1/20/26: Trump leaks Macron Text, Don Lemon Church Protest Debate

24:54I like balance. I think balance creates stability. This is why I would always talk about Israel. If we had a balanced nature in the Middle East, none of this would happen. There would be nothing with Palestine. And there are also Syria would be a relatively stable state and Iran, too. Everything would be created and have a situation where mutually assured destruction or some credible threat would make it so that rogue gangsterism is impossible. Now, here with the U.S., we have a similar situation where, look, Trump is an aberration, but all he does is dial up everything that we do. He takes it from 6 to 11.

25:31The United States has been operating this way for quite some time. It's caused great pain to us as citizens. And, you know, the world has accepted it. And so I like balance because it creates ultimately stability. And we have lived in a totally unbalanced world, largely not just because of our own actions, because we've mortgaged really, you know, our unipolar moment. We also are in this situation because of exactly people like this. And so I don't know. I just maybe I'm being too hard. I just think they're completely my I guess perhaps cope on all of this is that I'm hoping that Trump's the brazenness and undeniable nature of the way that Trump operates in the room will force that sort of reckoning.

26:11because, listen, the old world order was already bankrupt, right? It was. And these, you know, the international institutions, which I would love to, I would love them to be functioning. I would love for international law to actually have some teeth and for there to be rules of the road. That is not the world that we live in. And Trump has just, Trump has made that undeniable. And so I am hoping that that forces a realignment of the world order that leads to something that is genuinely better, that is genuinely functional, that strikes some sort of balance. The danger and the risk is that we are breaking apart the post-World War II order, which, for all its flaws, did keep us out of World War III.

26:55So we do have to give it— And made us fantastically rich. Made this country fantastic—I mean, it was a great deal for the U.S. Like, all of the, you know, Trump's carping, oh, it's not fair, the Europeans taking advantage of, blah, blah, blah. Like, we set up these institutions. We set up this order to benefit us. It has been fantastically beneficial to the United States of America by design. But putting that aside, you know, my fear is that we're breaking apart those institutions without replacing them with a more stable order. And we cannot afford to do that because now we have a nuclear world.

27:27Now we have AI, you know, driven killer robots. It is a different it's a different time. And so that's the fear. The hope is that this forces some sort of a reckoning and a building of a world order that is actually superior.

28:06Another team who ain't going to the playoff. The Chiefs. It's time to rebuild. Who your MVP right now then? Drake May up there. Josh Allen up there still. Oh, my boy, Matthew Stafford. Where the whole Knicks at? He ain't too far behind. He did all this talking. What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, is crazy. Bro, you know I ain't no Josh Allen fan, but Matthew Stafford got better weapons. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation? MVP? MVP. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast.

28:43This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents, I lied to police, I lied to everybody. There were years, right, where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can, to try to find out what actually happened.

29:22Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of bitches to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

30:01His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman? And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids?

30:35The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaking of that sort of like brazenness and reckoning, some of that is coming through at Davos, which is in a very interesting identity crisis kind of moment. We can put A0 up on the screen. Trump is going to be speaking there tomorrow. It's the World Economic Forum. All of the world global elites gather here infamously. CEOs from major companies, a ton of world leaders show up, etc. et cetera. And it says this, Davos can mean stumference to Trump has replaced everything.

31:14So previously, the ethos of Davos was always stridently neoliberal, right? Meaning that they want total market freedom. They want low taxes for themselves. They want low regulation. But they also want to go to Davos and talk about, get paid lip service to how they're going to make the world a better place. Climate change. They're going to buy carbon credit. They did something. It talks about in this article one year, just to give you a sense of this sort of thing, they had like the refugee experience where you would like be blindfolded and hear gunshots or whatever. Anyway, that's like you fly in on your private jet, right, where after you're the ExxonMobil CEO or whatever, you fly in on your private jet after doing horrific things in the developing world.

31:59And then you spend a couple days publicly pretending like you care about making the world a better place, the world that you are personally defiling. And behind the scenes, you're doing deals with the other business leaders and world leaders there to continue consolidating wealth power and defiling said world. So that was the previous Davos ethos. Now in the Trump era, they like that sort of patina of we need to be responsible citizens. We need to like care about poverty or world hunger or climate change or refugee crises or whatever. That's all kind of out the window. So the the theme this year, I don't remember.

32:37It's something very generic. It's like big ideas or something like that. I have to look at the article. It was something like that, like the most generic thing that you could possibly think of. of. And, you know, a lot of committed to improving the state of the world. No, that's not it. That's not even it. Oh, you're right. The slogan, the slogan of the forum committed to that's the overall one. But no, the the specific one for this year is a spirit of dialogue. That's the theme spirit of dialogue. A lot of stuff that turns me into like a raging, like a true radical It turns me into a communist.

33:12Yeah, I'm like, I cannot believe we are ruled by such incompetent, pathetic people. And so the previous thing has all been like the hypocrisy, right? The thing now is the brazenness. And, you know, that's the shift. And there's going to be a lot of talk about AI and crypto and all of that. But really they're in sort of the previous, the guy who's founded World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, he's stepped down. You've now got, I think, the head of BlackRock is running it along with somebody else, I don't remember. And yeah, so they're in kind of an identity crisis because they don't know how to exactly position themselves now in the era of Trump.

33:52Trump is planning on going there and making some sort of a speech. It also comes at a time of incredible, like world historic levels of income inequality. You could put A3 up on the screen. This is from Gabriel Zuckman, who, you know, is one of the leading, foremost trackers of wealth inequality, fantastic economist. He says back in 1910, so like at the peak of the Gilded Era, the richest 0.00001 % households in the U.S. owned wealth equivalent to 4 % of U.S. national income. Today, that amount is 12%. The wealth and power of the super rich, he says, now far exceeds its Gilded Age peak. And you can see the lines on this graph that just effectively go completely vertical.

34:37And it's set to continue even more aggressively in that direction with the advent of AI, these giant tech companies, these giant tech oligarchs who seek to become and are on track to become the world's first trillionaires. Productivity in this country in particular is spiking, but workers are seeing none of those gains. They are all flowing to the very I'm not even talking about the top one percent. The top, as he says, point oh, oh, oh, oh, one percent are the ones who are consolidating the vast majority of the wealth and political power. And so that is really the backdrop in the context of Davos this year as well.

35:17Yeah. No, I mean, I think that's why that is why. Look, we were originally going to talk about inequality. Not only that, but Trump is planning on making an affordability. I will say, you know, one of the problems here, as much as I would love to crap on the Europeans and all that, that's more of a side project for me personally. You know, it's just a personal side quest of a long-held vendetta I have against the continent. But, you know, the thing that really matters is affordability. And actually, you know, out of the inequality graphic, it's really the importance of how people are able to make it here and to be able to fulfill even like a modicum or hope that your children are going to have a better life than you currently have.

35:55which is just currently not the case for the entire millennial generation. That's the sound, like, that is why the Greenland thing, even though, as my feelings are well-known, most people are going to look at this and be like, I don't care about Greenland. This is insane. Like, why are you wasting all of this capital? I think it has, like, 8 % support. Right, because people, they're like, I don't ultimately care that much about it. Like, this is not 1815 or whatever the Louisiana Purchase was where it's like, there's this vast land where we get to move into and all these resources that we're going to get.

36:25Because at this point, as you just pointed out, even if we were to have this idea of all these minerals and things in Greenland, which we'd be able to exploit, nobody's under the illusion that we're all going to get rich because of that, because of the way that the markets and wealth and all of that is distributed broadly. We understand that this would be a bonanza to a certain select few of companies that we personally, though, would not reap the benefits. That's the issue that I think, you know, structurally, they're never going to be able to solve. Like from what I've understood in my conversations around, I'm like, what is up with the Greenland thing?

36:58Because like, you know, what is it? And they're like, well, first of all, and I keep using this term, it's a sugar high. They're just literally like they're basking in Midnight Hammer and Venezuela. They're like, we can do anything. We're America, bitch, is basically the Trump doctrine. And in that, they're like, well, this is something where he could solidify his legacy as expanding the territory of the United States more than any time since 18. I forget when the steward purchase of Alaska was. I think it was like 1868. It would be the biggest expansion of the map, and he loves that. But again, this is a central problem for Trump.

37:33The more that things are about him personally and using the U.S. as a plaything and not about any of us, that's the fundamental issue in his general politics. Okay, let's get to the church. This show contains information subject to but not limited to personal takes, rumors, not so accurate stats, and plenty more. What's up, man? This your boy, Nav Green, from the Broken Play Podcast. Look, it's the end of the season. The playoffs are here. But guess what? It ain't the end of your season. You can always tune in with Broken Play Podcast with Nav Green on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Not a team who ain't going to the playoffs.

38:09The Chiefs. Oh, it's a wrap. It's time to rebuild. Who your MVP right now then? Drake May up there. Josh Allen up there still. Oh, my boy, Matthew Stafford. Where the hell both nicks at? He ain't too far behind. He did all this talking. What Matthew Stafford is doing statistically, bro, is crazy. Bro, you know I ain't no Josh Allen fan, but Matthew Stafford got better weapon. Caleb Williams. Hey, he should be in that conversation. In what conversation? MVP? MVP. Listen to Broken Play with Nav Green from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast.

38:44This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents. I lied to police. I lied to everybody. There were years right where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, to interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened.

39:23Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend? They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.

40:02His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you I was a spy Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's Played poker with Harry Truman And had a long affair with a congresswoman And then he took his talents to Hollywood Where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock Before writing a hit James Bond film How did this secret agent Wind up as the most successful children's author ever And what darkness from his covert past Seeped into the stories we read as kids The true story is stranger Than anything he ever wrote Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

40:46Turning now to Minneapolis. There's been a very high-profile protest, I guess, if you could call it, where a bunch of BLM activists who are now part of the anti-ice movement stormed into a church in the state of Minnesota. The reasoning behind this was that they had found names of ICE officers and suspected that one of the pastors at this church was the leader of a local ICE field office. It did end up, by the way, that the pastor, who they allege was an ICE officer, was not even present there at the time. It set off a high-profile incident, now showdown with the Trump administration. Don Lemon, the current YouTube streamer, I guess a disgraced ex-CNN anchor, was actually present at the protest, which has heightened some of the discussion around this.

41:32So we're going to show you some of the clips that has happened. We're going to discuss it on the other side. Let's take a listen. So you can see the protesters here have gathered over here. They're in the middle of the church. During the beginning of the church service, the pastor was speaking. And Nakeema stood up and said her piece. and then the protesters surrounded her. But this is a clandestine mission. I think they found out one of, according to them, this is according to Operation Pull-Up, that one of the pastors here is a member of ICE. And so here we go. And we were interrupted by this group of protesters.

42:12We asked them to leave and they obviously have not left. What do you think of them? I mean, this is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship. But there were folks who will say. I have to take care of my flock. Listen, we live in a, there's a constitution in the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest. We're here to worship. We're here to worship Jesus because that's the hope of these cities. That's the hope of the world is Jesus Christ. I want to be very respectful. Please don't push me, though. We're here.

42:48We're here to worship Jesus. That's why we're here. tell you is that there are varying arrays of views on the political situation here. What do you mean by that? I'm going to leave it at that. But there's varying array of views in this church on politics of immigration. Recognize the complexity of the issue. Some people don't like what's happening, some people like it. I'm not going to reduce it to that. I won't reduce it that simply. But acknowledge the complexity of the situation. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you talking to me. By the way, just so you know, this is what you get with independent journalism that you will not get with corporate media.

43:26I'm just here to tell you. So if you're in the chat, if you're with us, support us, support us, support us, like, and subscribe, become a member, support independent journalism. So there's Don in the church asking for people to like and subscribe after accompanying these activists, where he appeared to have had some foreknowledge. This is relevant, by the way, whenever we'll get to some of the charges that may be levied against him. The Trump administration, of all these protesters who decide because they suspect, again, they did not even have it confirmed. It's been confirmed now later that a pastor who was not there was potentially a leader of the local ICE office, that they decide to come in to disrupt this service, to harass, intimidate, and scream at, including, by the way, women and children.

44:12And if anybody's wondering, it was a multiracial congregation. I don't know, Crystal. I mean, looking at this, like, I think that the spirit of BLM is alive and well. It's very clear specifically because it's also a BLM group that was behind this protest. And I've actually been frustrated that everybody's talking about Don Lemon and not about the actions of these protesters themselves and then the reaction from Democratic lawmakers. So you had the Minnesota state attorney general defend this protest action. And he said, oh, well, people will have to feel uncomfortable. So he doesn't see anything unlawful here.

44:48He actually doesn't think it's a violation of the FACE Act. You had the state governor, Governor Walz of Minnesota, put out some mealy mouth statement. And it's like this is just seems intrinsic to me. And I remember in our debate, you know, people got mad because I talked about liberal protest norms. This is liberal protest. Like they seem to believe it is OK. And again, this is a violation, actually, of federal law, at least clear cut to me, whenever you have the FACE Act, which was written in 1994, specifically says you can't intimidate and go in and disrupt religious worship services. It is unbelievable to me, like, that there is no general consensus and effectively just silence in the same way that you see many right-wingers be silent on, let's say, the excesses of ICE to what is something which is so egregious in its form of protest.

45:33And it seems completely normalized and permissed. like in the liberal establishment within the state of Minnesota. And the fact that the attorney general immediately dismissed it, the local police literally doing nothing whenever these people, and again, let's be clear, screaming, making children cry, following them to their cars, intimidation, direct trespass, not leaving whenever they want. I just, I truly do not understand how can this, this cannot be like actually condemned, especially when this already happened in 2020 and there was a massive backlash against it. So I really actually want, like, I don't understand.

46:15And as somebody who swims in this world, like, what is happening here? Like, how is it that this is completely permissed? And it's just like, oh, our side is good so they can do whatever they want. The Minnesota State Attorney General is making a big stink about political, you know, political non-prosecution or whatever in the Renee Good case. immediately comes out and says that this is totally fine, especially in a state where you had a shooting very recently in church. Like, how could you possibly try to encourage this type of behavior? I just don't get it. So let's separate a few things down.

46:43And that's why I don't want to talk about Don Lemon. Because, you know, and I'll get to that. But we do need to talk about Don Lemon because that's what they're focused on. And the administration is threatening to charge him specifically with FACE Act and also with the KKK violation, which is insane. So I watched a good bit. I didn't watch the whole thing. But I watched a good bit of his stream. And to be honest with you, it was genuinely good. Like, it was like, I mean, we played a little bit of it here. He was tipped off by the protesters that they were going to do this action. OK, as a journalist and no doubt he has a perspective.

47:18That doesn't mean that he isn't a journalist. Right. So as a journalist, he goes in. He documents what they're doing. As you saw, he spoke with the pastor. he spoke with parishioners. You know, he at times was asking them challenging questions, but he also asked those challenging questions of the protesters as well. So of course you come away with a sense of where Don Lemon is on the issue. But actually, it was, for me, it was genuinely valuable to watch his stream and to hear from the parishioners themselves. Because if you do just come at this from either a right or a left perspective, then you're going to have a very flattened view of the human beings involved.

48:00But, you know, it actually gave me sort of more texture and more context to be able to think about the whether this was a sound tactical approach. Hearing like that guy that we heard there who's like, listen, you know, to be honest with you, there's a lot of different political views in this church. There were other people there who said, you know, to be honest with you, like some of what the protesters are saying, like I kind of agree with. I just this to me is way out of line and it's, you know, too confident. And I'm very upset about what they've done here. But to be honest with you, some of the things that they're saying might be things that I agree with.

48:32Sure. So, you know, in terms of as a journalistic endeavor, like I think you should like and subscribe. He's on the ground in Minneapolis. He is actually tracking what is going on here and giving you a window in that is not just caricaturish. Well, it depends. So the idea of charging him is truly insane. And we all know the reason why they are focusing on him, which I think is also worth saying as well. Because he's famous, because he's liberal, because he's hated. Yes, I think because he's black and gay, all of that plays into it. He's the first person to remind you he's black and gay, OK? It has nothing to do with it.

49:08There is no doubt that that is part of why he is a lightning rod here. No, because he's a lightning rod as a liberal. I don't think that that is deniable. But in any case, that's the reason that they have made the face. He wasn't even the only journalist there, by the way. So for Don Lemon, for them to even float charging him with the FACE Act, with this KKK insane, and like on principle, as journalists, we should be vehemently opposed to that. Because genuinely, you may not lie. No, you don't like his views. He's a liberal, all of that. It's not because he's a liberal that I hate him, but yes.

49:39But you don't like him. No, but here's the difference. As a journalist, like the ability to go in to document this protest, to be live, to talk to the protesters, to talk to the parishioners, to talk to the pastor, to talk to everybody on the ground. It was genuine. It was actually valuable content. And it is worthwhile looking at it because, you know, I think he, in some senses, did a favor to the right because you do get - By showing the insane tactics? Yes. Yes. Because you do get more of a sense of, you can't just view the church members there in a caricaturish way when you actually listen to what they have to say and you're there in the room with them and experiencing that.

50:19Now, for me, in terms of the protest tactics, you know, do I have like a moral issue with? No, I don't have a moral issue. I think it's crazy that there is an ICE field officer who is in any sort of position of moral leadership. This is a guy. This is a guy. Well, it is it is my business. It is a business. I mean, I'm a taxpayer of this country. I'm paying his salary. They are, you know, in the local in the local community. Just finish for a second. So do I have a moral issue with? No, I don't have a moral issue with it. Do I think, and people get very mad when you say this, do I think it was tactically smart?

50:51No, of course not. You've given a major propaganda win to your adversary. You protected zero immigrants, right? The work, you're undermining the good work of the Will Stancels of the world who are out in the streets, tracking ICE agents, blowing whistles, and recording. I mean, and Trump posted actually yesterday before he started posting like his private text with Emmanuel Macron or whatever, he posted that there was, quote, too much focus on ICE agents and not enough on the fraud. Why? Because he sees that these videos that everybody's seeing of, you know, pulling some elderly American citizen out in practically his underwear in the snow, tear gassing a six-month-old baby, shooting now a Venezuelan national on top of the killing of Rene Good.

51:32Like, he's seeing that this is not going well for him in the public opinion. Those tactics are working. And instead today of being able to talk about those things and those abuses, we're having to have a debate about interrupting church services in this way that I think for a lot of Americans is going to look over the top and very uncomfortable. It's because it is over the top and it is ridiculous. Like the people violate the social contract at the most basic level. Can I ask you one thing though? Because do you also, I think you use the term egregious. Is that fair? Yeah. Do you also think it's egregious that ICE has interrupted church services to arrest, make arrests of undocumented immigrants?

52:10But, you know, this is kind of my point is that it is a race to the bottom. And if we want to have some sort of norms whenever we're like and by the way, even it's a bit difficult. But do you because it is a bit difficult when you have churches who basically declare themselves as a place where the law itself, immigration law, does not be allowed to enforce. Like that would be like saying that you can commit any crime inside of a church. And as long as you do, that you're going to be immune from federal or state prosecution. So, you know, I do think it is fundamentally different. And then second, you know, I think.

52:40In a sense, I mean, I agree with you that it's fundamentally different because the harm of coming in and like arrest like those people that were at the church. I think they were upset and they were angry. They're fine. Right. To come in and interrupt service and to make arrest in front of everybody and with children and families there. Like that is deeply. So you could just never arrest. If a murderer was hiding inside of a church, could you go and you could catch them? We're not talking about them. We're not talking about a violation. We're talking about what is a civil offense. in terms of...

53:11Not all the time. We've had multiple illegals who live in churches to escape prosecution. Okay, well, so then it's clear, then, you find it egregious when people protest in a church, but you do not find it egregious when ICE raids a church, kitted out in all their military gear, and pulls people out during service. I would not do it for some, but personally, I can only speak for myself, if it was just purely like, you know, like women, children, people who have committed no crime, yeah, I would say don't do it. I think that you should be able to do it a different way. What I have seen, though, is there have been extremely high profile illegal activists who are actually have committed felonies who go and hide in churches at the direction often of some of these NGOs.

53:48And then they use that policy against them. Let's use the specifics of what we've seen unfold. There's a lawsuit right now against the federal government alleging violations of people's constitutional right to worship and disrupting their religious practices that were brought by a variety of religious organizations. I know the Quakers are involved. There's a number of other religious groups that are involved as well. And what they allege is not only that these raids have occurred during services, on church property, et cetera, but it creates a climate where not only undocumented immigrants, but many other church members are fearful of even going to church.

54:24So you are – so if you're upset about this incursion in terms of protest activity where – I think you're wrong about the FACE Act being applicable here, but not a legal act. says you can't intimidate or disrupt a religious worship service. No, it doesn't say disrupt. I'll find the text. It's about threats, intimidation, but it also specifically says, carves out peaceful First Amendment protest activity. You've got kids screaming, you're following people to their cars. It's textbook intimidation. It is 100 % peaceful. But in any case, putting that aside, I think if you are upset about people going into a church to protest peacefully during a church service, I would say that to be morally consistent, you should be even more upset about the violation by federal agents coming in during service to arrest people.

55:14And so that's why, you know, I mean, the rights upset about this. Again, I think the tactic was not smart. I think it caused, you know, gave the right something that obviously they see as a propaganda win. I don't think it was the right way to go about things. But I also can't take seriously the rights like, oh, my God, the sanctity of religion, blah, blah, blah, because these are also in some cases the same people. I think Tommy Tuberville like yesterday said that all Muslims are terrible and the enemies within the gates like they have no respect for any sort of like blanket religious tradition.

55:46It's only when it comes to something they don't like from the left and specifically with regard. Yeah. But OK, you You can say the other side is inconsistent, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't condemn it. And here we have the law specifically says injure, intimidate or interfere with religious worship. There's no it's like open and shut for every single one of these. You don't think that they injure, intimidate or interfere. They did not injure. Intimidate or interfere. And again, there is. I'm sorry, that is ridiculous. Specific carve outs for, again, peaceful First Amendment protest activity.

56:14I don't think. Now, do I think, you know, maybe maybe like a trespassing charge potentially. But the person that they focused in on here is specifically Don Lemon. And that, to me, I think I think should be, again, as a journalist, I think you should find very troubling. So here's here's my transgressive take. I would agree with you if we had not already had multiple journalists who were prosecuted on the day of January 6th. You had three, at least three streamers that I know of, Isabella DeLuca, Baked Alaska and Owen Schroer, who were all prosecuted by the DOJ. And some of them actually spent time in prison, even though they were streaming what was going on.

56:52Under the same thing, you could make that argument is that they were interviewing people, giving context. But do you support that? No, I don't. Then you should be consistent here. And that's why I was saying, that's my transgressive take, is while I despise Don Lemon, I think we should set a standard, actually. And this is part of my frustration, is we're all focusing on Don. No, it's about the story is the protesters and Keith Ellison and Governor Walz and Jacob Frey and the entire like lib industrial complex, which has zero to say about it. Pramila Jayapal even did the meme where she said it was mostly peaceful whenever she was.

57:26And that's why I'm like, look, that's true. Look, if a Nick Shirley, let's put Governor Walz is. Well, Nick Shirley did go. No, no, I was going to say if Nick Shirley walks into. And no one's arresting him. If a Somali fraudster was a leader of a mosque and it was Nick Shirley and people went in, these people would be screaming to high heaven. You think they'd be talking about mostly peaceful? Not for a second. And you'd be defending him. No, I actually would not be defending him because I think this is crazy behavior. I'm even said that Nick Shirley literally did a piss poor job and is a retard who doesn't know what the word benevolent means.

58:02So I'm not somebody who's sitting here and defending all of these types of tactics. And I defended all the January 6th streamers. I don't think Don Lemon should be charged, which is why I'm so frustrated that Don Lemon somehow, by the way, we can get to his little clip about claiming white supremacy and denigrating people. Again, the enduring image of that protest is an Asian family who are trying to protect their child from these freaks who are screaming in their face. But this is the issue is that BLM and people always are like, why does he talk about it so much? This is the beating heart of liberal activism.

58:33But the right to disrupt, the right to be antisocial. Yes, that is protest. Yes, no, that is protest. But to what is that they believe that their moral righteousness gives them the right to destroy, disrupt, loot, riot. Can you acknowledge, though, that it is some crazy business to have a guy who is the field officer, like the head of the agency, the regional agency of ICE, to be in a position of moral authority like that? Like that is that is up to me to defend. That's up to the church. If they're OK with it, then fine, whatever. There are crazy black pastors around here literally believe in like straight black nationalism.

59:08Do you think that's consistent with American values? He is named in lawsuits about all of the aggressive and illegal tactics here. And he wasn't even there. And I think the reason why people oftentimes comment on how much you bring up Black Lives Matter. And like the level of energy that you bring to this, which is some private individuals who did a protest that you don't like. But then to me, the much more important and consequential part of this story is those are those are like relatively powerless individuals. Right. It's not true. Of course, it's not true. You're looking at it as a vacuum and not a vast like permission structure.

59:49Can I finish? Who did a thing that you don't like? OK, I think that that is so much less consequential than the fact that you have a the federal government with all of its powers. who are aggressively and illegally using tactics in a widespread manner that amounts to a terror campaign in these communities. And with this story specifically, I find the most important, most troubling thing not to be some tactics that I don't think are effective, but to be the fact that you immediately reach for, let me criminalize this journalism. That's the part that is far, has far more far reaching consequences than, you know, some protesters did a thing that you found to be distasteful.

1:00:35Well, I would give you the same thing is I find many of the tactics to the extent that I have problems with ICE, it is violation of U.S. due process, violation of U.S. rights. Fundamentally, though, like you, I support deporting people who are here illegally. So yes, my tactical objection is going to be on that. But fundamentally, I think that people who are illegally should leave. You don't agree with that. That's fine. But this gets to my point about the moral equivalence is they are so certain in their moral righteousness that they can walk into and disrupt every facet of our lives. They can burn our cities to the ground.

1:01:07They can turn every major blue city into a literal shithole for two to three years, spike the murder rate, take over federal and educational institutions. That's why you're saying powerless. Completely not true. But is that happening now? The entire U.S. elite. No, but it did happen. And that's why people like us bring it up because when they were in power and then Keith Ellison, who is in power, is defending this, we see with our own eyes very clearly, oh, right. So when you people are in power, they're going to allow this. They're going to use the same selective political prosecution. Nobody gave two shits about journalism when all of these two, when these three, I think might've even been five streamers who were all charged under January 6th.

1:01:44They held it up. They said they're not legitimate journalists. Now when Don Lemon is here, cause now he apparently, cause he's black and gay, then, Oh, all of a sudden we've rediscovered the first amendment. There is a zero consistency. Like there is. I think there is zero consistency in saying it is fine for ICE agents to go in and raid a church. And you haven't said anything about that up until I asked you about it and to be so incredibly upset about one church service getting interrupted by a handful of protesters. I think that is wildly inconsistent. Because what you're trying to defend is the principle that illegals who are tens of millions here present can go and find safe sanctuary in a church and anywhere in the country.

1:02:23What I'm trying to defend is that ICE agents should not be brought in to American cities by the thousands to terrorize entire communities, Which is what is being done here. And this is not even about immigration. If we're being honest. Well, I know that that's a convenient talk. But I don't think it's true. Then why are they in Minneapolis? Tell me. Tell me why did they choose Minneapolis? I think ICE agents are in Minneapolis because of the Nick Shirley video. And because that's how this administration operates. Right. Which has nothing to do with immigration. Well, there are several thousand illegal immigrants who are present in the city.

1:02:54The overwhelming number of Somali immigrants are, in fact, American citizens. Yeah, but that's why they're there. I mean, let's just open our eyes to what is really going on here. It has to do with the fact that they hate anyone who's not white and Christian. They are after anyone who has opposed to Trump. They hate Walls. They now hate Jacob Fry because he opposed him as well. But, I mean, if you look at what these people are actually doing, it's incredibly weak. Like Fry is out there basically saying, like, yeah, there's nothing really we can do about ICE agents who are abusing people in the streets, immigrants and Americans alike.

1:03:30Well, what I think you're ignoring is that—

1:04:00And literally burned almost America to the ground. Tell me about the tactics that are being used right now. Yes, I've criticized all those tactics here consistently. No, no, no. I'm talking about the protesters. The protests. Tell me about those tactics because it has been overwhelmingly what people have been doing is documenting what ISIS abuses. And it's been very effective. They have tried. Well, documenting is a very, very small cry from the vast majority of them actually are trying to disrupt. And, you know, that's a whole other type of conversation where, again, we've normalized it so that ordinary Americans just think that they're like Martin Luther King Jr.

1:04:36reincarnate, going and putting their cars, let's say, often in front of ICE agents whenever they're trying to conduct a raid. I won't even defend some of the tactics of the raid. I think it's chaotic. And, again, like you, I tactically think it's a bad idea. But fundamentally, like you do agree with these protesters, I think illegals should be deported. I think they should leave. And you don't. And that's the fundamental difference. Can you not see the, can you not see, and that's not even true what you just said, but can you not see the vast disparity between interrupting a church service and shooting a woman dead three times in the face and facing zero accountability?

1:05:13And one being a group of powerless private citizens and the other being the full force of the United States federal government and the largest law enforcement budget in history, larger than all but 13 countries, militaries, and the vice president of the United States saying they have, quote, absolute immunity. Like, which one is more of a danger, more of a threat, more of something to be upset about? narrow view of it, considering the fact that not that long ago, they actually did have the full power of the government. Nobody actually sustained any real charges. They don't now, Sagar. They don't now.

1:05:51Yes, because much of the tactics of the way that they're behaving, and I will even freely admit, much of the way of the tactics that the right and ICE and all of them are employing, make it so that very likely these freaks are all going to be back into power. But if we're trying to talk here about the way that this all arise and the way that liberal protest norms have evolved now to this point and where the entire democratic liberal industrial complex will defend it and or stay silent or criticize it only as tactical, you can then realize why most people who may find the ICE thing distasteful are gonna be like, yeah, well, you know, look at what we've got facing us whenever the other side is in power.

1:06:27And that's exactly what happened with Keith Ellison. But Sagar, we can always like go back to, it's this person's, it's that person's fault, it's this backlash, it's that backlash, because you love to start with the liberal, the Black Lives Matter, liberal protest tactics that, yes, at times, you know, the fringe of that was very violent. It was not. And not anything that should be condoned and was incredibly counterproductive in terms of the goals of that movement. But you never look to what precipitates that, which is decades. I mean, of, you know, decades of systematic racism, which is police killings of unarmed black men.

1:07:07So how is there no accountability for that? That leads to an extreme reaction. If we want to relitigate it, it was a completely fake crisis. The number of people can go check if they want to, the number of unarmed black people who were killed by police in the year 2019. I know you're not genuinely asserting that there is no racism in this country. No, just from Republicans, but from both parties, right, in power that have criminalized, that have made it so that you have, you know, a mass incarcerated population that has backed redlining. I mean, we can go through the history. So if you so it's not accurate to say that that protest movement was based on nothing and came out of nowhere because it was based on fake statistics.

1:07:53That is just no, no, that's not. No, it is true. There is no ability to create that kind of a mass movement out of nothing, right? Well - You have to acknowledge that there has to have been something there. Yes, I think there was mass psychosis. No, you love to just start with the things that liberals do that you don't like. And you love to act like that is the biggest problem. So for example, again, you're so exercised about this incursion in a church, you have nothing to say about the way that systematically across the country religious worship spaces have been violated and made unsafe by the attacks from this federal government.

1:08:36But I think that I've explained quite clearly that there is a difference. And because you don't actually - Yeah, the difference is that one is way worse. And it's coming in and around the people. You fundamentally think that illegals just have a right to sanctuary in church. I don't. I don't think criminals who are here illegally have a right to sanctuary anywhere. The only sanctuary they have is in the home where they came from. Were past presidents able to deport undocumented immigrants. I'm glad that you talked about this. There's this new fake statistic going around about how Obama was able to deport 3 million people.

1:09:04What he did is he reclassified turning people away at the border. Internal enforcement was at all time low. All they did was reclassify, just like they did with mass shootings. Here is the basic truth. Were previous presidents able to deport undocumented immigrants? Were they able to deport illegals at an extremely low rate and at a net rate in which it resulted in the last Democratic administration. Do you genuinely think that not violating church services was the key reason? No, I don't. Yeah, of course. No, I don't. I mean, because it's ridiculous. And they're doing the same things at schools.

1:09:37Okay, so this is something that is genuinely different under the Trump administration. They rescinded the guidance that previously said schools and houses of worship are off limits. And that was fine with you. You had nothing to say about that. No, I don't think I was. So I don't take seriously your now deep concern about the sanctity of the church services. To me, it's not about the sanctity. People are so traumatized. As people know, I'm an atheist. I don't particularly care that much about sanctity of churches. I care about liberal protest norms because I can see, and I lived through, literal mass psychosis where people were storming buildings, restaurants, streets, everywhere, rioting, looting, destroying property, exploding our murder rate, destroying the city that I literally lived in.

1:10:19to the point where we still have the same problems that from what, five, six years ago now at that time, like, that's why you're saying like, it was, it's an old thing. It's not like we live with the enduring consequences of that. In fact, literally across the nation, multiple cities and places and areas, which I love have been ruined completely, largely because of BLM and the so-called criminal justice movement that followed and exploded through all of the people who are actually in power. People like Keith Ellison, who have nothing to say whenever a literal church is violated here because to them, that is permissible.

1:10:51Whereas any sort of action to arrest people here illegally is what really gets them all spun up about. They have the same selective justice. They are in no way not different. But it is. Because, Sagar, before this, you know, multiple thousand federal agents storming the streets of Minneapolis, the whole region, Twin Cities, before that, ICE was doing enforcement. There was immigration enforcement in Minnesota. No, that's not true. That is 100 % true. Of course it's true. Because this is the problem. Sanctuary cities make it so that the jails do not turn over or report. No, that is not true. No, it is true.

1:11:28That is not true. They do not cooperate with federal detention. That is not true when it comes to violent criminals. Yes, exactly. Of course there has been cooperation between Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota. Have there been ICE enforcement actions in Minneapolis prior to the surge? Yes. previous regime where you only believe that people who have committed violence should be deported. Under this Trump administration, there have been ongoing ICE actions in and around Minneapolis. Did they stoke this back? No. So what does that tell you? No, people do not object to any undocumented immigrants.

1:12:03There may be some people like that, but by and large to any undocumented immigrants getting deported. No. What they object to is what they are seeing right now in the streets of Minneapolis. And they should object to that. They should be horrified by that. I'm horrified by that. I'm horrified by giving the absolute immunity to a bunch of masked thugs who have said to people now, they have threatened them, they've said, didn't you learn the lesson from that lesbian bitch? They are using the murder of Renee Good as their ability to threaten people with the same type of actions. We have already seen now multiple shootings.

1:12:40We've seen also immigrants dying routinely now when they're in detention. So, yes, I think people are right to be upset about that. That doesn't mean that they object to any immigrant ever being deported. It means they object to what is happening right now and they should. And so I am going like I think that is a far more consequential thing to happen in this country right now, backed by our tax dollars with this private army for Trump and for Stephen Miller that is completely rogue and completely unaccountable to the law. I think that is a vastly, vastly more important issue than some protesters who, you know, I think you could probably, listen, I think when you protest, if you violate the law, like there's an expectation that you may risk arrest.

1:13:27Like, could they get trespassing charges potentially? You know, will the government go after them for the FACE Act that can be litigated in court, I don't think that they'll succeed. Well, first time FACE Act is usually not, is met with a fine. So just to be clear, like I'm not saying all these people should be thrown in prison for years at all. And that's why, again, I would ignore it. But, you know, to your point there, I do think it is a bit of a canard whenever people are saying they don't, like even when you're talking about violent protesters, people like me believe, I mean, Joe Biden, the so-called moderate, believe that people who are here illegally who are caught drunk driving should not be deported.

1:14:02That is insane. Insane. You're putting people at risk and you shouldn't be deported. The liberal line appears now to be that unless you're a violent rapist or murderer, that you get to stay here, even though you crossed into our country illegally. And even though you're probably going to be a massive net drain on our social safety net, we should just grant you all citizenship. Like this is, this is what, like it is a, it is genuine slide of hand. There are tens of millions, somewhere between 20 and 30 people, 20, 30 million people who are present in this country illegally. And I think people should just be honest liberals and say, yes, we want to vast, we want to legalize the absolute vast majority of them regardless of the consequences.

1:14:37And we want people like me, you talk about tax dollars, you want my tax dollars to pay for all of their healthcare. And for people who don't speak any English, the vast majority of them are net contributors to society. This is again, is a complete canard. And even if you had a small percentage, which are going to be massive, I think people should say that because that is actually the place where the American people are. That is where the majority position is. We'll see whenever they actually have a vote. As we all saw, everyone was pro-mass support to be a mass deportation. Even at the height of the anti-immigrant backlash, even at the height of that, you still had much more complex views on immigration than has been portrayed.

1:15:13So yes, the American people do not, the view that you're articulating as being just like some stupid liberal position, that is the position of the American people. That we should legalize everyone and give them all free. That if you have been here and you've abided by the law and you've paid your taxes, that there should be some path to citizenship. And yet, though— They don't agree with what is going on. They don't agree, certainly, with the insane tactics of these private thugs, which, again, immigration is the pretext here. But this really is about a police state. It is about a mass crackdown.

1:15:51It is about threatening retribution against the opposition, making it so that, you know, things are, you know, basic protest is criminalized. I think multiple things can be true. The administration believes that if you protest against them, you are a domestic terrorist. That is their that is their stated definition. And again, I think that is like that's that's the thing that we should really be focused on right now, because these are the people that are in power right now. This is what they're doing right now. and, you know, most of America is horrified by it, frankly. Look, I think they should be horrified.

1:16:24I objected immediately to labeling Renee Good a terrorist, but, you know, one of these is it's always, you know, yesterday I was feeling very left-wing. Today I feel very right-wing. I'm like, oh, right, I forgot what exactly it is like or would be like to live back under the thumb of these people. And, like, I don't think that we should really forget what, you know, you're talking about normalization. This was normalized over literally a decade. It has been accepted. there is an extreme position in the way that you look at mass deportation. Like, I'm sorry, like legalizing people, giving them free health care?

1:16:54No, it's not happening. Who gets free health care in this country? I wish that we all got free health care. Your position is free health care for everyone and legalization. Correct, but that is not the reality in which we live currently. Free health care for illegals and for people who are here illegally. That is not something I will ever support. I don't think anybody should support that empirically. And like this is where I do think it is important to also note that because of the position of the moral righteousness, which is at the heart of all liberal activism, where they genuinely cannot see.

1:17:23Like, I don't think anybody can see in the way that you're framing it. Yours look, I, purely as some sort of intimidation factor. And the fact is, immigration is a part of that. Now, can it be done without many of the bad things that they've done? And that's why, you know, often the criticism is like, you only object to the tactics. It's like, yeah, because I agree with the idea. They should get deported. I think it's basically your view here on the protests. Yes, we can agree on enforcement. I would be much happier with 100 % remittance tax and mandatory E-Verify and taking a bunch of these employers who vastly profit off of all of this and throw them in prison and then basically encourage everybody to go back.

1:17:59More humane way to do it. Less headlines. Yeah, but to be honest, and let's be clear here, libs would be screeching and crying about that too. They would. Like the idea that they only object to ICE tactics is bullshit. But, Sagar, we can't live in the hypothetical. We have to live in the reality of what we have going on right now. They criticized Obama and Biden. Anybody who even remotely sent people back, they were mad about it. They believed that they should stay and we should do nothing. They don't care about the tactics. They're allowed to have that view. Yes, of course. They're allowed to have that view.

1:18:29You can believe anything. Here's the thing is, you know, you're very upset about their moral righteousness. Like, they are allowed to have a perspective. And I do think that their perspective is morally righteous. Sure, that's fine. It is about, you know, so I don't quite, I don't think the two things are equivalent. Like, I don't think that the position of the right and the position of the left are more like, because you're a left wing person. And I'm saying there is, there is right and wrong. Like it is wrong watching that man, elderly man drug out on the street in the cold, humiliated in his shorts only.

1:19:08And, you know, turns out he's an American citizen. Hours later, they bring him back. Right. watching that 17 year old at target who they beat the shit out of him and then drop him off you know miles away and he's crying and bloodied watching a six-month-old baby get tear gassed and then the way they lie about all of it um this venezuelan man who got shot in the leg completely lied about all of that and of course renee good like yes i yes i feel very much that is on the correct morally righteous side to say those things are wrong i think all of those people are protesting those things are genuinely courageous and noble and that like more people should aspire to hold values and actually fight for them, which is why, you know, even with these protesters, the only reason I'll criticize the tactics, I think the tactics were foolish, but I think it was freaking ballsy.

1:20:00I admire the fact that they have the balls to do something I'm not doing right now and go out there in the streets and try to make a difference. Do I think that this was a, the wrong approach in terms of the tech? Yes, I do. I don't think it was beneficial to admire, admire the hell on that. Yeah, I do. I actually do because they are putting their actions where their mouth is. They're not just complaining about it on Twitter or posting. They're going out and they're trying to do something about a moral wrong that they see. And I think that is, I think it is incredibly noble thing to do to have a value and to be willing to actually go out and fight.

1:20:35Fine. Then the, you know, every right winger at January 6th was courageous and noble under your definition, because only because you agree, you're basically saying that it's okay. This is why we are actually moral. But Sagar, their thing was - Your morality is defined only in your own mind. Hold on, but you don't even agree with the thing they were doing. The election was not rigged and stolen. So they were breaking the law and beating up cops. And it was vastly more violent than anything that we have seen in terms of these protest. I'm saying that moral equivalence is easy in your mind. No, no, no, no.

1:21:08I'm saying there is no moral equivalence between those two things. Only in yours. No, no, no. For many people, the morality of tens of millions of people here illegally is a huge problem. But you're doing like a very relativist thing. Yes, because we don't, we haven't lived in a very heterogeneous country. No, you're doing a moral relativist position where there can be no right or wrong. It's all just an eye of the beholder, which is actually a very left-wing thing to do and which I don't agree with. I think there is right and wrong. I think there is good and bad. I think there is good and evil.

1:21:36And so, yes, what they did on January 6th was stupid and it was for a bad and wrong cause. What these protesters are doing in general in Minneapolis is for a righteous cause. And I think that that is, no, because there is such a thing as good and bad. Yeah. Everybody who marched against civil rights who were in the white crowds throwing stuff at black people thought that they were in the right and they were uploading. Yeah. And they were wrong. That's my point. That's my point is that the January Sixers, they were morally righteous, were incorrect. Yes. But these people are correct. And you agree with me on that.

1:22:11Like you also object to these tactics and you also don't think that the election was stolen and that was stupid. So clearly there is some, you know, ability to see objectively that some things causes are worthy and noble and some causes are bad and wrong. That's all I'm saying. Okay, fine. Because you're doing a whole moral relative. Well, in their mind, they think, but they're wrong. And these people are not. Yeah. But if I went back to the 1950s, a vast portion of the public would have agreed with the people who were storming and there would have been, let's say, a debate here on the show. But they were wrong.

1:22:39And many people, okay, we can say that in retrospect, but the point is, is what matters actually in the moment. And what matters in the moment, as you just laid out, is while you think it's noble and courageous, I think that anybody who wants to normalize these types of things is despicable in the same way. I mean, I feel like I'm living in crazy land sometimes because it's like we haven't sat here and criticized ICE. We haven't sat here and said that the tactics are bad. As if we haven't sat here and said, yes, they've often violated. All of that is readily admittable. However, however, again, that does not give you license to be rampaging through private institutions and to go and intimidate people who you disagree with, which is the fundamental belief of left-wing activism in and of itself.

1:23:20They do not actually believe that my position or the position of millions of people, for many who voted in 2024, that mass deportation and illegals should go back, which again, won the popular vote. Let me remind everyone that is not a legitimate position and that any of those people should be driven from public life and have no right and or to speak. That is probably the mainstream view of liberal activism and let's say DSA or any of these types of people. That is objectionable because it is pretty clear to me that those people are not really consistent with any sort of democratic values. And for all the left's talk of 1930s Germany, what they forget is that these were the same tactics used by the communists.

1:23:58This is actually the exact same playbook of street gangs and all of that that was playing out of anarchism at the time. Didn't work out so well for all of you. Or the Spanish Civil War and the same murder of a lot of people who were in religious institutions, which is eventually what led to the rise of Spanish fascism. Because it's not just about tactics. It is also about the same level of moralism, of protest behavior. And I view that fundamentally as a danger. You don't because you think it's courageous. It is a massive danger to living in a heterogeneous society. And the same way that you see illiberalism on the right, I can point to this exactly and the handling and the basically effective endorsement of this by the democratic industrial complex and to say, wow, illiberalism is still alive and well whenever it comes to the institutionalized left.

1:24:43And people like me should be afraid of it. We can wrap this up, but I will just say there is really no comparison between the quote-unquote illiberalism of the Biden administration, which I, you know, condemns. You were one of the few. Okay. Yeah. And the illiberalism of the Trump administration. There is no comparison. There is no comparison. And, I mean, we're about to cover some of the, like, rise of censorship and whatever. You have the criminalizing of pro-Palestinian dissent. You have the labeling of anyone who would protest them as domestic terrorists. You have the absolute immunity granted to ICE thugs to rampage in American streets.

1:25:25Can we can we just say just because the vice president said it doesn't make it true. That is. And I wouldn't defend it. No, but it but not to harp on this, but it does actually make it true because that is the way that they're operating. I mean, is Jonathan Ross being investigated? No, no. No, but to say absolute immunity would be to say that he forever has immunity, which is not true. Liberals will eventually come back into power, and there's no statute of limitation on murder. I think you would also admit that it's pretty clear. You don't think they're going to pardon him? What? Maybe. I don't know.

1:25:55Is murder even eligible for pardon? Yes. Well, I'm pretty sure I checked on this, and there was some weird case law, something about state charges. I'm not exactly sure. My understanding is that he could be pardoned. And the state and federal thing, it's a question mark. But in any case, the view of this administration is that they have absolute immunity. And that is the way that they have that those agents have clearly internalized based on the way they're acting and also the things that they're saying to protesters on the street. So in any case, that is nowhere like they are not in the same ballpark with the illiberalism that was evidenced in the Biden administration, which was marginal compared to what we are seeing here in terms of the criminalization of dissent and the crushing of the media, the crushing of like even bringing law firms to heal, universities, getting professors fired, all of that.

1:26:51And they genuinely like Trump will say it. He he thinks it should be illegal to criticize him. He says that out loud. Right. So I don't see the two things as equivalent. And you can you can rely on me that if, you know, Democrats or the left gets in power and there is our abuses that are truly illiberal, that I will be critical there. But I am not going to do both sides because I don't think that the two sides have been remotely equivalent. And by the way, one of them is in power right now and one of them is not. One will soon be in power. And I think that many of the norms that may have kept the Biden administration or any of those people from doing what truly was in those hearts are now shattered.

1:27:27And next thing we know. And, you know, I mean, I don't think people should confuse. I am really not arguing with you. I don't think you're the problem. I really don't. Yeah. But I think the Democratic industrial complex is the problem. And Keith Ellison and all of the people who are actually going to be in power. I'm like, oh, yeah, especially what's been normalized now under Trump. I think a lot of people, like a lot of the same tactics, which were dreams of the BLM movement and all of that, and anti-racism amendments after what has now happened under the Trump administration, I think it will be a reality.

1:28:00And I don't doubt that you would speak on behalf of civil liberties for right-wingers, but I don't think that that's necessarily a consistent view. And much of the right is to blame for it as well, which is why I often call it out, especially on the censorship stuff, because I'm not dumb. The people who are lawyers, professors, and governors are all watching this and saying, okay, we never did it out of norms. Now the norm is shattered, which means it's going to happen. And I think that America is basically going to go through some sort of like 1990s South Africa truth and reconciliation movement whenever a Democrat comes back into the White House.

1:28:36And, yeah, I don't think it's going to go that well. All right. Long debate. I apologize to the audience. I hope it was somewhat elucidating. Is that the right word? Let's get to the next block.

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