Volatile Times Featuring Alan Elrod, Zaha Hassan, Lara Friedman, and Rick Roberts

WEBVTT

00:00:00.017 --> 00:00:06.117
Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

00:00:06.397 --> 00:00:08.977
I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.

00:00:09.297 --> 00:00:12.737
If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things.

00:00:13.237 --> 00:00:19.377
First, I need subscribers. I'm on Patreon at patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming.

00:00:19.717 --> 00:00:24.637
Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak

00:00:24.637 --> 00:00:27.957
truth to power, and to expand and improve the show.

00:00:28.517 --> 00:00:32.857
Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you

00:00:32.857 --> 00:00:35.617
listen to it. That will help the podcast tremendously.

00:00:36.177 --> 00:00:41.937
Third, go to the website, momenteric.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast,

00:00:42.277 --> 00:00:47.257
leave reviews and comments, listen to past episodes, and even learn a little bit about your host.

00:00:47.837 --> 00:00:51.877
Lastly, don't keep this a secret like it's your own personal guilty pleasure.

00:00:52.577 --> 00:00:57.077
Tell someone else about the podcast. Encourage others to listen to the podcast

00:00:57.077 --> 00:01:02.437
and share the podcast on your social media platforms, because it is time to

00:01:02.437 --> 00:01:04.197
make this moment a movement.

00:01:04.557 --> 00:01:10.197
Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

00:01:11.517 --> 00:01:16.497
The following program is hosted by the NbG Podcast Network.

00:01:21.360 --> 00:01:56.080
Music.

00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:02.160
Welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

00:02:02.660 --> 00:02:07.680
And today we have a jam-packed podcast.

00:02:08.420 --> 00:02:13.060
Yeah. You know, what started out, maybe a couple of guests,

00:02:13.420 --> 00:02:20.460
we got four, four of the sharpest, most intelligent people that come on and

00:02:20.460 --> 00:02:27.180
talk about the volatility that's going on, whether it's dealing with American politics,

00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:31.700
what's going on in the Middle East, or even the economy.

00:02:32.220 --> 00:02:38.540
We are living in some volatile times. And so I have four people coming on who

00:02:38.540 --> 00:02:44.060
are going to break down this volatile moment in our society.

00:02:44.260 --> 00:02:48.060
And hopefully you will get some enlightenment.

00:02:48.620 --> 00:02:55.820
Hopefully you will get some hope and some encouragement and maybe get us to

00:02:55.820 --> 00:02:59.000
start thinking more about solutions,

00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:06.520
whether it's changing of the electorate or lining up on issues,

00:03:06.520 --> 00:03:12.040
shaping your opinion on issues more clearly, that kind of thing.

00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:18.600
So this is really, really a challenging time as well as being volatile.

00:03:18.940 --> 00:03:24.160
And so I am really grateful that I've been able to have these guests come on,

00:03:24.300 --> 00:03:28.480
and hopefully you will enjoy this program as well.

00:03:28.980 --> 00:03:33.220
So, since it's a jam-packed show, we're going to go ahead and get it started.

00:03:33.340 --> 00:03:37.440
As always, we start it off with a moment of news with Grace G.

00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:44.560
Music.

00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:49.680
Thanks, Erik. President Trump reversed steep tariffs on multiple nations,

00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:53.960
citing financial market turmoil and surging bond yields as motivators.

00:03:54.460 --> 00:03:59.300
Millions globally protested President Trump and Elon Musk over perceived attacks

00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:05.060
on democracy and billionaire overreach, with demonstrations in all 50 states and internationally.

00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:11.220
A second unvaccinated child with no underlying health conditions died from measles-related

00:04:11.220 --> 00:04:18.560
pulmonary failure in Texas amid an outbreak of nearly 500 cases across Texas and New Mexico. The U.S.

00:04:18.900 --> 00:04:23.060
Senate and House each passed their version of a budget plan to extend Trump-era

00:04:23.060 --> 00:04:27.940
tax cuts and reduce spending A federal judge allowed a defamation lawsuit by

00:04:27.940 --> 00:04:33.300
the Central Park Five against Donald Trump over his 2024 campaign comments to proceed.

00:04:33.951 --> 00:04:38.351
The National Park Service restored mentions of Harriet Tubman's slavery and

00:04:38.351 --> 00:04:42.611
the Fugitive Slave Act it had removed from its Underground Railroad webpage.

00:04:43.011 --> 00:04:47.911
President Trump dismissed NSA Director Timothy Haw following a meeting with

00:04:47.911 --> 00:04:49.731
far-right activist Laura Loomer.

00:04:50.251 --> 00:04:54.711
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked a federal judge's order requiring the Trump administration

00:04:54.711 --> 00:04:58.271
to rehire thousands of dismissed probationary workers.

00:04:58.571 --> 00:05:03.131
The North Carolina Supreme Court temporarily halted an appellate ruling that

00:05:03.131 --> 00:05:08.271
would invalidate over 60,000 ballots in a contested state Supreme Court race.

00:05:08.491 --> 00:05:13.411
A federal judge ordered the White House to restore the Associated Press's access

00:05:13.411 --> 00:05:19.231
after restrictions were imposed over its coverage referring to the Gulf of Mexico. Three U.S.

00:05:19.711 --> 00:05:23.571
Citizens imprisoned in Congo for a failed coup were transferred to American

00:05:23.571 --> 00:05:26.391
custody after their death sentences were commuted.

00:05:26.631 --> 00:05:31.651
Three U.S. aid workers in Myanmar were abruptly laid off during earthquake relief

00:05:31.651 --> 00:05:39.411
efforts amid USAID budget cuts, hampering disaster response as the death toll climbs to 3,645.

00:05:39.851 --> 00:05:47.911
And a nightclub roof collapse in the Dominican Republic killed 221 people and injured over 189.

00:05:48.151 --> 00:05:52.131
I am Grace Gee, and this has been A Moment of News.

00:05:53.680 --> 00:05:58.800
Music.

00:05:58.691 --> 00:06:01.771
All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news.

00:06:01.951 --> 00:06:06.791
And now it is time for our guest, Alan Elrod.

00:06:07.231 --> 00:06:11.671
Alan Elrod is the president and CEO of the Pulaski Institution,

00:06:11.671 --> 00:06:13.891
a new think tank dedicated to

00:06:13.891 --> 00:06:18.971
the connection between global politics and economics and heartland areas.

00:06:19.671 --> 00:06:22.831
He lives outside Little Rock, Arkansas.

00:06:23.391 --> 00:06:27.291
Ladies and gentlemen, it's my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

00:06:27.291 --> 00:06:30.551
on this podcast, Alan Elrod.

00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:41.840
Music.

00:06:41.684 --> 00:06:48.084
All right. Alan Elrod, Professor Alan Elrod. How are you doing? So you're doing good?

00:06:48.744 --> 00:06:50.984
Doing well. I'm doing well. How about you?

00:06:51.644 --> 00:06:57.504
I'm doing good. I'm glad to have you on. I want to talk about this think tank

00:06:57.504 --> 00:07:00.624
that you've put together and

00:07:00.624 --> 00:07:04.604
just some of your thoughts about what's going on in the political world,

00:07:04.904 --> 00:07:09.344
especially from your vantage point, which is the great state of Arkansas.

00:07:09.344 --> 00:07:13.764
At one point in my life, I was designated as an Arkansas traveler.

00:07:14.184 --> 00:07:18.184
So I hold that in great distinction. All right.

00:07:19.064 --> 00:07:21.004
I love that. Yeah.

00:07:22.484 --> 00:07:28.684
So normally how I start the interviews, Alan, is that I throw a couple of icebreakers out there.

00:07:29.364 --> 00:07:36.604
So the first icebreaker is a quote. And the quote is, never has our future been more unpredictable.

00:07:36.604 --> 00:07:42.664
Never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to

00:07:42.664 --> 00:07:45.504
follow the rules of common sense and self-interest.

00:07:45.904 --> 00:07:51.664
Forces that look like sheer insanity if judged by the standards of other centuries.

00:07:51.964 --> 00:07:53.304
What does that quote mean to you?

00:07:54.053 --> 00:07:59.593
Well, I mean, you know, that's Hannah Arendt. And I used this recently in a piece I wrote.

00:07:59.933 --> 00:08:05.013
And, you know, in Origins of Talentarianism, she's talking, I think,

00:08:05.093 --> 00:08:07.253
about obviously a very specific moment in history.

00:08:07.373 --> 00:08:12.413
But I think that what that quote evokes speaks a lot to our moment now,

00:08:12.493 --> 00:08:14.673
because a lot of things don't feel rational.

00:08:14.933 --> 00:08:19.173
I think, you know, people don't seem to be behaving to the kind of normal rules

00:08:19.173 --> 00:08:23.273
of politics, right? We just, you know, Donald Trump, even this week,

00:08:23.433 --> 00:08:28.193
is taking a certain degree of pain in his approval polls.

00:08:28.353 --> 00:08:32.393
But, you know, after everything, right, after self-sabotaging the economy,

00:08:32.573 --> 00:08:35.713
after these sort of really clearly authoritarian deportations,

00:08:35.773 --> 00:08:37.993
he's at negative four in his approval.

00:08:38.753 --> 00:08:43.413
You know, I remember right before Barack Obama was elected, and yeah,

00:08:43.553 --> 00:08:47.093
it was a recession, but George D.B. Bush was in the 20s in his approval rating.

00:08:47.573 --> 00:08:50.653
And so I think there's something kind of astounding about where the country

00:08:50.653 --> 00:08:55.053
is at mentally in its willingness to kind of go along with some of this stuff

00:08:55.053 --> 00:09:00.573
in the policies that are being enacted that seem to have no real actual rational

00:09:00.573 --> 00:09:02.033
purpose of helping the country.

00:09:02.033 --> 00:09:07.073
And at the same time in our our i think our unwillingness to accept what's happening

00:09:07.073 --> 00:09:12.393
a lot of us i think are still in denial about it we want to tell ourselves you

00:09:12.393 --> 00:09:16.653
know that he he won't really do tariffs then he did them we want to tell ourselves

00:09:16.653 --> 00:09:18.373
that he doesn't really want to invade

00:09:18.813 --> 00:09:22.813
canada or greenland he keeps saying he does you know we want to tell ourselves

00:09:22.813 --> 00:09:27.613
that he won't blow up right america's position in the world he has so i think

00:09:27.613 --> 00:09:32.913
you know that kind of inability to accept what's happening around us, to me,

00:09:32.993 --> 00:09:36.433
is also what's evoked by that. It feels like everything feels crazy.

00:09:36.973 --> 00:09:40.893
And I think that that's true. But I also think that that's sort of the place

00:09:40.893 --> 00:09:43.633
we have to start from now, that a lot of the old rules are gone.

00:09:44.673 --> 00:09:48.813
Yeah. All right, so give me a number between one person,

00:09:49.399 --> 00:09:54.919
And 20? Well, let's say 13. All right, 13.

00:09:55.859 --> 00:10:01.059
Do you think there is such a thing as unbiased news or media and why?

00:10:01.979 --> 00:10:07.919
Yeah, I do. Now, I think that always has to, you know, if what we mean is do

00:10:07.919 --> 00:10:12.859
you think that human beings can do anything without some of their own, I guess, you know,

00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:17.779
decision making and whatever guides that playing a role, then no.

00:10:17.779 --> 00:10:24.199
But do I think, you know, news that is reliable and objective and rigorously

00:10:24.199 --> 00:10:29.979
checked and, you know, presented in a way that's meant to inform can be made?

00:10:30.099 --> 00:10:31.359
Yeah, I think, of course.

00:10:31.539 --> 00:10:33.579
And there are places that still do a really good job of this.

00:10:33.699 --> 00:10:35.979
You know, I mean, the AP is a wonderful news outlet.

00:10:36.179 --> 00:10:41.859
You can tune into PBS NewsHour every night and want really great reporting.

00:10:42.819 --> 00:10:46.619
Cable news, I think, often is where we get into the problem with this.

00:10:46.619 --> 00:10:50.399
But the issue is that most cable news is actually editorialism.

00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:53.079
It's opinion journalism in primetime.

00:10:53.339 --> 00:10:57.019
And opinion journalism has a place in the ecosystem of journalism.

00:10:57.019 --> 00:11:02.379
It's just that I think if people assume that opinion journalism is the only

00:11:02.379 --> 00:11:03.359
journalism that's out there,

00:11:03.539 --> 00:11:07.099
you're going to end up with this idea that there's no such thing as news that's

00:11:07.099 --> 00:11:12.239
trying to be sort of rigorous and objective about its reporting. And there is.

00:11:14.339 --> 00:11:22.139
So what motivated or inspired you to get involved in politics well you know i had the,

00:11:23.019 --> 00:11:27.739
for i guess fortune misfortune being raised by a political scientist for a father

00:11:27.739 --> 00:11:31.959
i've always been interested it's always fascinated me politics has always been

00:11:31.959 --> 00:11:35.539
something that i enjoyed like learning about the history of politics i care

00:11:35.539 --> 00:11:38.999
about certain you know issues i think that's how a lot of people tend to get involved.

00:11:39.419 --> 00:11:42.539
They're passionate about an issue here or there.

00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:47.539
You know, I think it helped that when I came of age, right, to vote,

00:11:47.699 --> 00:11:51.259
18, my first election was Obama's election. And that was a pretty great election.

00:11:51.459 --> 00:11:56.899
You know, Barack Obama and John McCain are kind of two wonderful paragons of America.

00:11:57.219 --> 00:12:00.799
They, you know, we had a great, you know, Sarah Palin, I don't have as many

00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:04.939
charming things to say about, but, you know, we had a great election where we

00:12:04.939 --> 00:12:10.619
elected the first black president and he ran against a war hero.

00:12:10.899 --> 00:12:13.939
It was kind of the best America had to offer, right?

00:12:14.119 --> 00:12:18.359
And so if that's your coming of age into elections and politics,

00:12:18.619 --> 00:12:20.659
you kind of feel pretty good about the country.

00:12:20.839 --> 00:12:25.739
So when I was younger, there was a lot, I think, to be excited about in a sense

00:12:25.739 --> 00:12:28.579
that we're all trying to make the country better in different ways.

00:12:28.959 --> 00:12:32.719
And, you know, those feelings are complicated now.

00:12:33.099 --> 00:12:36.219
But certainly when I was younger, the things that drew me into politics were

00:12:36.219 --> 00:12:40.179
both personal interests, and I really think, you know, it was kind of a fun

00:12:40.179 --> 00:12:41.739
time to be interested in politics.

00:12:42.873 --> 00:12:49.053
Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, a lot of people don't put it in that perspective.

00:12:49.633 --> 00:12:54.873
You know, here was an African-American running for president of the United States

00:12:54.873 --> 00:13:00.253
based on the history of what African-Americans gone through running against a legitimate war hero,

00:13:00.593 --> 00:13:06.593
which, you know, in other times, the military hero usually is the victor.

00:13:06.593 --> 00:13:11.593
And so, like you said, when you put it in that perspective, yeah,

00:13:11.633 --> 00:13:17.453
that's probably really the last great election we have had, you know, as far as choices.

00:13:18.433 --> 00:13:23.773
And it means something for me because I was on the ballot in Mississippi in

00:13:23.773 --> 00:13:26.313
that 08 election. I was running for the U.S. Senate.

00:13:26.553 --> 00:13:31.433
So, yeah, that's just kind of a cool reflection on that.

00:13:32.313 --> 00:13:36.653
What is the Pulaski Institution and why did you feel the need to create it?

00:13:37.573 --> 00:13:40.673
So we're a new nonprofit. You could call us Think Tank. I do.

00:13:41.053 --> 00:13:46.913
And what we are is an organization that's dedicated to really looking at heartland

00:13:46.913 --> 00:13:52.973
areas in the context of global politics and particularly with this notion of

00:13:52.973 --> 00:13:53.913
place-based democracy.

00:13:53.913 --> 00:13:59.973
And the idea is that we're seeing, not just in the United States,

00:14:00.193 --> 00:14:06.693
a retreat in a lot of wealthy democracies from the commitments to liberalism, pluralism.

00:14:07.553 --> 00:14:12.933
You know, certain economic freedoms that have guided these countries over the

00:14:12.933 --> 00:14:19.033
last, you know, especially 80 years to places of remarkable freedom and prosperity.

00:14:19.033 --> 00:14:23.673
And that it's important to look at why that's happening, but also to actually

00:14:23.673 --> 00:14:29.233
try to bolster the sort of democratic values and culture that's being developed in these places.

00:14:29.633 --> 00:14:35.373
It's not just in the United States. It's not just in upstate New York or Maine

00:14:35.373 --> 00:14:41.093
or Arkansas here, but also in places like the north of England,

00:14:41.093 --> 00:14:43.913
where there was a significant Brexit vote, Right.

00:14:44.253 --> 00:14:48.813
Or the parts of France, right, in post-industrial France and southern France,

00:14:49.033 --> 00:14:52.693
where, you know, the politics of Marine Le Pen are quite popular.

00:14:52.693 --> 00:14:56.993
And to me, there's a sense that if we don't start really having conversations

00:14:56.993 --> 00:15:01.393
about these places and also understand that they exist, they still do exist

00:15:01.393 --> 00:15:02.533
in a globalized context,

00:15:02.893 --> 00:15:08.053
then we are setting ourselves up to just keep getting buffeted every couple

00:15:08.053 --> 00:15:16.453
of years by another wave, right, of sort of populist angst in different countries, right?

00:15:21.024 --> 00:15:24.004
You know, the AFD is still surging in Germany.

00:15:24.464 --> 00:15:28.144
You know, France is going to have an election in 2027. And right now it's not

00:15:28.144 --> 00:15:34.244
obvious who's going to run that's going to be able to be more popular than the national rally.

00:15:34.384 --> 00:15:38.284
So I think there's a lot of concern still, even outside the U.S.,

00:15:38.284 --> 00:15:40.444
for where these forces are going.

00:15:41.424 --> 00:15:46.984
Is there a true natural connection between global politics and the heartland?

00:15:47.544 --> 00:15:50.104
Absolutely. You can't escape it. It's all coming here, right?

00:15:50.224 --> 00:15:55.484
One is the fact that the things that a lot of these people are upset about are

00:15:55.484 --> 00:15:59.404
globalized processes, or at least they perceive them in the sense of like,

00:15:59.544 --> 00:16:03.964
well, you know, we're being dislocated or we're being undercut,

00:16:04.104 --> 00:16:07.524
right, by big cosmopolitan cities, you know.

00:16:07.524 --> 00:16:10.524
But also, you know, the world is globalized.

00:16:10.644 --> 00:16:13.364
So the ideas travel internationally, right?

00:16:13.504 --> 00:16:17.524
You know, we had a lot of conversations in the past couple of years about great replacement theory.

00:16:17.784 --> 00:16:19.944
Well, great replacement theory is a French idea. Originally,

00:16:20.324 --> 00:16:22.344
these ideas are traveling.

00:16:22.684 --> 00:16:28.664
You know, we see, you know, the Ottawa rally where a lot of the Canadians who

00:16:28.664 --> 00:16:31.224
participated in that came from sort of prairie provinces, right,

00:16:31.284 --> 00:16:33.684
where they sort of took over downtown Ottawa.

00:16:33.684 --> 00:16:37.224
You know, there's a lot of things about that that were evocative of January

00:16:37.224 --> 00:16:41.664
6th and frankly, a lot of online networks that are overlapping with certain

00:16:41.664 --> 00:16:43.344
American far right influencers.

00:16:43.604 --> 00:16:49.224
So one is to understand, I think, that there's a reaction against certain aspects

00:16:49.224 --> 00:16:53.184
of globalization, but also understand that globalization itself is actually

00:16:53.184 --> 00:16:57.464
shaping and feeding some of the forces that are being unleashed in these places.

00:16:59.464 --> 00:17:06.424
Yeah. So you are based in Arkansas, the home of Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Tom

00:17:06.424 --> 00:17:12.104
Cotton, the poster children and Johnny Cash.

00:17:12.344 --> 00:17:16.504
Well, that's true. That's true, too. As a matter of fact, there is a little

00:17:16.504 --> 00:17:22.424
restaurant right behind the state capital, Little Rock, that Bill Clinton used

00:17:22.424 --> 00:17:24.044
to go to. And I think Hunter Thompson.

00:17:24.724 --> 00:17:26.764
So I got to eat there. So that was pretty cool.

00:17:27.803 --> 00:17:33.103
But Sanders and Cotton are considered like the poster children for violence

00:17:33.103 --> 00:17:34.723
and cruelty in American politics.

00:17:35.003 --> 00:17:39.603
Why do you think that that kind of politics or those kind of individuals are

00:17:39.603 --> 00:17:44.663
appealing in the political atmosphere here?

00:17:45.583 --> 00:17:50.363
So I think I should say that obviously I don't think that not everyone who votes

00:17:50.363 --> 00:17:53.923
for a Republican candidate or someone like Sarah Hickory Sanders or Todd Cotton

00:17:53.923 --> 00:17:59.143
is doing so because they're just thrilled by the sort of violent elements or

00:17:59.143 --> 00:18:01.863
the more authoritarian elements of their politics, right?

00:18:02.483 --> 00:18:08.423
The South has a long history of being a kind of one-party region that shifted

00:18:08.423 --> 00:18:13.023
from Democratic to Republican, right, largely on the back of the changes in the civil rights era.

00:18:13.303 --> 00:18:18.203
But it means there's a lot of people who have, frankly, just a sort of reflexive loyalty.

00:18:19.783 --> 00:18:23.723
But I've made this argument before I did a piece of the bulwark for it,

00:18:23.863 --> 00:18:28.443
which is that I just don't think that the South ever fully took to liberal democratic

00:18:28.443 --> 00:18:30.883
culture in the way the left of the country did.

00:18:30.883 --> 00:18:35.423
That there's some excellent histories on this, probably the best one being Heather

00:18:35.423 --> 00:18:37.583
Cox Richardson's How the South Won the Civil War,

00:18:37.843 --> 00:18:42.103
that really argue that it's not just the failure of Reconstruction,

00:18:42.123 --> 00:18:46.103
it's the way that these ideas are cemented after the failure of Reconstruction.

00:18:46.103 --> 00:18:51.483
You know, the South goes right back into being essentially a racial hierarchy

00:18:51.483 --> 00:18:53.663
system. But not just that.

00:18:53.943 --> 00:18:57.523
They invent new ways to, now that they have to deal with the fact that there

00:18:57.523 --> 00:19:01.723
are technically free black citizens living in the region, they invent new ways

00:19:01.723 --> 00:19:04.703
to impose, right, that system electorally.

00:19:04.703 --> 00:19:10.763
And they managed to package those ideas in ways that can be sold to the public, right?

00:19:11.083 --> 00:19:15.383
Limited, you know, limited government and kind of these ideas about Washington

00:19:15.383 --> 00:19:18.263
corruption and a certain paranoid attitude as well.

00:19:19.043 --> 00:19:23.803
And the reality is that I think that, you know, that culture has never been

00:19:23.803 --> 00:19:25.503
fully uprooted. We never really

00:19:25.503 --> 00:19:31.743
did the kind of thoroughgoing dealing with what this meant in the South.

00:19:32.043 --> 00:19:35.243
And civil rights came essentially almost a century later.

00:19:36.248 --> 00:19:39.568
And even then, I think there has been a tendency to sort of,

00:19:39.688 --> 00:19:42.128
you know, dust our hands off, pat ourselves on the back and say,

00:19:42.328 --> 00:19:43.648
we accomplished that, right?

00:19:43.808 --> 00:19:46.848
And, you know, probably the culmination of that attitude comes,

00:19:46.968 --> 00:19:48.468
right, with the Shelby v.

00:19:48.548 --> 00:19:51.108
Holder decision, right, and the Supreme Court saying, well, actually,

00:19:51.408 --> 00:19:55.588
it's no longer essential that the federal government sort of rigorously enforce

00:19:55.588 --> 00:20:01.028
these sort of parts of the Voting Rights Act because, you know, mission accomplished.

00:20:01.528 --> 00:20:06.308
And I would say, no, mission not accomplished, not just in sort of actual sort

00:20:06.308 --> 00:20:10.648
of measurable data points, but in the culture, which is a little harder to measure,

00:20:10.868 --> 00:20:15.028
but I think is still very much one where people do just kind of accept a certain

00:20:15.028 --> 00:20:19.948
degree of illiberalism in their politics here, because it's always been there.

00:20:21.368 --> 00:20:25.368
Yeah yeah i i agree with that you know a lot of people.

00:20:27.028 --> 00:20:31.128
You know that don't really understand the south i've been now in the south,

00:20:32.248 --> 00:20:40.888
god 42 years of my life and you know people are very nice people are very very

00:20:40.888 --> 00:20:46.328
hospitable they're very cordial you can sit down and have a beer and eat barbecue

00:20:46.328 --> 00:20:51.308
and play football watch football You can do a whole lot of things.

00:20:51.528 --> 00:20:57.408
But when it comes to the politics, though, it's almost like a switch clicks in.

00:20:57.728 --> 00:21:04.308
And it's just like anything that's related to change, they're allergic to it. Right.

00:21:04.608 --> 00:21:09.548
It's just like, you know, every human being loves sugar, but we're all addicted

00:21:09.548 --> 00:21:10.948
to it. So that's why we get fat.

00:21:13.268 --> 00:21:16.408
It's the same way it would change to me in the South it's like,

00:21:17.248 --> 00:21:22.728
they just it's like well you know that's just not that's always was the common

00:21:22.728 --> 00:21:25.588
line that's just not how we do things around here,

00:21:26.148 --> 00:21:32.228
it's like and how's that working out for you that usually just frustrate me

00:21:32.228 --> 00:21:35.988
to death in Mississippi because Mississippi is one of the poorest states in

00:21:35.988 --> 00:21:38.908
the nation and anytime we used to try to push for things,

00:21:40.188 --> 00:21:44.668
to try to make life better or at least go in a different direction than what we've been doing,

00:21:45.608 --> 00:21:48.768
well, you know, I don't know if our folks are ready for that.

00:21:49.948 --> 00:21:53.608
And so how do you get around it?

00:21:55.589 --> 00:21:58.729
Well, you know, I think we would probably both agree that our frustrations with

00:21:58.729 --> 00:22:02.789
the South coexist with our love for the South. I do love it.

00:22:03.649 --> 00:22:06.389
And that has to be there, right? You really aren't going to be able to change

00:22:06.389 --> 00:22:10.029
this place, this region, without doing it from here, you know?

00:22:10.669 --> 00:22:14.029
And that's kind of the logic that Pulaski has in general, is that the work has

00:22:14.029 --> 00:22:15.329
to be done from different places.

00:22:15.789 --> 00:22:21.109
You got to try to find people who are willing to talk and think and advocate

00:22:21.109 --> 00:22:25.829
with at least having at least one foot planted in the place they're trying to talk about.

00:22:26.509 --> 00:22:32.309
I think that's really important because, you know, people need to see that you're invested in it.

00:22:32.429 --> 00:22:37.249
People need to see that this is a place you're not just talking about to them from a distance.

00:22:37.689 --> 00:22:44.409
So, you know, that's to me the starting point is you cannot possibly effect

00:22:44.409 --> 00:22:52.189
chain in a place in a really rich and meaningful way that lasts without being

00:22:52.189 --> 00:22:54.949
invested in it. And so I think that's the other side of it.

00:22:55.009 --> 00:22:57.869
A lot of people reacted to that piece I wrote with a kind of like,

00:22:57.969 --> 00:22:59.489
well, the South is terrible. I hate the South.

00:22:59.649 --> 00:23:02.289
And I was like, I don't hate the South. I love the South.

00:23:03.009 --> 00:23:07.129
I just want so much more for it. Yeah.

00:23:08.469 --> 00:23:12.669
Well, there's an old politician in Mississippi. He's going on to the other side

00:23:12.669 --> 00:23:15.889
now. But he used to say, in order to lead the people, you got to love the people.

00:23:16.329 --> 00:23:20.009
Yeah. So I agree with you. In order to do what you need to do,

00:23:20.149 --> 00:23:23.789
you've got to have a love for the place that you're in, and then you've got

00:23:23.789 --> 00:23:28.309
to love the people that are there and just do the best you can.

00:23:29.289 --> 00:23:36.529
Why do you think American Christianity has moved from right-wing activism to outright idolatry?

00:23:37.617 --> 00:23:41.597
Well, I think there's a lot of different forces at play there.

00:23:42.737 --> 00:23:47.217
When you look at what a lot of the scholars of sort of Christian nationalism

00:23:47.217 --> 00:23:51.277
will talk about, I think one thing that's important is there's different strains, right?

00:23:51.997 --> 00:23:55.677
So, you know, the people who've moved into extremism out of,

00:23:55.757 --> 00:23:59.857
say, the Catholic right are not talking in exactly the same way as the people

00:23:59.857 --> 00:24:03.197
who come from a more charismatic evangelical background.

00:24:04.617 --> 00:24:10.517
But what I do think is true is, if we're going to try to talk about this specific

00:24:10.517 --> 00:24:14.357
moment we're in, a lot of Christians decided that Donald Trump was an imperfect

00:24:14.357 --> 00:24:17.637
vessel for accomplishing a lot of things that they thought were important to accomplish.

00:24:18.457 --> 00:24:25.637
And the problem with that, I think, is that is a bet in which they had to keep sort of anteing up.

00:24:25.797 --> 00:24:28.837
They had to keep going deeper and deeper in, right?

00:24:29.477 --> 00:24:36.237
I think in 2016, the tone to a lot of it felt more transactional, right?

00:24:36.417 --> 00:24:39.757
Donald Trump, maybe he's not perfect, but he's going to do some things.

00:24:39.917 --> 00:24:42.857
And Christians have to accept that we live in a world, right,

00:24:42.917 --> 00:24:48.097
of flesh and blood. And therefore, if you want to get certain things done for

00:24:48.097 --> 00:24:51.517
the purpose of God, that you don't always get to pick who you work with, right? Right.

00:24:52.517 --> 00:24:58.477
That I think what happened with that is that they had to get they got deeper and deeper in.

00:24:58.597 --> 00:25:03.457
And as you start to justify that, right, I think that the arguments in the kind

00:25:03.457 --> 00:25:08.997
of ways in which that was sustained, right, that relationship was sustained,

00:25:09.557 --> 00:25:16.257
it started to push more towards if all of this is worth it, then there must

00:25:16.257 --> 00:25:18.457
be something really special here. Right.

00:25:18.797 --> 00:25:22.477
And so Trump becomes not just a kind of, well, we can use him to get done what

00:25:22.477 --> 00:25:25.337
we've done. He becomes the special chosen man of God.

00:25:26.397 --> 00:25:30.317
You know, I don't think that's the whole story. And obviously there are nuances,

00:25:30.737 --> 00:25:35.597
like I said, depending on the sort of theological milieu you come out of within Christianity.

00:25:36.277 --> 00:25:41.017
But I think that that kind of paints the broad picture for what's happened in the last decade.

00:25:42.055 --> 00:25:46.955
Yeah, it's kind of a, staying with the religious thing, it's kind of like,

00:25:47.175 --> 00:25:54.135
instead of getting the Apostle Paul, you're settling for Saul of Tarsus,

00:25:54.555 --> 00:25:56.655
right? Oh, yeah. It's like. No conversion.

00:25:57.335 --> 00:26:02.275
That's right. No Damascus Road experience. It's just, we like Saul the way he is.

00:26:02.375 --> 00:26:08.135
We just want him to go ahead and do his thing, you know, and not elevate himself.

00:26:08.995 --> 00:26:19.075
And I just wonder why people really, really feel that way, why they feel that

00:26:19.075 --> 00:26:21.615
they have to settle for that.

00:26:21.815 --> 00:26:28.235
I guess maybe in their mindset, somebody who actually was pure probably wouldn't

00:26:28.235 --> 00:26:29.995
get close enough to be president.

00:26:29.995 --> 00:26:35.055
I don't know. I mean, I think it's astonishing how under siege American Christians

00:26:35.055 --> 00:26:39.255
feel despite living in a pretty, I think, actually Christian-friendly country.

00:26:39.655 --> 00:26:45.035
You know, when you have convinced yourself that you are this persecuted minority,

00:26:45.375 --> 00:26:49.655
I think the kind of things you start to think you're willing to accept to assert

00:26:49.655 --> 00:26:52.755
your own power get pretty dark, right?

00:26:52.755 --> 00:26:55.175
I do think a lot of you'll hear a lot of the justifications are,

00:26:55.335 --> 00:26:59.395
well, it's like war has already been declared on us.

00:26:59.535 --> 00:27:04.895
Therefore, we should not be afraid to deploy, you know, whatever weapons are in our arsenal.

00:27:05.075 --> 00:27:11.675
And Donald Trump happens to be, you know, right now the big one in the repertoire. Yeah.

00:27:12.535 --> 00:27:16.975
What will it take for liberalism to be dynamic and inclusive?

00:27:18.802 --> 00:27:21.162
You know, one of the things I'm really convinced of right now is that we live

00:27:21.162 --> 00:27:23.162
in a moment where we need lots of new ideas.

00:27:23.542 --> 00:27:27.762
And so I think as long as what you need to do is say the guiding principles

00:27:27.762 --> 00:27:34.042
for how we think about our problems should be this mixture of respect for individual

00:27:34.042 --> 00:27:36.362
dignity, pluralism, which means, you know,

00:27:36.822 --> 00:27:40.362
lots of different people, right, being able to co-exist, lots of different groups

00:27:40.362 --> 00:27:44.262
being able to co-exist and participate, you know, mutual toleration.

00:27:44.262 --> 00:27:49.542
And, yeah, individual freedom, but then say, okay, those are the guiding principles.

00:27:51.102 --> 00:27:53.982
But a lot of the things we haven't done, a lot of things we've been doing,

00:27:54.082 --> 00:27:58.682
maybe they're not working, maybe we need new ideas, and as long as we're trying to come up with,

00:27:59.302 --> 00:28:04.202
responses to the moment, original responses, that still say we're going to adhere

00:28:04.202 --> 00:28:06.702
to these sort of guiding ideals,

00:28:07.262 --> 00:28:10.302
then I think that's opening the door for something more dynamic, right?

00:28:10.762 --> 00:28:14.462
One of the things that I think this goes back to a kind of madness conversation,

00:28:14.702 --> 00:28:18.342
which is people, I think, really have to accept that we're moving forward past

00:28:18.342 --> 00:28:21.142
some, the old status quo is not coming back.

00:28:21.842 --> 00:28:27.102
We have a chance to decide what we want to happen next. And I think that can

00:28:27.102 --> 00:28:31.462
be an invigorating thing that we could say, what do we want to do in the wake of this?

00:28:31.602 --> 00:28:34.882
Donald Trump has just laid siege to so many aspects of our government and how

00:28:34.882 --> 00:28:35.942
things are working. Okay.

00:28:36.562 --> 00:28:39.882
Is the goal just going to be to go in and sort of, you know glue

00:28:39.882 --> 00:28:42.962
the pieces back together and have a a

00:28:42.962 --> 00:28:46.542
slightly more you know broken looking

00:28:46.542 --> 00:28:51.022
but you know kind of fixed system or is the goal going to be to go in and say

00:28:51.022 --> 00:28:56.422
okay well let's be as ambitious about building something new and interesting

00:28:56.422 --> 00:29:01.202
and dynamic as these people were about trying to destroy it right i do think

00:29:01.202 --> 00:29:05.942
that needs to be there that energy for for for creating the future has to be there,

00:29:06.382 --> 00:29:09.862
being really reactive and responsive to problems, saying we're going to actually

00:29:09.862 --> 00:29:13.162
have big ideas about how we're going to fix the energy crisis,

00:29:13.402 --> 00:29:15.542
about how we're going to fix the climate crisis, about how we're going to fix

00:29:15.542 --> 00:29:18.022
some of these new challenges that are emerging.

00:29:18.742 --> 00:29:21.122
And making sure that liberalism is the guidepost.

00:29:22.115 --> 00:29:27.895
Yeah, it's like, I guess another analogy would be, it's like,

00:29:28.135 --> 00:29:32.355
we know that the president has set everything on fire.

00:29:32.535 --> 00:29:38.855
So the question is, do we put the fire out and salvage what's left?

00:29:39.095 --> 00:29:44.275
Or do we just go ahead and let it burn and then rebuild something totally new?

00:29:44.675 --> 00:29:49.935
Like you said, with more of a liberal or progressive bend to it.

00:29:51.055 --> 00:29:54.335
That's gonna be tough yeah i'm not an accelerationist

00:29:54.335 --> 00:29:57.255
i don't think that we should get rid of the constitution or anything like

00:29:57.255 --> 00:30:02.715
that but there's things where you can look at it and say look okay he's

00:30:02.715 --> 00:30:06.175
really ransacked a lot of you know agencies when we

00:30:06.175 --> 00:30:12.355
come back in if you know if democrats win in 2028 or something okay how are

00:30:12.355 --> 00:30:15.195
we going to think about putting the government back together is it going to

00:30:15.195 --> 00:30:19.815
just be okay everything goes back we're just going institute sort of pre-2025

00:30:19.815 --> 00:30:23.235
funding or are we going to say we need to think really critically,

00:30:23.975 --> 00:30:27.675
about how we want to structure these things and

00:30:27.675 --> 00:30:31.535
approach you know the future moving forward i also think we probably have to

00:30:31.535 --> 00:30:38.235
have a serious conversation about how to massively reform ice right it's clear

00:30:38.235 --> 00:30:43.655
to me that that agency is is willing to do some frankly illegal and constitutional

00:30:43.655 --> 00:30:46.675
things at the president's orders. And that's a cultural problem.

00:30:47.415 --> 00:30:52.155
And it has to be fixed. I don't know that that means, you know,

00:30:52.955 --> 00:30:57.155
destroying, like eliminating ICE as an agency, but it certainly means reforming

00:30:57.155 --> 00:31:00.215
it and probably getting rid of a lot of personnel, because that's a huge problem.

00:31:00.455 --> 00:31:06.295
You cannot have, I think, you know, you cannot be afraid to institute reforms,

00:31:06.875 --> 00:31:08.635
especially after people have seen what they've seen.

00:31:08.775 --> 00:31:13.735
You know, they can't unsee, you know, federal agents doing this stuff.

00:31:14.375 --> 00:31:17.215
Yeah. And then even a question of...

00:31:19.217 --> 00:31:21.957
Like maybe consolidating stuff, right?

00:31:22.417 --> 00:31:27.737
Because, you know, one of the things we had to deal with a lot in being in the

00:31:27.737 --> 00:31:34.177
state legislature in Mississippi was because we had limited income,

00:31:34.457 --> 00:31:35.957
limited revenue, tax revenue.

00:31:37.397 --> 00:31:41.417
And, you know, and people were out there struggling.

00:31:41.417 --> 00:31:47.637
The question became, do we really need to be as big as we used to be,

00:31:48.017 --> 00:31:53.417
right? But, you know, we had a county, it literally had 40,000 people in it

00:31:53.417 --> 00:31:55.057
and we had six school districts.

00:31:55.457 --> 00:32:02.577
So the question was, do we really need to have six school districts in a county

00:32:02.577 --> 00:32:03.957
that only has 40,000 people?

00:32:04.877 --> 00:32:10.957
You know, and what does that look like? We were electing a superintendent of

00:32:10.957 --> 00:32:14.577
education for a county that literally did not have a school in the county.

00:32:16.137 --> 00:32:21.817
And they had consolidated with another county for their kids to go to school.

00:32:21.977 --> 00:32:25.737
And so we were like, yeah, we probably need to get rid of that position.

00:32:26.237 --> 00:32:35.377
So I think, you know, the concern that a lot of us have that have been involved in politics and,

00:32:35.957 --> 00:32:42.837
like you say, respect the Constitution, is that we're not against reform or

00:32:42.837 --> 00:32:50.117
upgrades or, you know, doing what needs some tinkering, but we're not into slashing and burning.

00:32:50.457 --> 00:32:55.977
That's the problem. It's like, you just can't come in and just destroy everything

00:32:55.977 --> 00:33:01.457
and then have somebody who has no concept of government, let alone American government.

00:33:02.608 --> 00:33:08.088
Being the lead point person. I think that's where a lot of people that are rational

00:33:08.088 --> 00:33:11.248
about the conversation really have some heartburn.

00:33:11.408 --> 00:33:19.508
And I don't know, but a lot of people that line up on that side are frustrated

00:33:19.508 --> 00:33:21.888
enough where they decide to let that go.

00:33:22.068 --> 00:33:26.008
You know, it's like, well, he said he was going to shake some things up.

00:33:26.108 --> 00:33:31.548
I think that goes back to, you know, when we make the equation that Christians

00:33:31.548 --> 00:33:34.848
think that Donald Trump is a change agent for their good,

00:33:34.848 --> 00:33:40.028
they envision him as a Jesus showing up and flipping the tables at the temple

00:33:40.028 --> 00:33:44.728
as opposed to being more Herod. You know what I'm saying?

00:33:45.128 --> 00:33:49.468
I mean, that's just me. But what do you think about that take?

00:33:49.688 --> 00:33:53.148
I think it's the human, you know, this is where we get into the fact that there's

00:33:53.148 --> 00:33:56.688
a lot of things about human nature that make democracy really hard. We're not patient.

00:33:56.848 --> 00:34:02.648
We want fixes. And there's always been, since democracy has been a thing we've

00:34:02.648 --> 00:34:04.768
been trying to do as societies,

00:34:05.148 --> 00:34:13.288
there's always been the temptation to indulge people who are saying, I can fix it.

00:34:13.388 --> 00:34:19.608
I can fix it right now if you let me do it in these clearly tyrannical ways. Right.

00:34:20.188 --> 00:34:25.168
And human beings are often tempted to turn power over like that.

00:34:25.528 --> 00:34:29.648
Right. So democracy is when people say democracy is fragile.

00:34:29.788 --> 00:34:34.768
One of the things we mean is it's fragile because human beings, by their nature,

00:34:35.148 --> 00:34:39.488
do not always actually want to do things the way democracies do things,

00:34:39.528 --> 00:34:45.588
which is slow and deliberative and requires consensus and isn't always just

00:34:45.588 --> 00:34:48.908
going to, you know, smash things up a bit immediately.

00:34:49.068 --> 00:34:52.388
Now, I think the end result of that is obviously better, because that's how

00:34:52.388 --> 00:34:55.968
you protect freedoms and rights and dignity. But.

00:34:56.973 --> 00:34:59.893
That tension, I think, is always going to be there. And, you know,

00:35:00.073 --> 00:35:02.373
it comes to the surface more in different times.

00:35:02.573 --> 00:35:10.093
But that human desire to have the quick fix, to push past the sort of way democracy

00:35:10.093 --> 00:35:13.453
tries to tell us to slow down, I think that's always going to be there.

00:35:15.693 --> 00:35:18.753
So people were talking about you know you know

00:35:18.753 --> 00:35:21.833
i hear a lot of democrats saying well you

00:35:21.833 --> 00:35:26.913
know the way things are going man we we we ought to be able to flip the house

00:35:26.913 --> 00:35:32.073
and flip the senate in 2026 and you know and Donald trump will basically be

00:35:32.073 --> 00:35:37.773
a lame duck and all this stuff what is your take on what American politics will

00:35:37.773 --> 00:35:40.753
look like in 2026 because there's some people where it's like going,

00:35:41.033 --> 00:35:44.173
I don't even know if we're going to have an election in 2026 and y'all busy

00:35:44.173 --> 00:35:45.993
talking about flipping stuff, you know?

00:35:46.253 --> 00:35:50.493
What do you think American politics is going to look like a year from now?

00:35:50.973 --> 00:35:57.113
So I think we should be clear that, you know, there's people who are baselessly

00:35:57.113 --> 00:35:59.253
saying we won't have an election in 2026.

00:35:59.513 --> 00:36:04.373
There are some very serious people who are saying, hey, this is on my radar

00:36:04.373 --> 00:36:08.133
and I have some concerns about what the Trump administration might try to do.

00:36:08.793 --> 00:36:12.613
I think it's worth taking the serious people seriously when they say things like that.

00:36:12.773 --> 00:36:17.133
At the same time, we're not there yet, so there's not a lot we can do. It's speculative.

00:36:18.993 --> 00:36:25.753
What I would, I think, say in terms of how the actual elections might play out

00:36:25.753 --> 00:36:29.713
is it looks right now like Democrats are probably going to have a good midterm.

00:36:30.093 --> 00:36:33.773
I think that, you know, they had a good midterm in 2018.

00:36:34.193 --> 00:36:37.013
A lot of things are maybe even worse now. Yeah.

00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:41.839
Then in 2017, 2018, leading up to those midterms. There's lots of reasons I think Democrats,

00:36:42.119 --> 00:36:45.019
you know, the early data that we've seen out of some of the special elections

00:36:45.019 --> 00:36:48.319
in Wisconsin and even the Florida races where Republicans won,

00:36:48.599 --> 00:36:52.599
but won by much less in heavily Republican districts than they normally would,

00:36:52.799 --> 00:36:56.039
all suggest things shifting towards Democrats.

00:36:56.679 --> 00:37:01.299
What I would say to that is, I'm still worried about living in a country where

00:37:01.299 --> 00:37:06.379
every few years we're willing to indulge, people like Donald Trump.

00:37:06.579 --> 00:37:12.279
Donald Trump was president and then COVID happened and a million Americans died

00:37:12.279 --> 00:37:15.839
in part because Donald Trump actively mismanaged that crisis.

00:37:16.379 --> 00:37:21.919
And then after he was voted out of office, he staged a coup to try to stay in

00:37:21.919 --> 00:37:26.039
office where his supporters said they wanted to kill his vice president.

00:37:26.659 --> 00:37:29.899
And then four years later, because, you know.

00:37:30.679 --> 00:37:33.379
Joe Biden was pretty old and we replaced him last minute with

00:37:33.379 --> 00:37:36.539
Kamala Harris and prices were higher than

00:37:36.539 --> 00:37:39.399
some people would like we returned Donald trump to office

00:37:39.399 --> 00:37:44.679
and i think that if that's the cycle we're in that's not very encouraging so

00:37:44.679 --> 00:37:51.639
i'm not i'm optimistic about democrats chances in 2026 and even maybe in 2028

00:37:51.639 --> 00:37:56.819
but i am concerned about where the country is at that we are,

00:37:57.499 --> 00:38:02.419
going to be in a situation where if if the democrats aren't essentially perfect

00:38:02.419 --> 00:38:08.019
we just might vote back in you know and after 2028 it might not be right trump

00:38:08.019 --> 00:38:12.199
but you know a jd Vance or someone else who is just completely on board with

00:38:12.199 --> 00:38:15.399
what we've seen to be a deeply authoritarian,

00:38:16.319 --> 00:38:21.699
reckless chaotic form of of government and that does concern me because i i

00:38:21.699 --> 00:38:28.819
don't think democrats winning in 2026 or even 2028 necessarily expunges, right,

00:38:28.959 --> 00:38:31.859
that particular problem from our democracy.

00:38:32.694 --> 00:38:37.074
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, or exercise even.

00:38:38.174 --> 00:38:43.954
It's, uh, it's going to be a Herculean task, but you have decided to jump into

00:38:43.954 --> 00:38:46.134
fray with the Pulaski institution.

00:38:46.614 --> 00:38:51.134
So tell people how people, you know, how people can reach out to you,

00:38:51.314 --> 00:38:53.674
how they can get involved with the Pulaski institution.

00:38:54.434 --> 00:38:59.834
Just, just, just, just go ahead and plug away and on how people can get engaged.

00:38:59.834 --> 00:39:03.334
We are found at PulaskiInstitution.org.

00:39:03.514 --> 00:39:09.254
You can also find, we do a podcast that I put out every so often with experts and guests.

00:39:09.514 --> 00:39:13.354
It's not weekly, but I try whenever I can get good people, we do an episode

00:39:13.354 --> 00:39:15.894
or two in a couple weeks around when we put those out.

00:39:16.254 --> 00:39:20.214
That is called The Periphery from the Pulaski Institution, and it is available

00:39:20.214 --> 00:39:25.374
across all platforms. You can also find, you know, the writing I do at Arc Digital

00:39:25.374 --> 00:39:29.134
or at Liberal Currents or other places like the Bulwark.

00:39:29.314 --> 00:39:33.334
And, you know, that usually is stuff that's oriented towards the kind of things

00:39:33.334 --> 00:39:34.534
we're thinking about at Pulaski.

00:39:34.534 --> 00:39:39.514
If you're in the Oklahoma City area, we are going to be doing an event in Oklahoma

00:39:39.514 --> 00:39:45.274
City on April 24th at the Tower Theater with one of our fellows, Dr.

00:39:45.354 --> 00:39:49.014
Allison Schertl, who's a professor at OU and some other guests.

00:39:49.314 --> 00:39:51.994
And so we're going to be talking a little bit about democracy and Christian

00:39:51.994 --> 00:39:56.914
nationalism and extremism, particularly as it relates to Oklahoma.

00:39:57.294 --> 00:40:00.494
I think that's going to be fun. And so, yeah, we try it. We're going to be trying

00:40:00.494 --> 00:40:04.354
to bring more events to different places to have that kind of local conversation

00:40:04.354 --> 00:40:05.154
about what's happening.

00:40:05.634 --> 00:40:09.514
And that stuff will usually be posted there. Or you can follow me on Blue Sky,

00:40:09.654 --> 00:40:13.314
where I talk about that stuff all the time at A.S. Elrod.

00:40:13.674 --> 00:40:18.014
So that's my spiel for for how you can get in touch with us.

00:40:18.114 --> 00:40:19.314
And, you know, I hope people will.

00:40:19.914 --> 00:40:23.654
Well, Alan Elrod, it's been an honor to talk to you, brother.

00:40:24.834 --> 00:40:30.314
I've read some of your stuff on Liberal Current. And when we connected on LinkedIn,

00:40:30.314 --> 00:40:32.994
I was like, okay, yeah, this is going to be cool.

00:40:32.994 --> 00:40:37.994
So, you know, because, you know, I'm I'm of an age now where it's like,

00:40:38.194 --> 00:40:43.334
you know, the podcast might be the extent of my political activity other than voting. Right.

00:40:43.554 --> 00:40:49.794
And so we need younger folks that are very thoughtful, very deliberative to

00:40:49.794 --> 00:40:58.074
kind of pass the torch and carry it in order to ensure that we still have a thriving democracy.

00:40:58.074 --> 00:41:00.574
And I view you as one of those people.

00:41:01.194 --> 00:41:04.654
So thank you for doing what you're doing. And thank you for.

00:41:04.854 --> 00:41:06.134
And of course, you're a teacher.

00:41:06.534 --> 00:41:10.654
So, you know, political science. I love that part from you. But just keep doing

00:41:10.654 --> 00:41:13.054
what you're doing. And thank you again for coming on the podcast.

00:41:13.314 --> 00:41:15.294
I appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me.

00:41:15.914 --> 00:41:17.834
All right, guys, we're going to catch you all on the other side.

00:41:18.800 --> 00:41:37.040
Music.

00:41:37.123 --> 00:41:43.183
All right. And we are back. And so now it's time for my next two guests,

00:41:44.023 --> 00:41:47.203
Zaha Hassan and Lara Friedman.

00:41:47.663 --> 00:41:53.003
Zaha Hassan is a human rights lawyer and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment

00:41:53.003 --> 00:41:54.023
for International Peace.

00:41:54.343 --> 00:42:00.623
Her research focus is on Palestine-Israel peace, transnational repression and

00:42:00.623 --> 00:42:04.023
shrinking civic space for Palestine-Israel discourse.

00:42:04.023 --> 00:42:08.523
The use of international legal mechanisms by political movements,

00:42:08.823 --> 00:42:10.903
and U.S. foreign policy in the region.

00:42:11.423 --> 00:42:16.583
Previously, she was the coordinator and senior legal advisor to the Palestinian

00:42:16.583 --> 00:42:20.583
negotiating team during Palestine's bid for U.N.

00:42:20.643 --> 00:42:26.183
Membership, and was a member of the Palestinian delegation to Quartet-sponsored

00:42:26.183 --> 00:42:30.603
exploratory talks between 2011 and 2012.

00:42:30.603 --> 00:42:35.483
Her most recent publication is a co-edited book, Suppressing Dissent,

00:42:35.983 --> 00:42:41.783
Shrinking Civic Space, Transnational Repression, and Palestine-Israel.

00:42:42.263 --> 00:42:47.283
Lara Friedman is the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

00:42:47.283 --> 00:42:52.343
She is a leading authority on the Middle East, with particular expertise on U.S.

00:42:52.503 --> 00:42:58.403
Foreign policy in the region, on Israel-Palestine, and on the way Middle East

00:42:58.403 --> 00:43:03.263
and Israeli-Palestine-related issues play out in Congress and in U.S.

00:43:03.723 --> 00:43:05.723
Domestic politics, policies, and legislation.

00:43:06.703 --> 00:43:12.123
Lara is also a preeminent subject matter expert in the area of anti-Palestinian

00:43:12.123 --> 00:43:13.783
legislation and lawfare,

00:43:14.003 --> 00:43:20.503
including the weaponization and instrumentalization of the definition of and

00:43:20.503 --> 00:43:22.303
concerns about anti-Semitism.

00:43:22.803 --> 00:43:27.003
Lara's research on lawfare and anti-Semitism related topics,

00:43:27.163 --> 00:43:31.643
which she makes available to the public, is widely cited and widely recognized

00:43:31.643 --> 00:43:34.143
as the authoritative data in the field.

00:43:34.883 --> 00:43:39.903
Lara is a former officer in the U.S. Foreign Service with diplomatic postings

00:43:39.903 --> 00:43:43.043
in Jerusalem, Washington, Tunis, and Beirut.

00:43:43.483 --> 00:43:47.743
She also served previously as the Director of Policy and Government Relations

00:43:47.743 --> 00:43:49.803
at Americans for Peace Now.

00:43:50.083 --> 00:43:56.923
In addition to her work with FMEP, Lara is a non-resident fellow at the U.S. Middle East Project.

00:43:57.443 --> 00:44:02.203
She holds a B.A. from the University of Arizona and a master's degree from Georgetown

00:44:02.203 --> 00:44:07.003
School of Foreign Service In addition to English, Lara speaks French,

00:44:07.263 --> 00:44:11.823
Arabic, Spanish, some Italian, and moles through in Hebrew.

00:44:12.123 --> 00:44:15.983
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as guests

00:44:15.983 --> 00:44:21.043
on this podcast, Zaha Hassan and Lara Friedman.

00:44:22.640 --> 00:44:32.240
Music.

00:44:32.082 --> 00:44:37.042
All right. Zaha Hassan. How you doing, ma'am? You doing good?

00:44:38.022 --> 00:44:41.862
I'm doing okay. Thanks. Yeah, I'm trying to get your first name right,

00:44:41.982 --> 00:44:46.162
but we'll just forgive me for that.

00:44:47.122 --> 00:44:51.282
So I understand, Ms. Hassan, that you brought a friend with you to the program.

00:44:52.002 --> 00:44:55.842
Go ahead and introduce the audience to her.

00:44:56.562 --> 00:45:01.222
Yes, this is my partner in crime, Lara Friedman. She's the president of the

00:45:01.222 --> 00:45:06.062
Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington, D.C. She's also a former U.S.

00:45:06.302 --> 00:45:08.842
Diplomat that was based in Jerusalem.

00:45:09.442 --> 00:45:14.982
It's good to be with her. And she's also a contributor to a recently released

00:45:14.982 --> 00:45:19.062
book that I co-edited called Suppressing Dissent,

00:45:19.902 --> 00:45:24.562
Shrinking Civic Space, Transnational Repression, and Palestine-Israel.

00:45:25.662 --> 00:45:29.042
Well, Ms. Friedman, it's good to have you on the program. ma'am thank you

00:45:29.042 --> 00:45:31.722
so much for having me yes ma'am all right

00:45:31.722 --> 00:45:34.922
guys so normally what i do is i do like a little icebreaker

00:45:34.922 --> 00:45:41.542
thing at the beginning so the first the first one is a quote it's called well

00:45:41.542 --> 00:45:46.922
it's called the quote goes repressing speech is a net is never the end of a

00:45:46.922 --> 00:45:52.662
problem but rather the beginning of one which one of y'all want to take that first.

00:45:54.062 --> 00:45:56.182
Well, I'll start us off.

00:45:56.582 --> 00:46:01.122
I think it's also a symptom of a larger problem, right?

00:46:01.302 --> 00:46:06.062
Because when you start repressing speech, it's because there's some idea that

00:46:06.062 --> 00:46:11.602
you don't want others to know about, you don't want others to subscribe to.

00:46:11.822 --> 00:46:17.062
So how do you deal with it if you can't counter it with a stronger idea is you

00:46:17.062 --> 00:46:21.442
shut down the space for being able to express that idea.

00:46:22.801 --> 00:46:25.621
Ms. Friedman, did you? Go ahead. Sorry.

00:46:26.021 --> 00:46:32.821
Yeah, no, I agree with Zaha. I think certainly when it comes to issues related to Palestine.

00:46:33.621 --> 00:46:40.701
There have been moments across history, particularly in the 90s when it looked

00:46:40.701 --> 00:46:42.901
like there was maybe they called the peace process and all of that,

00:46:43.321 --> 00:46:45.461
when speech was much less suppressed.

00:46:45.461 --> 00:46:50.161
And it was much less suppressed because there actually was a battle of ideas

00:46:50.161 --> 00:46:54.361
And there were ways to defend against criticism if you were,

00:46:54.461 --> 00:46:56.461
you know, someone who didn't lie to your criticism of Israel.

00:46:56.721 --> 00:47:03.821
And we're in a moment here where it's been a long time coming where it's simply

00:47:03.821 --> 00:47:08.521
not possible any longer to defend what is happening on the ground.

00:47:08.521 --> 00:47:11.541
And this isn't unique to Palestine-related issues.

00:47:11.721 --> 00:47:15.421
I'm very myopically focused on this issue. But, you know,

00:47:15.621 --> 00:47:22.461
when it comes to the Palestine issue, and it dates back before the current catastrophe

00:47:22.461 --> 00:47:23.481
that we're going to talk about,

00:47:23.681 --> 00:47:28.201
for a long time now, it's simply not been possible to come up with arguments

00:47:28.201 --> 00:47:31.801
to defend what Israel is doing to Palestinians.

00:47:32.381 --> 00:47:35.201
And then what's left is to try to

00:47:35.201 --> 00:47:38.421
delegitimize discredit and suppress the

00:47:38.421 --> 00:47:41.361
people who are making the criticism so that way you don't have to contend with

00:47:41.361 --> 00:47:46.501
the facts yeah all right so which one of y'all want to pick a number between

00:47:46.501 --> 00:47:57.101
one and 20 13 okay all right do you think there is such a thing as unbiased news or media and why.

00:47:58.522 --> 00:48:02.702
That's a great question. I guess for me, the question is less whether,

00:48:03.062 --> 00:48:04.902
I mean, I don't think anything is unbiased.

00:48:05.022 --> 00:48:07.702
Everyone brings their biases to everything they say.

00:48:07.982 --> 00:48:10.962
I mean, it has to do with how they view the world. When it comes to news,

00:48:11.162 --> 00:48:15.742
I think it's less a question of whether or not there is bias in everything and

00:48:15.742 --> 00:48:23.642
more a question of whether or not that bias becomes or is used to actually obfuscate,

00:48:23.882 --> 00:48:25.242
to mislead,

00:48:25.602 --> 00:48:31.402
to effectively say, don't believe your eyes, believe what I'm telling you,

00:48:31.502 --> 00:48:33.802
don't believe the facts, believe what I'm spinning.

00:48:34.362 --> 00:48:38.742
So for me, it's less a question of the bias in the news and how that bias comes

00:48:38.742 --> 00:48:40.062
out and what role it plays.

00:48:40.782 --> 00:48:48.082
I agree totally with that. I think that the problem that we face with news is

00:48:48.082 --> 00:48:54.082
that there's a certain perspective that's given a lot of airtime,

00:48:54.282 --> 00:48:58.062
a certain perspective that, you know, the camera lens is focused on.

00:48:58.062 --> 00:49:03.362
And then there's a whole other side and a whole other history and context that

00:49:03.362 --> 00:49:05.702
is excluded from the news.

00:49:06.542 --> 00:49:13.242
And that makes for a skewed presentation of, you know, the so-called facts.

00:49:13.482 --> 00:49:19.022
And I think that's why there's been a lot of gravitation, especially by younger

00:49:19.022 --> 00:49:25.962
generation towards social media, because it's sort of this eyewitness on the ground account. and.

00:49:26.871 --> 00:49:31.951
It's filling a void that that is in the mainstream press, the mainstream TV

00:49:31.951 --> 00:49:37.271
news in particular, that doesn't focus on what's exactly happening on the ground

00:49:37.271 --> 00:49:40.091
and how it's affecting real people in real time.

00:49:40.291 --> 00:49:43.871
And so this is why there's been such an interest in such a growth in social

00:49:43.871 --> 00:49:50.131
media, precisely because certain perspectives are excluded on the mainstream. Yeah.

00:49:51.571 --> 00:49:55.471
Go ahead. Go ahead. I mean, a piece of it that I think is really,

00:49:55.671 --> 00:49:58.291
and this is clear, I think, to anyone who works on an issue,

00:49:58.431 --> 00:50:03.851
which is dealing with a disfavored or less powerful sort of political position

00:50:03.851 --> 00:50:09.491
in the bias in news is the sort of unconscious or unrecognized bias.

00:50:09.491 --> 00:50:14.411
And this is something for folks who work on anything related to Palestinians that is very clear.

00:50:14.611 --> 00:50:19.811
And it's when you see ostensibly, you know, mainstream, not biased press choose

00:50:19.811 --> 00:50:26.591
words like, you know, Palestinians claim or, you know, so it's alleged.

00:50:26.811 --> 00:50:30.711
Anytime anything, anything comes from Palestinians, it's immediately discredited

00:50:30.711 --> 00:50:35.711
with this very subtle bias in the language that's used. You know,

00:50:35.951 --> 00:50:39.251
Israel states, you know, Israel says this happened.

00:50:40.051 --> 00:50:44.011
It's actually anything Israel says is stated as fact. This happened.

00:50:44.371 --> 00:50:47.911
Anything Palestinians said is set up as a claim that is disproven,

00:50:47.911 --> 00:50:51.391
even when we have a video proving that it's accurate, right?

00:50:51.391 --> 00:50:54.891
As they're reporting on a video that shows something happening in real time,

00:50:55.091 --> 00:50:57.931
it's still framed as Palestinians claim this happened.

00:50:58.271 --> 00:51:02.791
And that sort of, there's something incredibly insidious about that sort of

00:51:02.791 --> 00:51:07.771
bias because it creeps into people's perception to just assume that you can't

00:51:07.771 --> 00:51:11.551
believe anything from one side and that you must take as fact the other.

00:51:11.551 --> 00:51:16.851
Even when, you know, in sort of in the fullness of time, it's proven that really

00:51:16.851 --> 00:51:21.251
pretty much everything that you're hearing Palestinians quote unquote claim did happen.

00:51:21.471 --> 00:51:25.431
And Israel, when it's proven that it happened, has to constantly change its story.

00:51:26.051 --> 00:51:30.951
It's this unconscious bias that creeps in and sort of tilts things,

00:51:31.591 --> 00:51:33.971
you know, tilts people's perceptions in profound ways.

00:51:34.551 --> 00:51:38.271
All right. So I'm going to put a pin on that because I want to come right back

00:51:38.271 --> 00:51:41.611
to that. You used the word perception. So I want to get back to that.

00:51:41.831 --> 00:51:46.311
I want to go back in time real quick, and we'll do it.

00:51:46.611 --> 00:51:49.731
If you want to explain your answer, cool.

00:51:50.811 --> 00:51:54.351
But a simple yes or no will do for either one of you.

00:51:55.111 --> 00:51:59.031
And this is what I call the Rashida Tlaib question, right?

00:51:59.531 --> 00:52:03.971
So should the Congresswoman have been allowed to speak at the DNC? Yes or no?

00:52:05.091 --> 00:52:08.191
Yes. Of course. Of course. Okay. I mean.

00:52:09.091 --> 00:52:13.631
It doesn't even require explanation. Right. I mean. Yeah. I just,

00:52:13.751 --> 00:52:15.511
that's why, that's why I catch the, the way.

00:52:16.771 --> 00:52:22.491
More than Rashida, I mean, it's the concerted effort that was made to prevent

00:52:22.491 --> 00:52:26.811
any Palestinians from speaking at the convention,

00:52:26.811 --> 00:52:34.311
even though there was an Israeli speaker that was speaking to the harm to Israeli

00:52:34.311 --> 00:52:40.451
families by the taking of hostages after October 7th or on October 7th.

00:52:40.531 --> 00:52:45.291
There was an opportunity to have a Palestinian speaker to talk about the harms

00:52:45.291 --> 00:52:49.171
to Palestinians by the aftermath of October 7th.

00:52:49.231 --> 00:52:53.491
And a Palestinian speaker who also happens to be an American,

00:52:53.671 --> 00:52:58.011
who also happens to be a Democrat, who also happens to be a legislator in Georgia,

00:52:58.271 --> 00:53:03.131
a state that the Democratic Party very much wanted to see a win in,

00:53:03.271 --> 00:53:06.791
and they excluded that Palestinian speaker.

00:53:07.091 --> 00:53:15.391
Why? Because she didn't fit the profile of what's considered an acceptable speaker on the main stage.

00:53:15.391 --> 00:53:20.511
And and and they threw an election over this idea of not being an inclusive

00:53:20.511 --> 00:53:26.431
party, which is bizarre and just shows you how deep it runs in our politics.

00:53:26.491 --> 00:53:30.391
This this idea that, you know, Palestinians, Muslims, Arabs,

00:53:30.591 --> 00:53:36.831
they're not legitimate. They're not a part of our party, the Democratic Party.

00:53:37.531 --> 00:53:45.711
There's something just wrong with this group of citizens, and somehow it's okay to exclude them.

00:53:46.591 --> 00:53:51.111
And to exclude them even when there's clear popular demand for them.

00:53:51.351 --> 00:53:53.571
I mean, that was the part that is the most surreal.

00:53:53.931 --> 00:53:57.091
Over the many years I've worked on this issue, I've had people say to me,

00:53:57.191 --> 00:54:01.131
listen, Palestine is not the most important issue in the world. There's other issues.

00:54:01.251 --> 00:54:04.611
Why do you keep trying to get this into—why do you keep wanting to get this

00:54:04.611 --> 00:54:08.131
into the conversation? And I can explain why I think it's important to be in

00:54:08.131 --> 00:54:09.231
the conversation all the time.

00:54:09.411 --> 00:54:14.171
But now, given what's happening, the grassroots that, in theory,

00:54:14.411 --> 00:54:19.251
that convention was supposed to be appealing to and responding to wanted to talk about Palestine.

00:54:19.671 --> 00:54:23.731
And a leadership decided it was simply not permitted. Yeah, I think it was a

00:54:23.731 --> 00:54:25.591
missed opportunity. I was there in Chicago.

00:54:26.131 --> 00:54:28.371
I was fortunate enough to talk

00:54:28.371 --> 00:54:34.291
to some of the demonstrators and had one young lady on on the podcast.

00:54:34.451 --> 00:54:40.671
And I just felt it was a missed opportunity. I think Congresswoman Tlaib probably

00:54:40.671 --> 00:54:45.291
would have been the best person to really articulate. I don't have any problem

00:54:45.291 --> 00:54:47.771
with the young lady that's the state representative here.

00:54:47.971 --> 00:54:55.391
But I think Congresswoman Tlaib would have been the perfect person to reframe the issue.

00:54:55.911 --> 00:55:00.071
And again, this all goes into this perception question I'm going to lead to.

00:55:00.271 --> 00:55:04.451
But I'm going to go ahead and skip on because I know we've got a limited amount

00:55:04.451 --> 00:55:08.191
of time. What is the current situation now with the people in Gaza?

00:55:09.542 --> 00:55:13.582
No, I don't have a word, to be honest with you.

00:55:13.702 --> 00:55:17.882
I think we overused catastrophe, apocalyptic.

00:55:18.362 --> 00:55:23.062
I mean, I don't know what word to use anymore because I don't think we've ever

00:55:23.062 --> 00:55:24.702
seen something like this,

00:55:24.882 --> 00:55:29.642
where you have people now for over a month have been cut off from food,

00:55:29.782 --> 00:55:33.842
water, from any kind of supplies outside, from the outside.

00:55:34.522 --> 00:55:39.122
Humanitarian assistance is a population that's completely dependent on humanitarian

00:55:39.122 --> 00:55:44.202
assistance because of sort of how Gaza has been de-developed and how it's become

00:55:44.202 --> 00:55:45.842
dependent on Israel for everything.

00:55:46.502 --> 00:55:52.622
It's a population that also has been facing regular bombardment since the ceasefire ended.

00:55:52.802 --> 00:55:58.322
And we know that, you know, more than 50,000 people have already been killed.

00:55:58.502 --> 00:56:03.982
We know that over 100,000 are injured. We know that we've got the most population

00:56:03.982 --> 00:56:11.042
of children that have lost limbs, the highest population of children that are orphaned in conflict.

00:56:11.422 --> 00:56:14.302
It's a nightmarish situation.

00:56:15.282 --> 00:56:20.722
And we are, unless something's done, unless, you know, the borders are opened

00:56:20.722 --> 00:56:24.422
and supplies are brought in in the next couple of weeks, we're talking about,

00:56:24.422 --> 00:56:26.682
you know, mass starvation.

00:56:26.682 --> 00:56:33.262
I mean, just today, we heard reports about that we're already seeing children,

00:56:33.262 --> 00:56:36.222
you know, facing starvation and famine.

00:56:37.971 --> 00:56:44.331
It's unbelievable that in these modern times that we could allow this to happen.

00:56:44.551 --> 00:56:50.271
We, I say we, meaning the United States, a country that's supposed to be sort

00:56:50.271 --> 00:56:56.131
of this bastion of democracy and human rights and, you know,

00:56:56.311 --> 00:57:02.051
this light unto the world, that we're actually partners with Israel in the prosecution

00:57:02.051 --> 00:57:03.411
of what's happening in Gaza.

00:57:03.411 --> 00:57:11.891
And it seems like there's no one else around the world that's willing to, you know,

00:57:12.051 --> 00:57:16.971
to stand out and push Israel to end the blockade that it's imposed,

00:57:17.031 --> 00:57:23.571
that it's had really in place for, you know, the greater part of the, you know, two decades.

00:57:23.571 --> 00:57:29.871
But now strictly imposed to really force the Palestinians to want to leave.

00:57:30.491 --> 00:57:37.651
And those who don't will have to face the consequences of what we're seeing right now.

00:57:37.651 --> 00:57:42.651
And I just, you know, again, I don't have words for what's happening on the

00:57:42.651 --> 00:57:48.711
ground, but I also, you know, I can't explain the lack of humanity that I see as well.

00:57:49.131 --> 00:57:53.331
Not from good people that we've seen, you know, especially on these college

00:57:53.331 --> 00:57:57.471
campuses, students risking everything, but just from elected officials,

00:57:57.471 --> 00:58:00.811
this sort of apathy to what's taking place.

00:58:00.811 --> 00:58:04.571
It's really been shocking to me, to be honest.

00:58:05.731 --> 00:58:12.391
Laura, did you want to add anything to that? Look, I mean, this is a year and

00:58:12.391 --> 00:58:17.671
a half into what is almost the unimaginable reality of a live stream genocide.

00:58:18.860 --> 00:58:23.400
Live streamed. Anybody who wants to know what's happening in Gaza, get online.

00:58:23.800 --> 00:58:29.340
We have a year and a half now of either Israeli soldiers putting the videos

00:58:29.340 --> 00:58:30.940
up themselves showing what they're doing.

00:58:31.160 --> 00:58:34.840
We have drone footage of cities just reduced to rubble.

00:58:34.980 --> 00:58:39.820
We have statements from Israeli officials stating exactly what their intention is.

00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:46.280
And for those of us who very early on in this war on Gaza, because it's not

00:58:46.280 --> 00:58:48.180
really a war with Gaza, it's a war on Gaza,

00:58:48.560 --> 00:58:53.280
said the clear intent that is being expressed and that we are seeing implemented

00:58:53.280 --> 00:58:58.160
from almost day one in response to the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel,

00:58:58.360 --> 00:59:04.440
the clear intent here is to eradicate Palestinians from Gaza, erase them,

00:59:04.900 --> 00:59:08.740
get all the people out, erase every trace of them ever being there, and then move forward.

00:59:08.940 --> 00:59:13.440
And today, that is pretty much the explicit policy of the Israeli government.

00:59:13.700 --> 00:59:18.620
They are now demolishing the ruins of any homes that are left in areas because

00:59:18.620 --> 00:59:20.100
they don't want Palestinians to come back.

00:59:20.260 --> 00:59:21.900
They are declaring that more than

00:59:21.900 --> 00:59:25.880
50% of Gaza is now a buffer zone where Palestinians will never be again.

00:59:26.080 --> 00:59:31.560
And they are day by day with more of these orders demanding the Palestinians move.

00:59:31.640 --> 00:59:34.360
These are Palestinians who've been moving over and over and over,

00:59:34.360 --> 00:59:38.000
carrying whatever they can on their backs less and less as their family members

00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:42.280
are slowly picked off and get sicker and hungrier and moving them into a smaller

00:59:42.280 --> 00:59:45.160
and smaller area of Gaza, which they are still bombing.

00:59:45.640 --> 00:59:50.260
And the clear intent, which they are now unabashed in saying because they say

00:59:50.260 --> 00:59:52.920
this is Trump's policy. We love it. We agree with Trump.

00:59:53.060 --> 00:59:55.900
We need to get everybody out. Palestinians can move somewhere else.

00:59:56.000 --> 00:59:58.320
If they stay here, they're all going to die.

00:59:58.600 --> 01:00:02.960
And they should be permitted, quote-unquote, permitted to voluntarily leave.

01:00:03.560 --> 01:00:06.900
Voluntarily means they can stay here and die or they can get out.

01:00:07.240 --> 01:00:11.540
That's not voluntary. That is ethnic cleansing, and is ethnic cleansing as part

01:00:11.540 --> 01:00:18.580
of a policy of genocide, which is systematically erasing Palestinian presence, Palestinian history,

01:00:19.040 --> 01:00:22.780
Palestinian possibility of ever existing again in Gaza.

01:00:23.838 --> 01:00:26.998
What got me sorry i just wanted to add this was

01:00:26.998 --> 01:00:30.678
the most sickest sort of cynical statement

01:00:30.678 --> 01:00:33.798
from the israeli prime minister netanyahu when

01:00:33.798 --> 01:00:37.078
he was saying you know it's it's so unbelievable

01:00:37.078 --> 01:00:42.958
how you know Palestinians you know should have a choice of where to go and they're

01:00:42.958 --> 01:00:47.798
not being given choice because the rest of the world won't absorb the Palestinians

01:00:47.798 --> 01:00:52.458
you know and you know without any self-consciousness that most of the Palestinians

01:00:52.458 --> 01:00:56.918
in Gaza are refugees from inside Israel,

01:00:57.078 --> 01:01:00.798
what became the state of Israel, or the descendants of refugees.

01:01:00.958 --> 01:01:05.558
So the place that they should go that's not preventing them to return is actually Israel.

01:01:05.978 --> 01:01:11.018
But he was able to say this statement as though the rest of the world is heartless.

01:01:11.118 --> 01:01:15.118
Why won't they take these Palestinians that clearly want to leave?

01:01:15.118 --> 01:01:19.438
Why would they want to stay after Israel's taken away every essential item of

01:01:19.438 --> 01:01:22.438
life from them and destroyed the entire Gaza Strip.

01:01:22.618 --> 01:01:26.818
Of course, they want to leave, he says, and the rest of the world won't take them.

01:01:26.938 --> 01:01:31.958
I mean, as though the rest of the world needs to, you know, needs to comply

01:01:31.958 --> 01:01:38.278
with his interests in seeing Gaza completely emptied of its population to further

01:01:38.278 --> 01:01:40.438
his greater Israel designs.

01:01:41.438 --> 01:01:47.878
Well, you know, hypocrisy and irony is, seems to be common speech in politics nowadays.

01:01:48.958 --> 01:01:54.938
What would be the impact of the United States gentrification of Gaza in the

01:01:54.938 --> 01:02:02.058
realm of not just with the Palestinians and the Israelis, but also in that Middle

01:02:02.058 --> 01:02:03.698
East region? What would be that impact?

01:02:04.798 --> 01:02:08.118
I mean, I just don't even think it's a real idea. You know,

01:02:08.258 --> 01:02:15.598
I hope that President Trump is saying these things because he's trying to spur

01:02:15.598 --> 01:02:21.058
the Arab governments in the region, including the Palestinians,

01:02:21.478 --> 01:02:31.578
to come up with a plan on governance of Gaza, come up with a plan for Gaza security that could work.

01:02:31.598 --> 01:02:34.938
And they have done this. They have come up with a plan.

01:02:35.198 --> 01:02:40.278
It's consistent with international law. It's consistent with Palestinians being

01:02:40.278 --> 01:02:46.238
in control of their own future and rebuilding Gaza in a way that supports a

01:02:46.238 --> 01:02:52.178
political solution in which Palestinians can self-determine and have sovereignty.

01:02:53.429 --> 01:02:59.249
This is not a plan that Israel likes. Obviously, they want to see no Palestinians,

01:02:59.249 --> 01:03:01.189
not only in Gaza, by the way.

01:03:01.329 --> 01:03:03.989
I mean, they don't want to see Palestinians in the West Bank either.

01:03:04.389 --> 01:03:11.129
They are moving just as fast in the West Bank to try to deploy mechanisms to

01:03:11.129 --> 01:03:12.749
force Palestinians out.

01:03:12.969 --> 01:03:18.069
They're using settlers to drive Palestinians out with pogroms.

01:03:18.369 --> 01:03:22.989
They're having soldiers destroy Palestinian refugee camps.

01:03:23.009 --> 01:03:30.229
We've seen 40,000 Palestinians forced out of their homes in these camps without anywhere to go.

01:03:30.809 --> 01:03:34.589
So, you know, I don't think President Trump's ideas are.

01:03:35.869 --> 01:03:40.789
Serious, but let's pretend that, you know, he does intend to do this,

01:03:40.909 --> 01:03:47.189
that he intends to take over Gaza and force the Palestinians out and start to rebuild.

01:03:47.389 --> 01:03:53.129
I mean, I don't, you know, this is not something that Egypt's going to be down

01:03:53.129 --> 01:03:57.869
with. It's not a plan that any of Israel's neighbors are going to be down with

01:03:57.869 --> 01:04:01.229
because they understand what this is going to mean. It's going to mean perpetual conflict.

01:04:01.629 --> 01:04:04.429
It's going to mean a destruction of the

01:04:04.429 --> 01:04:07.869
peace agreements that Israel has with its neighbors because this

01:04:07.869 --> 01:04:11.389
is going to turn the entire region into just

01:04:11.389 --> 01:04:14.909
one big violent mess so i

01:04:14.909 --> 01:04:17.749
i hope president trump's using using these kinds of

01:04:17.749 --> 01:04:23.349
statements to goad others but i i don't think it's serious solution here obviously

01:04:23.349 --> 01:04:30.129
it's it's it violates every notion we have of international law or human rights

01:04:30.129 --> 01:04:34.389
to think that in in this day and age we're going to have a colonial settlement

01:04:34.389 --> 01:04:37.549
constructed by the united states in the middle east,

01:04:38.990 --> 01:04:42.930
I sadly actually do take him seriously.

01:04:43.270 --> 01:04:47.590
This is an administration that in its first term, it basically created a new

01:04:47.590 --> 01:04:51.890
concept of international law when it said that Israel had a right to annex the Golan Heights.

01:04:52.010 --> 01:04:55.610
We recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel. And the framing for that decision

01:04:55.610 --> 01:05:00.610
was, of course, they have a right to keep land that they have acquired in a defensive war.

01:05:01.270 --> 01:05:04.470
Nobody should have to give back land that they're being attacked from.

01:05:04.470 --> 01:05:09.170
I think that framing, which was just treated as obvious and,

01:05:09.170 --> 01:05:13.050
you know, matter of fact, you can claim land and, you know, it's as if people

01:05:13.050 --> 01:05:15.830
don't matter and the rights of the people on land don't matter.

01:05:16.010 --> 01:05:20.390
I mean, that was the policy under the first Trump term.

01:05:21.010 --> 01:05:24.310
I take him seriously when he looks at this and says, this is an easy problem.

01:05:24.450 --> 01:05:26.290
Get rid of the people and redevelop it.

01:05:26.870 --> 01:05:33.710
You know, Israel has basically, since its birth as a state, has operated from

01:05:33.710 --> 01:05:36.490
a, you know, we will achieve fait accompli on the ground.

01:05:36.710 --> 01:05:40.070
We won't ask for permission. We won't ask for forgiveness. We'll do it and the

01:05:40.070 --> 01:05:42.910
world will accept it. And we'll spin it as, this is why we're right.

01:05:43.030 --> 01:05:46.310
And anyone who disagrees with us is an anti-Semite and doesn't know what's good for them.

01:05:46.310 --> 01:05:50.190
And in this context right now, with the Trump administration as a partner,

01:05:50.490 --> 01:05:54.830
I think the intent is to achieve as many of these faits accompli as they can,

01:05:55.030 --> 01:05:59.310
including in Syria, where they're taking more and more land, including in Lebanon,

01:05:59.790 --> 01:06:05.090
including in the West Bank, with the idea that this is an historic opportunity to change.

01:06:05.090 --> 01:06:08.970
It's not just changing the rules of the game, it's clearing the board and creating

01:06:08.970 --> 01:06:12.170
a new board that the region will go forward with.

01:06:12.370 --> 01:06:18.470
And basically, assuming that between Israel's military strength and the support

01:06:18.470 --> 01:06:23.290
of the world and the alliances that they will make out of convenience against

01:06:23.290 --> 01:06:28.070
Iran or because of the transactional alliances with Arab states that are prone

01:06:28.070 --> 01:06:29.750
to that, that they'll get away with it.

01:06:29.750 --> 01:06:35.070
And, you know, I think it's possible to imagine from the perspective of an Israeli

01:06:35.070 --> 01:06:39.670
who views this as, you know, their greater Israel agenda given to them by God,

01:06:39.850 --> 01:06:43.530
that they think they really do have this opportunity. They don't see obstacles at this point.

01:06:43.950 --> 01:06:49.610
All right. So my final two questions is based off of this premise that I brought out.

01:06:50.150 --> 01:06:57.830
Some would argue that the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict has created a new era of McCarthyism.

01:06:57.830 --> 01:07:03.910
So, one, why do you think it is acceptable in the United States to muzzle the

01:07:03.910 --> 01:07:06.350
free speech of Palestinians and their supporters?

01:07:06.710 --> 01:07:12.550
And two, what can be done to change public perception of the Palestinian people?

01:07:13.982 --> 01:07:18.602
I actually don't think that people are accepting this notion that you should

01:07:18.602 --> 01:07:25.062
muzzle Palestinians and not allow them to protest or dissent or to show opposition to U.S.

01:07:25.262 --> 01:07:33.842
Foreign policy or to show disapproval with the policies of a university administration.

01:07:33.842 --> 01:07:36.902
I think that people are waking up to like, this is very dangerous.

01:07:36.902 --> 01:07:43.462
If you can silence one group of people, one vulnerable group of people,

01:07:43.662 --> 01:07:48.142
in this case that what we're seeing now, immigrants, people that are visa holders,

01:07:48.362 --> 01:07:49.542
lawful permanent residents,

01:07:49.882 --> 01:07:55.422
if you can silence those individuals, who's next?

01:07:55.422 --> 01:08:01.482
And so people are making the connection with this idea that, you know, the U.S.

01:08:01.642 --> 01:08:07.862
Should not be allowed to shut down protests against the government,

01:08:08.442 --> 01:08:13.662
against government policies, because it doesn't like, you know,

01:08:13.742 --> 01:08:16.902
it doesn't like the ideas that are being advanced.

01:08:17.642 --> 01:08:22.602
That's a very, once we set that precedent, that will be used with every other

01:08:22.602 --> 01:08:24.622
group. It will be expanded.

01:08:24.902 --> 01:08:29.002
We've seen it time and time again, where we've adopted policies,

01:08:29.002 --> 01:08:34.062
first testing them out on the most vulnerable among us, seeing whether it can

01:08:34.062 --> 01:08:37.142
fly, especially through the court system.

01:08:37.502 --> 01:08:41.022
And then we start to apply them more broadly.

01:08:41.022 --> 01:08:48.782
I think about sort of before 9-11, for example, the first people that were being.

01:08:49.622 --> 01:08:54.562
That had used against them terrorism laws to try to silence them,

01:08:54.662 --> 01:09:02.442
to try to prosecute them without being able to show evidence by having secret

01:09:02.442 --> 01:09:04.222
evidence, the use of secret evidence.

01:09:04.582 --> 01:09:10.662
And these were Palestinians that were being prosecuted with secret evidence. And then 9-11 happened.

01:09:11.022 --> 01:09:16.102
And because they got away with it with Palestinians, it started being used more

01:09:16.102 --> 01:09:21.742
broadly, not just with Muslims and Arabs, but it started being used with anyone

01:09:21.742 --> 01:09:24.502
that was, quote unquote, a terrorist.

01:09:24.502 --> 01:09:32.122
And that terrorism label got thrown around to a lot of different people, domestic and foreign.

01:09:32.442 --> 01:09:35.442
So, I mean, we have lived through that.

01:09:35.642 --> 01:09:38.902
It's in people's memory and they're seeing

01:09:38.902 --> 01:09:43.682
this happen now with speech on campus and they're understanding that they have

01:09:43.682 --> 01:09:48.882
to stand up for what's right here and what's consistent with our constitution

01:09:48.882 --> 01:09:53.762
and our freedoms in a democratic society because if we don't push back against

01:09:53.762 --> 01:09:55.962
this, This is going to become the new normal.

01:09:58.132 --> 01:10:01.552
I agree with everything Zaha just said. I'll just add, I mean,

01:10:01.632 --> 01:10:05.692
I've been using the term new McCarthyism, feels like we're going to Red Scare,

01:10:05.872 --> 01:10:07.172
the claim that this is anti-American.

01:10:07.472 --> 01:10:11.852
I mean, we've seen this building since under the Biden administration.

01:10:11.852 --> 01:10:13.132
I think a lot of where we are right

01:10:13.132 --> 01:10:17.952
now, the path was laid by the Biden administration, which is what it is.

01:10:18.152 --> 01:10:22.892
But I think that what is maybe different right now, I think all of us are.

01:10:23.812 --> 01:10:26.592
None of us lived through the McCarthy era, but we've all studied it.

01:10:26.592 --> 01:10:29.792
I mean, one of the things that is, I think, very different right now is that

01:10:29.792 --> 01:10:36.452
in that era, you had an administration cynically weaponizing fears about communism,

01:10:36.452 --> 01:10:40.692
which were massively overblown, massively overstated, right?

01:10:40.952 --> 01:10:44.512
There wasn't a massive communist support within the US.

01:10:44.692 --> 01:10:47.872
There is massive support for Palestinians now.

01:10:47.872 --> 01:10:51.692
This is why there's this absolute imperative to shut this down,

01:10:51.712 --> 01:10:57.132
because so many Americans, not just students, have over the past year and a

01:10:57.132 --> 01:11:00.372
half seen what's happened and said, this cannot be, this cannot be permitted.

01:11:00.512 --> 01:11:03.872
I don't want my taxpayer dollars supporting this. I want us to stand up to it.

01:11:03.872 --> 01:11:08.532
So it's a very different thing to try to shut it down and expect people to kind

01:11:08.532 --> 01:11:11.172
of, you know, hide and say, I don't want to get in trouble. People are very

01:11:11.172 --> 01:11:12.232
far out on a limb already.

01:11:12.812 --> 01:11:18.812
And if the argument is going to be that, for instance, the young man from Colombia

01:11:18.812 --> 01:11:19.852
who they're trying to deport.

01:11:20.152 --> 01:11:23.352
Well, yesterday we saw the government statement for why they're trying to deport

01:11:23.352 --> 01:11:25.172
him. They're not saying he broke any laws.

01:11:25.312 --> 01:11:30.612
They're saying his ideas, what he believes are a challenge, are a problem for U.S.

01:11:30.732 --> 01:11:34.312
National security. Well, if what he believes are somehow illegal,

01:11:34.452 --> 01:11:36.252
so he has to be deported for U.S.

01:11:36.332 --> 01:11:41.132
National security, then what a huge tens of thousands or millions of Americans believe?

01:11:41.872 --> 01:11:45.212
Effectively, they're saying that that's also not allowed for national security reasons.

01:11:45.792 --> 01:11:49.692
It's not for nothing that they started their attack on immigrants and their

01:11:49.692 --> 01:11:53.252
attack on visa holders with people focused on Palestine.

01:11:53.552 --> 01:11:57.252
They saw it as a political winner, right? Democrats are afraid to defend them

01:11:57.252 --> 01:11:59.092
because they don't want to be called anti-Semites and pro-terror.

01:11:59.432 --> 01:12:01.892
Republicans love it. It's red meat. And what they're seeing,

01:12:01.952 --> 01:12:05.952
I think, is a lot more pushback than they expected, which I don't I think that's

01:12:05.952 --> 01:12:08.452
just going to get stronger. All right. Well.

01:12:10.310 --> 01:12:13.630
Hassan, I know you got to go, Ms. Friedman.

01:12:13.830 --> 01:12:19.970
I greatly appreciate both of y'all coming on to the podcast and talking about this issue.

01:12:20.230 --> 01:12:25.370
I wish we had a little more time, but both of y'all have an open invitation to come back.

01:12:25.690 --> 01:12:33.770
I know Ms. Hassan has basically said you can reach her at Zaha Hassan on X.

01:12:34.270 --> 01:12:37.730
Ms. Friedman, how can people get in touch with you and how can people get a

01:12:37.730 --> 01:12:39.570
copy of the book that y'all put together?

01:12:40.310 --> 01:12:44.630
So you can find me also on X at Lara Friedman, D.C., L-A-R-A,

01:12:44.990 --> 01:12:47.910
Friedman, D.C., and you can get a copy of the book.

01:12:48.090 --> 01:12:50.910
It's available on any place where you buy books.

01:12:51.010 --> 01:12:54.830
I don't want to recommend any specific booksellers, but it is widely available

01:12:54.830 --> 01:12:56.110
anywhere you want to buy books.

01:12:56.310 --> 01:13:00.310
I'd encourage people to go to independent bookstores and buy it in person. That's always better.

01:13:01.310 --> 01:13:05.590
Yeah, and give the name of the book again. I'm sorry. Oh, now you tricked me.

01:13:05.650 --> 01:13:06.690
I don't have it in front of me.

01:13:07.530 --> 01:13:13.250
Can you pull that up for the show notes? Yeah, I'll tell the listeners how to get it.

01:13:13.450 --> 01:13:16.470
The Time Moved So Fast, the book, which only came out recently,

01:13:16.730 --> 01:13:19.030
feels like it came out a lifetime ago at this point.

01:13:19.190 --> 01:13:26.010
Well, I know it's been a lifetime work with you and Ms. Hassan in speaking up.

01:13:26.150 --> 01:13:34.950
And hopefully, my wish is that, you know, the majority of Americans will have an open mind on this.

01:13:34.950 --> 01:13:39.630
I think part of the problem has been, as you had stated earlier,

01:13:39.810 --> 01:13:41.690
it's been very one-sided.

01:13:42.310 --> 01:13:48.310
And politically, we've been socialized that way. But I hope with the work that you and Ms.

01:13:48.390 --> 01:13:52.770
Asana are doing and this new generation of leaders coming up,

01:13:52.910 --> 01:13:54.570
that we'll have a more open dialogue.

01:13:54.990 --> 01:13:59.490
So I thank y'all. I join you in that hope very strongly. And thank you for all you do.

01:14:00.010 --> 01:14:02.450
All right, guys. We're going to catch y'all on the other side.

01:14:04.560 --> 01:14:14.000
Music.

01:14:14.100 --> 01:14:18.880
Ladies and gentlemen, as a bonus treat, even though the subject is not necessarily

01:14:18.880 --> 01:14:22.520
a treat, I have my good friend Rick Roberts.

01:14:22.840 --> 01:14:25.620
Rick has been a guest on the program.

01:14:26.080 --> 01:14:32.200
He was scheduled to come back on and he submitted some information that I read

01:14:32.200 --> 01:14:36.420
to y'all dealing with these tariffs and the basics about what tariffs are.

01:14:36.880 --> 01:14:40.760
Rick is a specialist professor in the Department of Economics,

01:14:40.920 --> 01:14:43.160
Finance and Real Estate at Monmouth University.

01:14:44.080 --> 01:14:47.500
And he is a true believer in the open invitation.

01:14:47.700 --> 01:14:53.000
When I said, anytime you want to come on, you can, and Rick is taking advantage

01:14:53.000 --> 01:14:57.800
of that either at being a guest or submitting some information.

01:14:58.040 --> 01:15:00.100
So Rick, it's good to have you on.

01:15:00.880 --> 01:15:08.060
Thanks. Always happy to be here, Erik. Well, I need you to explain now what is.

01:15:08.260 --> 01:15:19.040
So President Trump has decided to lift the tariffs off of some of the countries

01:15:19.040 --> 01:15:21.760
that he had the tariffs on.

01:15:21.760 --> 01:15:26.360
He still got it going on with China and China has responded,

01:15:26.360 --> 01:15:30.600
but he took the tariffs off.

01:15:30.840 --> 01:15:39.980
And one of the issues that he cited was the surging bond yields as one of the

01:15:39.980 --> 01:15:44.020
reasons why he decided to lift a lot of those tariffs.

01:15:44.020 --> 01:15:52.080
Explain why bond yields or surging bond yields, however he put it out there.

01:15:52.960 --> 01:15:57.580
Would make him make that kind of a decision.

01:15:58.260 --> 01:16:03.520
Great. That's a great question. The bond yields were increasing.

01:16:04.060 --> 01:16:07.240
Let's first answer why were they going up anyway?

01:16:07.640 --> 01:16:12.840
And then why, given that they went up, did that encourage Trump to pull off

01:16:12.840 --> 01:16:16.180
the tariffs or back off on many of them?

01:16:16.420 --> 01:16:25.100
So the bond market interest rates were going up, frankly, because of the tariffs that Trump had.

01:16:26.298 --> 01:16:31.718
Was threatening, and then on so-called Liberation Day, he was calling it,

01:16:32.018 --> 01:16:38.638
he announced, as you correctly stated, a broad set of very high tariffs against

01:16:38.638 --> 01:16:43.858
most trading partners and extremely high against China.

01:16:44.498 --> 01:16:49.878
I mean, as an aside, there was no rhyme or rhythm to his calculations.

01:16:49.878 --> 01:16:54.158
I don't know any economists, serious or frankly not serious,

01:16:54.158 --> 01:16:57.898
I see Khan was a good figure out where he came up with those numbers.

01:16:58.018 --> 01:17:02.118
But nevertheless, he announced some pretty meaty tariffs across the board.

01:17:02.618 --> 01:17:10.338
And, well, as I believe, yeah, in fact, I heard what you said on your prior podcast.

01:17:10.498 --> 01:17:13.418
You referenced some notes that I'd shared with you.

01:17:15.278 --> 01:17:19.898
Tariffs increase inflation. There's not much debate about that.

01:17:20.058 --> 01:17:25.138
There's not much debate about that, right? If the good that you buy that's made

01:17:25.138 --> 01:17:31.098
overseas is now getting taxed at our border, it's going to be more expensive when you buy it.

01:17:31.198 --> 01:17:35.158
So your Amazon products or whatever, not that they're all from overseas,

01:17:35.198 --> 01:17:39.378
but I know many of the ones I purchase are, you know, are made overseas.

01:17:39.378 --> 01:17:42.198
They're going to now be more expensive. That's inflation.

01:17:42.598 --> 01:17:47.898
And even more importantly, U.S. producers of products, U.S.

01:17:48.798 --> 01:17:53.998
Manufacturers, now how would they be impacted by tariffs on foreign products?

01:17:54.298 --> 01:17:55.838
Well, they are because U.S.

01:17:56.758 --> 01:18:06.298
Manufacturers largely rely at least some on foreign inputs into their manufacturing process.

01:18:06.518 --> 01:18:13.118
So, for example, if I own a bicycle company, I'm making bicycles in the U.S.

01:18:13.278 --> 01:18:17.978
And I import my tires because they're cheap.

01:18:19.006 --> 01:18:24.186
This is hypothetical, but just to give you and your listeners an example here.

01:18:24.386 --> 01:18:29.586
So if I'm making a bicycle here in the U.S. and I import my tires because they're

01:18:29.586 --> 01:18:35.566
cheaper overseas, if those tires now become more expensive, that increases my

01:18:35.566 --> 01:18:37.446
cost to make my bicycle, right?

01:18:38.266 --> 01:18:41.506
And, you know, what am I going to do? Where am I going to get that money to

01:18:41.506 --> 01:18:46.226
pick up the extra cost associated with the higher import prices,

01:18:46.226 --> 01:18:47.626
the higher cost of my tires?

01:18:47.686 --> 01:18:52.786
Well, I have two options. And the extremes are I could be super nice and take

01:18:52.786 --> 01:18:57.446
that extra money for the tires that I now have to pay out of my profits.

01:18:57.786 --> 01:19:05.446
And at the other extreme, I could just pass that whole extra cost on to my consumers,

01:19:05.466 --> 01:19:07.506
the buyers of my bicycle.

01:19:07.686 --> 01:19:11.386
I could say, hey, it's costing me more to build this bicycle now.

01:19:11.506 --> 01:19:16.886
My tires are more expensive. You have to pay more. And the fact is,

01:19:17.046 --> 01:19:19.266
the reality is somewhere between the two,

01:19:19.546 --> 01:19:25.526
a company will typically eat some of that increased cost from their profits,

01:19:25.666 --> 01:19:28.326
but pass the bulk of it on to the consumer.

01:19:28.326 --> 01:19:32.846
So that's a second example of inflation hitting the consumer.

01:19:33.046 --> 01:19:38.206
It's not that they're buying the products from overseas like the Amazon example, right?

01:19:38.406 --> 01:19:42.466
It's more they're buying a U.S. product, but that product made in the U.S.

01:19:42.626 --> 01:19:49.606
Relies on inputs from overseas, and that will raise the product price.

01:19:49.606 --> 01:19:52.786
And that's inflation as well. And, you know, even U.S.

01:19:52.966 --> 01:19:56.586
Cars, there's only two cars made in the U.S.

01:19:57.446 --> 01:20:01.066
That are totally made with U.S. products.

01:20:01.286 --> 01:20:05.946
And oddly, those cars are Tesla and Rivian.

01:20:06.446 --> 01:20:09.566
They're produced totally with U.S. products.

01:20:09.726 --> 01:20:14.706
Even, you know, your Ford trucks, your GM trucks and so forth, these are U.S.

01:20:14.866 --> 01:20:22.146
Produced. but they rely on about anywhere from 25% to 50% or even higher in

01:20:22.146 --> 01:20:26.026
some situations of the truck itself.

01:20:26.026 --> 01:20:30.206
The parts are made overseas, so they have to get these parts from overseas.

01:20:30.206 --> 01:20:33.646
And if they're going to be more expensive, those products are going to be more expensive.

01:20:33.826 --> 01:20:38.446
So that's the tariff story as you relayed to your listeners last time.

01:20:38.746 --> 01:20:43.926
I repeat it because it's a little confusing for most folks who don't deal with this. Right.

01:20:44.146 --> 01:20:48.086
But so that, so we think higher inflation because of tariffs.

01:20:48.386 --> 01:20:52.926
Now the federal reserve is the policy maker. Right.

01:20:53.548 --> 01:20:58.488
And what's a policymaker do? They stare at an economic policymaker,

01:20:58.608 --> 01:21:04.488
stares at the economy, and if it's going fine, that's the end of their job, basically.

01:21:04.788 --> 01:21:09.068
But if it's not going fine, they try to fix it.

01:21:09.208 --> 01:21:13.788
And the Federal Reserve is a policymaker, so if they're looking at the economy

01:21:13.788 --> 01:21:18.348
and they look at it and say, is it going fine? They look at two things.

01:21:18.548 --> 01:21:22.928
They look at employment and they look at inflation. And either one of those

01:21:22.928 --> 01:21:29.048
readings, the employment numbers or the inflation numbers aren't to their liking.

01:21:30.048 --> 01:21:34.328
They try to fix that. And the way they fix that is they use a tool that they

01:21:34.328 --> 01:21:37.208
have in their toolkit, if you will, and it's interest rates.

01:21:37.208 --> 01:21:42.548
So, for example, inflation, as you know, has been high since COVID.

01:21:42.788 --> 01:21:46.708
It's come down quite a bit, but it's not back to where it needs to be.

01:21:46.888 --> 01:21:51.468
The Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation, and it's been, you know,

01:21:51.548 --> 01:21:55.588
although it has come down from 7%, it's been hanging around 3%,

01:21:55.588 --> 01:21:57.488
a little lower this morning.

01:21:57.528 --> 01:22:02.128
Although those numbers are a little misleading, we shouldn't get too excited about it.

01:22:02.248 --> 01:22:06.708
But inflation's been high. It hasn't never returned to normal,

01:22:06.708 --> 01:22:10.088
and the Fed was continuing to fight it.

01:22:10.308 --> 01:22:17.448
However, now we have these tariffs in place that if they go through as written,

01:22:17.888 --> 01:22:23.968
are going to pose a lot of upward pressure on prices, and we're going to have even higher inflation.

01:22:24.528 --> 01:22:30.508
And how does the Federal Reserve deal with inflation? That means they're going

01:22:30.508 --> 01:22:35.488
to raise interest rates. So the market was anticipating, and this is what led

01:22:35.488 --> 01:22:37.868
to the higher rates in bonds.

01:22:38.108 --> 01:22:44.488
The market participants were out there saying in so many words, wait a second.

01:22:45.581 --> 01:22:50.841
Get it, tariffs probably mean higher inflation.

01:22:51.081 --> 01:22:55.521
And higher inflation probably means the Federal Reserve is going to have to

01:22:55.521 --> 01:22:56.841
raise interest rates again.

01:22:56.861 --> 01:22:59.481
So we better get in front of the curve on that.

01:22:59.701 --> 01:23:06.341
And bond rates went up. And of course, higher rates in the economy is not good

01:23:06.341 --> 01:23:09.441
generally for the economy. It causes the economy to slow down.

01:23:10.001 --> 01:23:13.341
You and I spend less because loans

01:23:13.341 --> 01:23:17.061
are more expensive you know that car we were looking at we

01:23:17.061 --> 01:23:20.421
were ready to pull the trigger now we're not gonna purchase

01:23:20.421 --> 01:23:24.561
it because the monthly payment's too high the rates went up so we pull back

01:23:24.561 --> 01:23:31.461
on spending same with mortgages right and and others so and and businesses don't

01:23:31.461 --> 01:23:36.361
expand because it's more costly to borrow money and so forth so higher interest

01:23:36.361 --> 01:23:39.921
rates are not good for the economy and Trump knows that.

01:23:40.661 --> 01:23:45.721
And this is why he stepped in and said, I see the rates going up.

01:23:45.801 --> 01:23:52.081
I understand why they're going up because there's fears of these tariffs causing inflation.

01:23:52.321 --> 01:23:58.881
So what I need to do is try to remove that fear of inflation and then hopefully

01:23:58.881 --> 01:24:02.321
we'll see bond rates go back down. So that's what happened.

01:24:02.661 --> 01:24:11.441
So it's more or less the, He caused the problem that he ran out and claimed

01:24:11.441 --> 01:24:13.761
he saved the day regarding.

01:24:13.761 --> 01:24:19.541
So he basically tried to fix a major problem that he had caused by threatening

01:24:19.541 --> 01:24:22.961
these tariffs, which put upward pressure on interest rates.

01:24:23.041 --> 01:24:26.021
I know that's a mouthful, but that's the gist of what's going on.

01:24:26.421 --> 01:24:31.281
Tariffs led to higher interest rates in the market, in the bond market.

01:24:31.281 --> 01:24:36.021
They're bad for the economy and Trump said all right I gotta I gotta back off

01:24:36.021 --> 01:24:42.701
on these tariffs yeah so here's here's a question that that I have right because

01:24:42.701 --> 01:24:44.261
you you know the stock market.

01:24:45.177 --> 01:24:52.837
Is used, well, the general purpose is to raise capital for businesses so they can operate.

01:24:53.077 --> 01:24:58.337
They have a little more money other than whatever profit margin they get.

01:24:58.737 --> 01:25:03.177
If their stock goes up, then that's more money that they can leverage for loans

01:25:03.177 --> 01:25:04.737
or wherever the case may be, right?

01:25:04.737 --> 01:25:18.657
But why would companies in the stock market feel that they have to lose capital, right?

01:25:18.737 --> 01:25:24.417
That they have to sell these stocks in order to make sure that,

01:25:24.717 --> 01:25:29.057
well, to offset what these tariffs are going to do.

01:25:29.237 --> 01:25:37.517
Explain the logic behind that. I would look at it maybe as I would talk to my

01:25:37.517 --> 01:25:40.677
class about it, maybe with a simple example.

01:25:40.797 --> 01:25:48.737
If you think inflation is going up because of the tariffs, that's going to lead

01:25:48.737 --> 01:25:53.037
to higher interest rates and slower economic growth.

01:25:53.037 --> 01:26:02.097
Slower economic growth leads to less production by companies and companies make

01:26:02.097 --> 01:26:06.497
up the stock market so if the economy is going to slow.

01:26:07.646 --> 01:26:13.006
Companies don't need to produce as much, and they're not as profitable as a result.

01:26:13.726 --> 01:26:16.886
Additionally, they start laying off people. That's a second story.

01:26:17.126 --> 01:26:21.346
But they're not as profitable if they're not producing and selling as much.

01:26:21.546 --> 01:26:24.766
And in a higher interest rate environment, they're not going to be.

01:26:24.986 --> 01:26:29.706
So what we saw was, you know, why do you buy stock?

01:26:29.706 --> 01:26:34.686
Whether it's a wholesale buyer of stock in the market, a big,

01:26:34.686 --> 01:26:39.606
sophisticated buyer, or a retail buyer like you and me,

01:26:39.966 --> 01:26:45.546
less sophisticated, or I'll speak for myself on that, a smaller dollar, right?

01:26:45.626 --> 01:26:48.066
We call that retail investor versus a wholesale.

01:26:48.866 --> 01:26:54.606
Why do we buy stock? Generally speaking, we buy stock with the anticipation

01:26:54.606 --> 01:26:59.706
that that stock is going up in value, right? We want to profit from it.

01:27:00.046 --> 01:27:05.166
And what would cause the stock to go up in value? It's when the company becomes

01:27:05.166 --> 01:27:07.786
more profitable than they are now.

01:27:07.966 --> 01:27:16.326
So we buy stock in anticipation of a company doing better than they're doing

01:27:16.326 --> 01:27:22.046
now. They're going to maintain solid, if not increasing profits over time.

01:27:22.226 --> 01:27:28.666
That's why we buy stock. If suddenly we fear increased rates are going to come

01:27:28.666 --> 01:27:32.866
into play in the future as a result of the higher inflation,

01:27:32.866 --> 01:27:33.986
as we talked about earlier.

01:27:35.046 --> 01:27:39.886
That's the same as saying we don't think these companies are going to be as

01:27:39.886 --> 01:27:43.066
profitable in the future because they're not going to be able to sell as much

01:27:43.066 --> 01:27:44.666
in a higher interest rate environment.

01:27:45.926 --> 01:27:51.886
And we're not interested in buying their stock at this point. And in fact.

01:27:52.937 --> 01:27:58.557
If I own their stock right now, I bought it in anticipation of them doing very well.

01:27:58.837 --> 01:28:04.117
I didn't know about this higher interest rate coming because of Trump's tariffs.

01:28:04.637 --> 01:28:11.977
So the price of the stock that I was anticipating is probably not going to increase like I thought.

01:28:12.197 --> 01:28:17.197
So I better get rid of it. So what we ended up seeing here with that big drop

01:28:17.197 --> 01:28:22.977
over a number of days and really sharp drop after he announced the high tariffs

01:28:22.977 --> 01:28:27.157
is that people said, certainly we're not going to buy any stock.

01:28:27.337 --> 01:28:32.397
This is going to be bad for the market, these higher interest rates that result from the tariffs.

01:28:32.837 --> 01:28:40.297
And if I own the stock, I anticipate the company doing worse and their stock

01:28:40.297 --> 01:28:43.757
price as a result will drop too. So I better sell now.

01:28:44.177 --> 01:28:48.157
So that's what we saw, people dumping their stock wholesale and retail,

01:28:48.357 --> 01:28:51.697
and the price in the markets really collapsed.

01:28:51.957 --> 01:29:00.037
Over a short period of time, the stock market dropped near record levels in percentage terms.

01:29:00.477 --> 01:29:07.497
And then interest rates started to go up, as you mentioned, and that further

01:29:07.497 --> 01:29:11.117
led to the downward movement in stocks.

01:29:11.117 --> 01:29:17.937
Oh, we thought inflation higher rates, but the bond markets really move in that way and quickly.

01:29:18.037 --> 01:29:23.357
So the decline accelerated. And then Trump came out and said.

01:29:24.706 --> 01:29:28.626
Let me pull back a bit on what I said earlier.

01:29:28.866 --> 01:29:32.586
And it's important for us, and I'll pause here to take your question,

01:29:32.766 --> 01:29:42.546
to clarify, I think, for your listeners, what exactly he did in terms of pulling back on the tariffs.

01:29:42.786 --> 01:29:54.246
It's not what certainly the press reports, and it should be concerning to you, me, and your listeners.

01:29:54.706 --> 01:29:58.146
But I can get into that. But let me stop and see if you have any questions at

01:29:58.146 --> 01:29:59.706
that point, at this point.

01:29:59.926 --> 01:30:05.226
Well, I want you to clarify that. But the one last question I was going to ask

01:30:05.226 --> 01:30:11.706
you was, you know, in light of the stock market, you know, dropping.

01:30:12.346 --> 01:30:19.366
And then he took the initiative. He took the step to end, quote unquote,

01:30:19.846 --> 01:30:22.326
the tariffs on certain countries.

01:30:22.326 --> 01:30:25.826
He then got on his social

01:30:25.826 --> 01:30:29.086
media platform i guess true social and said

01:30:29.086 --> 01:30:32.466
he basically told people to buy stock is

01:30:32.466 --> 01:30:38.646
what he did he now the question was did he i can't remember did he do it before

01:30:38.646 --> 01:30:44.526
he made the announcement about the tariffs or or after i want to say it was

01:30:44.526 --> 01:30:50.586
before he he he told people to go ahead and start buying stocks and then he dropped the tariffs.

01:30:50.886 --> 01:30:58.086
So some people are concerned that that was, if it wasn't illegal, it was unethical. So.

01:30:59.472 --> 01:31:02.412
Kind of you know what what's

01:31:02.412 --> 01:31:05.452
your take on it let's put it that way you know

01:31:05.452 --> 01:31:08.392
i it it's sad to

01:31:08.392 --> 01:31:15.572
say but you almost assume you know most things that trump and his administration

01:31:15.572 --> 01:31:23.152
do you know are questionable at least on the margin it's the same it's a shame

01:31:23.152 --> 01:31:28.272
that we just kind of just assume that anymore but That's just what he's all about.

01:31:28.652 --> 01:31:34.312
I don't think he comes to the table with a degree of integrity and ethics,

01:31:34.312 --> 01:31:36.772
and I'm not a partisan at all,

01:31:36.912 --> 01:31:44.772
but a degree of ethics and integrity that we've come to expect out of our national leaders.

01:31:44.772 --> 01:31:52.192
So I don't know if he did that or not, but, you know, I just assume he and his

01:31:52.192 --> 01:31:57.432
friends handsomely profited from that turn in the market.

01:31:57.432 --> 01:32:03.772
You know, certainly, you know, I would, you know, be pretty confident on the

01:32:03.772 --> 01:32:08.092
evidence of this, that certainly folks knew that he was going to make that announcement,

01:32:08.612 --> 01:32:10.812
folks in his inner circle and beyond.

01:32:11.412 --> 01:32:16.412
And, you know, they got in in anticipation of that sharp increase in the market.

01:32:16.892 --> 01:32:19.752
Is it ethical? Certainly not.

01:32:20.472 --> 01:32:28.332
Legal? Probably not. You know, do we have much time to mess with that issue?

01:32:29.112 --> 01:32:36.012
Probably not. We could have, you know, many people employed gainfully chasing

01:32:36.012 --> 01:32:39.612
down Trump and his questionable antics.

01:32:40.572 --> 01:32:43.972
Well, Rick, is there anything else you want to add to this discussion?

01:32:43.972 --> 01:32:47.792
I think what you've contributed has been very helpful for the listeners.

01:32:48.392 --> 01:32:56.452
Well, I do. I think the press has more or less reported that Trump has changed

01:32:56.452 --> 01:32:58.772
his mind and he's pulled back on the tariffs.

01:33:00.130 --> 01:33:03.370
Against all countries except for China.

01:33:04.150 --> 01:33:11.510
That's not what's happened. And let me clarify. He has pulled back but not eliminated the tariffs.

01:33:11.750 --> 01:33:18.530
He has still left 10% tariffs in place against most countries.

01:33:18.530 --> 01:33:22.970
There's a couple exceptions here and there, but let's just say 10% across the

01:33:22.970 --> 01:33:26.730
board for most countries, against most countries.

01:33:26.930 --> 01:33:29.870
That happens to be, just to give you a historical perspective,

01:33:30.130 --> 01:33:33.490
That would be much higher than, you know,

01:33:33.630 --> 01:33:38.470
in a historical sense than any tariffs we've seen, even these smooth hollows

01:33:38.470 --> 01:33:42.390
that we talk about from around the Great Depression times.

01:33:42.610 --> 01:33:50.830
So this, you know, what he left in place, although much below what he was barking

01:33:50.830 --> 01:33:54.230
about and threatening, is still meaningful.

01:33:54.230 --> 01:33:59.470
Now, he says, you know, his phone's ringing off the hook with,

01:33:59.770 --> 01:34:04.810
you know, depending on who you listen to, 20, between 20 and 70 countries are

01:34:04.810 --> 01:34:07.970
calling and wanting to negotiate and so forth.

01:34:08.510 --> 01:34:12.590
Who knows what's going on with that? But as it sits right now,

01:34:12.730 --> 01:34:16.650
there's still some meaningful tariffs in place against countries.

01:34:16.870 --> 01:34:20.990
10 percent. That's meaningful. That means something in terms of the prices we

01:34:20.990 --> 01:34:27.170
pay, potential Fed interest rate moves, et cetera, and slower economy,

01:34:27.210 --> 01:34:28.410
as we were just talking about.

01:34:28.610 --> 01:34:34.170
It's not a zero. We didn't go back to no concerns at all. We still have some meaningful concerns.

01:34:34.590 --> 01:34:41.990
10%, granted, isn't 30 or 60 or these other numbers you threw out on so-called

01:34:41.990 --> 01:34:44.070
Liberation Day, but it's still meaningful.

01:34:44.070 --> 01:34:54.110
Secondly, he raised the tariff as part of a trade war, I'd say, with China.

01:34:54.350 --> 01:34:59.650
And it's currently, you know, I think it went from maybe 34%,

01:34:59.650 --> 01:35:06.450
35% to near more than 130% against China.

01:35:06.850 --> 01:35:10.970
Okay, so there's two ways to look at that. You say, well, he lowered it all

01:35:10.970 --> 01:35:13.130
the way down to 10% for everybody else.

01:35:13.130 --> 01:35:16.170
And then he just bumped it up for only one country

01:35:16.170 --> 01:35:19.210
so this isn't that you know he's just picking on china big

01:35:19.210 --> 01:35:24.350
bad china right and there are and there's some you know truthness to this big

01:35:24.350 --> 01:35:29.490
bad comment right i don't think they play fair all the time and so forth so

01:35:29.490 --> 01:35:35.090
i'm not saying that but he certainly imposed massive tariffs against china just

01:35:35.090 --> 01:35:37.170
one country however forever.

01:35:38.120 --> 01:35:46.040
China is our third largest trading partner after Canada and Mexico, okay?

01:35:46.340 --> 01:35:53.460
So that country, China, that is going to have its imports to the U.S.

01:35:53.860 --> 01:36:00.320
Face substantially higher prices is our third biggest trading partner.

01:36:00.320 --> 01:36:07.920
So we, as consumers and businesses, as buyers of inputs from China,

01:36:07.920 --> 01:36:13.220
are going to face much higher prices. And that's inflation as well.

01:36:13.240 --> 01:36:16.720
And that leads into higher interest rates.

01:36:16.720 --> 01:36:21.760
I would say, just doing back-of-the-envelope calculations,

01:36:22.440 --> 01:36:34.200
that the impact to inflation before he pulled back was less than the impact

01:36:34.200 --> 01:36:37.040
to inflation will be to the U.S.

01:36:37.840 --> 01:36:44.420
After he pulled back. So the fact that he pulled back, it doesn't eliminate

01:36:44.420 --> 01:36:50.420
inflation concerns and as a result, high interest rate concerns and so forth.

01:36:50.620 --> 01:36:55.280
He pulled back in a way he left a little bit there for most countries,

01:36:55.280 --> 01:37:03.160
but he really jacked up very high the rate for the country that we trade a lot with.

01:37:03.160 --> 01:37:07.960
In fact, third most with China, and we're going to face overall higher inflation.

01:37:08.400 --> 01:37:16.300
If those tariffs remain as is 10% and 130% against China, that change,

01:37:16.440 --> 01:37:18.900
people are interpreting it as it's a great change.

01:37:19.100 --> 01:37:23.580
No more worries about inflation. No more worries about high interest rates in the economy.

01:37:23.780 --> 01:37:27.980
I go the other way, and this is where the market's starting to go as they start

01:37:27.980 --> 01:37:33.120
thinking more about what he did, is that this is not a good move,

01:37:33.300 --> 01:37:36.960
this pulling back the way he did. This is still going to lead to big-time inflation.

01:37:37.100 --> 01:37:42.100
As a result, when he announced the pullback, we saw the markets rally.

01:37:42.660 --> 01:37:47.500
Record levels went up very high, you remember, just two days ago, right?

01:37:47.680 --> 01:37:52.460
But what happened yesterday, as some people started thinking more about this

01:37:52.460 --> 01:37:58.840
And talking somewhat along the lines of what the manner that I just described to you,

01:37:59.100 --> 01:38:04.280
the thinking is, wait a second, this isn't the best thing since sliced bread.

01:38:04.500 --> 01:38:09.760
In fact, this is pretty confusing. This may be just the opposite of that. And you saw the market.

01:38:11.140 --> 01:38:14.060
Down yesterday. And today it's probably just bouncing around.

01:38:14.280 --> 01:38:16.740
So it's very confusing times out there.

01:38:17.020 --> 01:38:22.960
You know, we, you and your listeners should be very careful with,

01:38:22.960 --> 01:38:26.540
with jumping into the market saying, well, this is a good time.

01:38:26.660 --> 01:38:27.920
It's a good buying opportunity.

01:38:28.180 --> 01:38:30.460
It's, it's reach bottom and so forth.

01:38:30.880 --> 01:38:36.700
You know, my personal opinion is not so fast. I think we have a ways to go and

01:38:36.700 --> 01:38:38.340
maybe I'll lead you with that thought.

01:38:39.260 --> 01:38:43.520
Well, well, Rick, thank you for that. I mean, and that was, that's that,

01:38:43.680 --> 01:38:49.520
that, that all of it was, was very enlightening, but that last little bit was very, very helpful.

01:38:49.520 --> 01:38:55.220
Cause I know some people who, who like to, you know, invest in the stock market

01:38:55.220 --> 01:38:59.340
and invest heavily and you know, they, they play it.

01:38:59.440 --> 01:39:04.260
And so a lot of them might've thought, okay, now I might be able to get in.

01:39:04.740 --> 01:39:11.340
But, you know, after further reflection, it's still too volatile for a lot of people.

01:39:11.700 --> 01:39:18.880
And the biggest concern is those of us who have 401ks or are on public pension plans,

01:39:19.260 --> 01:39:24.300
the way the volatility of the stock market affects the money that you think

01:39:24.300 --> 01:39:26.780
you're going to have when you retire.

01:39:27.160 --> 01:39:33.900
And so I think that, you know, Your advice basically is to tell everybody,

01:39:34.080 --> 01:39:38.360
just kind of hold your horses, wait and see what's going on,

01:39:38.520 --> 01:39:41.040
and before you do anything.

01:39:42.730 --> 01:39:48.350
Correct. Well said. All right. Well, Rick, thank you for coming on and doing this, man.

01:39:48.590 --> 01:39:52.790
I look forward to talking to you. I think we've got you scheduled later on in the year.

01:39:52.970 --> 01:39:58.610
But as always, if something's going on and you say, hey, Erik,

01:39:58.710 --> 01:40:01.830
I need to talk to the folks about this. They need to get the heads up.

01:40:02.250 --> 01:40:07.790
Just keep doing what you're doing, you know, as far as teaching the future economists

01:40:07.790 --> 01:40:12.730
of the world. But, you know, just enlightening the listeners on this podcast.

01:40:12.730 --> 01:40:14.450
I greatly appreciate you coming on.

01:40:15.090 --> 01:40:18.450
You bet. I appreciate it. I appreciate the work you do. Keep it up.

01:40:18.910 --> 01:40:21.010
All right, guys, and we'll catch out on the other side.

01:40:22.320 --> 01:40:32.880
Music.

01:40:33.110 --> 01:40:39.990
All right. And we are back. So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank Alan Elrod,

01:40:40.550 --> 01:40:46.930
Zaha Hassan, Lara Friedman, and Rick Roberts for coming on the program.

01:40:48.770 --> 01:40:51.990
I hope that y'all got a lot out of that.

01:40:53.470 --> 01:41:01.290
Just picking the brain to some of the smartest, more committed people in this nation.

01:41:01.290 --> 01:41:06.250
Dealing with issues that impact us all, whether it's politics,

01:41:06.690 --> 01:41:12.590
our relationship, and what's going on with the Palestinian people in America

01:41:12.590 --> 01:41:17.450
and in Gaza, and the economy itself,

01:41:17.650 --> 01:41:23.750
and all this dancing and shaking that President Trump is doing with these tariffs.

01:41:23.870 --> 01:41:31.630
I really am glad that Rick reached out to explain that and to let us know that

01:41:31.630 --> 01:41:37.450
regardless of the games that's being played, we're going to be the ones hurt by that.

01:41:38.430 --> 01:41:47.950
And for Alan and Zaha and Lara, just the type of work that they're doing to

01:41:47.950 --> 01:41:50.910
increase the political discourse, right?

01:41:51.230 --> 01:41:57.110
Whether it's a specific issue like what's going on in Gaza or just overall American

01:41:57.110 --> 01:42:00.450
politics, we've got to have intelligent discourse.

01:42:00.650 --> 01:42:03.330
We cannot suppress free speech.

01:42:04.230 --> 01:42:08.730
We just can't do that. And that was the one thing Lara wanted to make sure

01:42:08.730 --> 01:42:13.750
that I mentioned that the name of the book is called Suppressing Dissent,

01:42:14.470 --> 01:42:19.890
Shrinking Civic Space, Transnational Repression in Palestine-Israel,

01:42:20.190 --> 01:42:27.410
dealing with the book that her and Zaha worked on to highlight the concerns

01:42:27.410 --> 01:42:29.070
that they have and others,

01:42:29.550 --> 01:42:33.550
you know, what we're seeing with the mass deportations and all that stuff,

01:42:34.310 --> 01:42:41.590
you know, specifically targeting folks that are speaking up for the Palestinians in Gaza.

01:42:42.955 --> 01:42:50.255
Yeah, we just got to get to a point, ladies and gentlemen, where we need to

01:42:50.255 --> 01:42:55.615
be respectful to each other, but we also need to be able to say what we need to say.

01:42:57.555 --> 01:43:05.875
And, you know, the reason why we have all this volatility, the reason why we have all this unrest,

01:43:06.095 --> 01:43:12.935
the reason why we have all of this discontent is because people feel that they're not being heard.

01:43:14.295 --> 01:43:21.415
And you can't have a one-way conversation. It's got to be at least two ways, right?

01:43:22.575 --> 01:43:26.715
The old saying is you can't listen with your mouth open. Right.

01:43:27.335 --> 01:43:32.335
So, you know, hopefully y'all are getting something out of this.

01:43:32.495 --> 01:43:41.875
Hopefully y'all feel that, you know, we're contributing to increasing and improving the dialogue.

01:43:42.515 --> 01:43:48.215
So I'm still looking for 20,000 subscribers, guys. Because, you know, that's the goal I set.

01:43:48.475 --> 01:43:53.775
Whenever I get to it, it's not like, oh, we got to do it by next month and all this other stuff.

01:43:53.955 --> 01:43:57.315
I'm being realistic about it. But that's the goal.

01:43:57.495 --> 01:44:03.855
I'm trying to get to 20,000 subscribers so that we can continue to expand this

01:44:03.855 --> 01:44:11.815
dialogue in these volatile times without, you know, any interference or encumbrance. Right.

01:44:12.355 --> 01:44:15.995
It's time. It's time for us to raise the level.

01:44:17.575 --> 01:44:24.055
So I just thank y'all for listening to the podcast.

01:44:24.235 --> 01:44:28.215
I thank y'all for, you know, spreading the word.

01:44:28.975 --> 01:44:33.395
For those of you who are going to subscribe or have subscribed,

01:44:33.395 --> 01:44:34.975
I greatly appreciate that.

01:44:35.455 --> 01:44:38.775
And we're just going to keep it going. We're just going to keep pushing.

01:44:39.755 --> 01:44:44.395
So again, thank you to my guests. Thank you all for listening. Until next time.

01:44:45.040 --> 01:45:32.648
Music.