Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - SCOTUS Smacks Down Trump’s Tariffs…Now What? + The Shooting That Exposed Everything Wrong With “Stand Your Ground” Laws

Transcript

Full Episode - SCOTUS Smacks Down Trump’s Tariffs…Now What? + The Shooting That Exposed Everything Wrong With “Stand Your Ground” Laws · The Chuck ToddCast

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you
0:02
Speaker 1: by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from
0:06
Speaker 1: frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, artisonal pastries, and
0:11
Speaker 1: fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty
0:14
Speaker 1: five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild
0:18
Speaker 1: Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a
0:22
Speaker 1: slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on
0:25
Speaker 1: your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in
0:28
Speaker 1: nutrients antioxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. The
0:32
Speaker 1: Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. In addition to their
0:35
Speaker 1: variety box, they have a gluten free box, a vegan box,
0:39
Speaker 1: and a new protein box. I will tell you I
0:42
Speaker 1: have done the gluten free box. I have done it
0:44
Speaker 1: a second time. I have also used the code the
0:48
Speaker 1: todcast code. You use the promo code toodcast at checkout
0:52
Speaker 1: you get thirty dollars off. I've already used it as
0:55
Speaker 1: a gift to somebody else who loves this bread. It
0:58
Speaker 1: is hard to find good gluten free bread. It is fantastic.
1:02
Speaker 1: They give you step by step instructions. I really dig this.
1:06
Speaker 1: There is nothing like having an artesion bakery in your
1:09
Speaker 1: freezer to chase away the winter chill. Now is the
1:12
Speaker 1: best time to stay in and enjoy some comforting homemade
1:15
Speaker 1: meals with Wildgrain. I obviously highly recommend it. It is
1:19
Speaker 1: worth giving Wild Grain to try. Right now, Wildgrain is
1:22
Speaker 1: offering my listeners thirty dollars off your first box plus
1:25
Speaker 1: free croissants for life. Come on when you go to
1:28
Speaker 1: wildgrain dot com slash podcast to start your subscription today.
1:33
Speaker 1: That's thirty dollars off your first box and free croissants
1:36
Speaker 1: for life when you visit wildgrain dot com slash podcast,
1:39
Speaker 1: or simply use the promo code podcast at checkout. This
1:43
Speaker 1: is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. Well.
1:51
Speaker 1: Hello there, Happy Monday, and welcome to another episode of
1:54
Speaker 1: the check podcast. If you are waking up in the
1:56
Speaker 1: Assella Corridor, I hope you don't have a foot of
2:00
Speaker 1: snow outside those of us on the southern end of
2:03
Speaker 1: the Slate Corridor or breathing a sigh of relief those
2:06
Speaker 1: of you in New York that might be another story,
2:11
Speaker 1: But for those of us that make content, it means
2:13
Speaker 1: you have more time bundled up in your house or
2:17
Speaker 1: you have to get out put the AirPods in. So
2:21
Speaker 1: I hope I can be a useful distraction while you're shoveling, sweeping,
2:27
Speaker 1: whatever you may be doing this morning. Look, it's a
2:31
Speaker 1: packed episode. As you know. I did a quick sort
2:33
Speaker 1: of emergency response as we got the big tariff ruling,
2:37
Speaker 1: and this is just such a monumental moment in the
2:40
Speaker 1: Trump presidency. It's very well, we look back, this is
2:44
Speaker 1: the beginning of the end. We may look back and
2:45
Speaker 1: say Liberation Day was sort of when it all actually
2:47
Speaker 1: was starting to come to an end. I'll get to
2:49
Speaker 1: that point in a minute, but let me give you
2:51
Speaker 1: a rundown of everything we're going to do. I'm going
2:53
Speaker 1: to unpacked all things tariff, because look, an important moment,
2:57
Speaker 1: the democracy, the guard rails, separations, like all of the
3:02
Speaker 1: features of this republic blossomed a bit. So that's that.
3:12
Speaker 1: And then you have a president responding as if he
3:15
Speaker 1: is now his goal is to destroy his own party
3:20
Speaker 1: in the midterms and do whatever it takes to help
3:22
Speaker 1: the Democrats, because his initial response on this is politically catastrophic.
3:27
Speaker 1: But hey, by the time you're listening to this, we
3:29
Speaker 1: also could be launching a new over the ron because
3:33
Speaker 1: oh guess what, before the tariff ruling, we still have
3:38
Speaker 1: the largest build up in the Middle East of military
3:40
Speaker 1: assets since the start of the Iraq War. What's going on?
3:45
Speaker 1: What are we up to? Congress still is not being told.
3:48
Speaker 1: Is this about the nuclear program? Is this about negotiation?
3:52
Speaker 1: Is this about regiem change? The president who loves not
3:57
Speaker 1: to explain his rationales, is I think underestimating how precarious
4:06
Speaker 1: of a position he might be in here. But we'll see,
4:09
Speaker 1: and who knows. Maybe he's going to I mean, my goodness,
4:12
Speaker 1: the State of the Union on Tuesday? Is he going
4:16
Speaker 1: to announce that the missiles are dropping as he begins
4:19
Speaker 1: to State of the Union? Does he want to step
4:21
Speaker 1: on his own State of the Union? Is that his goal?
4:23
Speaker 1: Does he want to announce something? Does he want does
4:25
Speaker 1: he not want the specific does he have not maybe
4:28
Speaker 1: he doesn't have much to say beyond or does he
4:33
Speaker 1: rant and rave about the tariffs and complain about that?
4:37
Speaker 1: Does he ask Congress for some help on this? So
4:39
Speaker 1: we are in an incredibly precarious moment of his presidency,
4:42
Speaker 1: though to say it's the most precarious is sort of
4:46
Speaker 1: how do you pick right? We kind of live in
4:48
Speaker 1: a constant state of turmoil and instability ever since he
4:52
Speaker 1: came down that escalator. So we are in one of
4:54
Speaker 1: those moments, massive economic instability. Small business is still trying
4:58
Speaker 1: to figure out what comes now. But we got some
5:03
Speaker 1: important institutional pushback on Trump's attempts to usurp power from Congress.
5:09
Speaker 1: So again, I'm gonna get to all that. Let me
5:11
Speaker 1: give you, like I said, a quick rundown, I'm going
5:13
Speaker 1: to break down. We got seven of the nine Supreme
5:16
Speaker 1: Court justices felt like they had to express their own
5:21
Speaker 1: view as to why they came to the decision. They
5:23
Speaker 1: came seven of the nine. The only two justices not
5:26
Speaker 1: to write their own separate either concurrence or dissent, Samuel
5:31
Speaker 1: Alito and Sonya Soda mayor everybody else had something to say,
5:36
Speaker 1: with the Neil Gorsuch concurring opinion being the most fascinating
5:39
Speaker 1: of all of them. But we're going to get into that.
5:41
Speaker 1: There's a brand new and ABC News poll out that
5:45
Speaker 1: shows incredibly bad news for the President and Republicans. But
5:49
Speaker 1: guess what doesn't show much good news for the Democrats.
5:52
Speaker 1: I will get to that in a moment. I spent
5:54
Speaker 1: part of my weekend at the Principal's First Conference at
5:57
Speaker 1: the Gaylord Hotel in suburban Maryland outside of DC. They've built.
6:02
Speaker 1: This is their six six year gathering. It was an
6:07
Speaker 1: impressive event it gave. I had a ton of in
6:13
Speaker 1: moderator panel with Pat McCrory, Bill Crystal, and another member
6:18
Speaker 1: of the Principal's First organization. And because it really is
6:23
Speaker 1: a gathering of center rights, sort of ex Republicans lost
6:26
Speaker 1: in dependence, a lot of military veterans and even a
6:30
Speaker 1: few active duty people I met there who feel politically
6:34
Speaker 1: lost but are alarmed by what's happened in this current
6:41
Speaker 1: moment inside the Republican Party. So it was an interesting
6:44
Speaker 1: conversation and I've I was moderating some interesting tension. Let's
6:50
Speaker 1: just say Pat McCrory and Bill Crystal, well they both
6:52
Speaker 1: have an agreement about Trump. They weren't unnecessarily on the
6:56
Speaker 1: same page of what comes next and how to do this?
6:59
Speaker 1: And I think that this is this is the debate
7:01
Speaker 1: that many non you know, sort of independence and anti
7:05
Speaker 1: Trump Republicans are having is do you try to save
7:09
Speaker 1: the Republican Party? Do you try to start something new?
7:12
Speaker 1: Do you try to get behind an independent or do
7:14
Speaker 1: you make common cause with the Democrats temporarily? That debate
7:19
Speaker 1: is a very lively discussion inside this group. I found
7:24
Speaker 1: it to be shall we say, intellectual nourishing might be
7:30
Speaker 1: a way to put it. Meanwhile, Team USA, right, how
7:33
Speaker 1: do I I want to get to that? That's very exciting,
7:38
Speaker 1: and I'm going to over I'm going to overanalyze the
7:42
Speaker 1: period of time. We haven't won the Olympic hockey goal
7:45
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty. What's interesting is that in many ways
7:49
Speaker 1: America in nineteen eighty, that in that February, January, February
7:53
Speaker 1: and March period, that first quarter of the year nineteen eighty,
7:56
Speaker 1: we were in a meles We were isolated, We felt
8:00
Speaker 1: isolated from the world. We aroan had our hostages, we
8:04
Speaker 1: were a divided politically in a sort of beginning of
8:07
Speaker 1: a political depression. Sounds familiar, doesn't right, By the way,
8:11
Speaker 1: we had an unpopular president, and we have an unpopular president.
8:14
Speaker 1: We have all of this, so and that Olympic gold
8:18
Speaker 1: sort of was the beginning of you know, and we
8:22
Speaker 1: ended up on a good sort of twenty year run,
8:24
Speaker 1: you know, with a few ups and downs, but a
8:27
Speaker 1: nice twenty year run. Arguably starting with that Olympic gold
8:32
Speaker 1: all the way until nine to eleven. When you think
8:35
Speaker 1: about america role in the world, all of those things,
8:38
Speaker 1: end of the Cold War, et cetera, et cetera. So
8:40
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this is a good omen. I choose
8:45
Speaker 1: to believe it is a good open on that front. So,
8:48
Speaker 1: and my conversation today is with filmmaker Gita Ganderbeer. She
8:53
Speaker 1: is the director and producer behind an incredible documentary that
9:00
Speaker 1: is on Netflix at the moment called The Perfect Neighbor.
9:03
Speaker 1: It is unbelievable. It is unique technically only uses bodycam.
9:09
Speaker 1: Basically it's majority bodycam footage. But I think it it.
9:17
Speaker 2: Is the.
9:19
Speaker 1: In this day and age where we have so much
9:21
Speaker 1: distrust of the you know, if this is just raw footage,
9:25
Speaker 1: and it allows you, as the consumer of this documentary
9:29
Speaker 1: to see for yourself what's happening in real time, to
9:31
Speaker 1: see what appears to be a racist neighbor sort of viewing,
9:36
Speaker 1: you know, and somebody who's broken, who's mentally having a breakdown,
9:41
Speaker 1: somehow raised or has a core racism in her, is
9:48
Speaker 1: whipped up by fear and grievance and then ends up
9:51
Speaker 1: killing somebody through through her own front door. She just
9:58
Speaker 1: a fellow neighbor. It's not an easy watch, but it's
10:05
Speaker 1: important watch and I think you'll enjoy this conversation with Gita.
10:09
Speaker 1: So with that, let's unpack what the Supreme Court just did,
10:17
Speaker 1: because after you know, our guardrails are battered, they're bruised,
10:23
Speaker 1: but as we found out Friday, they still exist in
10:27
Speaker 1: this constitutional republic, and frankly, the results not surprising. You know,
10:32
Speaker 1: I got started with this relaunch of the check podcast.
10:35
Speaker 1: It was in April, about a week before so called
10:38
Speaker 1: liberation debt. And if you want to go back to
10:41
Speaker 1: those earlier episodes to fact check me on this, I
10:43
Speaker 1: can tell you I said, Look, these are not going
10:46
Speaker 1: to be seen as constitutional. These will not survive a
10:50
Speaker 1: court challenge. The only question is whether this ends up
10:53
Speaker 1: costing all of us more money. Right, it's already cost
10:57
Speaker 1: consumers money. Now there's going to be people looking for
10:59
Speaker 1: their refund. And the irony is that the president is
11:02
Speaker 1: now going to accelerate our debt and deficit in ways
11:07
Speaker 1: that we already knew. He didn't really care about the
11:10
Speaker 1: national debt or the deficit. Again, this is a guy
11:13
Speaker 1: who's always borrowed other people's money, used it for himself,
11:17
Speaker 1: declared bankruptcy, and walked away. Right, He's done it many,
11:19
Speaker 1: many times, so of course he's going to do it
11:21
Speaker 1: with the US government. He doesn't care about those things.
11:25
Speaker 1: He just doesn't sort of see it. And he certainly has.
11:28
Speaker 1: If he took basic macro and microeconomics in college, he
11:33
Speaker 1: clearly didn't absorb anything with what he learned. I mean,
11:36
Speaker 1: this has been an economic disaster for the country. It
11:40
Speaker 1: has been a terrible for global leadership. And again, we
11:45
Speaker 1: I think may look back that this is in sort
11:47
Speaker 1: of you know, I'm reminded of George W. Bush right
11:51
Speaker 1: after he wins his second term and he pursues an
11:54
Speaker 1: unpopular policy of privatizing social security just you know, blew
11:59
Speaker 1: up in a faith, wanted to do immigration that wasn't
12:01
Speaker 1: popular inside his own party, and eventually he had approval
12:05
Speaker 1: rating somewhere in the mid ti thirties, and you had
12:08
Speaker 1: a Democratic streep in that midterm of his second term,
12:14
Speaker 1: and then the biggest Democratic essentially the biggest Democratic victory
12:18
Speaker 1: in a presidential race, with the Democratic cannon getting over
12:23
Speaker 1: fifty percent for the first time since Jimmy Carter. And
12:26
Speaker 1: then before that LBJ. So that's what this sort of
12:32
Speaker 1: and you know in the moment, you didn't quite know
12:36
Speaker 1: when Bush was just never was had hit unrecoverable status
12:41
Speaker 1: really until the election itself. So you know, I'm not
12:45
Speaker 1: going to declare Trump dead. He's going to be president
12:47
Speaker 1: for another two and a half years. He can make
12:48
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble. How he responds to this moment
12:52
Speaker 1: will tell us whether his political demise will get accelerated
12:55
Speaker 1: or not. And I would say the first seventy two
12:57
Speaker 1: hours his response tells me he wants you know, he
13:03
Speaker 1: plans on going down with the ship here, and he
13:05
Speaker 1: may burn his party down with it. So look, there
13:10
Speaker 1: was a reason why I was pretty confident that these
13:12
Speaker 1: tariffs were never going to be seen as legal, because
13:16
Speaker 1: tariffs are taxes, and taxes live in Article one. Simple
13:19
Speaker 1: as that. I mean, it was basically what Robert said,
13:23
Speaker 1: this is this is sort of high school constitutional law. Okay,
13:26
Speaker 1: this is not even law school constitutional law. So when
13:29
Speaker 1: you try to run a sweeping global tariff regime through
13:32
Speaker 1: a nineteen seventy seven emergency statute that never mentions the
13:36
Speaker 1: word tariff, you're taking a pretty big legal risk. Pretty
13:41
Speaker 1: much open and shut case rightly. The only surprise to
13:44
Speaker 1: me was that the ruling was six to three in
13:46
Speaker 1: the court, not seven to two. It should have been
13:48
Speaker 1: at nine zero. But I expected Alito and Thomas to
13:50
Speaker 1: be partisans in here. They've never been serious jurists. Maybe
13:55
Speaker 1: they were serious jurists, but not in the last ten
13:58
Speaker 1: or fifteen years have they been serious. They've been always
14:00
Speaker 1: take thief. What they believe is the own the Libs
14:04
Speaker 1: partisan right. Never may never embarrass your own party in
14:08
Speaker 1: any way. Anyway, The point is is that they they've
14:10
Speaker 1: stopped being legal guys a long time ago. But I
14:14
Speaker 1: thought both Corsa and Kavanaugh had come in here so mild.
14:17
Speaker 1: The real surprise to me is that Kavanaugh ended up
14:20
Speaker 1: in the descent on here, and it was interesting. He
14:22
Speaker 1: of course had to write his own He wrote the
14:24
Speaker 1: overall descent and he's hiding behind foreign policy, which of
14:29
Speaker 1: all the weak arguments the Trump lawyers were making, it
14:32
Speaker 1: was the strongest of the weak arguments. Was saying, well,
14:36
Speaker 1: this is part of foreign policy, and a president has
14:38
Speaker 1: to conduct foreign policy. Still, at its core, this was
14:43
Speaker 1: not about trade. This was about who governs, who's in
14:46
Speaker 1: charge of the purse in the United States of America.
14:49
Speaker 1: So the Court ruled six to three that the International
14:51
Speaker 1: Emergency Economic Powers AIPA reminds me of the Simpsons movie
14:56
Speaker 1: ep ba yepa, this is ai ba IPA. Sorry, I
14:59
Speaker 1: couldn't help myself. So it does not authorize the president
15:02
Speaker 1: to impose sweeping global tariffs. Six justices ended up in
15:06
Speaker 1: the majority, three dissenters. But here's what matters. There were
15:10
Speaker 1: seven opinions. Seven. Okay, that tells you something. This Court
15:15
Speaker 1: agreed on the result, but not on the reasoning. Chief
15:19
Speaker 1: Justice Roberts wrote the controlling opinion. His argument was institutional, straightforward.
15:23
Speaker 1: Regulate importation does not equal impost tariffs. Simple as that
15:28
Speaker 1: Congress knows how to say duties, Congress knows how to
15:31
Speaker 1: say tariffs. It did not say either of those two
15:33
Speaker 1: words in the i EPA legislation. Tariffs are taxation. Taxation
15:38
Speaker 1: belongs to Congress. Hard stop. Then there's the there there's
15:42
Speaker 1: the concurring opinion that I would want all of my
15:46
Speaker 1: wanta be law school folks. And you know I always
15:50
Speaker 1: joke I don't play a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer,
15:52
Speaker 1: but I have been playing one on TV for a
15:55
Speaker 1: long time. I am I'd like to think I have
15:58
Speaker 1: gotten sort of a pretty decent legal education over the
16:01
Speaker 1: last thirty years, as I love reading me some good
16:05
Speaker 1: Supreme Court opinions or just sense at times, because you
16:09
Speaker 1: learn a lot about the politics of the court when
16:11
Speaker 1: you do. And he wrote separately, and he leaned hard
16:14
Speaker 1: into what's known as the major Questions doctrine. And then
16:17
Speaker 1: he also called out pretty much five of his colleagues,
16:22
Speaker 1: by the way, kind of amusing, but still before we
16:25
Speaker 1: get to what he called him out on, he was
16:28
Speaker 1: tackling major Questions, right, which is the idea that when
16:30
Speaker 1: a president claims extraordinary economic power, Congress must speak clearly.
16:35
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets interesting, or so it's called
16:37
Speaker 1: out all of his colleagues, first the liberals for what
16:39
Speaker 1: he described frankly as a flip flop, because he basically said, hey,
16:43
Speaker 1: you opposed this idea of the major questions when it
16:46
Speaker 1: limited democratic administrations, in particular Biden on issues involving COVID
16:53
Speaker 1: in the workplace, COVID mandates, and the student loan issue.
16:57
Speaker 1: But now you're using the same structural instinct. Justice Kagan,
17:01
Speaker 1: she was joined by Sotomayor, agreed with the outcome. But
17:04
Speaker 1: rejected the idea this was a major question issue. She
17:07
Speaker 1: said that the ordinary statutory interpretation was enough. Essentially, she
17:12
Speaker 1: was trying to defend the fact that she was not
17:14
Speaker 1: flip popping here. She was trying to disaggregate the rationale
17:19
Speaker 1: she used to be in favor of Biden using emergency
17:22
Speaker 1: powers to do the student loan cuts, and she was
17:25
Speaker 1: trying to essentially separate it from her what appears to
17:29
Speaker 1: be literally the opposite point of view, which to somebody
17:35
Speaker 1: with no skin in the game, you know, the same way.
17:39
Speaker 1: It looks like robertson excuse me, Thomas and Alito were
17:42
Speaker 1: partisans here. Essentially, of course, is saying he said, hey,
17:46
Speaker 1: looks like Kagan, So to my own Jackson essentially have
17:50
Speaker 1: been partisan here as well. Then you have Justice Brown Jackson.
17:57
Speaker 1: She leaned into legislative history, saying Congress never intended AEPA
18:01
Speaker 1: to become a tariff machine, and therefore that's why she
18:03
Speaker 1: came to the same conclusion as roberts On the other side,
18:08
Speaker 1: Justice Kavanaugh wrote the principal dissent in his argument foreign
18:10
Speaker 1: affairs is different. He saw this as part of foreign affairs.
18:13
Speaker 1: So the president traditionally has brought her authority here and
18:17
Speaker 1: major questions doctrines shouldn't apply in the same way in
18:19
Speaker 1: trade and diplomacy. Then Justice Thomas went even further, arguing
18:23
Speaker 1: Congress can delegate tariff authority broadly. He basically said, nope,
18:26
Speaker 1: these emergency powers delegated it all away, and the President
18:29
Speaker 1: was perfectly within his constitutional rights to do all of this.
18:33
Speaker 1: So to say this was it your typical liberal conservative
18:36
Speaker 1: split is an understated It was a structural split, and
18:40
Speaker 1: that matters. And by the way, just a little history
18:42
Speaker 1: lesson here, because I was curious, how often have we
18:46
Speaker 1: had seven of the nine justices all write their own
18:50
Speaker 1: either supporting opinions or dissent. Well, in nineteen seventy one,
18:56
Speaker 1: during the Pentagon Paper's case New York Times versus the
18:58
Speaker 1: United States, all nine justices wrote their own opinion. They
19:03
Speaker 1: agreed on the ruling, but they did not agree on
19:05
Speaker 1: how they got there right. They went nine nothing, but
19:08
Speaker 1: they ended up having individual opinions explaining that away a
19:14
Speaker 1: case that effectively struck down all existing death penalty laws
19:17
Speaker 1: in the United States. Furman versus Georgia nineteen seventy two,
19:20
Speaker 1: same thing, All nine justices wrote their own rationales for
19:24
Speaker 1: how they got to their opinion, and then of course
19:26
Speaker 1: dread Scott, the infamous dread Scott decision, one of the
19:30
Speaker 1: worst in the history of the Supreme Court, also featured
19:34
Speaker 1: all nine justices in the last few decades. Seven opinions
19:39
Speaker 1: usually signal a massive turf war between the different wings
19:43
Speaker 1: of the Court. And as I've told you, there's three
19:45
Speaker 1: distinct wings of the court, okay, and I think Gorcious
19:50
Speaker 1: and Kavanaugh are sort of somewhere in between the two
19:53
Speaker 1: of the conservative wings. Right, you have sort of a
19:56
Speaker 1: institutionalist conservative wing which is anchored by Roberts and Barrett.
20:01
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh mostly is with them on these institutional rulings. In
20:05
Speaker 1: this case it was Gorsich, not Kavanaugh. Thomas and Alito
20:09
Speaker 1: are usually in the more on the on the further
20:12
Speaker 1: further the right spectrum, a little more in favor of
20:15
Speaker 1: even stronger executive authority essentially, but a bit more partisan,
20:21
Speaker 1: you know. There takes seem to be grounded in well,
20:23
Speaker 1: what ruling do we want to get to, and then
20:25
Speaker 1: they find a rationale to get there. And then of
20:27
Speaker 1: course you have the three liberals that rarely do they
20:31
Speaker 1: do they break ranks. So it is a. I think
20:35
Speaker 1: a court that is split more in three than it
20:37
Speaker 1: is in two, because that's what Donald Trump does, right.
20:40
Speaker 1: He has divided his own party in that case, and
20:42
Speaker 1: you see that divide on on on the Supreme Court.
20:46
Speaker 1: So I think that is there a is there is
20:52
Speaker 1: there that? Or is this a case where they all
20:54
Speaker 1: wanted to explain their own rationale? And I think it
20:56
Speaker 1: is clear that they really didn't agree on they you know,
21:03
Speaker 1: you had a strong majority agree that the president overstepped
21:08
Speaker 1: his constitutional overstepped his constitutional authority, but they just disagreed
21:16
Speaker 1: on exactly what how he overstepped that authority. Still I
21:21
Speaker 1: can't help but when you when you look at it,
21:23
Speaker 1: sort of seven responses like that, it really is sort
21:29
Speaker 1: of it reminds me of the coalition against Trump in general, right,
21:34
Speaker 1: which is there's a large majority of the country, say
21:38
Speaker 1: fifty five sixty percent that don't like how Trump governs,
21:41
Speaker 1: the general direction that Trump is taking on. This episode
21:48
Speaker 1: of The Chuck Podcast is brought to you by Zebiotics.
21:52
Speaker 1: Let's face it, after a night with drinks, it's hard
21:54
Speaker 1: to bounce back the next day. You have to make
21:56
Speaker 1: a choice either have a great night or a great
21:59
Speaker 1: next day. Well, well, that's where pre alcohol comes in.
22:02
Speaker 1: Zebiotics pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically
22:07
Speaker 1: engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle
22:10
Speaker 1: rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink,
22:13
Speaker 1: alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut.
22:16
Speaker 1: It's a build up of this by product, not dehydration
22:20
Speaker 1: that's to blame for the rough days after drinking. Pre
22:23
Speaker 1: alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just
22:27
Speaker 1: remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night.
22:31
Speaker 1: Drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Now. Look,
22:35
Speaker 1: I don't drink anymore, so I can't give zebiotics pre
22:38
Speaker 1: alcohol a personal endorsement. But my producer Lauren does drink
22:42
Speaker 1: and he tried it out. Lauren, how was your experience, I'll.
22:44
Speaker 3: Be honest, Chuck. I was a bit skeptical at first,
22:46
Speaker 3: but the other night I went out with my wife
22:48
Speaker 3: to our favorite spot from Margarita's and tried pre alcohol
22:50
Speaker 3: beforehand and got to admit I was surprised by how
22:52
Speaker 3: good I felt the next morning. Disable the pop right
22:54
Speaker 3: out of bed, get a workout in, have a great
22:56
Speaker 3: day of work, so pre alcoholic gets my stamp of approval.
22:59
Speaker 1: So there you go. You ready to try it, Go
23:01
Speaker 1: to ze biotics dot com slash Chuck podcast right now.
23:05
Speaker 1: You'll get fifteen percent off your first order when you
23:07
Speaker 1: use Chuck Podcast at checkout. Plus it's backed by a
23:10
Speaker 1: one hundred percent money back guarantee, so there's no risk.
23:14
Speaker 1: Subscriptions are also available for maximum insistency. Remember to head
23:18
Speaker 1: to ze biotics dot com slash Chuck podcast and use
23:22
Speaker 1: the code Chuck podcast at checkout for the fifteen percent discount. Again,
23:27
Speaker 1: use the code chucktodcast. This episode of the Chuck Podcast
23:32
Speaker 1: is brought to you by American Financing. Let's be honest,
23:34
Speaker 1: the math just isn't adding up lately. Between the grocery
23:37
Speaker 1: store and those skyrocketing insurance premiums. Even with a steady job,
23:40
Speaker 1: more families are being forced to rely on high interest
23:43
Speaker 1: credit cards to cover expenses. So if you're a homeowner
23:46
Speaker 1: caught in this cycle carrying balances with interest rates in
23:49
Speaker 1: the twenties, frankly even the thirties, it's time to get
23:51
Speaker 1: some relief. Right now, mortgage rates are at a three
23:53
Speaker 1: year low, and my friends at American Financing are helping
23:56
Speaker 1: homeowners pay off that high interest debt at rates in
24:00
Speaker 1: the low fives. Their salary based mortgage consultants don't just
24:04
Speaker 1: push loans on you, They build exit strategies from debts.
24:08
Speaker 1: On average, they're saving their customers eight hundred dollars a month,
24:11
Speaker 1: so if you start today, you may even delay the
24:14
Speaker 1: next two mortgage payments. There are no upfront fees or obligations.
24:17
Speaker 1: To find out how much you can save. American's home
24:21
Speaker 1: for home loans is American Finance eight sixty six eight
24:25
Speaker 1: eight five ten eighty one. That's eight six six eight
24:29
Speaker 1: eight five ten eighty one or Americanfinancing dot net slash
24:35
Speaker 1: the Chuck Toodcast. Important disclaimer NMLS one A two three
24:40
Speaker 1: three four NMLS Consumer Access dot Org APR for rates
24:46
Speaker 1: in the five start at six point one ninety six
24:48
Speaker 1: percent for well qualified buyers. Call eight six six eight
24:52
Speaker 1: eight five one zero eight one for details about credit
24:55
Speaker 1: costs and terms, or Americanfinancing dot net slash the Chuck Toodcast.
25:04
Speaker 1: But they don't all agree that as to on the
25:08
Speaker 1: same things as to what he's doing right, there are
25:12
Speaker 1: some that don't like what Trump's doing but maybe like
25:14
Speaker 1: what he's doing in immigration. There are some that may
25:16
Speaker 1: be like what he's doing in immigration, but don't like
25:18
Speaker 1: what he's doing on tariffs. But it is it does
25:21
Speaker 1: sort of the fragmented court knows that Trump is an
25:24
Speaker 1: unconstitutional president and probably the most abuse abusive of the
25:29
Speaker 1: constitution of any president we've had, going even Nixon included.
25:33
Speaker 1: And yet right there you can't get a coherent, singular
25:38
Speaker 1: message to sort of take them on, and even in
25:42
Speaker 1: the legal community, you can't do that. Now there's Trump's response,
25:46
Speaker 1: And as I said on Friday, before knowing Trump's response,
25:49
Speaker 1: I said, he's the wild card here. There was a
25:51
Speaker 1: real opportunity right this This economy sucks, people don't like it,
25:55
Speaker 1: and you know, these tariffs have been attacked on consumers.
25:58
Speaker 1: It is served as inflationary. In fact, earlier, just before
26:01
Speaker 1: this tarif ruling came out, we got news the economic
26:04
Speaker 1: growth stagnated massively in the fourth quarter, right under one
26:08
Speaker 1: and a half percent growth, which is just terrible. Anything
26:11
Speaker 1: under two doesn't even allow us to sort of keep
26:14
Speaker 1: up with inflation. That is not good, and it is
26:18
Speaker 1: part of it is attributed to the shutdown, but there
26:21
Speaker 1: also has been this continued, you know, as we're seeing,
26:25
Speaker 1: you know, for about six months many businesses tried actually
26:29
Speaker 1: not to pass on the cost of the tariffs that
26:32
Speaker 1: ended in the last quarter and the begin and we've
26:35
Speaker 1: seen in January a lot of price spikes in particular,
26:38
Speaker 1: all of that has gone away. And that's so so ironically,
26:44
Speaker 1: you know, the best thing that could have happened to
26:45
Speaker 1: the Congressional Republicans was for these tariffs to be viewed
26:49
Speaker 1: as unconstitutional. That's if Trump would go along and accept
26:54
Speaker 1: the premise that the Supreme Court is correct here. That's
26:59
Speaker 1: not what he's doing. And this is what should make
27:01
Speaker 1: all of us pause here.
27:02
Speaker 4: Man.
27:02
Speaker 1: The President didn't respond by arguing on the merits. He
27:07
Speaker 1: didn't argue about the statutory interpretation. He didn't respond by
27:11
Speaker 1: seeing the court misread history. He responded by doing what
27:16
Speaker 1: he does best, attacking his own appointees for simply being disloyal.
27:20
Speaker 1: And it is a reminder, right if we did not
27:24
Speaker 1: have lifetime appointment to Supreme Court. He tried to fire Gorsage,
27:31
Speaker 1: he tried to fire Barrett, just like he's doing with
27:35
Speaker 1: the Fed. So just keep that in mind. The bounders
27:39
Speaker 1: knew that. I mean, look, none of us love this
27:41
Speaker 1: lifetime appointment business. And maybe we should have age limits,
27:44
Speaker 1: and there's some ways to end it. But what you
27:46
Speaker 1: cannot have as an executive having the ability to fire
27:50
Speaker 1: somebody in another branch of government. And obviously our founders
27:53
Speaker 1: knew that, and that's why it's important to give Supreme
27:56
Speaker 1: Court justices this. So here he is personally attack Neil
28:01
Speaker 1: Gorsuch and Amy Cony Barrett. Neil Gorsuch, who was voted
28:05
Speaker 1: with Trump quite a bit. In fact, he's rarely in
28:07
Speaker 1: that institutional Every once in a while he surprises you.
28:10
Speaker 1: I was pretty convinced he'd be with the seven to
28:13
Speaker 1: two majority, Like I said, the surprise for me was capital.
28:19
Speaker 1: But Trump did the usual personalization, right, he said, this
28:23
Speaker 1: was an embarrassment to their families. So he's attacking the
28:26
Speaker 1: families of Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barr. And we
28:28
Speaker 1: know when Trump does this, it does it does you
28:32
Speaker 1: know all of a sudden there are mentally unstable people
28:37
Speaker 1: out there who start doxing people start going after it is.
28:41
Speaker 1: It is terrible what he does, and it's designed as
28:44
Speaker 1: a chilling effect, right, what you know, he goes after
28:46
Speaker 1: anybody that was supposedly that he viewed as on his side,
28:50
Speaker 1: and when they break ranks, he he goes after him
28:52
Speaker 1: in nasty ways because he's trying to prevent it from
28:55
Speaker 1: happening again. He's afraid it's going to get contagious. But
28:59
Speaker 1: here's the thing, more and more people, more and more Republicans.
29:03
Speaker 1: I think this is why I think this could be
29:05
Speaker 1: such an important moment that the breaking points don't happen.
29:12
Speaker 1: The breaking points are realized six months after that breaking
29:16
Speaker 1: point happens, right, And so you know, if we go
29:20
Speaker 1: on and I promise you Democrats sweep the midterms, we'll say, Okay,
29:24
Speaker 1: this thing started collapsing. And it really sort of took
29:27
Speaker 1: another nose dive with the Supreme Court ruling and then
29:31
Speaker 1: his just unhinged response to it. And look, we're all
29:34
Speaker 1: kind of numb to this. Oh, just another day at
29:36
Speaker 1: the office. He's just attacking members Supreme Court. He also
29:40
Speaker 1: thinks there's some conspiracy blaming foreign influence. You have the
29:44
Speaker 1: conspiracy of these foreigners right there infiltrating the Supreme Court.
29:48
Speaker 1: This is some foreign influence campaign on Justices Gorsach and
29:51
Speaker 1: amy Cony. Barrett. Let's take it all the way through.
29:53
Speaker 1: Tell me how that works, mister President. Tell me how
29:55
Speaker 1: there's foreign influence on Neil Gorsich. Tell me how there's
29:58
Speaker 1: foreign influence on John Roberts. You know you can't. You're
30:01
Speaker 1: gonna throw this out there. Give me some details. Show
30:03
Speaker 1: your proof. I'm sure your proof is with the with
30:07
Speaker 1: the with all the stuff you found out during when
30:10
Speaker 1: you when you swore that you had evidence that Barack
30:13
Speaker 1: Obama wasn't born in the United States. I'm sure that
30:16
Speaker 1: evidence is in the same place at the evidence of
30:19
Speaker 1: of that's somehow foreign interest swayed Neil Gorsach and Amy
30:24
Speaker 1: Cony Barrett. Show your evidence. You don't do that. What
30:29
Speaker 1: you do is you count on your lapdog supporters to
30:33
Speaker 1: just take your accusation and run with it, and you
30:35
Speaker 1: count on algorithms to amplify it and make it seem
30:40
Speaker 1: like a legitimate talking point. It's disgusting, it's awful, and yeah,
30:44
Speaker 1: we already have Look, another person came after you, mister
30:47
Speaker 1: President at mar A Lago. All right, stop this. The
30:52
Speaker 1: more you do this stuff, the more you put everybody
30:54
Speaker 1: at risk physically. You're putting the lives in dangers of
30:58
Speaker 1: two Supreme Court justices that you appointed, You appointed these people,
31:04
Speaker 1: and you're attacking them and attacking their families. It's outrageous
31:09
Speaker 1: and it's awful. And the again, right, you have an
31:13
Speaker 1: entire Republican party who just doesn't respond to this anymore.
31:16
Speaker 1: I understand rationally why they don't. Doesn't get him anywhere,
31:20
Speaker 1: just causes more problems for them, And it's all sort
31:23
Speaker 1: of self preservation is why you don't speak out. But folks,
31:28
Speaker 1: he is super weak. This is the absolute definition of
31:32
Speaker 1: an emperor with no clothes, and every day we keep
31:36
Speaker 1: finding out how little he's wearing under his little garments there.
31:43
Speaker 1: So he obviously is decided not to not to do
31:50
Speaker 1: this the normal way any other president when they're set back,
31:53
Speaker 1: they criticize the court, they're frustrated, they say this or that,
31:57
Speaker 1: but then they are like, figure out another way. Maybe
32:00
Speaker 1: they want to work with Congress. But nope. He doesn't
32:03
Speaker 1: view his loss as a constitutional issue. He viewsed the
32:05
Speaker 1: loss as a loyalty issue. But let's go back to April.
32:10
Speaker 1: And this is why I fear long term impact of
32:15
Speaker 1: Trump less than most people do. He really is lazy.
32:20
Speaker 1: I mean, he is super lazy. Right. I often used
32:24
Speaker 1: the joke look he's too lazy to be Hitler, he's
32:27
Speaker 1: too lazy to be Orbon, he's too lazy to be
32:30
Speaker 1: air to one. Okay, forget any of these other you know,
32:33
Speaker 1: forget using the north star of the Nazis. Right, just
32:36
Speaker 1: picked today's sort of authoritarians. Too lazy to be Orbon,
32:39
Speaker 1: too lazy to be air to one. Right. Imagine, you know,
32:44
Speaker 1: he actually had some political capital in the first ninety
32:47
Speaker 1: days of his administration, and he could have probably strong
32:51
Speaker 1: armed his narrow congressional majorities in the House and Senate
32:54
Speaker 1: to give him the authority if he simply said back
32:58
Speaker 1: in late March, Hey, Congress, I want I want specific
33:03
Speaker 1: tariff authority. I'm going to I'm a better negotiator than
33:06
Speaker 1: you are. I'm going to negotiate these trade deals, but
33:08
Speaker 1: I need to control the tariff. I need you to
33:11
Speaker 1: delegate tariff authority to the president. Let's debate it, let's
33:15
Speaker 1: vote on it. And there'd have been wouldn't have been easy,
33:20
Speaker 1: and he may not have won that argument, but that
33:23
Speaker 1: is how you try to win an argument. And then
33:26
Speaker 1: if you can't win the argument, then he can go
33:27
Speaker 1: find his own Republicans to challenge the primary folks and
33:31
Speaker 1: you try to do it that way. It's what FDR
33:34
Speaker 1: would do when he had racal centrin Democrats to some
33:37
Speaker 1: of his ideas, but he also had pretty decent political
33:42
Speaker 1: capital with Republicans in that moment. You certainly know he
33:46
Speaker 1: would have strong armed the House at that time. Right,
33:48
Speaker 1: he was pretty much the House Speaker at that point,
33:52
Speaker 1: and John Thune was in go along, get along mode.
33:57
Speaker 1: I know, McConnell and you know. And they could have
33:59
Speaker 1: done it through the reconciliation process when they were doing
34:02
Speaker 1: their big beautiful bill. They were too lazy to pursue
34:06
Speaker 1: because it's what was it going to be hard? They
34:07
Speaker 1: were going to have to do some good old fashioned
34:10
Speaker 1: horse trading. But remember, right, the greatest weakness Donald Trump
34:16
Speaker 1: has is his laziness. It will always be the key
34:21
Speaker 1: as to why he didn't have the success he could
34:24
Speaker 1: have had in business. Right, too lazy in the casino
34:28
Speaker 1: business to right, he didn't want to deal with competitors,
34:30
Speaker 1: so bought them up, drowned himself in debt, and walked away. Right,
34:34
Speaker 1: He's just always looking for a shortcut. Right, Donald Trump
34:38
Speaker 1: has shortcuted his way to being a billionaire. Good for him.
34:44
Speaker 1: He's used the power of the federal government to actually
34:47
Speaker 1: make himself a billionaire. Again a shortcut. But as president,
34:52
Speaker 1: his agenda is failing and he's failing to remake the
34:55
Speaker 1: American economy in his vision because he's too lazy to
34:58
Speaker 1: work with Congress. Bottom line, had he done that, he'd
35:01
Speaker 1: had a shot. Markets would have been calmer, his political
35:04
Speaker 1: capital was fresher, Party was more unified in that moment,
35:09
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't have gotten all the authority he would
35:12
Speaker 1: have wanted, but he would have gotten some targeted authority
35:14
Speaker 1: and it would have been legitimate. But again, he didn't
35:17
Speaker 1: want to bother He wanted speed, he wanted leverage, immediate leverage.
35:21
Speaker 1: He wanted unilateral control. But it's lazy because doing it
35:25
Speaker 1: doing it every way I'm describing is a little bit harder.
35:28
Speaker 1: It's effort, It takes it. You have to have an
35:31
Speaker 1: attention span a little bit greater than a nat Well,
35:36
Speaker 1: we know he doesn't. So he reached for the emergency
35:38
Speaker 1: powers because they worked so well during COVID. So he
35:43
Speaker 1: loves these shortcut emergency powers that Stephen Miller consistently finds
35:47
Speaker 1: for him now. And he didn't want to have a
35:50
Speaker 1: debate in his own Party, and this avoids deliberation. Well,
35:54
Speaker 1: guess what his shortcut ran into Article one. So within
35:59
Speaker 1: hours of the ruling, Trump announces a new global baseline
36:02
Speaker 1: tariff under Section one twenty two of the nineteen seventy
36:05
Speaker 1: four Trade Act. So he's going back even further now
36:09
Speaker 1: in congressional authorization to try to find a legal way
36:14
Speaker 1: around this. By the way, this new fifteen percent flat
36:17
Speaker 1: tariff that he's sent across the board expires in one
36:19
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty days, so it is he's going to
36:24
Speaker 1: need to go to Congress if he wants to continue it.
36:29
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to Congress weighing in on this. This
36:32
Speaker 1: is where it belongs, and I think it's going to
36:35
Speaker 1: be quite the MRI. We're going to find out where
36:37
Speaker 1: the Republican Party is today. Because one thing that has
36:40
Speaker 1: been true since Donald Trump took his second oath of office.
36:43
Speaker 1: Every day he's lost a Republican supporter. Every day or
36:49
Speaker 1: every week, somebody leaves the reservation. Nobody he has not
36:54
Speaker 1: added anybody to his coalition. You see it in the
36:57
Speaker 1: form of elected officials breaking from him. You see it
37:00
Speaker 1: obviously in all of these in all of these polls.
37:04
Speaker 1: But what his response to this ruling is not good
37:08
Speaker 1: in the short term. This will be good in the
37:10
Speaker 1: long term because we've established some guard raids, but it's
37:13
Speaker 1: going to be unstable in the short term. We have
37:14
Speaker 1: a bunch of instability where they'll be refunds. Justice Kavanaugh
37:18
Speaker 1: warned of chaos. Yeah, I mean, there was no reason
37:20
Speaker 1: to violate the Constitution, But there is some truth to this. Yes,
37:24
Speaker 1: there's chaos. The importers had to pay billions under this
37:27
Speaker 1: i epa misuse of the IEPA authority. They're going to sue.
37:33
Speaker 1: They're going to want their money back. Sounds like the
37:38
Speaker 1: government's going to fight having to give any of the
37:40
Speaker 1: money back. These are lawsuits could take years. It's not
37:44
Speaker 1: good for small businesses that need to deal with imports.
37:48
Speaker 1: It's not good for any business, but small businesses. Big
37:51
Speaker 1: business can can figure out how to mitigate the impact
37:55
Speaker 1: of this on their on their bottom lines. They can
37:58
Speaker 1: write it down right, they can, and they can get
38:00
Speaker 1: some tax savings out of something like this. But boy,
38:03
Speaker 1: small business, this is a killer. That's why it was
38:05
Speaker 1: NFIB was a part of the groups, a part of
38:08
Speaker 1: the bigger group of people that were suing over this,
38:12
Speaker 1: and oh By the way, the President just exploded the
38:14
Speaker 1: deficit with his illegal tariffs, because what looked like was
38:17
Speaker 1: going to be the ability to actually see some revenue
38:22
Speaker 1: come into the country used to at least shrink the
38:26
Speaker 1: deficit annual deficit. I don't think we were going to
38:28
Speaker 1: make any progress on the debt itself, but to shrink
38:30
Speaker 1: the deficit, well, now, if you've removed it, you know
38:34
Speaker 1: he was. Look, this has always been part of a
38:37
Speaker 1: larger project. As I've tried to let try to walk
38:41
Speaker 1: people through, we're ultimately the goal here. The people that
38:44
Speaker 1: have really gotten a hold of Trump are the folks
38:47
Speaker 1: that want to get rid of income taxes. And you've
38:49
Speaker 1: seen in the States, you've seen attempts to get rid
38:51
Speaker 1: of property taxes. There are a whole bunch of people
38:53
Speaker 1: that want to move all taxation back to being consumption oriented, right,
38:57
Speaker 1: much more like a vat tax, like the European right
39:00
Speaker 1: that everything is consumption oriented. Well, guess what that was
39:03
Speaker 1: our tax policy before we before the sixteenth Amendment and
39:08
Speaker 1: legalized income taxes. And you know what, that was worse
39:12
Speaker 1: for everybody, and it meant poor people paid a lion's
39:15
Speaker 1: share of the taxes. Rich people hid from paying most
39:17
Speaker 1: taxes because they were consumption based and the impact was
39:21
Speaker 1: much greater on lower income people than it wasn't higher
39:24
Speaker 1: income people, which is what made the income tax popular
39:27
Speaker 1: in that time. It was to it was to make
39:30
Speaker 1: the rich start paying their fair share. And here we
39:33
Speaker 1: go again, right, it's rich and wealthy people. They don't
39:36
Speaker 1: want it. They think that once they have money, they
39:38
Speaker 1: shouldn't get taxed on it until they spend it, and
39:43
Speaker 1: dindo with their property. Well, good luck funding any service
39:49
Speaker 1: that government provides today if you take away income taxes
39:52
Speaker 1: and property taxes. But we are going to have a
39:55
Speaker 1: ton of instability now for a while. Right, he's going
39:58
Speaker 1: to all right, so we found one hundred fIF the
40:00
Speaker 1: day's worth of ways to do tariffs. So he's going
40:02
Speaker 1: to find there's sort of five or six, my friend
40:03
Speaker 1: Bruce Melman, go check out his substack. There's five or
40:06
Speaker 1: six other pieces of various authorities that he can start
40:12
Speaker 1: to rebuild his tariff structure. And he'll do that, but
40:16
Speaker 1: it's going to cause all sorts of instability in prices.
40:22
Speaker 1: Prices aren't going to come down, they're only going to
40:23
Speaker 1: go up. And at this point, right, you think Oh, great,
40:28
Speaker 1: there's going to be no terriff. But as a business,
40:29
Speaker 1: you have to plan that there's going to be some
40:31
Speaker 1: more tariffs somewhere. So this is a mess. But you know,
40:38
Speaker 1: did anybody expect Donald Trump to leave? I mean, at
40:43
Speaker 1: this point, when he leaves office on January twenty, twenty
40:47
Speaker 1: twenty nine, we're going to have half the White House
40:52
Speaker 1: probably not be rebuilt, a Kennedy Center that's gutted and
40:55
Speaker 1: not finished, half built structure, and an economy in tatters
41:04
Speaker 1: because of the mess he has created with this tariffs.
41:07
Speaker 1: So let's zoom out internationally. What's going to happen all
41:10
Speaker 1: these trade deals he cut using this illegal tariff authority.
41:14
Speaker 1: How many countries are going to say, hey, we want
41:17
Speaker 1: a new deal. The deal we cut is no longer operational.
41:21
Speaker 1: I think quite a few countries are going to do that.
41:25
Speaker 1: So if the tool he used for leverage is unstable,
41:27
Speaker 1: then the leverage itself shrinks. And oh, by the way,
41:30
Speaker 1: he still hasn't finished this trade deal with China and
41:32
Speaker 1: he's going to meet with she in April. My god,
41:35
Speaker 1: has it ever been a better environment for the Chinese
41:38
Speaker 1: than the environment Trump is created? Now he's alienated every
41:42
Speaker 1: major ally the United States has right handing over China,
41:47
Speaker 1: you know, handing, Canada and India, all these in the
41:50
Speaker 1: European Union better trade relations with China than with the
41:56
Speaker 1: United States. And he has sort of usurped his own
42:01
Speaker 1: leverage that he was trying to manufacture in going back
42:04
Speaker 1: and forth. Heck of a job, Trumpy, because every foreign
42:10
Speaker 1: leader is going to look at the Supreme Court rule
42:12
Speaker 1: and go Court's gonna intervene. We may there may be
42:15
Speaker 1: some refunds. Congress may have to insert its control again,
42:20
Speaker 1: why do we have to negotiate with Trump on these
42:21
Speaker 1: trade deals? So we'll see, it's going to be a mess.
42:27
Speaker 1: But Donald Trump's been weakened quite a bit. So here's
42:31
Speaker 1: where it's going to get interesting politically if this now
42:34
Speaker 1: moves to Congress, and we'll see, right Mike Johnson does
42:37
Speaker 1: not want to put these votes out there now. I mean,
42:40
Speaker 1: right now, Trump's going to be super vulnerable to Republicans
42:43
Speaker 1: walking away from him, right, I mean, we've already seen
42:48
Speaker 1: a handful of Republicans and Trump got angry when a
42:50
Speaker 1: when a Colorado Republican voted against voted to get rid
42:54
Speaker 1: of that symbolic vote to get rid of the Canadian tariffs,
42:56
Speaker 1: and Trump withdrew his endorsement endorsed his primary opponent. Uh Now,
43:01
Speaker 1: in some ways, if Trump wants to try to purge
43:04
Speaker 1: his party and reorient it around his protectionist vision for
43:10
Speaker 1: for the United States, then this is how he's you know,
43:13
Speaker 1: he's going to have to go find more like minded
43:15
Speaker 1: folks and get them elected to Congress. But I'll tell
43:18
Speaker 1: you this, Colorado's have always been a free trade state.
43:21
Speaker 1: Colorado's was one of those states that, you know, while
43:24
Speaker 1: they lean left there, they're you know, they're not anti
43:27
Speaker 1: right to work, not the most pro union state. They
43:31
Speaker 1: don't like tariffs. It's free trade state. I have a
43:35
Speaker 1: feeling that Jeff heard, the congressman that Trump wants endorsed
43:39
Speaker 1: and has now unendorsed, knows his electorate better than Donald
43:41
Speaker 1: Trump knows that electorate. So bottom line is this is
43:45
Speaker 1: an MRI moment for the Republican Party. Right We're going
43:48
Speaker 1: to find out who is still a free market conservative
43:52
Speaker 1: and who isn't. So we'll find out if they're how
43:58
Speaker 1: big this fracture is. We know there's a small fracture
44:00
Speaker 1: in the Republican Party over trading tariffs. We know there's
44:04
Speaker 1: a silent minority. I still think it's close to a majority.
44:09
Speaker 1: That's close to a majority that doesn't like these tariffs,
44:11
Speaker 1: but they're scared to say anything publicly. You got to
44:16
Speaker 1: cover the Supreme Court. Well, we see more folks, especially
44:25
Speaker 1: as balloting gets closer, expose themselves as free marketeers. We'll
44:30
Speaker 1: see and there might be votes. A rational reaction by
44:35
Speaker 1: a president would be to try to get authority in Congress,
44:38
Speaker 1: try to persuade, try to find a way to do this.
44:40
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's going to try to do
44:42
Speaker 1: this that way. I don't I don't expect him. I mean,
44:47
Speaker 1: he's already responded as I mean literally, A Democratic strategist
44:52
Speaker 1: said to me, if I could have scripted Trump's reaction
44:56
Speaker 1: to this ruling, I couldn't have scripted it any better.
45:00
Speaker 1: I mean, he is. He is owning that every tax
45:04
Speaker 1: hike now in the country, every consumer tax hit. He
45:07
Speaker 1: just announced a fifteen percent tax hide and consumer goods
45:10
Speaker 1: across the board, So you now know that if you're
45:14
Speaker 1: paying more, it is directly associated with Trump's economy. It's unbelievable.
45:21
Speaker 1: So I said in April this would likely end in
45:24
Speaker 1: the situation we're in now. The only surprise was that
45:28
Speaker 1: the ruling wasn't even more emphatic it was seven two
45:31
Speaker 1: or nine zero. But what happens next is far more important.
45:34
Speaker 1: Does Congress reassert its authority in the moment? Do we
45:38
Speaker 1: see free market republicans speak out publicly? Does the loyalty
45:43
Speaker 1: tests continue by Trump? If Gorsach and Barrett are disloyal
45:47
Speaker 1: for reading a statute narrowly? What happens the next time
45:51
Speaker 1: the disagreement is over something bigger than Tariff's So this
45:55
Speaker 1: wasn't about trade policy. This is about how we govern
45:58
Speaker 1: and whether we have three co equal branches of government.
46:04
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump shortcut just ran straight headlong into the
46:10
Speaker 1: brick wall that is the US Constitution. And guess what,
46:17
Speaker 1: He's super unpopular at the moment. Let me tell you
46:19
Speaker 1: about a new poll in the Washington Post. I want
46:21
Speaker 1: to run through this for a few minutes before we
46:24
Speaker 1: get to the interview. Now, it's a poll of all adults,
46:26
Speaker 1: and so far as we've seen the pattern, when it's adults,
46:29
Speaker 1: it's his job approval can't get out of the thirties.
46:32
Speaker 1: When it's registered voters, you'll see his job approval. It's
46:35
Speaker 1: somewhere in the forty one two percent range. Sixty disapproved.
46:41
Speaker 1: It's that disapproval number is huge. Here's a few more things.
46:45
Speaker 1: Do you approve a disapproval of the way Trump is
46:46
Speaker 1: handling This is again Washington Post Ipso's pole. So it's
46:49
Speaker 1: a you, gov, i'm, i'm, it's episodes. I'M it's not
46:55
Speaker 1: my favorite methodology. But look that ship has sailed, but
47:00
Speaker 1: he is upside down on every single issue. He's got
47:04
Speaker 1: a majorities disapproving of him on every issue. They tested
47:08
Speaker 1: us Mexican border. Fifty percent disapprove of his policy. That
47:11
Speaker 1: was the best issue he performed on. Forty seven percent
47:14
Speaker 1: approve of his border policy, Fifty eight percent disapprove of
47:18
Speaker 1: his immigration policies, fifty seven percent disapprove of his handling
47:22
Speaker 1: of the economy, sixty two percent disapprove of the relations
47:27
Speaker 1: that he has with other countries, sixty four percent disapprove
47:30
Speaker 1: of the tariffs, and sixty five percent hate this inflationary
47:37
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing that ought to scare democrats. Americans
47:40
Speaker 1: are split on who they trust to handle the country's
47:42
Speaker 1: main problems. Here's the specific wording of the question. Overall,
47:45
Speaker 1: who do you trust to do a better job handling
47:47
Speaker 1: the country's main problems Trump. Of the Democrats in Congress, well,
47:50
Speaker 1: thirty three percent picked Trump, thirty one percent pick Democrats
47:54
Speaker 1: in Congress. Thirty one percent said neither. How about that? Right?
48:02
Speaker 1: Does that not tell you where America really is? Right?
48:04
Speaker 1: You know, you basically have the base of the basis
48:07
Speaker 1: of two parties saying one thing and everybody else feeling
48:10
Speaker 1: I don't trust either one of these parties at the moment,
48:14
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I continue to wonder, is this
48:18
Speaker 1: an opportunity for a third party and independent? Does this?
48:22
Speaker 1: You know, are Democrats going to realize they have a
48:25
Speaker 1: huge problem that their brand is shit. They are seen
48:29
Speaker 1: as way too liberal, way too progressive, way outside the
48:32
Speaker 1: mainstream on some of these issues, and this is why
48:35
Speaker 1: they don't have confidence and sort of the rest of
48:38
Speaker 1: the electorate. Right the base is animated on hat and Trump,
48:43
Speaker 1: and that might be enough in the midterm, but this
48:47
Speaker 1: poll is still revealing as again, Donald Trump unpopular in
48:51
Speaker 1: every single issue that matters to Americans. The fact that
48:55
Speaker 1: this is not a blowout, that Democrats aren't more trusted
48:58
Speaker 1: right now to handle everything than Trump by ten or
49:01
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty points. It's a reflection on the Democratic
49:04
Speaker 1: grand that's that's just a reminder of a red flag,
49:13
Speaker 1: all right. I like I said, I've got a terrific
49:16
Speaker 1: interview with Get to gainda Beer here it is, like
49:20
Speaker 1: I said, the perfect neighbor is I used the MRI
49:25
Speaker 1: metaphor before. I think it's an MRI and race and
49:29
Speaker 1: culture in America a little bit. Some of our gun
49:33
Speaker 1: laws are stand your ground laws is sort of relevant
49:37
Speaker 1: in here. But here's the beauty of this documentary again,
49:42
Speaker 1: using only footage from body camera, no narration, no talking heads,
49:49
Speaker 1: it is a classication. You get to decide your own
49:52
Speaker 1: reaction without letting others try to influence you and tell
49:56
Speaker 1: you what you're seeing. You're seeing it all raw and
49:59
Speaker 1: in real time. And I highly encourage it. I really do,
50:03
Speaker 1: because I think it will when you hear people say that,
50:09
Speaker 1: you know, it is just a reminder that we've raised
50:14
Speaker 1: a lot of racists in this country multiple generations, and
50:17
Speaker 1: it's going to take a while for us to eradicate
50:20
Speaker 1: that strain, that virus out of the American society. We're
50:26
Speaker 1: making progress, not fast enough, and this, this this documentary
50:32
Speaker 1: will tell you that. So let's sneak in a break
50:35
Speaker 1: and when we come back to my conversation about the
50:37
Speaker 1: perfect name. Do you hate hangovers, We'll say goodbye to hangovers.
50:44
Speaker 1: Out of Office gives you the social buzz without the
50:46
Speaker 1: next day regret. They're best selling. Out of Office gummanies
50:49
Speaker 1: were designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz, boost your mood,
50:52
Speaker 1: and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths, you
50:55
Speaker 1: can tailor the dose to fit your vibe, from a
50:58
Speaker 1: gentle one point five milligram microdose to their newest fifteen
51:02
Speaker 1: milligram gummy for a more elevated experience. Their THHC beverages
51:06
Speaker 1: and gummies are a modern, mindful alternative to a glass
51:10
Speaker 1: of wine or a cocktail. And I'll tell you this,
51:12
Speaker 1: I've given up booze. I don't like the hangovers. I
51:15
Speaker 1: prefer the gummy experience. Soul is a wellness brand that
51:19
Speaker 1: believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes
51:22
Speaker 1: in delicious hemp derived THCHC and CBD products, all designed
51:26
Speaker 1: to boost your mood and simply help you unwine so
51:29
Speaker 1: if you struggle to switch off at night. Sol also
51:31
Speaker 1: has a variety of products specifically designed to just simply
51:34
Speaker 1: help you get a better night's sleep, including their top
51:37
Speaker 1: selling sleepy gummies. It's a fan favorite for deep restorative sleep.
51:41
Speaker 1: So bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to
51:44
Speaker 1: Soul today. Right now, Soul is offering my audience thirty
51:47
Speaker 1: percent off your entire order. So go to gitsold dot
51:50
Speaker 1: com use the promo code todcast. Don't forget that code.
51:55
Speaker 1: That's getsold dot Com promo code todcast for thirty percent off.
52:01
Speaker 1: Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from
52:04
Speaker 1: personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away.
52:07
Speaker 1: We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in
52:10
Speaker 1: the best shape. My mother single mother, now widow, myself
52:14
Speaker 1: sixteen trying to figure out how am I going to
52:16
Speaker 1: pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had
52:19
Speaker 1: one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot,
52:23
Speaker 1: but it was important at the time, and it's why
52:26
Speaker 1: I was able to go to college. Little did he
52:29
Speaker 1: know how important that would be in that moment. Well,
52:33
Speaker 1: guess what. That's why I am here to tell you
52:35
Speaker 1: about Etho's life. They can provide you with peace of
52:38
Speaker 1: mind knowing your family is protected even if the worst
52:41
Speaker 1: comes to pass. Ethos is an online platform that makes
52:44
Speaker 1: getting life insurance fast and easy, all designed to protect
52:48
Speaker 1: your family's future in minutes, not months. There's no complicated process,
52:52
Speaker 1: and it's one hundred percent online. There's no medical exam
52:56
Speaker 1: require you just answer a few health questions online. You
52:59
Speaker 1: can get a quote in as little as ten minutes,
53:01
Speaker 1: and you can get same day coverage without ever leaving
53:04
Speaker 1: your home. You can get up to three million dollars
53:07
Speaker 1: in coverage, and some policies start as low as two
53:09
Speaker 1: dollars a day that would be billed monthly. As of
53:12
Speaker 1: March twenty twenty five, Business Insider named Ethos the number
53:16
Speaker 1: one no medical exam instant life insurance provider. So protect
53:20
Speaker 1: your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get your free
53:23
Speaker 1: quote at ethos dot com slash chuck. So again, that's
53:27
Speaker 1: ethos dot com slash chuck. Application times may vary and
53:32
Speaker 1: the rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me,
53:35
Speaker 1: life insurance is something you should really think about it,
53:38
Speaker 1: especially if you've got a growing family.
53:44
Speaker 2: Well.
53:44
Speaker 1: One of the more powerful documentaries that you will hear
53:47
Speaker 1: about during the Academy Awards is called The Perfect neighbor,
53:51
Speaker 1: and it is by the filmmaker Geta Gandibier, Getha Gandibier.
53:56
Speaker 1: My apologies there, and it is First of all, the
54:03
Speaker 1: film itself is unique because it's the type of documentary
54:07
Speaker 1: I love best, meaning no talking hits. It is a
54:11
Speaker 1: documentary of real footage and it's about a story sadly
54:18
Speaker 1: in my home state of Florida. And the standard ground
54:21
Speaker 1: law will come into play here a minute, but it's
54:24
Speaker 1: a story that's more. This is not a gun story.
54:27
Speaker 1: This is a society story. This is a story of race,
54:29
Speaker 1: This is a story of policing. This is a story
54:32
Speaker 1: of how we live together as Americans. And it's incredibly
54:37
Speaker 1: powerful and it couldn't have been done without bodycam footage.
54:43
Speaker 1: So if you haven't seen it, it's on Netflix now,
54:46
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. It's powerful, it's disturbing. It's also heartbreaking,
54:55
Speaker 1: as we were just discussing its grief and rage, as
54:58
Speaker 1: Gita will tell you wrapped up in one and Pizza
55:01
Speaker 1: joined me. Now, Gita, how did I do introducing your film?
55:04
Speaker 2: That was great? Thank you so much for having me.
55:08
Speaker 1: You're first of all, it's nominated for all sorts of awards.
55:12
Speaker 1: How important is an Academy award to you?
55:14
Speaker 4: So the Academy Award is a huge honor. I think
55:18
Speaker 4: it's every you know, it's a dream. Honestly, it's a dream.
55:21
Speaker 2: And sometimes feels like a pipe dream, you know, in
55:24
Speaker 2: our in our field.
55:26
Speaker 4: But I think what makes it so significant it's that
55:30
Speaker 4: it's our peers who vote right, people that we admire,
55:35
Speaker 4: people that inspire us, our idols, our colleagues, you know,
55:39
Speaker 4: so that community feels so meaningful, and the idea that
55:44
Speaker 4: they choose your film of the many, many many disturbing
55:48
Speaker 4: films means so much. So that makes it an incredible honor.
55:53
Speaker 2: Again, a dream. I think beyond that though, to all.
55:58
Speaker 4: The awards really give us platform to talk about the
56:01
Speaker 4: issues that and the impact that we want to have
56:04
Speaker 4: goes far beyond the film. We're really hoping for change,
56:08
Speaker 4: that the film will be a vehicle for change.
56:11
Speaker 2: So I think the the.
56:13
Speaker 4: There's two things that come into play with the awards.
56:17
Speaker 4: The just the owner of it all and so grateful
56:20
Speaker 4: that the platform is equally important.
56:24
Speaker 1: No, and you know, kudos to Netflix for making you know,
56:27
Speaker 1: for promoting it. Not just there's one thing to just
56:29
Speaker 1: put it on your streamer. It's another thing to actually
56:31
Speaker 1: promote it and make sure people can see it.
56:33
Speaker 4: Which they could have honestly, And this was an independent film.
56:37
Speaker 4: We made this independently. My team Message Pictures, Park Pictures
56:41
Speaker 4: joined us, SOB Productions also joined us. We were a
56:45
Speaker 4: very small but mighty scrappy team for very little money.
56:50
Speaker 4: We also got some development funding, but the from Peacock,
56:55
Speaker 4: but they chose not to take the film ultimately, so
56:58
Speaker 4: we but you you know, small resources. But the Sundance
57:03
Speaker 4: Film Festival accepted the film and really give that platform.
57:09
Speaker 4: That was our first premiere. And after that Netflix made
57:13
Speaker 4: us an offer. So Netflix took it to the next
57:16
Speaker 4: level again, a global platform.
57:19
Speaker 1: Look, my head is in two different places. Like one part,
57:22
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the decision to go without
57:25
Speaker 1: a narrator and to use all the bodycam footage. On
57:27
Speaker 1: the other hand, I do think we should spend a
57:29
Speaker 1: few minutes on the story itself, sure, and so I
57:31
Speaker 1: want to begin with there, which is what did you
57:35
Speaker 1: when did you become you know, how closely were you
57:38
Speaker 1: following this story in real time in Marion County, Florida.
57:43
Speaker 1: You know, I hate to say it, when I watched this,
57:46
Speaker 1: it was a very you know, I knew a little
57:50
Speaker 1: something about the story itself, so I knew I was
57:52
Speaker 1: going to end. But that community, that fight, I've seen that,
57:58
Speaker 1: it's a very familiar thing. What was unfamiliar was to
58:03
Speaker 1: see it chronicled, yeah, right in real time, and that's
58:06
Speaker 1: what made it, I think so powerful. But I am
58:09
Speaker 1: curious what was your familiarity with the story at different
58:12
Speaker 1: points in time while it was unfolding.
58:14
Speaker 4: Sure, so there is a personal connection to this story
58:18
Speaker 4: because Ajica Owens was a family friend, so you were
58:21
Speaker 4: involved from the minute that had happened.
58:24
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, from the minute that you.
58:25
Speaker 1: Show you knew immediately you were brought in. Did you
58:29
Speaker 1: know about what was happening in that neighborhood before.
58:32
Speaker 2: She was killed?
58:33
Speaker 4: No, we didn't, and we myself and Mama say, we
58:36
Speaker 4: am talking about myself and my husband.
58:39
Speaker 2: Who's also a producer on the film that come onto.
58:42
Speaker 4: And my teammate Message Pictures, Alisa Payne and Sam Pollard,
58:46
Speaker 4: you're my producing partners. We got a distress call though
58:51
Speaker 4: from my sister in law who was best friends with
58:54
Speaker 4: Ajaca Owens.
58:56
Speaker 2: And when I say sister in law, she's really my
58:58
Speaker 2: cousin in law.
58:59
Speaker 4: But we culturally don't differentiate like she's We're very close.
59:03
Speaker 2: That's my sister in law.
59:04
Speaker 1: I've got cousins, Yeah, exactly so.
59:09
Speaker 4: But just you know, in case anybody wants to, you know,
59:11
Speaker 4: wants to fact check it, right, cousin in law. But
59:14
Speaker 4: we got we got a call the night that had happened,
59:17
Speaker 4: and we're immediately on the ground trying to support the
59:21
Speaker 4: family and help gathering the children and getting Achica's mother
59:25
Speaker 4: into town.
59:26
Speaker 2: And also we.
59:28
Speaker 4: Were very aware that the story needed to be in
59:30
Speaker 4: the media because without media attention, cases like Ajica's often get.
59:35
Speaker 2: Swept under the rung.
59:36
Speaker 4: I mean, there's so much gun violence, unfortunately in our
59:38
Speaker 4: society that it's almost an everyday occurrence.
59:41
Speaker 2: There's another story of somebody getting.
59:43
Speaker 1: Shot and neighbor dispute with it turning into a deadly
59:47
Speaker 1: gunshot is sadly almost it probably is a daily occurred.
59:51
Speaker 2: Daily occurrence, right, more or less.
59:54
Speaker 4: So, so we were because we work in media, our team,
59:58
Speaker 4: that's what we felt.
59:59
Speaker 2: We could do and how we could help.
1:00:01
Speaker 4: And Susan was not immediately arrested because of stanyar ground laws.
1:00:06
Speaker 4: They had to stand your ground investigation, and we have
1:00:09
Speaker 4: the precedent of the Trayvon Martin case that happened in Florida,
1:00:12
Speaker 4: So we were deeply concerned that there would be no
1:00:14
Speaker 4: justice for Ajica. And then about two months later, Susan
1:00:19
Speaker 4: was eventually arrested. About two months later, we received the
1:00:22
Speaker 4: body camera footage from the family lawyers and who we
1:00:25
Speaker 4: were still involved with the family and again still trying
1:00:29
Speaker 4: to support the case because we didn't know. Again, we
1:00:32
Speaker 4: were worried it might languish, you know, it could take
1:00:35
Speaker 4: years for anything to happen. But the footage came to
1:00:39
Speaker 4: us and they asked us to go through it.
1:00:42
Speaker 2: They were like, can you look through it? Is there
1:00:43
Speaker 2: anything in here for the media?
1:00:45
Speaker 4: And it was about thirty hours of material and I
1:00:47
Speaker 4: was shocked. I'd never seen that much footage around a
1:00:51
Speaker 4: case before.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: Can I just say, I'm I was oddly impressed with
1:00:57
Speaker 1: how much there was in How you know, I'm a
1:01:03
Speaker 1: cynic on this stuff. I assume all these guys are
1:01:05
Speaker 1: going to turn it off when the real you know,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: and they there was so much there. It felt real.
1:01:10
Speaker 1: It felt like I got a real sense of how
1:01:12
Speaker 1: Marion County Police officers handle these disputes.
1:01:16
Speaker 4: Yes, now one hundred percent, and they were there so
1:01:18
Speaker 4: often because Susan called so often. But I think what
1:01:22
Speaker 4: struck me is that you got to see in this
1:01:26
Speaker 4: footage the community as they were before, and it was undeniable.
1:01:31
Speaker 4: You got to see this beautiful multi racial community living together,
1:01:35
Speaker 4: loving each other, acting like a big extended family, taking
1:01:39
Speaker 4: care of the kids, you know, And you got to
1:01:41
Speaker 4: see the kids playing outside, being precocious and funny.
1:01:45
Speaker 2: And you know, and loved.
1:01:47
Speaker 4: And because there is so much gun violence, we are
1:01:52
Speaker 4: used to seeing the grieving family.
1:01:55
Speaker 2: We know the.
1:01:55
Speaker 4: Aftermath of what happens, but we never get to see
1:01:58
Speaker 4: the before me, the story of this community and what
1:02:02
Speaker 4: they had to go through and how one outlier who
1:02:05
Speaker 4: was emboldened by Stanley ground laws plus combined with our
1:02:09
Speaker 4: access to guns, disrupted their whole world.
1:02:17
Speaker 1: What did you know? What when did you know you
1:02:19
Speaker 1: had a film?
1:02:20
Speaker 2: Sure? So, when when we saw the body camera.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: Footage, immediately like this is I can do something with that? No?
1:02:27
Speaker 4: Because because what Because like I said, it was thirty hours,
1:02:31
Speaker 4: It came in a jumble, it came on a thumb
1:02:33
Speaker 4: drive and there were folders. But there's the cops unintentionally
1:02:39
Speaker 4: function like multi camera with the you know, with the footage,
1:02:42
Speaker 4: because sometimes there were two of them unseen.
1:02:45
Speaker 1: Sometimes there was a little it could be a little uh,
1:02:48
Speaker 1: it was a little love don't I don't want to
1:02:51
Speaker 1: say it, you know, sort of like wait what I mean?
1:02:54
Speaker 1: You know it's sort of dizzying.
1:02:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But this is again the nature.
1:02:58
Speaker 4: This is not production footage, right, they just just it's
1:03:02
Speaker 4: please evidence. But I spent about two weeks along with
1:03:05
Speaker 4: Nikon Kwan two again my producer and partner, stringing it
1:03:08
Speaker 4: into a timeline. I used to be an editor, so
1:03:11
Speaker 4: I pieced it together and synchronized all the footage and
1:03:15
Speaker 4: the sound, and also took time to figure out the chronology.
1:03:21
Speaker 4: And it was once we had the whole thing strung
1:03:23
Speaker 4: out and we watched it down and we could understand
1:03:26
Speaker 4: the chronology and what happened, that's when I was like, Aha.
1:03:31
Speaker 1: The family. So one of the things I was curious
1:03:34
Speaker 1: about is that the family attorney immediately asked for body
1:03:37
Speaker 1: cam footage for every incident that had ever taken place
1:03:40
Speaker 1: to differ in that neighborhood.
1:03:41
Speaker 4: Okay, I asked, of course, for the court case, that's
1:03:44
Speaker 4: what they would need, right, So they asked for everything,
1:03:47
Speaker 4: and what you see in the film is pretty much
1:03:49
Speaker 4: what we got, what the.
1:03:53
Speaker 2: Lawyers were given.
1:03:54
Speaker 1: There was also some ring whether it's some doorbell cameras
1:03:57
Speaker 1: or wing cameras as well.
1:03:58
Speaker 4: Right, I was part of it also because that was
1:04:01
Speaker 4: collected as evidence. But I think the thing that to
1:04:04
Speaker 4: me that struck me was that I felt like the
1:04:08
Speaker 4: footage played like a horror film. It played to me
1:04:11
Speaker 4: I thought of films. I come from a scripted background.
1:04:13
Speaker 4: Originally I came up with Spike Lee and Sam Pollard.
1:04:16
Speaker 1: And actually it had a Jaws vibe to me, the
1:04:19
Speaker 1: original Jaws, right, which is the you know, the initial
1:04:22
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg horror creator of that moment of where you
1:04:26
Speaker 1: don't see, you don't see the menace, but you know
1:04:29
Speaker 1: it's coming out there. And that's what I felt body
1:04:34
Speaker 1: came for. You're just like I had. I just got
1:04:36
Speaker 1: the Jaws vibe in that sense, because you know it's
1:04:40
Speaker 1: building up, but you don't know when it's coming, but
1:04:42
Speaker 1: you know it's coming.
1:04:43
Speaker 2: Nobody has said Jaws before. I love that.
1:04:45
Speaker 4: The references for me were paranormal activity and you know,
1:04:50
Speaker 4: things that used and also the Blair Witch Project, like
1:04:53
Speaker 4: films that were made that was meant to be found
1:04:57
Speaker 4: footage or you know again CCTV footage, surveillance camera footage.
1:05:01
Speaker 4: So those were sort of my references, and I wanted
1:05:05
Speaker 4: to make something that was immersive, that would grip audiences
1:05:10
Speaker 4: and hold them. Oftentimes, when we make documentaries, particularly if
1:05:13
Speaker 4: they're social justice, sometimes people don't want to you know,
1:05:17
Speaker 4: they don't want to hear it, like or they're not interesting,
1:05:20
Speaker 4: you know.
1:05:21
Speaker 1: I that was. Look, I had my wife and I
1:05:25
Speaker 1: was saying, I'm gonna watch this from an interview. She's like,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: I don't know, like you know, I know this story.
1:05:30
Speaker 1: I don't know right, like because you're right. And that's
1:05:36
Speaker 1: why I'm like, no, people, you need to see this.
1:05:38
Speaker 1: You need to see it because it's a groundmaking way
1:05:40
Speaker 1: to make a movie. Number one. So there's a technical
1:05:43
Speaker 1: aspect of this that's I mean, I'm not a voter,
1:05:47
Speaker 1: but if I were to me, this is why to me,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: it's an e're the easy winner simply because it's both
1:05:52
Speaker 1: a technical You've done something new and interesting and different
1:05:57
Speaker 1: in a basically because we now have all this stuff
1:06:01
Speaker 1: we didn't. You know, you couldn't have made this with
1:06:04
Speaker 1: Trayvon Martin it didn't exist, but one of the other no, no, no, no,
1:06:08
Speaker 1: and so, and then there's the powerful story itself that
1:06:11
Speaker 1: you tell where you don't have to you're not trying,
1:06:18
Speaker 1: You're you're you're helping people get to a place, but
1:06:21
Speaker 1: you're not preaching. You're not telling people what should be,
1:06:24
Speaker 1: what to think, You're just showing. You're letting us decide
1:06:28
Speaker 1: what should be. And you're like, that wasn't right.
1:06:31
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. Now we trust our audience. I
1:06:33
Speaker 2: think that was a big part of it.
1:06:34
Speaker 4: We were are belief that we could live in this
1:06:35
Speaker 4: body camera footage and the you know, the police evidence footage.
1:06:39
Speaker 2: And there was a couple of thoughts.
1:06:40
Speaker 4: One was that we didn't want to go back and
1:06:42
Speaker 4: retraumatize the community by making them relive it again interviewing them.
1:06:47
Speaker 2: They've they'd already been interviewed by detectives, they'd lived it, like,
1:06:51
Speaker 2: I didn't want to burden them with that.
1:06:54
Speaker 4: Then the the other part of it is we felt
1:06:57
Speaker 4: the body camera footage was really undeniable and right now
1:07:00
Speaker 4: we live in a time where everything the media does
1:07:02
Speaker 4: is questioned, and with this footage, there was no film
1:07:07
Speaker 4: crew on the ground, right there was we were not
1:07:10
Speaker 4: there directing anything. So again, because it is police evidence,
1:07:16
Speaker 4: you see things exactly as they happened, no one, there
1:07:20
Speaker 4: was no outside journalist influencing, So so I think that
1:07:24
Speaker 4: makes it undeniable to audiences. And also you can see
1:07:28
Speaker 4: in this footage again how this community was oftentimes after
1:07:35
Speaker 4: after people of color in particular are victimized after a
1:07:39
Speaker 4: crime happens to us, we are often criminalized, and our
1:07:43
Speaker 4: children are adultified. And we felt in the footage again
1:07:46
Speaker 4: the police did not mean to capture this, but they
1:07:49
Speaker 4: did that. Again, this community, this incredible community, and this
1:07:53
Speaker 4: like you have the mother who says, you know, oh,
1:07:55
Speaker 4: these kids, they're all mine, and the father comes out
1:07:57
Speaker 4: and is like, I look out for these kids like
1:07:59
Speaker 4: they're my own. You see in footage, even footage that
1:08:02
Speaker 4: Susan shot, the adults playing football with the kids like
1:08:05
Speaker 4: it was and the kids are outside having like you know,
1:08:09
Speaker 4: healthy connected fun.
1:08:12
Speaker 1: And I think what all of our political leaders say, hey,
1:08:16
Speaker 1: kids need to be outside more, not in front of
1:08:18
Speaker 1: their screens. Right, these kids were outside.
1:08:20
Speaker 4: They were outside, and I think and also you saw
1:08:23
Speaker 4: a community of upstanders like Susan, the two neighbors, and
1:08:28
Speaker 4: it wasn't. It's interesting because even though it is about race,
1:08:31
Speaker 4: and Susan tried to weaponize race.
1:08:33
Speaker 2: You know, you see the two.
1:08:34
Speaker 4: Neighbors that AA that lived on either side of Ogica
1:08:37
Speaker 4: or white women and were complete upstanders.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: What I saw it as is this is why it's
1:08:43
Speaker 1: a familiar community to me. In Florida. There are a
1:08:45
Speaker 1: lot of this is just a working class middle sort
1:08:48
Speaker 1: of what I working class, you know, strivers is what
1:08:51
Speaker 1: I would call it though, right, working crass driver community
1:08:54
Speaker 1: who like don't want to live in an apartment complex
1:08:57
Speaker 1: with their kids, want their kids to have more of
1:08:59
Speaker 1: a of a of a of a you know, sort
1:09:02
Speaker 1: of that whatever whatever, the idealized version of growing up
1:09:06
Speaker 1: in a neighborhood and all that stuff and there, and
1:09:09
Speaker 1: you know, these communities are all over Florida. It's sort
1:09:11
Speaker 1: of what makes Florida an attractive melting pot to many
1:09:15
Speaker 1: people and why they move. And it's affordable.
1:09:17
Speaker 2: It's the best of us. It's really that's the American dream.
1:09:20
Speaker 4: It's the best of us, right, like a place where
1:09:22
Speaker 4: and with that strong social network. I think Susan, on
1:09:26
Speaker 4: the other hand, is sort of represents a microcosm of
1:09:29
Speaker 4: all the bills that are plaguing our society.
1:09:31
Speaker 2: She kind of holds a mirror up.
1:09:41
Speaker 1: Two movies jumped out at me with her, because there
1:09:44
Speaker 1: been attempts to sort of portray that character, is what
1:09:47
Speaker 1: I would call it. Right, We know this person exists,
1:09:50
Speaker 1: this person lived in my neighborhood. We all had a
1:09:52
Speaker 1: person like this, right, and you don't quite know what
1:09:54
Speaker 1: they were. Right. You had the Clint Eastwood movie where
1:09:57
Speaker 1: he's the old man torn out Bohite Tornado or something
1:10:01
Speaker 1: like that, where grand grands grand Tino. That's right, And
1:10:08
Speaker 1: then I was thinking of the that Michael Douglas movie
1:10:11
Speaker 1: right falling Down whatever, you know, the whole white grievance,
1:10:14
Speaker 1: white rage. Right. She she felt like a very familiar character,
1:10:19
Speaker 1: right that we'd seen portrayed. But here was here here,
1:10:23
Speaker 1: I think there's there's this assumption that maybe these folks
1:10:26
Speaker 1: no longer exist. No, well, she very very much she
1:10:30
Speaker 1: must exist. I'm curious, did you want to what did you?
1:10:34
Speaker 1: I was? I wanted to know more of like how
1:10:37
Speaker 1: did she become so broken? She's broken? There's no doubt
1:10:42
Speaker 1: she's broken. We don't know what's it.
1:10:45
Speaker 2: We don't know this.
1:10:47
Speaker 4: She moved into the neighborhood two years before everything happened,
1:10:51
Speaker 4: and we don't have much of her backstory, you know,
1:10:54
Speaker 4: nor did we want to speculate on it.
1:10:57
Speaker 1: No, I get that too, but it's clear she some
1:11:00
Speaker 1: somebody something something she's broken, and you know, I don't
1:11:05
Speaker 1: know who knows when it happened, right, might have happened
1:11:08
Speaker 1: years ago or two years ago.
1:11:10
Speaker 2: You might just be racist though until.
1:11:12
Speaker 1: Well, and that's the thing. She got broken early. Then,
1:11:15
Speaker 1: you know, I always say you, you know you have
1:11:17
Speaker 1: to be raised a racist?
1:11:18
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
1:11:19
Speaker 1: I do believe that. I don't think, because kids are
1:11:22
Speaker 1: not racist unless they're caught it now.
1:11:24
Speaker 4: And I appreciate you thinking of that as broken, because yeah,
1:11:27
Speaker 4: it should be thought of that way. But I think
1:11:32
Speaker 4: I was the one thing I wanted to say, though,
1:11:34
Speaker 4: is that she also seemed to be someone who absorbed
1:11:38
Speaker 4: a lot of the rhetoric that is coming from the
1:11:41
Speaker 4: top down today in our country, which is manufactured fear,
1:11:45
Speaker 4: weaponized racism again, and that those kind of things combined
1:11:50
Speaker 4: with her access to weapons.
1:11:52
Speaker 1: PA, well, think about those law What was this the
1:11:54
Speaker 1: incident in Saint Louis. Absolutely it was about three years
1:11:59
Speaker 1: ago with a guide shot and then was the kid
1:12:02
Speaker 1: who went to the wrong door. It was going to
1:12:04
Speaker 1: go happen more.
1:12:06
Speaker 4: It happened recently there was a woman who was supposed
1:12:08
Speaker 4: to clean someone's house and came to the door and
1:12:09
Speaker 4: the man shutter the wrong house. Like it is, this idea,
1:12:13
Speaker 4: but the manufactured fear is a tool to divide us, right,
1:12:18
Speaker 4: and when we fear our neighbors, when we like again,
1:12:21
Speaker 4: then we're okay with them being kidnapped and put in
1:12:24
Speaker 4: detention centers. Right, Like, it's used the idea, and it
1:12:29
Speaker 4: allows an authoritarian government to say things like, noah, we'll
1:12:32
Speaker 4: protect you. We just need to get rid of these
1:12:34
Speaker 4: people over here. So she seemed to be a symptom
1:12:38
Speaker 4: of all those societal ills.
1:12:41
Speaker 1: And that is why, in some ways I wanted to
1:12:43
Speaker 1: know more, Like is she just sitting on her lounge
1:12:45
Speaker 1: chair watching one feed of stuff? And you know, is
1:12:50
Speaker 1: her information ecosystem very blind or oriented? Right? You know?
1:12:54
Speaker 1: But it struck me she never had anybody with her.
1:12:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, then at once, now when she was moving out
1:13:02
Speaker 4: of the house, that was her sister.
1:13:04
Speaker 2: There was a woman there who was her sister.
1:13:06
Speaker 4: But other than that, that was that we didn't see
1:13:08
Speaker 4: much of anybody near her. But what's interesting, like I said,
1:13:12
Speaker 4: is there were other older women.
1:13:14
Speaker 2: There was another woman who was her neighbor who appears
1:13:17
Speaker 2: in that.
1:13:17
Speaker 4: Same scene, who is an older woman who similarly lives
1:13:22
Speaker 4: in that neighborhood. But she was the only one. That
1:13:25
Speaker 4: is what is so interesting. She is the only one
1:13:29
Speaker 4: who ever complained.
1:13:30
Speaker 1: Right, which tells you, you know, says more about.
1:13:33
Speaker 2: Her than anything else, and anything else.
1:13:36
Speaker 1: You know, the try to me all, you know, your
1:13:42
Speaker 1: documentary sort of makes the case that in some ways
1:13:48
Speaker 1: this was a form of premeditation. Now we can debate that.
1:13:52
Speaker 1: I get that that there's the letter of the law
1:13:54
Speaker 1: and premeditation, but this was not manslaugh. I think we
1:14:00
Speaker 1: all know that. And yet I understand that the state
1:14:04
Speaker 1: of Florida passed a law that tied the hands of
1:14:06
Speaker 1: those prosecutors.
1:14:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think also I will say this, I
1:14:11
Speaker 4: think the prosecution, from what happened in the Trayvon Martin
1:14:14
Speaker 4: case and others, I think they went for the lowest
1:14:18
Speaker 4: hanging fruit as.
1:14:19
Speaker 1: Well, because I wanted a conviction.
1:14:21
Speaker 4: They wanted a conviction, and with Trayvon Martin, George the
1:14:24
Speaker 4: Merman walked in the charge's murder, so I think with
1:14:29
Speaker 4: manslaughter and Florida, manslaughter carries up to forty years, sorry,
1:14:32
Speaker 4: thirty years. Manslaughter carries thirty years. So I felt, I
1:14:36
Speaker 4: feel that they thought they could get a conviction with
1:14:39
Speaker 4: manslaughter and.
1:14:41
Speaker 2: That she would serve. She would still end up with a.
1:14:45
Speaker 1: Long sentence effectively life. Effectively, she was going to be
1:14:50
Speaker 1: incarcerated for.
1:14:51
Speaker 4: Right yeah, for a sixty years, right yeah, thirty.
1:14:55
Speaker 2: You know, as she ended up with twenty five.
1:14:57
Speaker 4: She had not committed any other violent crime before, so
1:15:00
Speaker 4: I think so, but the judge gave her.
1:15:02
Speaker 2: The maximum that he could and that was twenty five.
1:15:05
Speaker 2: So she will be if you know again, where she
1:15:09
Speaker 2: just served the entire sentence, she would be eighty five
1:15:11
Speaker 2: once she gets out.
1:15:12
Speaker 1: So so let's say Governor DeSantis watches this film. What
1:15:19
Speaker 1: do you hope he takes away.
1:15:21
Speaker 4: I hope he takes away the damage laws that Standard
1:15:24
Speaker 4: Ground do to communities. I hope he takes away the
1:15:28
Speaker 4: fact that we need gun control, that in Florida you
1:15:33
Speaker 4: can buy a gun like you can buy.
1:15:34
Speaker 2: A toaster or a microwave.
1:15:36
Speaker 4: And there's a point you see in the film where
1:15:38
Speaker 4: Susan is clearly behaving erratically, and there should have been
1:15:43
Speaker 4: a question around her buying a gun. I also hope
1:15:47
Speaker 4: it that folks take away DeSantis included how policing works
1:15:54
Speaker 4: and how they could have and should have caught Susan,
1:15:59
Speaker 4: you know, and seeing her as a threat earlier on
1:16:03
Speaker 4: instead of just treating her like a nuisance. But I
1:16:05
Speaker 4: think because they the police again were not equipped to
1:16:08
Speaker 4: handle it. But they also brought there, you know, they
1:16:10
Speaker 4: brought their own biases to the scene, and she was
1:16:12
Speaker 4: able to weaponize them.
1:16:14
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting with them, you know. It was interesting
1:16:16
Speaker 1: to hear how the officers saying, look, I'm going to
1:16:19
Speaker 1: believe you, and I'm going to believe them. I remember
1:16:22
Speaker 1: that was like it stuck out at me, and it's
1:16:25
Speaker 1: like it it was a reminder of why it's important
1:16:30
Speaker 1: for all of this to be on tape. Yes, all right,
1:16:33
Speaker 1: and I and again I go back. You and I
1:16:35
Speaker 1: both know that if this happens ten years ago, there's
1:16:38
Speaker 1: every chance in the world she's never charged.
1:16:40
Speaker 2: Oh and if there was no footage, I don't know
1:16:43
Speaker 2: that she would be charged.
1:16:44
Speaker 4: If you didn't see her erratic, you know, her behavior,
1:16:47
Speaker 4: calling the cops again and again and again, and if
1:16:49
Speaker 4: you didn't hear the community side of the story, right this, Yeah,
1:16:53
Speaker 4: she could have walked, And this is we honestly we
1:16:56
Speaker 4: didn't until the very end. We had that in our
1:16:59
Speaker 4: hearts that like we were we were like, she's probably
1:17:02
Speaker 4: going to get off, Like it's no way, it's not possible.
1:17:05
Speaker 1: This is the story of the twentieth century. In these incidents,
1:17:09
Speaker 1: they all walk, it felt like almost all the time. Yeah,
1:17:12
Speaker 1: you know, this is why you know, I sit here
1:17:15
Speaker 1: and it's like it's an imperfect body camera footage is
1:17:18
Speaker 1: imperfect on all those things, but it's better.
1:17:23
Speaker 4: And it's also incredibly relevant today when you think about
1:17:26
Speaker 4: what's happening in Minnesota, when we were living in a
1:17:29
Speaker 4: time where we have a government who will distort the
1:17:32
Speaker 4: truth at any given moment freely, has no no moral.
1:17:36
Speaker 2: Compass around doing that. You know, with the murders that
1:17:39
Speaker 2: have happened in Minnesota, where I says murdered a number
1:17:43
Speaker 2: of people is.
1:17:44
Speaker 1: Exact that we're debating whether or not they should have
1:17:47
Speaker 1: body cameras I know, and they're saying, well, we'll put
1:17:50
Speaker 1: them on, but we want to be able to could no, no, no, Yeah,
1:17:54
Speaker 1: we're putting that in your hands of deciding when those
1:17:56
Speaker 1: cameras go on and off, you.
1:17:58
Speaker 2: Need it at all.
1:17:58
Speaker 4: It should be on it all time because like I said,
1:18:01
Speaker 4: there there is clearly audacity, you know, of the powers
1:18:06
Speaker 4: that be. They like again, they feel they can distort
1:18:08
Speaker 4: the truth at any given moment to their advantage.
1:18:12
Speaker 2: And I think with and body camera is still only
1:18:14
Speaker 2: in eight states, it's only required in eight states that
1:18:17
Speaker 2: law enforcement wear it, And it could not be more
1:18:19
Speaker 2: critical right now. And it's it is a double edged
1:18:21
Speaker 2: sword for communities of color because it's it's also a
1:18:25
Speaker 2: tool of surveillance, you know.
1:18:27
Speaker 1: And no, look, I think about this a lot, you
1:18:31
Speaker 1: know when it comes to privacy, but you and iron
1:18:35
Speaker 1: I fear that people younger than us have like, don't
1:18:40
Speaker 1: don't view it as surveillance.
1:18:41
Speaker 4: It's surveillance, yeah, and it absolutely is. So it's a
1:18:44
Speaker 4: double edged sword, particularly for vulnerable, the most vulnerable. But
1:18:47
Speaker 4: I think right now, the particularly with the case of
1:18:51
Speaker 4: Ice and what is happening and with who we have
1:18:54
Speaker 4: in power, it is absolutely needed all law enforcement and
1:18:57
Speaker 4: government agents should be required to wear it.
1:19:00
Speaker 1: Opinion. A few sort of technical things about doing the film.
1:19:06
Speaker 1: Every once in a while you would have body camera
1:19:09
Speaker 1: audio and then it would just did you do sort
1:19:13
Speaker 1: of just sort of almost file footage of the neighborhood
1:19:19
Speaker 1: once or something? Yes, so we did.
1:19:22
Speaker 4: There was we did shoot bee role of the neighborhood.
1:19:24
Speaker 4: So some of the things we shot, we shot vigils,
1:19:27
Speaker 4: we shot protests, the funeral, and we shot bee role
1:19:31
Speaker 4: of the neighborhood. And some of that was for we
1:19:34
Speaker 4: shot originally as to give to media to share with
1:19:39
Speaker 4: news because we wanted use organizations to to to talk
1:19:43
Speaker 4: about what was happening.
1:19:44
Speaker 2: And then some of it.
1:19:45
Speaker 4: We shot afterwards just as part of the film so
1:19:49
Speaker 4: that we could again sort of create texture and.
1:19:54
Speaker 2: Also as people could see what the neighborhood looked like.
1:19:57
Speaker 1: What was the Was it a struggle to get everybody
1:20:00
Speaker 1: greed to allow their likeness to be used.
1:20:02
Speaker 4: No, What's so interesting is that that community was really
1:20:06
Speaker 4: like a family. We the body camera footage, we had
1:20:09
Speaker 4: to sort of work in reverse and try and find people.
1:20:12
Speaker 4: I did like look at them and get them identified
1:20:15
Speaker 4: and then find them at some of the people. It's
1:20:18
Speaker 4: interesting some people came to us redacted by the police,
1:20:21
Speaker 4: Like some of the footage the police had.
1:20:22
Speaker 1: Already we had already redacted. It interesting why would they.
1:20:26
Speaker 2: I think there was us to redact all of it.
1:20:29
Speaker 2: I see it didn't happen, so we so then, but
1:20:33
Speaker 2: if there were people that we could not find, particularly children,
1:20:36
Speaker 2: we would.
1:20:37
Speaker 1: Just redacted it. We redacted it. So that's so that
1:20:40
Speaker 1: any of the blurred faces were not people that said, no,
1:20:43
Speaker 1: you can't do this. It was more of the other way.
1:20:46
Speaker 2: It was more it was more people we couldn't find.
1:20:48
Speaker 4: But there were one or two people who were worried
1:20:50
Speaker 4: about it and we wanted to We were respectful of them,
1:20:52
Speaker 4: of course. I think though for the most part, the
1:20:54
Speaker 4: community stood behind what we were doing. Like they really
1:20:58
Speaker 4: loved each other and they we actually showed the film
1:21:02
Speaker 4: to them before it aired on Netflix, and it was
1:21:05
Speaker 4: very hard. They had a very visceral reaction to it,
1:21:08
Speaker 4: but they afterwards they they kind of talked through it
1:21:11
Speaker 4: and with each other and you know, had a lot
1:21:15
Speaker 4: of memories. I think it was I think ultimately they
1:21:17
Speaker 4: said it was therapeutic and that they wanted it out
1:21:20
Speaker 4: in the world because they understood what we were doing,
1:21:22
Speaker 4: and they said no other community should have to go
1:21:24
Speaker 4: through that. There is only one family left on that block.
1:21:28
Speaker 4: Everyone else has left.
1:21:30
Speaker 1: They left, They moved.
1:21:33
Speaker 2: How did you stay? And that's how So it's like
1:21:35
Speaker 2: the ripple effect.
1:21:36
Speaker 1: What's your kids?
1:21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ripple effect is enormous.
1:21:40
Speaker 4: And that so that beautiful communal again community where kids
1:21:43
Speaker 4: came from all the neighboring streets to play on that
1:21:47
Speaker 4: one block decimated.
1:21:49
Speaker 1: Because they had the empty grass field. Every neighborhood has
1:21:52
Speaker 1: that one and it yes, there said, but so you're
1:21:54
Speaker 1: not sure. I don't know who owned it.
1:21:56
Speaker 2: Actually it belonged to the neighbor. It belonged to Susan's
1:21:59
Speaker 2: neighbor who allowed them to.
1:22:00
Speaker 1: Play there, who had said yes.
1:22:04
Speaker 4: So it was often out there with them like it was.
1:22:08
Speaker 4: It was they had permission to be there.
1:22:10
Speaker 1: So, you know, I just think about you know, I
1:22:15
Speaker 1: I often believe that it was a It was helpful
1:22:21
Speaker 1: that I grew up in Miami. When I grew up
1:22:22
Speaker 1: in Miami. I grew up in Miami in the in
1:22:24
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, and we went through three race
1:22:28
Speaker 1: riots in the eighties, all of which might not have
1:22:34
Speaker 1: happened if there had been body camera footage. You know,
1:22:37
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about just that aspect, like, you know,
1:22:42
Speaker 1: we ripped. Now it's Miami a beautiful place today in
1:22:46
Speaker 1: some ways because of the pain we all had to
1:22:49
Speaker 1: go through in the eighties. I think there is there.
1:22:50
Speaker 1: You could make a case that in some ways it is.
1:22:53
Speaker 1: But I think about all this sort of last decade
1:22:57
Speaker 1: that we had and how many and the destruction of
1:23:00
Speaker 1: a coup of these communities, Liberty City in particular, and
1:23:04
Speaker 1: and how it could have been avoided. Yeah, you know,
1:23:07
Speaker 1: and so easily. Now, I mean, you know, I mean,
1:23:12
Speaker 1: so that's what makes your film both there was like
1:23:14
Speaker 1: a hopefulness to it, like look, this, this is this
1:23:18
Speaker 1: is why we need body camera footage. We get a
1:23:20
Speaker 1: fuller picture, you get the better story. You know who
1:23:23
Speaker 1: the guilty party is. There's no question who's the instigator.
1:23:28
Speaker 1: There's no question. This isn't it he said, He said,
1:23:31
Speaker 1: like Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman in that business, you know.
1:23:36
Speaker 1: But it hasn't. It doesn't eradicate racism.
1:23:39
Speaker 2: No, no, unfortunately it doesn't.
1:23:41
Speaker 4: But I think they the hope is is that it
1:23:45
Speaker 4: might the film for us in some ways, that it
1:23:48
Speaker 4: serves as a deterrence. And again, because of the outcome
1:23:52
Speaker 4: at the end of the trial, we're like, maybe people
1:23:54
Speaker 4: will think twice about, you know, trying to trying to
1:23:59
Speaker 4: pervert the law, which is already a problem in and
1:24:02
Speaker 4: of itself, but pervert stand your ground laws and use
1:24:05
Speaker 4: them claim self defense when you're actually committing a crime.
1:24:10
Speaker 2: And that is the.
1:24:11
Speaker 4: Hope and again, and the ultimate hope is to have
1:24:15
Speaker 4: this law eradicated state by state and particlarly because of
1:24:19
Speaker 4: the danger as.
1:24:20
Speaker 1: Opposes your career. You started working in scripted film with
1:24:27
Speaker 1: Spike Lee, and he is he had spent a lot
1:24:33
Speaker 1: of time doing scripted social justice messaging, right, you know,
1:24:38
Speaker 1: and what do you think is the more effective way
1:24:43
Speaker 1: to get a message across? When is a documentary better
1:24:45
Speaker 1: than better than scripted? And and is it you said
1:24:53
Speaker 1: something earlier that sort of hit me in this day
1:24:55
Speaker 1: and age when we're not sure what to believe. You know,
1:24:57
Speaker 1: in some ways the body camera footage is the most
1:25:00
Speaker 1: believable material you could come up with. That tells me
1:25:05
Speaker 1: that maybe the better way to to to to tell
1:25:09
Speaker 1: a story is with is with is with real footage
1:25:14
Speaker 1: rather than scripted you know, in manufactured book.
1:25:17
Speaker 4: I think they both I love both mediums and I
1:25:19
Speaker 4: think they both absolutely have their place.
1:25:22
Speaker 2: I think if you have.
1:25:23
Speaker 4: The material to make a really compelling documentary. Why not,
1:25:27
Speaker 4: particularly if you're telling a true story, because I think
1:25:31
Speaker 4: people connect connecting to the fact that this is someone's
1:25:34
Speaker 4: actual life. It impacts them differently, whereas if it's actors
1:25:38
Speaker 4: or people. You know. Again, I love scripted was where
1:25:42
Speaker 4: I started, and so and I love it so much.
1:25:45
Speaker 4: But if you have the means to tell the story
1:25:48
Speaker 4: for real, you know, then why not why not do that?
1:25:52
Speaker 2: You know? And I think.
1:25:54
Speaker 4: I think that truth is often stranger than fiction, you know,
1:25:57
Speaker 4: Like I the this film to me is a stuff
1:26:00
Speaker 4: have like you said, of a community of human behavior,
1:26:02
Speaker 4: of policaying, like it has so many layers and yeah,
1:26:06
Speaker 4: and it's real, right it is. It's this is stuff
1:26:09
Speaker 4: that actually unfolded. Uh So I think that makes it
1:26:12
Speaker 4: really powerful. But like like I said, I love both.
1:26:17
Speaker 4: I love both, and so I'm always happy to see,
1:26:20
Speaker 4: you know again, stories be told in multiple ways as.
1:26:24
Speaker 2: Creatively as possible.
1:26:25
Speaker 4: I think if it's really up to the vision of
1:26:28
Speaker 4: the team and the director to decide.
1:26:31
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny. I think you set a
1:26:32
Speaker 1: bar here that I wonder for yourself, is it is
1:26:37
Speaker 1: it going to be? If you want to do a
1:26:38
Speaker 1: documentary about another topic and you don't have enough footage?
1:26:41
Speaker 1: Are you going to say, oh, geez, you know, I
1:26:43
Speaker 1: don't know. If I don't, I don't want to go
1:26:44
Speaker 1: back to the talking head.
1:26:46
Speaker 2: I might need to tap out. I feel like, I.
1:26:51
Speaker 1: Mean, I mean in some ways, right, You're like, well,
1:26:53
Speaker 1: this is I mean, there's I don't it's not. Who
1:26:56
Speaker 1: knows how often you can just get that, yeah, to
1:27:00
Speaker 1: tell a story.
1:27:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it is a rare, tragic confluence of things
1:27:04
Speaker 2: that led to this film.
1:27:06
Speaker 4: But I you know, I kind of believe that, and
1:27:10
Speaker 4: this is interesting. I'm usually not a person who thinks
1:27:14
Speaker 4: like this, but I sort of feel like this film.
1:27:18
Speaker 4: There's a story about Ajica. Her mother always tells about
1:27:21
Speaker 4: how she was this.
1:27:22
Speaker 2: Ojika was a really vibrant, funny, bright person who had
1:27:26
Speaker 2: a lot of big dreams. She was young, you know,
1:27:28
Speaker 2: she was in her thirties, and she wanted better for
1:27:31
Speaker 2: herself and her family. And she used to talk to
1:27:33
Speaker 2: her and call her mom every day.
1:27:34
Speaker 4: They were very close and they'd talk about her plans.
1:27:37
Speaker 4: She wanted to be an entrepreneur. She was going to
1:27:39
Speaker 4: you know, be world famous, and her mother would laugh
1:27:42
Speaker 4: at her sometimes, like moms do you know, just like
1:27:45
Speaker 4: because of her ideas and you know, just whatever. And
1:27:49
Speaker 4: she would say to her mom and was one of
1:27:51
Speaker 4: the last things she said to her, and she would say, wait,
1:27:53
Speaker 4: you know you just.
1:27:54
Speaker 2: Wait, you laugh. But one day the whole world's going
1:27:56
Speaker 2: to know my name.
1:27:58
Speaker 4: So for us, we're left with that in her absence,
1:28:01
Speaker 4: and I kind of feel like she's a part of
1:28:05
Speaker 4: this somehow. She wanted the world to know her name,
1:28:09
Speaker 4: obviously never in this way, but that's become it's now
1:28:13
Speaker 4: on us to make that happen and to try to
1:28:16
Speaker 4: do more with her legacy and to make change in
1:28:19
Speaker 4: her name.
1:28:21
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think this film it has so much more.
1:28:26
Speaker 4: Every film is so important, but this film, in a way,
1:28:29
Speaker 4: there's a bit more weight on.
1:28:33
Speaker 2: On how what we do with it and the impact.
1:28:36
Speaker 1: How are her kids like it?
1:28:38
Speaker 2: It's I think it's up and down that for children.
1:28:42
Speaker 4: Children are both incredibly resilient but also fragile and are
1:28:46
Speaker 4: not I mean and this is this would devastate anyone.
1:28:49
Speaker 4: So I think they are. They are loved, They're deeply loved.
1:28:54
Speaker 4: The one incredible thing too, that we were able to do,
1:28:57
Speaker 4: which was part of my dream, was with this film.
1:29:01
Speaker 4: I had hoped that if we sold it then we
1:29:03
Speaker 4: could give the money to the family, because we had
1:29:05
Speaker 4: nothing to offer them. Otherwise, we didn't have any money,
1:29:08
Speaker 4: you know, we're just filmmakers. But the sale to Netflix
1:29:12
Speaker 4: that happened out of Sundown's allowed us to give the
1:29:15
Speaker 4: majority of the money to the grandmother and to the
1:29:18
Speaker 4: family so they could again these kids, children can have security,
1:29:22
Speaker 4: so they have that they are loved and taken care of.
1:29:25
Speaker 4: But there's struggle. There's emotional struggle, which will probably again,
1:29:30
Speaker 4: it's going to take many.
1:29:31
Speaker 2: Years to hear.
1:29:42
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever get over it.
1:29:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think. Yeah, I think that's right. That
1:29:47
Speaker 2: kind of loss and that kind of trauma, you.
1:29:50
Speaker 4: Build resources and you build strength to work around it.
1:29:55
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm haunted just talking about it
1:29:58
Speaker 1: at the moment by her son, at the moment she's
1:30:01
Speaker 1: shot and he's just gasping for air.
1:30:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:30:05
Speaker 4: No, it's it is to see children, and it's interesting
1:30:09
Speaker 4: that grief. We've had many conversations about it because that grief,
1:30:13
Speaker 4: watching the children learn that their mother is not coming
1:30:16
Speaker 4: home is the most challenging thing I think.
1:30:21
Speaker 1: And that was on body camera footage that moment with their.
1:30:23
Speaker 2: Father, just because the police were around them.
1:30:26
Speaker 1: Just you know, you're just sitting there and you're just
1:30:29
Speaker 1: that was a moment I forgot it was body camera
1:30:31
Speaker 1: footage and I'm like, wait a minute, isn't just so intimate, right?
1:30:35
Speaker 1: It was felt it almost and then and then it's like, wow,
1:30:39
Speaker 1: what was that police officer invading their space?
1:30:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was he invading themselves. But at the same time,
1:30:44
Speaker 4: the police are trying to comfort them. So she was like,
1:30:48
Speaker 4: it's weirdly human also like it's a moment of humanity
1:30:52
Speaker 4: that I think where the police officers were trying to
1:30:53
Speaker 4: hug them and we're trying to console them and didn't
1:30:56
Speaker 4: also didn't know what to do, you know, because it
1:30:58
Speaker 4: was such a so heartbreak. I think though, the it's
1:31:02
Speaker 4: interesting that footage because I think we are so numb
1:31:05
Speaker 4: to gun violence. Audiences react more to the grief than
1:31:10
Speaker 4: anything else. And we talked about it with Ajika's mother.
1:31:14
Speaker 4: I was like, do you want this in Like should
1:31:16
Speaker 4: we remove this?
1:31:17
Speaker 2: This is the worst day of these children's lives and
1:31:20
Speaker 2: here it is like do we want this out in
1:31:22
Speaker 2: the world. And she said to me, no, you leave that.
1:31:24
Speaker 1: In She was like, you leave that like Attil's mother.
1:31:27
Speaker 4: Yes, she was like, the world needs if they had
1:31:31
Speaker 4: to go through that, if my grandchildren had to live
1:31:34
Speaker 4: through that, the world can bear witness. You know, it's
1:31:37
Speaker 4: a society failing them. They need the world needs to know.
1:31:41
Speaker 4: And I was like, okay, whatever, you know, that's obviously
1:31:45
Speaker 4: it's her call.
1:31:48
Speaker 1: What do you want the average police officer to learn
1:31:50
Speaker 1: from this?
1:31:51
Speaker 4: I think that I would love this to be used
1:31:53
Speaker 4: as a tool for police training, and I think I
1:31:56
Speaker 4: do think there's multiple things at play here. I think
1:31:58
Speaker 4: a lot of police departments are not trained or equipped for.
1:32:03
Speaker 2: These kinds of issues. They're civil, they see them as civil.
1:32:07
Speaker 1: And it was funny to even hear that once during
1:32:11
Speaker 1: the thing, well that's criminal, where Susan's trying so hard
1:32:15
Speaker 1: to like get that, Yeah about criminal, I'm here for that.
1:32:19
Speaker 4: You know what's interesting, though, is we did have a
1:32:21
Speaker 4: police officer, a former law enforcement officer, approached us after
1:32:25
Speaker 4: a screening. He approached my producer and Elisa Payne and
1:32:29
Speaker 4: talked to her and she was nervous because you know,
1:32:32
Speaker 4: he came up and said, I I'm a I used
1:32:34
Speaker 4: to be in.
1:32:34
Speaker 1: Law enforce, and she was like, Okay, here we go.
1:32:36
Speaker 2: I'm about to get a lecture. But he was like,
1:32:39
Speaker 2: you know what after the third time Susan called here
1:32:42
Speaker 2: in this state and this was in Utah, he said,
1:32:45
Speaker 2: in this state, she would have been flagged as a
1:32:46
Speaker 2: problem and she.
1:32:47
Speaker 1: Would have been interesting.
1:32:49
Speaker 4: He would have been ticketed. She would have been given
1:32:51
Speaker 4: a warning for abusing emergency services, for essentially calling for
1:32:57
Speaker 4: things that were founded.
1:32:59
Speaker 2: And she was like, in the.
1:33:00
Speaker 4: The community would have been told they could file restraining
1:33:02
Speaker 4: order or charges against her for harassment.
1:33:06
Speaker 2: And that is that.
1:33:07
Speaker 1: How many states have laws like that? I didn't you know, I.
1:33:10
Speaker 2: Don't know, but it's true.
1:33:11
Speaker 4: I do think and we have I think I understand
1:33:13
Speaker 4: that in states, if you constantly call the police and
1:33:16
Speaker 4: it's unfounded, you can be you know, you become Well.
1:33:19
Speaker 1: We've had we I had to pay a fine because
1:33:22
Speaker 1: our alarm went off and our fire alarm went off
1:33:25
Speaker 1: and the fire department came. And I thought, well that
1:33:28
Speaker 1: in some ways that is reasonable. I just you know,
1:33:30
Speaker 1: that should be fined, and like I understood it. I
1:33:32
Speaker 1: was like, oh Jesus, I you know, I hate this
1:33:36
Speaker 1: thing anyway, you know, but I know we have some
1:33:38
Speaker 1: form of that here in Arlington.
1:33:40
Speaker 2: There's no real emergency.
1:33:41
Speaker 1: Right, there was not a fair point, and I.
1:33:44
Speaker 4: Think she so they said that, And then I also
1:33:46
Speaker 4: believe that really there there should be alternative services to police,
1:33:52
Speaker 4: which are for again, community disputes, mediation, mental health crises,
1:33:58
Speaker 4: that type of thing.
1:33:59
Speaker 1: I think that's we don't have enough law enforcement officers
1:34:02
Speaker 1: and then they would have to hire I mean that's like, right,
1:34:05
Speaker 1: we are so well, we're underfunded in things that we
1:34:09
Speaker 1: don't prioritize.
1:34:10
Speaker 2: That's exactly well, I don't know that we because some
1:34:13
Speaker 2: police departments are very well funded, but the funding goes to,
1:34:18
Speaker 2: you know, only specific things.
1:34:20
Speaker 4: Some of that funding could go to again services that
1:34:24
Speaker 4: where you send out a social worker, a psychiatrist, you know,
1:34:29
Speaker 4: like and a team of nurses.
1:34:31
Speaker 2: Like this is the kind of thing now here.
1:34:33
Speaker 4: In New York we're talking about for people who are
1:34:35
Speaker 4: having or who are either unhoused or maybe having a
1:34:38
Speaker 4: mental health crisis, because otherwise they end up dead. If
1:34:41
Speaker 4: you call the cops, people get shot, you know, So
1:34:43
Speaker 4: there should be something else in place.
1:34:45
Speaker 2: And I feel like if the police are meant to
1:34:48
Speaker 2: deal with criminal stuff, first of all, you see, they
1:34:51
Speaker 2: don't prevent anything, because Ajka ended up dead regardless, right,
1:34:55
Speaker 2: even though they came home.
1:34:56
Speaker 1: True it didn't work. They were responsive. You can't say
1:34:59
Speaker 1: they weren't responsive. So in that sense, good they were.
1:35:02
Speaker 2: They didn't prevent anything.
1:35:03
Speaker 1: They tried to de escalate in the moment. Oh yeah,
1:35:06
Speaker 1: but they didn't have it didn't prevent it.
1:35:09
Speaker 2: Didn't They didn't have a solution.
1:35:10
Speaker 1: And also Susan, but I get the sense they almost
1:35:13
Speaker 1: felt like they couldn't impose a solution. They didn't. It
1:35:16
Speaker 1: wasn't they didn't know what to do. I did get
1:35:18
Speaker 1: the sense they didn't know what to do.
1:35:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, then they are not they are not trained.
1:35:22
Speaker 1: Actually, I think we got we got a hint. And
1:35:25
Speaker 1: I'm curious. So there was a moment where one that's sorry,
1:35:30
Speaker 1: where one of the officers they leave. You know, this
1:35:34
Speaker 1: is probably the third time that they second or third visit.
1:35:38
Speaker 1: This is sort of early in the film, and the
1:35:43
Speaker 1: officer refers to her as an fing b.
1:35:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of them says that, another one calls her a.
1:35:50
Speaker 1: Psycho, and then the audio abruptly cuts. I was curious,
1:35:55
Speaker 1: was that your editor there edit that's shut off, was
1:36:00
Speaker 1: like realized she was She was probably saying something despair.
1:36:04
Speaker 1: It was like, God, she's a and then she like, so,
1:36:07
Speaker 1: I'm guessing they're like, well, if you're gonna dispara, you know,
1:36:10
Speaker 1: be careful getting caught on camera disparaging people or something.
1:36:13
Speaker 1: She then that means that's the police officer realizing I
1:36:16
Speaker 1: better shut this off before I get myself. That's right,
1:36:19
Speaker 1: that's right. So there's a sense where the officers know
1:36:22
Speaker 1: who the party that's in the wrong here. They didn't
1:36:26
Speaker 1: know it. They don't have any Is it the law
1:36:30
Speaker 1: that's missing? Is it or is it their training? I mean,
1:36:34
Speaker 1: I don't what what do you think is the issue here?
1:36:38
Speaker 2: I think they never saw her as a threat. I
1:36:40
Speaker 2: think she was able to weaponize her as a nuisance, yeah,
1:36:44
Speaker 2: but not a threat. And she was able to weaponize
1:36:46
Speaker 2: her race and privilege to make that true. Had she
1:36:49
Speaker 2: been a person of color filming children and using hate
1:36:52
Speaker 2: speech against them and saying threatening things, I don't think
1:36:56
Speaker 2: this would have gone the way it did, or that
1:36:59
Speaker 2: she would have, you know.
1:36:59
Speaker 1: Not been she might have been an intervention.
1:37:02
Speaker 2: It's more than a nuisance.
1:37:04
Speaker 4: And they also the police also didn't see the community
1:37:06
Speaker 4: is needing protection from her, you know. So I think
1:37:08
Speaker 4: This is unfortunately that they aside from lack of training,
1:37:12
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera, and again they are our bar
1:37:16
Speaker 4: for the police. My husband says, this is so low
1:37:19
Speaker 4: that we often mistake they're polite. We missed stake their
1:37:22
Speaker 4: politeness for competence. You know, they didn't see her as
1:37:25
Speaker 4: a threat.
1:37:26
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, in Florida, you could not go there like like
1:37:29
Speaker 2: a toaster or microwave, so that could make anybody a threat.
1:37:33
Speaker 2: And even after she behaved radically driving her car into
1:37:37
Speaker 2: a fence, there was a scene where we saw that
1:37:39
Speaker 2: they didn't think about it.
1:37:41
Speaker 1: You know, she never got connected.
1:37:44
Speaker 2: M like, hey, systemic issue.
1:37:48
Speaker 1: She's a she's uniquely broken. I go back to broken.
1:37:54
Speaker 1: I always like to use broken because I assume everybody
1:37:56
Speaker 1: has the potential. Yeah, and you know so you usually
1:38:00
Speaker 1: try to go with broken. But she was something happened right,
1:38:04
Speaker 1: she was not she was She did not process the
1:38:07
Speaker 1: way most people process.
1:38:08
Speaker 4: But she was left over here to fester, right by
1:38:12
Speaker 4: them then saying, oh.
1:38:13
Speaker 1: My guess is she alienated everybody in her own life?
1:38:16
Speaker 4: Huh?
1:38:16
Speaker 1: I mean it was not, and I don't to me,
1:38:20
Speaker 1: the footage doesn't lie. You didn't paint her as a loaner.
1:38:24
Speaker 1: But we never saw her with anybody, and that doesn't
1:38:27
Speaker 1: surprise me.
1:38:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, we knew know she attended a church, so there
1:38:32
Speaker 4: was you know, she was there was a community like.
1:38:34
Speaker 1: She was clearly always miserable. I mean, if if kids
1:38:39
Speaker 1: playing drives you crazy, you've got your own issues.
1:38:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:38:43
Speaker 4: But I think the thing that's really important to say
1:38:45
Speaker 4: here is too the system also failed her. The system
1:38:49
Speaker 4: failed Ajica and her family and that viewpoint.
1:38:53
Speaker 2: But it failed her. She should have never had access
1:38:55
Speaker 2: to again. She should have never you know, if there
1:38:57
Speaker 2: had been an intervention, she would not be in jail
1:39:00
Speaker 2: for ostensibly the rest of her life.
1:39:03
Speaker 1: I mean, one law Florida did pass. Was there a
1:39:06
Speaker 1: red flag law after the Parkland shooting that has been
1:39:11
Speaker 1: quite effective in Florida. What happened, and she would have
1:39:14
Speaker 1: been a prime candidate, uh, perhaps for it. Yeah, they knew,
1:39:19
Speaker 1: you know, and that is a question. Did they know
1:39:22
Speaker 1: she was a firearm owner? Because they could have found
1:39:24
Speaker 1: out that they chose.
1:39:25
Speaker 2: To, they could have fell out, but they just did not.
1:39:28
Speaker 1: They never chose to.
1:39:29
Speaker 4: But she also saw her play victim, right, She weaponized
1:39:32
Speaker 4: victimhood the minute she thought she was in trouble, suddenly.
1:39:35
Speaker 1: Welcome to our welcome to our politics and social media everybody.
1:39:39
Speaker 4: Also, yes, weaponizing victimhood and I think but that has
1:39:43
Speaker 4: been a strategy, I have to say, all like, it's
1:39:46
Speaker 4: part of white grievance, right, It's like and also white
1:39:49
Speaker 4: women and their and fear when you look at Emma
1:39:52
Speaker 4: Till's case, right, has led white women and as we
1:39:55
Speaker 4: you know, it's now termed Karen is a Karen.
1:39:58
Speaker 1: I saw that the kids were you Karen, Karen.
1:40:01
Speaker 2: But it's been the weaponization of racism right since.
1:40:04
Speaker 1: The time neighbor named Karen. She hates it. I feel
1:40:07
Speaker 1: bad for her that her name's now a pejorative.
1:40:10
Speaker 2: Helpless people have been lynched because of a white woman said, oh,
1:40:14
Speaker 2: I'm afraid. I don't feel safe. They you know, they
1:40:17
Speaker 2: whistled at me or he said he talked to me,
1:40:20
Speaker 2: you know.
1:40:20
Speaker 4: I mean that's how I until died. So we think
1:40:23
Speaker 4: about this and and Susan was doing that. She was
1:40:26
Speaker 4: doing that, and it's like a modern version of that.
1:40:31
Speaker 1: So so what's next for you? Projects? I mean, I
1:40:37
Speaker 1: know most documentaries have like eight projects that they and
1:40:40
Speaker 1: they're waiting for see which one is going Okay, this
1:40:43
Speaker 1: one's ripe, right, it's.
1:40:46
Speaker 4: Last year, I should say my Message Pictures which is
1:40:49
Speaker 4: Sam Pollard, Alisa Payne and myself and the con Kwon
1:40:52
Speaker 4: two is a longtime collaborator. We had Katrina come Helen
1:40:55
Speaker 4: high Water come out on that in October. It was
1:40:58
Speaker 4: a very successful series was number one for them for
1:41:01
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks or for at least a week,
1:41:03
Speaker 4: but it did really well for them. And then we
1:41:06
Speaker 4: also had a short come out, The Devil Is Busy,
1:41:09
Speaker 4: which I co directed with Crystal and Hampton, my best
1:41:12
Speaker 4: friend from college, and that is also nominated for an Oscar.
1:41:15
Speaker 4: So I have two films that are nominated, which is
1:41:18
Speaker 4: apparently the first time it's ever happened for a woman,
1:41:21
Speaker 4: two films all right directed, So that is a huge
1:41:25
Speaker 4: you know again for me in honor, also a little
1:41:27
Speaker 4: disappointed that I am the first.
1:41:28
Speaker 2: It should have happened already, but whatever, I'll take it.
1:41:32
Speaker 1: So its yeah.
1:41:34
Speaker 2: And then we have the perfect So so now we are.
1:41:37
Speaker 2: So we're starting up.
1:41:38
Speaker 4: There is another documentary which we'll be announced in a
1:41:41
Speaker 4: couple of weeks that we're about to we're beginning on
1:41:45
Speaker 4: that we're excited about and then we're also diving back
1:41:49
Speaker 4: into scripted. We have some because I come from scripted,
1:41:51
Speaker 4: Alisa comes subscripted, Sam does scripted, so where ni Con
1:41:55
Speaker 4: was an animation producer, so we have we want to
1:41:58
Speaker 4: sort of branch out into back into other forms that
1:42:01
Speaker 4: we've always been part of.
1:42:02
Speaker 1: Well. One of the things that I've since leaving sort
1:42:06
Speaker 1: of the legacy media world is realizing that there are
1:42:11
Speaker 1: just a million ways to teach people. Yes, right, and
1:42:14
Speaker 1: you know, film, especially with this younger generation that is
1:42:18
Speaker 1: much more visual than they are text. And there's I
1:42:21
Speaker 1: say that I'm not judging, you know, we all learn differently,
1:42:26
Speaker 1: we all absorb differently, and the visual medium as a story,
1:42:30
Speaker 1: you know, and telling stories in some way the best storytellers.
1:42:34
Speaker 1: We need now more than ever in order to educate
1:42:39
Speaker 1: the country about our history, educate people about our history.
1:42:42
Speaker 1: So in that vein, I mean where you know this
1:42:45
Speaker 1: to me is is it's an education film as much
1:42:48
Speaker 1: as it's you know it's there to it's there to
1:42:52
Speaker 1: visually show you something that you can read about. This
1:42:57
Speaker 1: is not a new story, but this was told in
1:43:00
Speaker 1: a more powerful, in a different way, in a way
1:43:02
Speaker 1: that is hopefully going to get absorbed by people who
1:43:04
Speaker 1: may not read. You know, a story I just had
1:43:08
Speaker 1: an author on not too long ago, the person who
1:43:10
Speaker 1: wrote about and the Barn that Emmettil was killed in,
1:43:13
Speaker 1: right Thompson. And it's a terrific book. But in some
1:43:18
Speaker 1: ways not everybody reads books.
1:43:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so it's like, how do we reach people?
1:43:22
Speaker 1: You know?
1:43:23
Speaker 2: Ryan Coogler told a really beautiful story we were We
1:43:26
Speaker 2: have Sinners has been on the you know, we've sort
1:43:28
Speaker 2: of been on the road together and the team.
1:43:31
Speaker 1: You've been seeing you've been doing the circuit with. Yes,
1:43:35
Speaker 1: Sinners is another that's awful, which is such a way
1:43:38
Speaker 1: to do horror.
1:43:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's such a like again, such a thrill for us.
1:43:42
Speaker 4: But he talked about how in the neighborhood he grew
1:43:45
Speaker 4: up in, like, there were elders who actually, because of
1:43:50
Speaker 4: lack of schooling or they had to leave school at
1:43:52
Speaker 4: an early age, you couldn't read. Like they could run
1:43:55
Speaker 4: a business, they could navigate street signs, they could understand,
1:43:58
Speaker 4: they couldn't actually read and comprehend a book.
1:44:02
Speaker 2: That they had.
1:44:03
Speaker 1: Movies.
1:44:04
Speaker 2: Movies were their medium, you know, a medium for them
1:44:08
Speaker 2: to like gain information and think about the world and
1:44:12
Speaker 2: interact with it because they didn't have the privilege of
1:44:15
Speaker 2: learning how to read. And I thought that was so
1:44:18
Speaker 2: powerful and that I have.
1:44:19
Speaker 4: There's some relation to that for me with like the
1:44:22
Speaker 4: women in my family who you know, again elder women
1:44:25
Speaker 4: not my mother's generation, but further back, who might have
1:44:28
Speaker 4: been taken out of school at like a young age.
1:44:30
Speaker 1: They're supposed to you know, at the keep house or something.
1:44:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so for them even movies were like an
1:44:37
Speaker 2: escape and something, you know, a medium that they could
1:44:40
Speaker 2: really be immersed in.
1:44:42
Speaker 1: So is there a topic you haven't done that you
1:44:44
Speaker 1: want to tackle.
1:44:47
Speaker 2: I would like to do a comedy. I would like
1:44:49
Speaker 2: to do something I think I've in need. I would
1:44:53
Speaker 2: like to do a humorous movie. That's my That's one
1:44:57
Speaker 2: of the.
1:44:57
Speaker 1: Dreams, just that of funny.
1:45:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the humor is so critical. Humor is a
1:45:03
Speaker 2: revolutionary So I feel like that is something.
1:45:06
Speaker 1: That I would like. It's also another way to teach.
1:45:08
Speaker 2: Yes, it is, and it's been used in so many ways.
1:45:11
Speaker 2: I think about Whoopy Goldberg talks about moms Mabley, who
1:45:16
Speaker 2: was her icon, who used that platform of comedy to
1:45:20
Speaker 2: talk about deeply political things she would never have been
1:45:23
Speaker 2: able to talk about otherwise.
1:45:24
Speaker 1: So what me I to get a creator? And I'm
1:45:29
Speaker 1: very curious how do you use AI and what are
1:45:34
Speaker 1: you comfortable with and what are you going to fight
1:45:37
Speaker 1: to the death on when it.
1:45:39
Speaker 2: Comes to the side, we don't use that. I don't
1:45:44
Speaker 2: use that as in my filmmaking, So that does not.
1:45:49
Speaker 1: Are you convinced you'll never use it?
1:45:51
Speaker 4: I I am right now convinced I'll never use it.
1:45:56
Speaker 2: But I can't predict the future, right.
1:45:58
Speaker 1: No, I mean I don't think any of us know
1:45:59
Speaker 1: how they Yeah, I do tools get changed on us
1:46:03
Speaker 1: and you're.
1:46:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, and also too, does it just become so
1:46:06
Speaker 4: ubiquitous that we have no choice?
1:46:08
Speaker 2: I'm worried about that. I would like to say I
1:46:10
Speaker 2: will never use it.
1:46:12
Speaker 4: I and that is my stance, But there comes a
1:46:16
Speaker 4: point where you end up shut out, right, like if you,
1:46:20
Speaker 4: for example, like I know I will not have a
1:46:22
Speaker 4: cell phone, but then if you don't like it, actually
1:46:26
Speaker 4: you have.
1:46:26
Speaker 1: You just to navigate the word like now you can't.
1:46:29
Speaker 4: Not have one, you cannot have one, and my children too,
1:46:32
Speaker 4: Like it's interesting.
1:46:33
Speaker 1: Even in speaking of surveillance, I always say this, imagine
1:46:35
Speaker 1: if the government. Imagine if the government had said we're
1:46:38
Speaker 1: you have to carry a phone with you all the time.
1:46:40
Speaker 1: What do you mean we have to carry a phone
1:46:42
Speaker 1: with us? Right, yeah, yeah, we all did it voluntarily.
1:46:46
Speaker 1: It's but I think, but.
1:46:49
Speaker 4: I think so that's the thing, like I right now, no,
1:46:53
Speaker 4: but twenty years from now.
1:46:56
Speaker 1: I mean you talked about you have a friend who's
1:46:57
Speaker 1: doing an animation. I mean that that that scares me
1:47:01
Speaker 1: at how that will be the first I fear that's
1:47:04
Speaker 1: the first thing that falls.
1:47:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the first to.
1:47:07
Speaker 1: Go because it's so expensive and labor intensive.
1:47:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
1:47:11
Speaker 4: You know, but I think we'll have to see it's
1:47:14
Speaker 4: up to our community, right, like we really have to make.
1:47:16
Speaker 1: Decisions well, and it's also up to the public hopefully.
1:47:20
Speaker 1: The stuff that's made with AI is you know, it's
1:47:23
Speaker 1: like you don't want to eat plastic fruit, no, you no?
1:47:28
Speaker 1: And I think we've all learned, oh gross, it looks good,
1:47:31
Speaker 1: but probably.
1:47:32
Speaker 4: Right we continue to see the value in what we
1:47:35
Speaker 4: do and don't want to replace.
1:47:37
Speaker 1: Us with well, and it goes like I said, it
1:47:40
Speaker 1: goes back to to take this back to the beginning
1:47:42
Speaker 1: as we land this plane that you know, I believe
1:47:46
Speaker 1: there's a premium on real life in person live authenticity,
1:47:53
Speaker 1: no editors, no anything, and in some case your body
1:47:56
Speaker 1: camera footage is all of that wrapped up. It is,
1:47:59
Speaker 1: you know, the the pushback against you know, manufactured content.
1:48:03
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for saying that. That means a lot.
1:48:06
Speaker 1: Well, look, good luck and uh, I know who I'm
1:48:11
Speaker 1: rooting for night.
1:48:13
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
1:48:15
Speaker 1: All right, it's great to get to know. Well, let's
1:48:27
Speaker 1: get into the time machine because guess what, let's just
1:48:31
Speaker 1: say thematically, it sort of fits with the UH with
1:48:34
Speaker 1: the broader theme of the beginning of this podcast having
1:48:37
Speaker 1: to do with emergencies and how those in power can
1:48:41
Speaker 1: abuse UH legislation that gives them emergency power. So let's
1:48:50
Speaker 1: get into the time machine. Where are we going? We
1:49:00
Speaker 1: were going back to February twenty seventh, nineteen thirty three,
1:49:04
Speaker 1: the German parliament building known as the Reichstag burned. The
1:49:08
Speaker 1: fire matters, but the story isn't the flames. The real
1:49:11
Speaker 1: story is how fragile Germany's political system already was, how
1:49:15
Speaker 1: quickly legal authority became a vehicle for authoritarian power. And
1:49:20
Speaker 1: to understand the night of the Reichstag fire, you have
1:49:23
Speaker 1: to understand why Adolf Hitler was even in office in
1:49:26
Speaker 1: the first place, because he didn't seize power, he was
1:49:31
Speaker 1: handed power. That's how this authoritarian regime in Germany began.
1:49:38
Speaker 1: By the early nineteen thirties, Germany was exhausted. The Great
1:49:42
Speaker 1: Depression had devastated the economy. Remember America was pursuing that
1:49:46
Speaker 1: horrible protectionist tariff policy that was essentially causing the rise
1:49:51
Speaker 1: of nationalism all around the world. That's my historical opinion.
1:49:58
Speaker 1: But it had devastating impact than the European economy, particularly
1:50:01
Speaker 1: the Germans. Unemployment sword banks collapsed. Faith in the parliamentary
1:50:05
Speaker 1: democracy in Germany erode it. The president, Paul von Hindenberg,
1:50:10
Speaker 1: had already appointed three chancellors in rapid succession before he
1:50:16
Speaker 1: ends up appointing Adolf Hitler. First, it was Heinrich Bruening.
1:50:19
Speaker 1: He governed through the harsh austerity measures during the depression.
1:50:23
Speaker 1: He was the one that had to cut spending and
1:50:24
Speaker 1: wages in hopes of trying to stabilize the currency. Instead,
1:50:28
Speaker 1: it deepened public misery and he lost support inside that parliament.
1:50:33
Speaker 1: Then came Franz von Poppen, who had virtually no base
1:50:37
Speaker 1: inside parliament and ruled almost entirely by presidential emergency decree.
1:50:42
Speaker 1: He alienated both the left and the right and could
1:50:45
Speaker 1: not build a governing coalition. And then the last one
1:50:48
Speaker 1: before Hitler was a gentleman by the name of Kurt
1:50:50
Speaker 1: von Schlatscher who tried to split the Nazi Party and
1:50:54
Speaker 1: construct a cross party alliance. It failed and he quickly
1:50:59
Speaker 1: lost Hindenburg's So in under three years, Germany cycled through
1:51:05
Speaker 1: three increasingly unstable governments. And during that entire period they
1:51:11
Speaker 1: had something called Article forty eight, the emergency clause of
1:51:14
Speaker 1: the Weimar Constitution, which was used regularly to bypass parliament
1:51:19
Speaker 1: because parliament was so dysfunctional and divided, so emergency rule
1:51:24
Speaker 1: had already been normalized in German society's some From there,
1:51:30
Speaker 1: Hitler didn't invent the habit. He stippingly stepped into the void.
1:51:35
Speaker 1: So how did Hitler get there? In nineteen thirty two,
1:51:40
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party had surged to become the largest party
1:51:42
Speaker 1: in parliament. It was real popular support, but he did
1:51:46
Speaker 1: not The Nazi Party did not have a majority in parliament,
1:51:49
Speaker 1: but in the November nineteen thirty two elections, the Nazis
1:51:52
Speaker 1: actually lost seats. Momentum was slipping. Hitler was not inevitable.
1:51:58
Speaker 1: But what changed was the calculation of the elites. Again,
1:52:06
Speaker 1: just think about the Republican Party circa twenty sixteen. But
1:52:10
Speaker 1: I digress. So what changed was elite calculation. Conservative insiders,
1:52:16
Speaker 1: especially Franz von Poppin, believe they could use Hitler's popularity
1:52:20
Speaker 1: to stabilize government. They assumed that they would dominate the Captain,
1:52:25
Speaker 1: that they could box Hitler in, that his radicalism could
1:52:29
Speaker 1: be managed, that his mass following could be harnessed. Well,
1:52:36
Speaker 1: they were wrong, but they tried so. On January thirtieth,
1:52:40
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, Hindenberg appointed Hitler Chancellor. Not because he
1:52:44
Speaker 1: was democratic, not because he had a majority in parliament
1:52:47
Speaker 1: he did not, but because the elites at the time thought, well,
1:52:52
Speaker 1: he's got the biggest block of supporters and we can
1:52:54
Speaker 1: control him. Or so they thought, so he gets appointed
1:52:59
Speaker 1: January thirtieth, twenty seven. Twenty eight days later, excuse me,
1:53:05
Speaker 1: February twenty seventh, the Reichstock burns now a Dutch communists
1:53:09
Speaker 1: Marinis vander Lub was arrested at the scene. Most historians
1:53:12
Speaker 1: today believe he likely acted alone. Whether the Nazis helped
1:53:17
Speaker 1: or simply exploited the fire is still debated to this day.
1:53:21
Speaker 1: Right was it an inside job? Was you know? Was
1:53:27
Speaker 1: vander Lubi a patsy? But politically it didn't matter. Hitler
1:53:33
Speaker 1: immediately framed the event as the beginning of a communist uprising,
1:53:38
Speaker 1: and that framing found fertile ground. Enemy of my enemy
1:53:41
Speaker 1: is my ally, and everybody feared the communists in Germany.
1:53:46
Speaker 1: Germany had a growing Communist block inside the Reichstock Street.
1:53:52
Speaker 1: Clashes between Nazis and Communists were common. Political violence was
1:53:57
Speaker 1: happening a lot. The violence was real and fear moved quickly.
1:54:01
Speaker 1: So the next day after the fire, February twenty eighth,
1:54:04
Speaker 1: Hindenberg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree under Article forty eight.
1:54:10
Speaker 1: That decree suspended, essentially what is the equivalent of our
1:54:15
Speaker 1: first Amendment. It suspended freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
1:54:18
Speaker 1: freedom of assembly, protections against arrest without charge. This was
1:54:23
Speaker 1: constitutional authority, legal authority. Their constitution essentially created a dictatorship. Legally.
1:54:36
Speaker 1: Thousands of communists were arrested immediately, their ability to organize
1:54:39
Speaker 1: a campaign was crippled. And then here's the here's the
1:54:43
Speaker 1: key with it. A week later, they're holding elections. Anyway,
1:54:45
Speaker 1: they were having another round of elections in March. So
1:54:48
Speaker 1: on March fifth, nineteen thirty three Germany votes, the Nazi
1:54:52
Speaker 1: Party receives forty three point nine percent of the vote
1:54:55
Speaker 1: two hundred and eighty eight seats, not a majority. Even
1:54:58
Speaker 1: after the fire, even after the repression, the Nazis did
1:55:02
Speaker 1: not command a majority of German voters. But here's where
1:55:06
Speaker 1: the mechanics mattered. The Communist Party won about twelve percent
1:55:11
Speaker 1: in that election, but many of its deputies were prevented
1:55:14
Speaker 1: from taking their seats. They wouldn't let the Communists in there.
1:55:18
Speaker 1: So it you take away the Communists, suddenly that looks
1:55:23
Speaker 1: like they do have a majority. So when you combined
1:55:27
Speaker 1: with conservative allies, the Nazis had the numbers to move forward.
1:55:31
Speaker 1: Later in March, they passed something called the Enabling Act,
1:55:34
Speaker 1: in a granted Hitler's cabinet authority to legislate without parliamentary approval.
1:55:43
Speaker 1: Just they just he would decree. There was no more
1:55:46
Speaker 1: legislative bridge in Germany at this point. By the way,
1:55:51
Speaker 1: to get this pasted, it required two thirds majority. The
1:55:55
Speaker 1: legislature basically voted to eradicate its existence. And why did
1:56:01
Speaker 1: it pass because the Communist Party members weren't allowed to vote,
1:56:04
Speaker 1: they were absent. Some opposition members were simply intimidated by
1:56:08
Speaker 1: the Nazi thugs. Conservative parties calculated that cooperation was safer
1:56:13
Speaker 1: than resistance. Again go back to nine twenty sixteen. Sorry,
1:56:20
Speaker 1: the authoritarian turned required votes, it required signatures, it required
1:56:26
Speaker 1: a legal procedure. The German dictatorship was done via constitutional rules.
1:56:36
Speaker 1: Why did it work well? By February nineteen thirty three,
1:56:38
Speaker 1: emergency governance had already been normalized. Parliament had already been
1:56:42
Speaker 1: weakened in Germany. The economic crisis had eroded faith in
1:56:46
Speaker 1: liberal democracy in general. What they looked around and wasn't working.
1:56:51
Speaker 1: People didn't like people didn't like that economy. Elites believed
1:56:55
Speaker 1: the temporary authoritarian measures would restore order. So the Reichstag
1:57:01
Speaker 1: fire did not create authoritarianism, but it accelerated a system
1:57:04
Speaker 1: that was already leaning in that direction. And that's what's
1:57:09
Speaker 1: so always been so unsettling about this incident and history,
1:57:13
Speaker 1: because the incident is not the fire or the arson.
1:57:17
Speaker 1: The most unsettling part of this story is its legality.
1:57:22
Speaker 1: German democracy didn't collapse because laws were ignored, just the opposite.
1:57:26
Speaker 1: It collapsed because the laws were used expansively, but they
1:57:30
Speaker 1: were used, and they were used under crisis conditions. Our
1:57:34
Speaker 1: emergency powers are not inherently authoritarian. It's who uses those
1:57:39
Speaker 1: emergency powers. But when crisis becomes the organizing principle of
1:57:44
Speaker 1: governance and legislatures differ rather than assert authority, emergency becomes permanence.
1:57:53
Speaker 1: Hitler did not overthrow the system in one night. He
1:57:56
Speaker 1: operated within it, stretched it until it snapped, and then
1:58:02
Speaker 1: created his own scary version. The reichs Dog didn't fall
1:58:08
Speaker 1: in flames, It fell with signatures. Boy, such a reminder.
1:58:15
Speaker 1: History doesn't repeat, but it certainly does. Right, all right,
1:58:29
Speaker 1: little question time. By the way, I might as well
1:58:31
Speaker 1: share this with you so that don't name anything Hindenburg,
1:58:35
Speaker 1: because Hindenburg is a politician and Hindenburg is a blimp
1:58:37
Speaker 1: all end in catastrophe. That's the real takeaway. That's my
1:58:41
Speaker 1: other takeaway from our time machine history of the Reichstag Fire.
1:58:44
Speaker 1: But anyway, let's take some questions.
1:58:45
Speaker 2: Ask Chuck.
1:58:48
Speaker 1: This comes from Jaye New York, and he says, hey,
1:58:49
Speaker 1: you mentioned last week that populism almost always leads to
1:58:52
Speaker 1: with anti semitism. It is an accurate correlation with some
1:58:55
Speaker 1: obvious historical examples Hitler's Germany. But my question is why
1:58:58
Speaker 1: does populism lead to anti stism? Is it simply because populis
1:59:02
Speaker 1: often look for a scapegoat and Jewish people provide an
1:59:04
Speaker 1: easy target as a non Jewish person. I've accepted the
1:59:07
Speaker 1: correlation of populism anti Semitism. I've never really considered the
1:59:10
Speaker 1: why Jay It's an excellent question. I think one is
1:59:15
Speaker 1: we're a super small minority already. Two that's so, and
1:59:23
Speaker 1: minorities get scapegoated generally. Two Jews do punch above their
1:59:32
Speaker 1: weight in corporate America, in the finance world, So in
1:59:37
Speaker 1: tough economic times it becomes if you already, especially if
1:59:44
Speaker 1: you you know, look, there's less anti Semitism in South
1:59:49
Speaker 1: Florida because there's more Jews that live in South Florida, right,
1:59:53
Speaker 1: you know, they're to me, the correlation of anti Semitism
1:59:55
Speaker 1: usually is where there's fewer Jews. Right wherever you see
2:00:00
Speaker 1: the least amount of Jews, you'll see the most amount
2:00:02
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism. Some of it's driven by some some
2:00:08
Speaker 1: hateful sects of Christianity, not Christianity itself, but there are
2:00:12
Speaker 1: some sort of sex that most Christians would denounce that
2:00:16
Speaker 1: that that use religion to sort of teach hate of Jews.
2:00:24
Speaker 1: But it's it. I've all, you know, looked as I
2:00:31
Speaker 1: look at it, and you're just like I just I
2:00:34
Speaker 1: find it amusing that this tiny you know, that that
2:00:37
Speaker 1: we Jews here that were like point three percent of
2:00:40
Speaker 1: the globe's population or something like that, and yet we're
2:00:45
Speaker 1: and in fact, we're still below our population high are
2:00:50
Speaker 1: below the popular what the Jewish population of the globe
2:00:53
Speaker 1: was pre World War Two. And you know, we're apparently,
2:00:59
Speaker 1: you know, behind all these incredible conspiracies. So we really,
2:01:02
Speaker 1: I guess, punch above our weight. But look, it's always
2:01:07
Speaker 1: easy to scapegoat entities you don't know. And it's still
2:01:12
Speaker 1: there are still huge pockets in this country, huge pockets
2:01:15
Speaker 1: around the world that no Jewish people exist, but have
2:01:18
Speaker 1: never met one. So when you have not when you
2:01:22
Speaker 1: don't know anybody as a three dimensional figure, it's easy
2:01:25
Speaker 1: to turn them into sort of two dimensional enemies. It's
2:01:33
Speaker 1: the best explanation I have, But it is, you know,
2:01:41
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I mean, it's interesting the way you
2:01:43
Speaker 1: word it, you sort of you accept you accept that
2:01:46
Speaker 1: as an accurate correlation. I mean it just it just
2:01:48
Speaker 1: is always what happens. I think sometimes we forget that,
2:01:56
Speaker 1: you know, bad ideas are usually not rational. Maybe that's
2:02:02
Speaker 1: a better way to look at him. Next question comes
2:02:05
Speaker 1: from Bills from Newburg, Oregon, but he says temporarily false Church, Virginia. Well,
2:02:10
Speaker 1: it's nice to have you as a neighbor, Bill, he says.
2:02:13
Speaker 1: I think if you answer this one, then I'll enter
2:02:15
Speaker 1: the five timers club. If that means that you've read
2:02:17
Speaker 1: five of my questions on here. If you do honor
2:02:20
Speaker 1: me thus, I humbly thank you. Is this the first
2:02:22
Speaker 1: administration that runs the most like a business that you've
2:02:25
Speaker 1: ever seen? Long a mantra of Republicans, I think they
2:02:28
Speaker 1: finally got their wish and this administration is run the
2:02:31
Speaker 1: most like a business or any other. Your defense of
2:02:34
Speaker 1: Casey Watperson's corporation is acting rightly in the face of
2:02:36
Speaker 1: the Epstein files made me shake my head. I think
2:02:38
Speaker 1: this administration is handling the Epstein files exactly the way
2:02:41
Speaker 1: a corporation's PR department went. I often say go Kaines,
2:02:45
Speaker 1: but this time I'll say go Seahawks, my adopted team.
2:02:47
Speaker 1: Thanks billis I didn't know I was defending the Casey
2:02:54
Speaker 1: Washerman Corporation ex actly rightly in the face anyway, Not
2:02:58
Speaker 1: quite sure. I get the question you're asking if it's
2:03:02
Speaker 1: running more like Well, it depends on if by running
2:03:06
Speaker 1: the business, do you do what's in the best interest
2:03:10
Speaker 1: A business is supposed to do what's in the best
2:03:12
Speaker 1: interest of its bottom line. The question does Donald Trump
2:03:18
Speaker 1: run this administration and the best interest in the bottom
2:03:20
Speaker 1: line of the United States, or does he run it
2:03:23
Speaker 1: in the best interests of the bottom line of Donald Trump.
2:03:26
Speaker 1: I know that sounds a bit sort of like hyperbole,
2:03:31
Speaker 1: but I feel like he makes more decisions based on
2:03:35
Speaker 1: what's in his best interest in the private sector, he
2:03:39
Speaker 1: and his friends, et cetera. But it's not always in
2:03:41
Speaker 1: the best interest at the bottom line of the United States.
2:03:45
Speaker 1: So that's where you know he's picking winners and losers.
2:03:51
Speaker 1: So I understand the I understand the premise here question.
2:03:58
Speaker 1: I just don't see the evidence that he is running
2:04:00
Speaker 1: it like a like a If he's running it like
2:04:03
Speaker 1: a business, he's not running it like a business that
2:04:06
Speaker 1: wants to grow, expand and be successful over time. Right,
2:04:09
Speaker 1: it feels like he's running it more like how does
2:04:12
Speaker 1: a legacy business that's trying to survive rather than thrive.
2:04:20
Speaker 1: But I've always you know, if you ran the government
2:04:23
Speaker 1: like a business, you would you probably would get rid
2:04:28
Speaker 1: of a lot of poverty measures because they you know,
2:04:33
Speaker 1: you might get rid of. You might not stockpile as
2:04:36
Speaker 1: much defense weaponry either, right, you know, so there'd be
2:04:42
Speaker 1: a lot of regulation, a lot more regulation you might
2:04:44
Speaker 1: get rid of if you were running it like a business. Anyway,
2:04:50
Speaker 1: I don't think he's running it in the best interests
2:04:52
Speaker 1: of the US government's bottom line. I think ultimately, if
2:04:56
Speaker 1: he's running it like a business, he's running it in
2:04:59
Speaker 1: the best interests of his own bottom line. I'm trying
2:05:04
Speaker 1: to see where you caught what I was saying about
2:05:06
Speaker 1: Casey Wasserman, and how you any I wasn't defect. I
2:05:11
Speaker 1: look at the Casey Wasserman situation and think, you know,
2:05:16
Speaker 1: I was talking with the journalists who said that they
2:05:18
Speaker 1: they had a line. The way they were dealing with
2:05:20
Speaker 1: it is anybody with Epstein ties pre two thousand and seven,
2:05:25
Speaker 1: they weren't going to treat treat like what were you
2:05:29
Speaker 1: thinking that they were willing to give anybody preos basically
2:05:34
Speaker 1: pre charges being brought against him some benefit of that.
2:05:39
Speaker 1: There's a middle ground of people that sort of still
2:05:41
Speaker 1: kept in touch with him and then until he you know,
2:05:44
Speaker 1: then and then walked after that, and then there's anybody
2:05:46
Speaker 1: that you dealt with him after two thousand and nine,
2:05:49
Speaker 1: you don't, right, Wasserman is one of the few that
2:05:52
Speaker 1: is being punished for emails that go back to twenty
2:05:57
Speaker 1: oh two, twenty three that don't seem to go there.
2:06:01
Speaker 1: So that would be one, but it is, you know,
2:06:05
Speaker 1: and yes, I do agree that the Epstein files in
2:06:08
Speaker 1: that sense are being Yes, the handling of that on
2:06:11
Speaker 1: a pr level, I'll give you that that right, The
2:06:14
Speaker 1: best way of business would do is just put it
2:06:17
Speaker 1: all out there, make every you know, don't organize it
2:06:19
Speaker 1: for people, make other people have to figure it out.
2:06:22
Speaker 1: The problem with this is that every couple of days
2:06:24
Speaker 1: there's like a new It feels like a new development
2:06:26
Speaker 1: because you know, somebody is you know, methodically, you know,
2:06:30
Speaker 1: there's hundreds and thousands of people methodically going through these
2:06:34
Speaker 1: these files, and there's always something new to find. And
2:06:39
Speaker 1: again you look around, I mean, I miss this. I'm
2:06:41
Speaker 1: a I'm an adjunct professor at USC. Apparently we had
2:06:44
Speaker 1: some USC professors get caught up in the Epstein files.
2:06:48
Speaker 1: So this has been like a machine gun that went
2:06:51
Speaker 1: off erratically and bullets went everywhere, and everybody's paying a
2:06:58
Speaker 1: price except Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump's paying a
2:07:01
Speaker 1: price too, right, you know, is he going to pay
2:07:04
Speaker 1: a direct price or does he pay an indirect political price?
2:07:07
Speaker 1: And I think he's paying the indirect political price more importantly, Bill,
2:07:13
Speaker 1: if that is your five timer, congrats, welcome to the
2:07:15
Speaker 1: five Timers club. Maybe we should get mugs or something,
2:07:19
Speaker 1: get some swag for that as well. Next question comes
2:07:24
Speaker 1: from Philip in Biloxi. He says, hey, they're my Congressman.
2:07:27
Speaker 1: Mike Eazell surprisingly is embracing the Supreme Court's decision. He
2:07:31
Speaker 1: was interviewed locally on WLOX where he said, and I'm paraphrasing,
2:07:35
Speaker 1: we may not like it, but the Supreme Court is
2:07:36
Speaker 1: the final word, and we have to obey the law
2:07:38
Speaker 1: of the land. He's also running a local radio that
2:07:40
Speaker 1: says something like, thanks to Trump and Eazel, the economy
2:07:44
Speaker 1: is booming and we're living in a golden age, which
2:07:46
Speaker 1: is why I say it's surprising because he normally echoes
2:07:48
Speaker 1: all of Trump's talking points. Thanks also for being the
2:07:50
Speaker 1: only national voice I know that occasionally speaks about Mississippi politics,
2:07:54
Speaker 1: Philip and Biloxi. You know, that's very heartening to hear.
2:08:02
Speaker 1: And I think it is a reminder that that I
2:08:06
Speaker 1: do take the more optimistic approach about elected officials, that
2:08:09
Speaker 1: most of them do want to accept the structure of
2:08:12
Speaker 1: the constitution. That really the most abusive, the person that
2:08:15
Speaker 1: has the least amount of respect for it is the
2:08:17
Speaker 1: guy sitting in the oval office. And and yes, you
2:08:20
Speaker 1: certainly have people who don't want to look like they're
2:08:24
Speaker 1: on the wrong side. And notice how you know that
2:08:27
Speaker 1: there's different ways you can you can sort of accept, well,
2:08:31
Speaker 1: Supreme Court the law of the land. He doesn't want
2:08:35
Speaker 1: to get caught being anti Trump, but he may be
2:08:38
Speaker 1: very happy that this happened, you know. So the point
2:08:43
Speaker 1: is is that given where he is at, you know,
2:08:47
Speaker 1: I think the the he couldn't get caught pushing, you know,
2:08:51
Speaker 1: publicly celebrating the Supreme Court ruling. So I think there's
2:08:54
Speaker 1: a difference. Right, I'm curious to see who celebrates it,
2:08:59
Speaker 1: who uses the this is a moment. You know, who
2:09:01
Speaker 1: else is Don Bacon not running for reelection? Right? Who
2:09:04
Speaker 1: else goes that far? Out on the limb on that.
2:09:09
Speaker 1: But and let's see, you know, what does he do
2:09:14
Speaker 1: if he does have to vote in Congress on any
2:09:17
Speaker 1: of these things. I'm not convinced that Trump wants to
2:09:19
Speaker 1: go do that, but we'll see. Next question comes from
2:09:24
Speaker 1: an elected official, John m imperially, a mayor from New Jersey,
2:09:30
Speaker 1: and he writes, first, Chuck, thank you for the podcast
2:09:32
Speaker 1: Political Junkie and amateur Historians Dream Come True. I'm the
2:09:35
Speaker 1: mayor of a small town in New Jersey and frequently
2:09:37
Speaker 1: electure on American history and specifically the Constitution from a
2:09:40
Speaker 1: quote citizen's point of view. So here's my question. What
2:09:42
Speaker 1: if the Constitutional Convention had been held in the spring
2:09:45
Speaker 1: or fall of seventeen eighty seven rather than the summer.
2:09:48
Speaker 1: My point is that the delegates of the Constitutional Convention
2:09:50
Speaker 1: could not wait to get out of the hot, muggy,
2:09:51
Speaker 1: miserable Philadelphia that summer. The result of brilliant constitution and principle,
2:09:55
Speaker 1: but with way too many particulars rushed over and not
2:09:58
Speaker 1: properly thought out. One of the thought for you is
2:10:00
Speaker 1: to throw out in your podcast, exactly who are the
2:10:03
Speaker 1: founding fathers? The fifty six men who signed the Declaration
2:10:05
Speaker 1: of Independence, the thirty nine men who signed the Constitution
2:10:08
Speaker 1: or the six men who signed both. And when I asked,
2:10:10
Speaker 1: who do the six men who signed both are, no
2:10:12
Speaker 1: one gets it right. They are George Climber, George Reed,
2:10:16
Speaker 1: Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, James Wilson, and Benjamin Franklin. Mayor Imperiality.
2:10:25
Speaker 1: First of all, I want to come visit your town.
2:10:27
Speaker 1: Love love hearing this. Appreciate you loving the history part.
2:10:33
Speaker 1: I think you had to sign both. I think to
2:10:35
Speaker 1: be founding father. So let's go at the six right
2:10:39
Speaker 1: they should they shouldn't. We probably should make a bigger
2:10:42
Speaker 1: deal out of them. You know, I have confessed a
2:10:45
Speaker 1: few times that I'm a sports card junkie. I guess
2:10:49
Speaker 1: you called it a baseball card junkie. In two thousand
2:10:53
Speaker 1: and nine, Tops put out an American History set and
2:10:57
Speaker 1: it was great. It had like little insert sets of
2:11:00
Speaker 1: Medal of Honor winners, and every Medal of Honor winner
2:11:03
Speaker 1: up through two thousand and nine gave you a little
2:11:05
Speaker 1: and I I just loved it. I you know, my
2:11:08
Speaker 1: daughter was five at the time, and so I made
2:11:11
Speaker 1: a big deal and we built we have this great
2:11:12
Speaker 1: album of it and all this stuff, and and it
2:11:16
Speaker 1: has a whole bunch of subsets of those that signed
2:11:18
Speaker 1: the Constitution and those that signed the Declaration of Independence.
2:11:22
Speaker 1: But we really ought to say, make a bigger deal
2:11:24
Speaker 1: on the six. You know, and you know, at least
2:11:27
Speaker 1: one is a name that most people already know of,
2:11:30
Speaker 1: Benjamin Frank. So it's a it's a pretty good it's
2:11:34
Speaker 1: a pretty good place to start. But that's a kudos.
2:11:41
Speaker 1: Let's make those Let's make the uh the founding six.
2:11:46
Speaker 1: Let's maybe over time we give them more and more
2:11:48
Speaker 1: of their due. Thanks for listening and thanks for your service.
2:11:53
Speaker 1: John another New Jersey and writes in this is John
2:11:55
Speaker 1: from New Jersey. I don't think it's the same, John,
2:11:58
Speaker 1: an he rights was waiting to hear your thoughts on
2:12:00
Speaker 1: these two news bits. One that Gallup ending its presidential
2:12:03
Speaker 1: tracking poll in two and Alila Mahea is beating Tom
2:12:07
Speaker 1: Malinowski in New Jersey special election. I think it's upsetting
2:12:09
Speaker 1: the Gallup is choosing to stop polling presidential approval rather
2:12:12
Speaker 1: than report on the current administration's coort rating. Do you
2:12:14
Speaker 1: see other firms mimicking this? And what are your thoughts
2:12:16
Speaker 1: on Mahia's win. I'm curious about how the June primary
2:12:18
Speaker 1: will go if there's more of a consolidation in that primary,
2:12:20
Speaker 1: But it looks like the establishment is already called lest
2:12:23
Speaker 1: a rounder. I did some Gallup thoughts on my sub
2:12:27
Speaker 1: stack last week. If you wanted to read those. You know,
2:12:31
Speaker 1: it's funny when you're in this, when you're making content
2:12:35
Speaker 1: in multiple places, you touch everything. You don't know if
2:12:39
Speaker 1: you've touched everything in every place, and I have not,
2:12:43
Speaker 1: you are correct. I have not touched New Jersey eleven here.
2:12:47
Speaker 1: I've done it in a couple other spots. I think
2:12:48
Speaker 1: I did it with the Silissa podcast, and we haven't
2:12:51
Speaker 1: touched and Gallop. I don't think I mentioned on the
2:12:53
Speaker 1: podcast maybe quickly in passing, but I did write up
2:12:56
Speaker 1: on gal I look, first of all, parse the announcement
2:13:02
Speaker 1: very very carefully from Gallup. Gallup said they're going to
2:13:05
Speaker 1: stop publicly releasing their job approval on the president. I
2:13:10
Speaker 1: didn't get clarification of whether they're not actually asking the question.
2:13:14
Speaker 1: It's absolutely malpracticed, and not ask the question on any
2:13:19
Speaker 1: survey you're doing on anything in the public policy space
2:13:22
Speaker 1: at all, because you've got it is it is a
2:13:25
Speaker 1: helpful way to at least understand how partisan folks are
2:13:30
Speaker 1: behaving where they lie. It gives you a better sense
2:13:33
Speaker 1: of which policy ideas have political traction versus those that
2:13:38
Speaker 1: may have, you know, or less driven by ideology, more
2:13:41
Speaker 1: driven by popularity. It's it's just a it's it's it
2:13:47
Speaker 1: would be malpracticed not to have that piece of data
2:13:53
Speaker 1: with you. It is hard not to wonder Gallups Primary.
2:13:59
Speaker 1: You know, they do a lot of survey work and
2:14:02
Speaker 1: private survey work, and they have a lot of federal contracts.
2:14:09
Speaker 1: The lack of trust anybody has in this country right
2:14:12
Speaker 1: now of any corporation and Donald Trump is amazing because
2:14:16
Speaker 1: a lot of people immediately looked up the amount of
2:14:19
Speaker 1: federal contracts that Gallup has with the government, sees that
2:14:23
Speaker 1: was quite a bit and could easily see right, Donald
2:14:26
Speaker 1: Trump already was mad at Politico, So then everybody in
2:14:29
Speaker 1: the government had to cancel their political subscriptions, whether they
2:14:32
Speaker 1: had a political produce subscription somewhere, et cetera. And it
2:14:38
Speaker 1: sounds like Gallup was worried about its bottom line and
2:14:40
Speaker 1: worried about its business. It's possible they thought there was
2:14:44
Speaker 1: no upside to it, since a whole bunch of other
2:14:46
Speaker 1: people were putting it out publicly. Nobody was saying Gallups
2:14:49
Speaker 1: was the best of the polls that are out there.
2:14:51
Speaker 1: Gallup had the best brand name out there, but their
2:14:54
Speaker 1: poll for a long time hadn't been the best poll.
2:14:57
Speaker 1: It had been sort of problematic for a long time.
2:15:00
Speaker 1: You know. I remember when they stopped, they had a
2:15:02
Speaker 1: daily tracking pole, which was a total mess because while
2:15:07
Speaker 1: I don't think their methodology changed, how people interpreted the
2:15:10
Speaker 1: changes just created all sorts of friction, and they did
2:15:13
Speaker 1: a terrible job of communicating when they're when the tracking
2:15:16
Speaker 1: pole would change. So, you know, I think Gallup got
2:15:21
Speaker 1: out of the public polling business a long time ago.
2:15:24
Speaker 1: Right when it used to be the CNN USA Today
2:15:26
Speaker 1: Gallup pole, that was the you know, basically the only
2:15:31
Speaker 1: pole that was considered better than that one was NBC
2:15:33
Speaker 1: News Wall Street Journal. But over time, the CNN the
2:15:37
Speaker 1: Gallup pole had shown a lot more instability, and I
2:15:41
Speaker 1: know that we we certainly stopped using it as a
2:15:45
Speaker 1: reliable indicator. So I'm not going to sit here and
2:15:47
Speaker 1: call the Gallup pole, you know, but I but it
2:15:50
Speaker 1: would be it would be malpractice, not the doing any
2:15:55
Speaker 1: survey that you do public, public or private in order
2:15:58
Speaker 1: to understand your survey better, in order to have a baseline,
2:16:01
Speaker 1: in order to know your your your survey isn't totally
2:16:04
Speaker 1: out of whack. You know, job job approval is one
2:16:08
Speaker 1: of those ubiquitous questions that helps you and you know,
2:16:11
Speaker 1: understand whether you basically have a you know, it's a
2:16:14
Speaker 1: the fact that so many other posters do it, it
2:16:16
Speaker 1: serves as almost a check to make sure you're you
2:16:18
Speaker 1: don't have a you know, you know for sure, do
2:16:20
Speaker 1: you have an out could you have an outlier survey,
2:16:22
Speaker 1: et cetera. So do pay attention to the fact that
2:16:27
Speaker 1: they just simply said they stopped they were going to
2:16:29
Speaker 1: stop publishing the result. Again, I can't imagine anybody would
2:16:33
Speaker 1: actually stop asking it. I mean again, it's a it's
2:16:37
Speaker 1: it's one of those questions. It's almost like a stabilizing question.
2:16:40
Speaker 1: It helps you understand whether your your survey is is
2:16:42
Speaker 1: A is a trustworthy uh A trustworthy survey. As for
2:16:47
Speaker 1: the MAHI, I think look that the most fascinating aspect
2:16:50
Speaker 1: of this was the aggressiveness of apac Right. They wanted
2:16:53
Speaker 1: to take Malanski down. They went after them hard, and
2:16:58
Speaker 1: they were successful. They is the negatives of Malinowski, and
2:17:03
Speaker 1: they see but the candidate they were hoping to help
2:17:07
Speaker 1: ended up finishing third, and the candidate that benefited from
2:17:10
Speaker 1: APEX attack ads in Malinowski was somebody further to the
2:17:13
Speaker 1: left than Malinowski and perhaps just as unfriendly to some
2:17:19
Speaker 1: of APAX issues as Malanowski had become. So it was
2:17:24
Speaker 1: really one of those a reminder that when you do
2:17:27
Speaker 1: attack ads and multi candidate races in primaries, know what
2:17:34
Speaker 1: you're trying to do. If you're trying to take somebody out,
2:17:38
Speaker 1: do know who could benefit you know? And are you
2:17:41
Speaker 1: sure you're going to end up with somebody that isn't
2:17:43
Speaker 1: going to be more more of a problem for your issues?
2:17:47
Speaker 1: In this case, I think it was. It was that,
2:17:51
Speaker 1: I think it And this is where when interest when
2:17:53
Speaker 1: a big interest group goes after somebody, sometimes it's you know,
2:18:01
Speaker 1: Canada and candidate be cancel each other, it's out and
2:18:04
Speaker 1: a candidate ce ends up benefiting. We got some three
2:18:08
Speaker 1: way prime. We got a three way primary coming up
2:18:10
Speaker 1: in Texas, Right, We're going to see something like that
2:18:12
Speaker 1: take place. Right, does Wesley Hunt benefit from all the
2:18:16
Speaker 1: cornant attack ads on Paxton right? Rather than Cornyn. I mean,
2:18:21
Speaker 1: it certainly looks like Cornan has not benefited from all
2:18:24
Speaker 1: these attacks on Paxton, but instead the demo generic Democratic
2:18:28
Speaker 1: vote has benefited when matched up against Paxton in general
2:18:33
Speaker 1: election matchups, and Paxton's negatives keep going up, but it
2:18:36
Speaker 1: is not helping Cornyon. So it is a reminder that
2:18:39
Speaker 1: basically negative ads can work, but don't assume those negative
2:18:44
Speaker 1: ads will accrue to the benefit of another candidate. That
2:18:47
Speaker 1: if you want to benefit, it could always accrue to
2:18:49
Speaker 1: a third candidate. But as for look, I think I certainly,
2:18:55
Speaker 1: you know, I see why everybody's going ahead and rilly
2:19:00
Speaker 1: knocked off somebody who used to have the title Corners
2:19:04
Speaker 1: and seem to win despite not being the biggest spender
2:19:07
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So I understand why the establishment
2:19:11
Speaker 1: at this point is like, well, might as well, might
2:19:14
Speaker 1: as well get behind money. Next question comes from Robert Leeds.
2:19:25
Speaker 1: Any rights, Hey check meet the press, missus. You I
2:19:27
Speaker 1: worked in several campaigns. Anyway, I'm a Gold trader and
2:19:29
Speaker 1: have said for years that during Trump's first term and
2:19:31
Speaker 1: again during the second, Gold seems to do weird things.
2:19:34
Speaker 1: On the eve of the job's report, huge sell orders
2:19:36
Speaker 1: would come in overnight when the market was strong, gold
2:19:38
Speaker 1: would crash for five seconds, go back up, and then
2:19:41
Speaker 1: a bearsh report will come out at eight thirty. After
2:19:43
Speaker 1: seeing your podcast today, I wanted to share this. You're
2:19:46
Speaker 1: doing a great job. Thanks. Well. What he was talking
2:19:48
Speaker 1: about was this weird again. And I think we've got
2:19:53
Speaker 1: to get some regulatory structure around these prediction markets versus
2:19:57
Speaker 1: gambling markets, et cetera. But there's got to be a
2:20:01
Speaker 1: way to deal with fraud. And somebody gained the jobs numbers.
2:20:05
Speaker 1: Right when Peter Navarro goes out warns of a bad
2:20:08
Speaker 1: jobs report, jobs report turns out much better the next
2:20:11
Speaker 1: day than what he went out there. And of all
2:20:14
Speaker 1: people to go out there as somebody who's already of
2:20:17
Speaker 1: questionable credibility on his information in general, right, that just
2:20:24
Speaker 1: smells crazy. And you know this is where I you know,
2:20:30
Speaker 1: we're going full speed into these new markets without you know,
2:20:34
Speaker 1: we were building the ideas first and trying to come
2:20:38
Speaker 1: up with the regulation later. Very hard to put regulation
2:20:42
Speaker 1: on something that's already left the station. And I'm concerned
2:20:46
Speaker 1: about this, but we don't seem to have a very good,
2:20:49
Speaker 1: very interesting what you say on gold, You've just explained
2:20:53
Speaker 1: why I do not get involved in those markets at all.
2:20:57
Speaker 1: I don't trust them. I think there's the people that
2:21:00
Speaker 1: are most involved are doing it as hedge hedges and
2:21:04
Speaker 1: games and gaming it in some form, and those are
2:21:08
Speaker 1: just not That's not where my comfort level is, you know,
2:21:13
Speaker 1: like I like, I'm more of them. My financial advisor
2:21:19
Speaker 1: and I were more of the warm Buffett acolytes, right,
2:21:24
Speaker 1: like investing in companies that people use, you know, durable goods,
2:21:29
Speaker 1: not always durable goods, but some durable goods, some texts
2:21:32
Speaker 1: on this, on that, but you know, companies that actually succeed,
2:21:36
Speaker 1: not just hypotheticals. Next question comes from Dan in Fairfax.
2:21:41
Speaker 1: He goes, hey, I consider myself an informed voter, but
2:21:43
Speaker 1: I am lost when it comes to this issue. From
2:21:45
Speaker 1: what I gather, a judge in Tazewell County has ruled
2:21:48
Speaker 1: twice that the redistricting effort shouldn't proceed, but the state
2:21:50
Speaker 1: government is moving ahead anyway. I also read that state
2:21:53
Speaker 1: democrats think any lawsuit of posing the measure can only
2:21:55
Speaker 1: be filed in Richmond, which is really confusing. Further, the
2:21:58
Speaker 1: state Supreme Court doesn't seem to think this is anhe
2:22:00
Speaker 1: requiring urgency can you explain what's going on. Thank you,
2:22:03
Speaker 1: Dan in Fairfax. Look, it's a fair point. I think
2:22:06
Speaker 1: the the the legis the Democrat The Democrats and the
2:22:09
Speaker 1: legislature continue to believe that the Supreme Court is going
2:22:12
Speaker 1: to overrule this staswell judged like they did the last time.
2:22:17
Speaker 1: But let's just step back. You know, I find this
2:22:20
Speaker 1: whole campaign. I've seen the ads, the ads for Yes
2:22:25
Speaker 1: use every talking point I was using about why there
2:22:29
Speaker 1: shouldn't be re redistricting around, and it was just like confusing,
2:22:33
Speaker 1: Like when you hear an ad or you're like, well,
2:22:35
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I agree with that. You know,
2:22:36
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be politics in this. We got to take
2:22:38
Speaker 1: the politics out of this. That's why you've got to
2:22:40
Speaker 1: vote yes. You're like, wait what And I sit here
2:22:42
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm you know, am I being gas
2:22:46
Speaker 1: lit by this ad campaign? Look? Ends, justify the means
2:22:52
Speaker 1: is bad policy, period And ultimately that's what this entire
2:22:58
Speaker 1: effort in Virginia is about. Ends, just find the means.
2:23:01
Speaker 1: We have to do this now because of what they're
2:23:03
Speaker 1: doing in Texas. We have to do this now, and
2:23:04
Speaker 1: what they might do in Florida, what they might do
2:23:06
Speaker 1: in Indiana, what they might do in Missouri. Uh, I
2:23:10
Speaker 1: get it, politics, ain't bean bag. You've heard me say
2:23:12
Speaker 1: it before on the Virginia front. Your right to be confused.
2:23:14
Speaker 1: I'm very confused too. Some of it had you know.
2:23:21
Speaker 1: I Ultimately it feels as if these state supreme courts
2:23:25
Speaker 1: are you know, and what we've seen, the courts are
2:23:28
Speaker 1: ultimately going to side with uh legislatures on this because ultimately, right,
2:23:35
Speaker 1: that's that's who has the supremacy here is the legislature.
2:23:39
Speaker 1: Uh And if this is what they've chosen to do,
2:23:40
Speaker 1: and they're going to the voters. So I suspect that
2:23:44
Speaker 1: this stay you know, I guess it's weird early voting
2:23:47
Speaker 1: starts before the end of the stay, right. I think
2:23:50
Speaker 1: early voting is supposed to begin the six and this
2:23:53
Speaker 1: stay this this, this is supposed to basically be a
2:23:57
Speaker 1: not a statement, sort of an injunction against this that's
2:24:00
Speaker 1: till the eighteenth. I think it's extraordinarily confusing. I have
2:24:08
Speaker 1: a feeling this map's going to pass pretty but this
2:24:10
Speaker 1: amendment to do this is going to pass pretty easily.
2:24:15
Speaker 1: But I'm just I don't think this is a good
2:24:17
Speaker 1: long term look for Democrats. And I you know, I understand, Hey,
2:24:22
Speaker 1: you got to get power now, you'll worry about how
2:24:24
Speaker 1: it looks later. Is the mindset. But again it goes
2:24:26
Speaker 1: back to ends justify the means. And we're watching an
2:24:29
Speaker 1: entire Republican party that's probably going to regret at some
2:24:34
Speaker 1: point being an ends justify the means party. And they've
2:24:36
Speaker 1: been that party in particular since certain certain orange haired
2:24:41
Speaker 1: man strode down an escalator. And it is, it is,
2:24:49
Speaker 1: it is. I can tell you this. I know Spamberger
2:24:53
Speaker 1: is going to regret having to start this partisan and
2:24:58
Speaker 1: it's interesting how she is having you know, some of
2:25:03
Speaker 1: it is just because the legislatures this there, this redistrict effort,
2:25:07
Speaker 1: you know, they vary, the clock is sticking, you know,
2:25:10
Speaker 1: they they literally had to move this in days and
2:25:12
Speaker 1: get it done even before she got sworn in. And
2:25:15
Speaker 1: it has put her more as a partisan actor than
2:25:18
Speaker 1: I think I ever thought she would want to be,
2:25:22
Speaker 1: and look like very curious to see, by the way,
2:25:25
Speaker 1: what her State of the Union response comes across. As
2:25:28
Speaker 1: I think when you're when you're the Democrats, it's who
2:25:30
Speaker 1: i'd pick, right, you want to pick somebody who just
2:25:33
Speaker 1: won and won by a lot from a state that
2:25:35
Speaker 1: used to be you know, and share her profile from
2:25:40
Speaker 1: the national security space. So I I you know, I
2:25:43
Speaker 1: think I get why they picked her. I do, I mean,
2:25:50
Speaker 1: I'm I'm there's two ways about sort of her tenure.
2:25:53
Speaker 1: If you're going to do hardcore politics, better to do
2:25:55
Speaker 1: at the start of your term, and then you moderate
2:25:57
Speaker 1: us the term goes on. On the other hand, it's
2:26:02
Speaker 1: hard to make. You know, this is a first impression
2:26:04
Speaker 1: for a lot of voters in Virginia. But Dan, I'm
2:26:09
Speaker 1: as confused, and the ad campaigns are only more confusing.
2:26:11
Speaker 1: But look, it's gonna pass because this will be a
2:26:15
Speaker 1: super small turnout election and we already know those that
2:26:19
Speaker 1: are fired up on any messaging that involves checking Trump
2:26:24
Speaker 1: are gonna win the Battle of Turner. All right, last
2:26:27
Speaker 1: question for this episode comes from Jim Tobahana, Pennsylvania. I
2:26:34
Speaker 1: think you're giving me your age, but I'm not gonna.
2:26:36
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it. I don't want to. I
2:26:38
Speaker 1: don't watch you bragging about how much younger you are
2:26:41
Speaker 1: than I am. Jim, all right, just because you got
2:26:44
Speaker 1: you got eight. If you've been on this planet eight
2:26:47
Speaker 1: less years than I have, you don't have to rub
2:26:49
Speaker 1: it in my face.
2:26:50
Speaker 4: Uh.
2:26:51
Speaker 1: Anyway, your question, does international diplomacy have a greater long
2:26:54
Speaker 1: term impact on legacy Trump, with his focus on the
2:26:57
Speaker 1: second term so much abroad, I don't see how this
2:26:59
Speaker 1: positively impact his legacy. Putting his name on statues the
2:27:01
Speaker 1: Kennedy Center giving seems like a short term ego boost
2:27:06
Speaker 1: for him, band aid that the next administration can reverse. Ultimately,
2:27:09
Speaker 1: long term legacy seems like strengthen in the US with
2:27:11
Speaker 1: a focus domestically, with an emphasis on improving his approval rating.
2:27:15
Speaker 1: Focusing on more of a bipartisan agenda would be the
2:27:17
Speaker 1: biggest way to improve as a long term legacy. Am
2:27:20
Speaker 1: I right? If prices continue to soar in the behavior
2:27:23
Speaker 1: of his cabinet, no Marf k Junior Agency's ice, he's
2:27:26
Speaker 1: diminishing his own legacy. Jim, you're you know you're doing
2:27:29
Speaker 1: You're you're applying something that I used to have to
2:27:32
Speaker 1: ban during my meet the press days during our staff
2:27:35
Speaker 1: in There'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop
2:27:38
Speaker 1: trying to use logic with me. You know, in the
2:27:41
Speaker 1: Trump era we banned logic. Jim. Everything you're saying is
2:27:45
Speaker 1: so logical. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, right George W.
2:27:49
Speaker 1: Bush did that. Right, He's like, you know what, I'm
2:27:51
Speaker 1: gonna focus on pep bar. By the end, I realized
2:27:53
Speaker 1: that Rack was gonna be a terrible legacy all this stuff,
2:27:55
Speaker 1: but he's still you know, there were some things he
2:27:57
Speaker 1: did that that were about his legacy. And guess what
2:28:01
Speaker 1: one of the most positive legacies he has is what
2:28:04
Speaker 1: he's done in helping fund cures for AIDS in Africa
2:28:09
Speaker 1: and what the pep far program has done. I know
2:28:12
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk and that dose people. I have been
2:28:15
Speaker 1: trying to destroy that last positive legacy of the Bush administration.
2:28:22
Speaker 1: But you know this goes back to I, don't you know,
2:28:26
Speaker 1: Trump's the first guy.
2:28:28
Speaker 2: You know.
2:28:28
Speaker 1: I used to do these exit interviews with retiring members
2:28:34
Speaker 1: of Congress when I when I had my multiple when
2:28:37
Speaker 1: I with with the Daily Rundown and with then I
2:28:41
Speaker 1: would eventually change it to Meet the Press Daily and
2:28:44
Speaker 1: Meet the Press now. And I used to do these
2:28:46
Speaker 1: exit interviews with retiring members both sides of the aisle
2:28:50
Speaker 1: and get as many of them that would sit down,
2:28:52
Speaker 1: and they were really legacy questions, and you know, but
2:28:54
Speaker 1: I also wanted to know, like you know, when was
2:28:56
Speaker 1: the first time you wanted to run for office? And
2:28:58
Speaker 1: why do you want to run? Things like that? You know,
2:29:01
Speaker 1: because I've done these sort of candidate interviews going back
2:29:04
Speaker 1: thirty five years now where people want to run for
2:29:07
Speaker 1: office the first time, you know, back at the hotline,
2:29:09
Speaker 1: we used to interview these candidates Cook Report, and we
2:29:12
Speaker 1: used to you know, piggyback on the Cook Report. This
2:29:15
Speaker 1: is what they They do this more strenuously than we
2:29:19
Speaker 1: did a hotline back in the day. And one of
2:29:24
Speaker 1: the things that I that I've learned from those interviews
2:29:28
Speaker 1: over the years is that I used to say, you know,
2:29:31
Speaker 1: it always made me feel better about the democracy because everybody,
2:29:35
Speaker 1: whether they were, no matter where they were on the
2:29:37
Speaker 1: political spectrum hard left, center, left, hard right, center, right, independent,
2:29:43
Speaker 1: whatever you wanted to put it, they all ran for
2:29:46
Speaker 1: office on for one thing. There was always something they wanted.
2:29:51
Speaker 1: There was the initial trigger. You know. I remember talking
2:29:55
Speaker 1: to one commresceman, I said, so, what got you involved
2:29:58
Speaker 1: in Congress? His first office was on the school He
2:30:00
Speaker 1: was mad that they drew drew the lines, drew his
2:30:03
Speaker 1: kid out of a certain school district. I'm gonna go
2:30:05
Speaker 1: on the school board and he admitted, he goes. Once
2:30:07
Speaker 1: I got on the school board, I realized they had
2:30:09
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the lines. It was somebody else,
2:30:11
Speaker 1: he goes. But but I got involved and and and suddenly,
2:30:15
Speaker 1: he said, the more he learned about government and how
2:30:18
Speaker 1: it worked, the more interested he got. So Donald Trump's
2:30:24
Speaker 1: one of the few people to successfully gain office whose
2:30:29
Speaker 1: simple motivation seemed to be sort of the same motivation
2:30:36
Speaker 1: somebody has to go streaking on a football field. They
2:30:40
Speaker 1: just wanted to be noticed, right. They just wanted to,
2:30:44
Speaker 1: you know, be famous. They wanted more people to have
2:30:47
Speaker 1: to respect them. It's a weird motivation. But he wasn't
2:30:51
Speaker 1: motivated because he's got an issue he cares the most about.
2:30:55
Speaker 1: He was maybe he has a daddy. There's plenty of
2:30:58
Speaker 1: We've had a handful of presidents and presidential candidates who
2:31:02
Speaker 1: I think got involved in politics as there they felt
2:31:04
Speaker 1: like it was the only way to please their dad,
2:31:08
Speaker 1: you know, boys said, there's a lot of politics is
2:31:11
Speaker 1: filled with presidents are filled or it's amazing how many
2:31:15
Speaker 1: of our presidents have daddy issues one way or the other,
2:31:19
Speaker 1: including this one, by the way. But I don't think
2:31:27
Speaker 1: he really cares, you know, when you when you're so
2:31:32
Speaker 1: worried about putting your name on stuff, it shows you
2:31:34
Speaker 1: that you really don't care about Like the Institute of
2:31:39
Speaker 1: Peace was never his idea. He just wanted to slap
2:31:42
Speaker 1: his name on it because it uses the word peace.
2:31:45
Speaker 1: The Kennedy Center isn't his idea, but he wants to
2:31:48
Speaker 1: slap his name on it because he's afraid his name
2:31:50
Speaker 1: is going to disappear. You know, He's only a real
2:31:54
Speaker 1: legacy is going to be that ballroom in the White House, right,
2:31:57
Speaker 1: And I think he thinks, hey, they still call the
2:31:59
Speaker 1: balcony Truman's balcony, so hopefully they'll always have to call
2:32:02
Speaker 1: you know, the ballroom will always be the Trump ballroom.
2:32:07
Speaker 1: Well he might get that, and there'll be some Donald.
2:32:11
Speaker 1: There'll be some Donald J. Trump elementary schools, and I
2:32:15
Speaker 1: you know, you know, we know this, it will be.
2:32:22
Speaker 1: But I don't think he's got an issue. He If
2:32:24
Speaker 1: he cared about one issue throughout his entire career, it was,
2:32:27
Speaker 1: you know, his belief in tariffs. But even that, I
2:32:31
Speaker 1: don't think he fully understood why he believed in tariffs
2:32:33
Speaker 1: other than he was trying to come up with a
2:32:37
Speaker 1: talking point to insert himself into a political conversation back
2:32:40
Speaker 1: in the late eighties. So again, to go back to
2:32:46
Speaker 1: your question, Jim, everything about him makes sense, But you're
2:32:49
Speaker 1: that that's not how Trump's wired. It's just not how
2:32:54
Speaker 1: he's wired. You know, you're you're one hundred percent right
2:32:57
Speaker 1: in these things. By the way I've gone, we've gone
2:33:02
Speaker 1: now a couple hours, and I didn't get to and
2:33:05
Speaker 1: I'm going to save this for Wednesday, but we're going
2:33:06
Speaker 1: to do I'm going to give you. I'll give you
2:33:08
Speaker 1: this hint now, the Christy Nomes Senate campaign. That's a
2:33:15
Speaker 1: fascinating exit ramp that the Trump White House is trying
2:33:19
Speaker 1: to come up with to get rid of Nome. Fascinating situation. Also,
2:33:23
Speaker 1: want to get into the Maha moms and how yet
2:33:27
Speaker 1: another monsanto, the first major donation they'd ever given to Trump.
2:33:31
Speaker 1: Let's just say they reminded Trump of that. That's why
2:33:33
Speaker 1: they got the executive order that they got. But those
2:33:36
Speaker 1: Maha Moms, We're going to get into that too on Wednesday.
2:33:39
Speaker 1: So look, it was a hugely busy weekend. That last
2:33:41
Speaker 1: question reminded me of a couple other issues. I didn't
2:33:44
Speaker 1: get to get to. Maha moms, and Nome for South
2:33:47
Speaker 1: Dakota Centate where two of them. But I'm not gonna
2:33:52
Speaker 1: I'm just going to leave that as a tease for
2:33:56
Speaker 1: the next episode in forty eight hours. Thanks for listening.
2:33:59
Speaker 1: By the way, we're having some of our you guys
2:34:02
Speaker 1: have been great. I know there's some new subscribers out there,
2:34:05
Speaker 1: some new devots. I appreciate having you. How do I
2:34:08
Speaker 1: know new Because we keep growing and things are going well.
2:34:12
Speaker 1: I can tell because I now got more people telling
2:34:15
Speaker 1: me hey, I've got fewer people coming up to me
2:34:18
Speaker 1: saying hey, I miss you. What are you doing now?
2:34:21
Speaker 1: Now it's like, hey, I miss you over there, but
2:34:24
Speaker 1: I really like what you're doing now. So that's all
2:34:27
Speaker 1: because you guys are liking, You're subscribing, word of mouth,
2:34:31
Speaker 1: all of those things. And so let's just say I
2:34:35
Speaker 1: appreciate it because it's you know, this is an entrepreneurial business,
2:34:40
Speaker 1: and it is credibility has earned one listener and one
2:34:43
Speaker 1: viewer at a time, and this growth tells me that
2:34:47
Speaker 1: you guys are help are expressed or saying that I'm
2:34:51
Speaker 1: earning it with you. So thank you, and with that,
2:34:53
Speaker 1: I'll see you A forty eight dollars