuminating his particular contributions in the 90s.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a really smart piece.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_00: He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease three years ago.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_00: And so that's also,
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: I think,
1:04:09
sort of relevant to his announcement that he's no longer going
1:04:12
to have a public
1:04:13
SPEAKER_00: career.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_00: But anyway,
1:04:14
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting piece in the New York Times.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_00: We'll link to it.
1:04:18
But I always love when biology illuminates theological history
1:04:24
and theological
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: belief systems,
1:04:27
SPEAKER_00: because for me,
1:04:28
those things are very interconnected in the ways I think about
1:04:32
this as a historian.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_00: So I found that fascinating in this particular example.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it was a great article.
1:04:39
And one of the things that perhaps I didn't read carefully
1:04:42
enough,
1:04:43
Yancey was also married.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_01: He was adulterous in his own marriage as well.
1:04:49
His wife put out a statement saying that she's forgiven him and
1:04:54
God is love and
1:04:55
SPEAKER_01: this will not be an issue for them moving forward.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: I kind of wondered...
1:05:00
SPEAKER_01: what the mission was in announcing it.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_01: And the reporter didn't quite get to that.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_01: But I wonder if Yancey wanted us all to take our own lessons from it.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think, yeah, so he's been married to his wife of 55 years.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_00: They both released statements that were published in Christianity Today,
1:05:20
SPEAKER_00: the sort of leading influential evangelical magazine,
1:05:24
SPEAKER_00: or at least it used to be.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_01: Which everyone should read, by the way.
1:05:27
A remarkable and really incredibly intellectual and learned
1:05:31
American magazine
1:05:34
SPEAKER_00: started by Billy Graham in the mid-1950s.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_00: It has its own fascinating history in itself.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_00: But I think,
1:05:40
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: that's a really good point,
1:05:43
especially because mostly when evangelicals come forward and
1:05:46
admit this stuff,
1:05:47
SPEAKER_00: it's for career rehabilitation,
1:05:49
SPEAKER_00: right?
1:05:49
SPEAKER_00: Like I've been caught and like,
1:05:51
SPEAKER_00: I have to do this in order to like maintain my,
1:05:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:05:53
SPEAKER_00: mega church pulpit.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_00: or whatever, my huge online ministry.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_00: This is sort of an interesting example because he's like,
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: this happened,
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: I did this,
1:06:01
SPEAKER_00: and because of this,
1:06:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm stepping back from any sort of public profile.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_00: I didn't read the Christianity Day statement,
1:06:08
which I think probably would illuminate more of why he's doing
1:06:11
it and what he hopes
1:06:12
SPEAKER_00: to come,
1:06:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: to make of it.
1:06:15
But I think that there's a way that this might be what he
1:06:19
believes is necessary for
1:06:21
SPEAKER_00: true repentance,
1:06:22
SPEAKER_00: as that he was a public figure,
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: one of whom,
1:06:25
one who wrote much over his career about marriage as a
1:06:28
religious institution.
1:06:29
And so that this is part of him feeling like he's doing the
1:06:36
right and full
1:06:37
SPEAKER_00: expression of true repentance,
1:06:39
SPEAKER_00: which is not how we often see
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: The motivations behind this action when it comes to people like,
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: again,
1:06:46
SPEAKER_00: trying to preserve their high profile ministry or whatever.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: There should be a whole social media platform for sincere apology.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_01: I think we would all learn a lot from that.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_00: We would do well to have that.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm being facetious, but I'm actually also being serious here.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:07:01
So I'll make this quick because I don't want to try our
1:07:05
listeners' patience by
1:07:06
SPEAKER_01: keeping them on too much longer.
1:07:07
But what I want to go viral this week is a piece written by
1:07:11
Vivek Ramaswamy,
1:07:12
SPEAKER_01: who I almost never pay attention to.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_01: called Social Media is a Trap for Politicians.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_01: It was in the Wall Street Journal this week,
1:07:21
in which Ramaswamy cautions us about the fast and inaccurate
1:07:26
information that is
1:07:27
SPEAKER_01: reflected back to politicians from a platform populated by extremists.
1:07:33
SPEAKER_01: And
1:07:34
I thought it was fascinating because in a way he's trying to
1:07:39
distinguish himself
1:07:41
SPEAKER_01: from a certain element of MAGA,
1:07:44
but he was also making a very interesting point about why
1:07:47
politicians do what they
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: do that I think is actually very relevant to him.
1:07:51
to what happened in Minneapolis and how the Trump
1:07:54
administration is responding,
1:07:56
which is that politicians put stuff out on social media to see
1:08:01
how many likes they
1:08:02
SPEAKER_01: get.
1:08:02
And it is a kind of instant polling of positions that when the
1:08:06
news is moving so
1:08:07
SPEAKER_01: fast that you can't poll things and you don't actually know
1:08:11
SPEAKER_01: what your constituency wants.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: You put it out on social media and hope that they will tell you.
1:08:16
SPEAKER_01: You will see, are they responding positively, negatively?
1:08:19
SPEAKER_01: What about your story are they buying?
1:08:21
SPEAKER_01: And what are they not buying?
1:08:23
SPEAKER_01: And so on.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_01: And Ramaswamy is saying, this is a terrible way to govern.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_01: We should not be governing by asking people's opinion on social media,
1:08:34
in part because it maintains the fiction that social media
1:08:37
really is a democratic
1:08:38
space when real democracy actually happens at the ballot box
1:08:43
and happens through
1:08:44
SPEAKER_01: constituent services and so on and so forth.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_01: But the other reason it's bad is that people are making snap decisions on
1:08:53
on policy based on inaccurate information you know the vast
1:08:57
majority of americans
1:09:00
are not on x and if x is how you are testing out your ideas
1:09:05
inevitably you are
1:09:06
SPEAKER_01: going to be driven to an extreme
1:09:08
SPEAKER_01: by the positive responses that you're getting there.
1:09:11
So Vivek Ramaswamy,
1:09:12
he's a very strange man,
1:09:14
and he's very strange looking man.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_01: And I don't really like him,
1:09:17
but he's beginning to distinguish himself by picking out
1:09:21
certain aspects of
1:09:22
SPEAKER_01: Trumpism that are unsustainable and wrong and bad for politics.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_01: He is running for governor of Ohio.
1:09:30
SPEAKER_01: And it's looking like right now that he's doing
1:09:33
SPEAKER_01: very well.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_01: It's a Republican state,
1:09:35
so we're not even going to pretend that a Democrat could be
1:09:38
governor of Ohio.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_01: But there's a great article,
1:09:40
SPEAKER_01: Social Media is a Trap for Politicians,
1:09:43
SPEAKER_01: on the Wall Street Journal opinion page.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be linking to it, and everyone should read it.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_00: We should do a segment on him.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_00: He would be a fascinating conversation.
1:09:51
SPEAKER_00: I will also say,
1:09:53
and I think this is potentially related to his ideas and his
1:09:59
concerns here,
1:10:00
he's being subjected to absolutely horrific racism online as he
1:10:05
runs for governor
1:10:07
SPEAKER_00: of Ohio.
1:10:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he addressed that directly in the piece,
1:10:11
SPEAKER_00: but I imagine that's probably shaping a lot of his notions about
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: what the internet means and what it constitutes and what it puts into,
1:10:19
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:10:20
SPEAKER_00: into motion in American political life.
1:10:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so many things to talk about in 2026.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_01: Neil, I am so happy to be back online with you.
1:10:31
SPEAKER_01: And I'll see you next week.
1:10:33
SPEAKER_00: See you next week.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's it for today's show.
1:10:42
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1:10:44
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1:10:47
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1:11:23
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1:11:24
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SPEAKER_01: Today's theme is Ropa Vieja by Alessandro Gugal.
1:11:30
You can find his work and all the talented artists we feature
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on these episodes on Soundstripe.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_01: that's all for now see you next week