Why it's all going wrong for Donald Trump!

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Hello and welcome to American Friction, the US politics podcast.

There isn't a threat to national security except for when it occasionally is.

That's right.

I'm Jacob Jarvis.

And I'm Chris Jones.

And with us is our good friend Nicky McCann Ramirez.

Hi, Nicky.

Nicky's lost it already.

We're off the rails.

Oh, yes.

I might actually need to go get it.

We've got Nicky cry laughing.

This is the tone we're saying today.

But we are talking about some serious stuff.

Trump is trying to move on from the around war and make the mega movement.

Remember that he was real smart, but forget all about it anyway.

Because Cuba.

That's right.

Cuba is a place.

So yeah, it's all weird.

It's all bad.

It's kind of sad.

And it isn't very rad.

Chris.

Are you my dad?

Wow.

Lyrical genius.

I know.

The best you've ever had.

Oh, that's Chris.

I'm driving you mad.

Okay.

Show me.

Yeah.

This is America friction.

Welcome back.

Before we begin a reminder and appeal to your hearts and souls.

We need your help to keep this podcast going.

How can you help us?

They might ask Chris.

Why don't you ask that question?

How can they help us?

Well, they can help us by banging his on Patreon.

What can they get from Patreon, Chris?

What can they get from Patreon, Chris?

They can get episodes ad free.

They get them a little bit earlier.

They can get bonus content.

And there's merchandise as well.

And a chat community where they can ask questions, isn't there, Chris?

Isn't there, Chris?

Yeah.

I'm going to stop that big.

It got not really.

There is.

So after the first one.

How can you go there?

Where?

How do you get to the Patreon, Chris?

No, no, no.

You tell me.

You go to Patreon.com forward slash American friction or follow the link in the show notes.

It'd be very, very nice and very, very good if you did that.

Patreon.com forward slash American friction.

I shan't labor the point anymore, but if I were to Patreon.com forward slash American friction

would be the link I would say, but I won't.

Nicky Trump seems like he's kind of a bit over around.

We'll get into that.

He's just sort of, he's done with it.

He wants to be a little bit, but he's not quite.

And now he's threatening Cuba.

What's this all about?

Is he just trying to do a sort of make a wish dream for Marco Rubio?

Yeah.

No, I think it's just become abundantly clear at this point.

The Trump administration doesn't have a handle on what's going on in Iran.

Israel is clearly still operating with an intent to escalate and still has targets they want to hit.

The problem is that this is no longer the kind of conflict that Trump can just say.

Okay, it's over.

We're done.

This is now expanded into Lebanon over a million people have been displaced, American allies,

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia are being bombed.

There's, you know, the ongoing issue with the straight of our moves that even if the United

States manages to take out most of the Iranian military's large military targets, they can still

find ways to mine the straight.

It doesn't even necessarily need to be an active Iranian offensive against ships trying to transit

through that region.

It's just the threat of it is enough for like major insurers to tell companies where we

don't think you should send boats through that channel.

So yeah, I mean, Trump usually reacts to two things, which is backlash from Republicans and

backlash from the markets like the economy starts looking bad and he pulls back the taco

trade.

We've talked about it.

This may be bigger than him being able to check it out.

He might say, yeah, we're done.

But if, you know, the Iranians want to continue pushing if Israel wants to continue pushing,

if there's retaliatory attacks against the United States, against other American allies,

it's not up to him anymore.

And I think Cuba, it's getting undercovered.

It's always been a little undercovered.

The reality is that Cuba does not pose a significant military or national security threat

to the United States.

It's a long, it's really what we do to Cuba is the result of like a long term grudge.

And we are torturing this island, torturing the people who live on it.

Cuba is currently experiencing almost like island-wide blackouts and energy shortages because

we have literally cut off their access to oil and other types of energy.

And so, yeah, I mean, there are people within the conservative movement who just like they

wanted the Maduro regime taken out of Venezuela, want the regime in Cuba replaced, it will

like ripped out at the root and replace.

But like we've seen, Trump will go into these places and potentially create even more

problems.

I'm talking about potentially absorbing Venezuela's like the 51st state, which is not what

the Venezuelan people wanted, not what was at all proposed in the decades of conservative

agitating for regime change in Venezuela.

And you know, this idea that he can just move from conflict to conflict and not really

experience any consequences because it's over when he feels it in his bones, it's over

when he decides it's over.

It's mythological.

We've seen pretty directly in the aftermath of the invasion in Iraq where you don't really

get to decide when the conflict is over.

That's not something that a government can just expect will always be an option for them.

And it's why there was so much hesitancy amongst past administrations to launch an offensive

like this against Iran.

Is Trump basically trying to apply the same tactics to everything?

And that's the problem that's happening here because the whole flood, the zone with

shit thing might work for him in certain arenas, but if he's finding out that in foreign

policy, that just isn't how it works.

You can't just go, hey, I'm doing something new now.

Forget about the last one.

It's kind of like, we can't really forget about the last one because you've destabilized

the entire Middle East at this point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This is something that intelligence agencies have been warning about for years.

I mean, Tucker Carlson and Joe Ken are getting a lot of play on social media because Joe

Ken went on Tucker Carlson show after resigning from the Center for Counterterrorism.

It was like, there's no intelligence indicating that Iran was imminently going to like build

a nuclear weapon or that there was an imminent threat against the United States.

It has been the intelligence consensus publicly at like very publicly at least since 2019.

And you're correct in saying that like the flood of the zone strategy makes it feel like

things stop being a problem when they stop being covered by the news, but recapping the

first year of the Trump administration, the tariffs are wrecking havoc on businesses.

And as up employment is down, the economy is teetering.

The immigration enforcement has been a problem in the sense that you have record numbers

of deaths in ice and DHS custody for an organization that has only existed for about

20 years.

The fallout of the big, beautiful bill where people are losing health insurance being kicked

off food assistant programs, child care is being cut.

One of the reasons I think this incursion into Iran has been so messy is because one of

the first things that this administration did, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hexeth and the Department

of Defense and Cash Patel and the FBI was purge a lot of the law enforcement and intelligence

agencies of people career officials, experts in Middle East security, these types of policies

who were seen as disloyal to the president.

And so now we have 13 dead soldiers in Iran.

There hasn't been a lot of discussion about how a significant portion of those deaths seem

to have been friendly fire or our own planes crashing into each other.

Like what are we doing here?

There's a level of structural incompetence that was born from the initial steps the Trump

administration took to sort of gut administrations, fire federal employees who had jobs that while

they weren't exciting, contributed to the stability of the functioning of all the different

parts of this government, made economic decisions, made political decisions, fight it like, you

know, six months ago, not even six months ago, a couple of months ago was, oh, we might

attack Greenland.

We might invade Greenland.

We might attack a fellow NATO member.

And now Trump and his administration are confused about why Europe isn't eager to jump

into this war.

Like, what the fuck did you think was going to happen?

Everyone told you this was going to happen.

You mentioned Joe Kent, so I would just like to get into him a little bit.

Basically, he's getting sort of, it feels like he's getting props for having quit the

administration, he was the top counterterrorism official and he's quit over it.

But like, he is a piece of shit, right?

So can we just sort of, yeah, can you just give us a little bit of the detail there?

So Joe Kent, I've known about Joe Kent for way too long, mostly because he was a very frequent

guest on Tucker Carlson when I was at Media Matters and was watching Tucker Carlson

every night.

He twice ran for Congress in the state of Washington, lost both times.

But ran a very like Trump-aligned, mega-aligned, but at the same time like Tucker-aligned kind

of campaign.

He's a former CIA officer, also combat veteran, like 11 tours in the Middle East and sort

of the wars on terror.

His wife died and it was killed in a bombing in Syria.

He was also a member of the military.

Joe Kent is kind of like born and bred politically in the style of Tucker Carlson Republicanism.

That sort of vaguely mega-aligned for a time, but at the same time very conspiratorial,

very, very, I'm just asking questions.

And it was weird.

It was, it wasn't weird on its face that Kent got a job in the administration.

Again, he worked like in intelligence.

It kind of made sense.

Used to work in the CIA was a very qualified military official, probably more qualified

than Pete Heggseth, TBH, like, for a position in the administration.

But it was very clear that he had made his connections to Trump through sort of his appearance

on Fox News.

He's had a couple controversies, including affiliations with the Croyper movement.

There was a like online zoom meeting where he apologized for the Croyper movement for

saying mean things about them.

Just remind us, Groyper Nikki.

Croyper is sort of the far right in sell adjacent movement led by Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust

or a political commentator.

Yeah.

Great.

But you guys said really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sounds nice.

And then there was a report at one point during one of his campaigns that they'd paid a

member of the proud boys, far right militia movement, as like a consultant.

It was a lot.

It was, it was this guy who tried to play like portray himself as like a very clean cut.

If you've seen photos of him, he kind of looks like what Pete Heggseth wants to look

like.

Yeah.

No, it's kind of visually striking, but present himself as like a very clean cut intelligence

military guy.

But throughout his career, it became very clear.

He just had associations with these like ultra right wing movements in the same vein

that Tucker did.

And it's interesting to me because just like a little sidebar, how much of the American

intelligence apparatus under Trump was born of the Tucker universe.

Like Tulsi Gabbard was also someone who after she left the Democratic party and like declared

herself an independent and a Republican or whatever the hell, built a lot of her political

rebrand on Tucker Carlson tonight and all around intelligence and of course the anti-war

posturing.

So that's a little bit of what was going on here.

And now I feel like we talked about this in an episode a while ago where to me, something

that really frustrates me watching the news and watching like the mainstream media and

everything react to this is when news outlets act like a very baseline statement, something

that is really obvious, something that has been in the public record for a really long

time is this insane breaking news thing because someone like Tucker Carlson said it.

The American news media spent months saying that college students protesting at universities

were like the pinnacle of anti-semitism in the United States when the war on Gaza first

broke out.

You couldn't call it a genocide, you couldn't call it ethnic cleansing.

And the right capitalized on that, you know, you had Mike Johnson going to Columbia University

and braiding students there and you know threatening to like Republicans threatening to have them

expelled and arresting protesters and trying to deport people like Mahmoud Khalil all

the while, right wing anti-semitism was still alive and well in that movement.

And then the moment that Tucker Carlson and people like him said actually, maybe we shouldn't

be allowing and helping Israel to slaughter civilians who can't defend themselves.

It was like, oh my God, what what happened here was like, no, it's an incredibly obvious

point.

And you've been allowing the movement to brow beat you because like you've decided that

criticism of a foreign country, waging a war on a population is unacceptable.

It's the same thing here with Iran, where the intelligence community, the military, the

US government, Tulsi Gabbard last year has been operating under this consensus that,

okay, Iran doesn't really actually have the capabilities to build a nuclear bomb in

the near future and like it's not an imminent threat.

The Ayatollah was going to die in the next couple of years.

He was old as hell.

There was probably going to be some sort of political change at that time.

But no, we had to go ahead with this.

And now we're stuck in a connect room.

With this, Joe, Joe Ken ended up straight on Tucker Carlson within days of resigning.

It's just a really, like you say, it's a sort of really weird one to handle because

it's like, you know, there are legitimate criticisms of Israel to be had, but Joe Ken unfortunately

is not really making them particularly easy.

He's kind of making pretty conspiratorial ones at the same time, but then he's weaponizing

legitimate ones and confl- he's doing a whole lot of conflation, which is putting us in

a really horrible spot when it comes to discussing him and Tucker and what they're saying in

any way.

Yeah.

And that's why it's so disingenuous to give these people this amount of credit because

yeah, they're regurgitating something that's incredibly obvious and then couching it in

antisemitic conspiracies about Israel.

And again, you can criticize Israel, Marco Rubio got on TV and said, well, we did this

because Israel was going to attack and like, like, you know, it was either joined them

or whatever.

It's pretty clear.

The preemptive strike.

Yeah, it was very clear that we were pushed into this war, but then the notion that Israel

tricked the United States into invading Iraq or the offensive against Syria, which killed

Ken's wife, that is where you're treading into conspiracy theories that are born and

bright on the right have existed there for years and years and years.

And because we created this permission structure in the aftermath of the war on Gaza, where,

you know, the right got to pound its chest and be like, oh, look at all this left wing

antisemitism.

Yeah.

And then the Democrats were so busy self-lagulating be like, no, no, no, you're right, these college

students are insane that everyone just kind of look the other way while the actual core

of antisemitism in this country became more powerful.

Yeah, yeah, it's a really, really grim situation all around there.

So yeah, Joe Ken, good for quitting, I guess, but piece of shit is the long and short of

that.

On Wednesday, Wednesday night, it's reported that he's under investigation for leaking.

So there also might have been an aspect of self-preservation like, oh, I'm resigning before

you announce.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, Chris, let's get into a little bit just on some of the broad things.

So I mean, just a broad one to discuss, obviously, just Trump being so confused, taught me

through his latest kind of Iran, hokey, cokey, well, he doesn't, he doesn't know what he

wants.

He doesn't know what he wants.

He doesn't know.

So you're on a break from Trump.

What do you mean?

We're on a break.

He just doesn't know what he wants.

Are you doing a friends?

Yeah, he just kind of, your relationship with Trump, you just wait until he knows.

Well, speaking of friends, he doesn't have any, and also, yeah, I know, me out, but also,

I mean, he seems to think that NATO has an obligation to help him here, and he's been

very explicit in saying that and I just want to kind of read, I mean, it's the first

article.

It's one of the North Atlantic Treaty, which basically says why NATO shouldn't get involved

or can't get involved.

And it's as far as it says, the party's undertake a set forth in the charter of the United

Nations to settle any international disputes, which they may be involved by peaceful means

in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered

and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner

inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.

And actually, General Sir Nick Carter, he was speaking to the BBC, he's a former chief

of defence in the US.

And he said very rightly that it was not an alliance that was designed for one of the

allies to go on a war of choice and then oblige everybody else to follow, which he's

totally right.

Exactly what's happening and what we've seen off the back of Trump's involvement in

Iran here is the fact that the likes of Spain, for example, a NATO member since the 1980s

well established coming out and publicly saying we're going to have no part in this and

we don't back you.

And his response to that is public humiliation and public insult.

And we've also seen that recently with Keir Starmer as well, you know, many people

rightly would question whether the UK should even allow the US military to use any bases

in the UK to begin with, but Keir Starmer has been explicit in saying that we're not

going to get militarily involved in this war.

And that has brought about a comment from Donald Trump recently in the Oval Office where

he said that the special relationship was always the best until Keir came along.

So he said how much he loves Keir Starmer before as well.

So he just looks complete rubbing.

I don't care about you anymore.

He does this to everyone though.

Once he doesn't get his way, he resorts to public humiliation, public insult.

And that is such a common theme about this Trump administration.

I feel like this should just be a really basic clause for NATO, which is just the you started

it raw.

And it's just like that's like that's really what it should be.

It's a European alliance.

It's not.

It's also a defence treaty.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a defence treaty.

Not an offence treaty.

Yeah.

And he doesn't seem to understand that one bit.

No.

He also then said he doesn't need y'all anyways.

Exactly.

So he's saying that he needs them, but then also saying that he doesn't at the same time.

So I mean, make your mind up.

He's got attachment issues.

Yeah.

I can fix him.

Oh.

You're not like other girls.

I know.

I'm cool.

And I'll fix him.

I got it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When it comes to ignoring intelligence and advice, Chris, he's been doing that a lot,

hasn't he?

So talk me.

Don't be through a bit of that.

Well, yeah.

I doubt anyone has advised him to do what he's done in Iran to be quite honest with you.

Well, maybe idiots have.

Well, but that's people with legit and points of view.

That's my point.

What intelligence is he listening to?

Because no one really seems to know what the actual end goal of this offensive against Iran

is.

Let's just look at some of the outcomes of what's happened so far.

Straight of all news is basically unusable.

The price of oil has risen quite a lot.

And I mean, this is the most important one, really.

That's not forget that a lot of innocent people have died as a result of bodged US Israeli

strikes in Iran, a lot of people.

No one knows the aim.

If it's regime change, I mean, clearly this has worked.

We heard Torsi Gabbard not long ago say that there is a regime still intact.

But the way that he's gone about trying to bring about regime change was never going

to work.

In fact, Senator Chris Murphy, he said that an air campaign without at least the threat

of a ground invasion, which the administration is ruling out, never results in democratic

rebirth in an authoritarian country.

There is basically no evidence that air offensives only can bring about regime change.

So if that's what he's trying to do, then it's not working and it's not going to work.

But then also if the goal is to eliminate Iran's potential nuclear threat, I mean, I've

not seen any kind of plan put forward as to how that is going to be solved at all, but

Andy claimed it already done it and he's claimed he'd already done it in that first

strike that we spoke about a little while ago as well.

But then they're also disagreeing with each other.

So Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, have both said completely opposing things about what has

to happen in Iran.

Marco Rubio said, I'm pretty sure this was on Fox.

He said that people are going to have to go and get the uranium.

They're going to have to actually on the ground, boots on the ground, go and find the

nuclear bases and take it that way.

Yeah, because if you launch a missile at a bunch of uranium, that's not a good idea.

And then Trump also said, I'm not sure where he said this actually, but I found it quite

in line saying that this was something that he wasn't even focusing on, that he wasn't

focusing on putting troops on the ground.

But now he is.

So I mean, the intelligence that they're receiving or the intelligence that Donald Trump is

listening to, I mean, I have no intelligence experience and I can tell that most of it

is bullshit and will never work.

Nikki, just on Torsi Gabbard quickly, so she called strikes on Iran a strategic success

by what measures is she saying that?

What's her frame of reference there?

And I guess the her Senate hearing, what did you, what did you make to it?

I mean, the Senate hearing was kind of insane.

And this day was a pretty wild day on Capitol Hill.

You had Torsi Gabbard John Ratcliffe and Cash Patel appear before the Senate for testimony

related to the annual sort of world intelligence report that these agencies are supposed to

give, which is basically a global threat assessment that they present to Congress every year.

You had Mark Wynne Mullin appear before the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate

for the first confirmation hearing in which he and Rand Paul fought each other about the

time that Mark Wynne Mullin said Paul kind of deserved to have the ship beat out of him

because I don't know.

I don't know.

Our listeners might not know this, but Rand Paul once got beat up by his neighbors so badly

that he like, Brooks had six ribs broken and had a part of his lung removed.

Across.

Geez.

That's really bad.

And then Mark Wynne Mullin in a couple interviews said that he understood why the neighbor

did it.

It's really insane how much they're like, they keep making Rand Paul look kind of sensible.

And I'm like, how like that guy was like, the fringe like he's like far out.

And now they're like, he seems like a normal ish person in comparison, which is normal

is.

I'm like, it's a real stretch, but compared to these people like geez, you know, and then

you had the whole at the very end of the day, Pam Bondy was supposed to appear for some

sort of briefing, but she's in violation of a subpoena over the Epstein files.

And it was just a whole other debacle that we're still trying to sort out.

Anyway, in the intelligence hearing with Tulsi Gabbard, a, Cash Patel seemed relieved

the entire time that this hearing, which was scheduled a couple weeks ago, was not about

his activities in Mullin and about the Iran war being a complete fuck up.

Tulsi Gabbard looks the Senate in the eye and says, actually, it's not my job to determine

if there's an imminent threat from another country.

She's like, only the president can determine if there's an imminent threat.

And to that, the general response was, no, it's literally your job, but be like, if

not, why are we investing billions and billions of dollars into a dozen intelligence agencies,

just for funsies, just for shits and gigs like, and it was, no, it was, it was really

pathetic because Tulsi Gabbard used to sell no war with Iran t-shirts on her website

when she ran for president.

Last year, she testified before the Senate that there was no imminent nuclear threat

from Iran.

And what I want to point out, and it's a note for Democrats, the moments that were most

effective in that hearing were not the lawmakers who like used their seven minutes of a lot

of time to make speeches.

It was people like John Ausef, who were walking Gabbard through point by point, the things

that her agencies had concluded, her public statements, John Ausef was the one that was

like, no, actually, it is your job to determine if something is a threat to this country.

This is the world threat hearing.

Your most effective position as a lawmaker is not to preach to these people.

These people don't give a shit if you preach at them.

It's to literally sit there and dissect their bullshit point by point and make them answer

for it.

Just on the, on the way, they're all making themselves look stupid just a side note.

Have you all seen Cache Patel's trainers?

Yes.

No, what was you wearing?

He's got like a pair of night dunks customised.

They're black and yellow and they have the Punisher School, the Molly School in yellow on

the back.

They have his own personal logo, which I wasn't aware he had, which is K-Dollasine H-Cache.

They had the FBI motto, Fidelity Bravery Integrity, he can't really argue with that as a motto,

I guess.

We've got the number nine, because he's the ninth FBI director on it.

But I think a toddler would look fucking stupid in these trainers.

That's how stupid they are.

Show me them.

All that's missing is that like they light up one hero.

Yes.

They're just like a cruel man should not be wearing these trainers, you know?

No, it's, it's so, like, it's hard, like, please, listen her.

Look it up.

If we can, Simon, just put a picture for the video.

Yeah.

It's so bad.

They are fucking atrocious.

Fugly one might say.

I don't know how much you would have to pay me to put them on my feet.

I guess if you made me the FBI director instead, it was part of the job that I had to wear.

And you could just fly around and be partying.

Yeah, then I'd wear them.

Yeah.

For sure.

No, but just really, imagine if James Comey had made himself custom sneakers.

Just think like again, like we talk about like many a time, but Barack Obama wore a cream

suit and the world went to fucking shit, like everyone lost their minds.

That's for Dijon Mustard on a hot dog and it was a mask.

Yeah.

Everyone lost their mind.

This guy is wearing idiot toddler trainers, like if your mate turned up at the pub in these

trainers, you'd be talking about it for the next day, like it would just be, you'd never

wear them again.

And it would just be like, do you remember the time Chris wore those trainers?

Yeah.

That would be it.

But yeah, they are fucking hideous and he's such an idiot, right?

This is what really matters.

He used to jarring with crimes against fashion.

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Right, let's go and round up some of the stories that you might have.

Missed and so friend of the podcast, Kat, a Bugazale, the Democratic primary in Illinois

that she was running in has just happened.

She lost, unfortunately, it was a close defeat.

So Nikki, what have you made to the kind of reaction to it?

And what do you think we can learn about Democratic politics all around based upon her loss?

How she lost and who won?

Yeah.

And a full disclosure here because I do think it's relevant to what I'm going to say.

Kat is a very close friend of mine.

I've said it before when we interviewed her, she and I worked together at Media Matters.

We were both living in DC for a couple years.

She and I chat regularly.

So I did a report on this race because it kind of felt like a bit of a conflict of interest

at Rolling Stone.

So whenever something happened, I would just hand it off to my coworkers.

One of the things that's been really interesting for me to watch is knowing Kat as a person and

knowing her politics.

And then watching Twitter's reaction to her and her platform and her policies.

And this whole idea that was spread around by people by Ryan Grimm that she was a China

war hawk because she said she'd support Taiwan if China invaded.

Which like, okay, war with China not ideal, but also I'm not sure the voters of Illinois

nine are deciding their candidate because it was, there were 16 people in this primary

based off of Kat Avoguzale's policy toward Taiwan.

Also, you can say that you would want to support Taiwan without suggesting that your first

step in doing so would be all out war with China.

Yeah.

Because there is a way of doing, there is a middle ground, I'm sorry, I'm a left wing

extremist.

It was.

We're trying to walk.

People calling her, like I saw people calling her like a Republican plant because she was

a Republican as a teenager.

I was a Republican in middle school on a teenager because I grew up in a conservative family

and that is why I knew.

A miss Romney fan.

Yeah, it's huge.

Yeah.

I love boys.

Yeah.

Not again.

Nikki was in Mexicans for Mitt.

No, it's a great surprise.

I couldn't vote, I couldn't vote at the time.

My first election where I was old enough to vote was the 2016 Trump.

Yeah, sucked.

Yeah.

No, I just saw it all.

I saw people saying, you know, she was a commie that didn't play well with normal people.

I saw people saying she was a Republican plant.

I saw the drop site news people, like Ryan Grimm claims she was a war hawk and a Saber

Radler.

And I think to me, my takeaway is very much, there's a lot of factors going on in this race.

I think I don't think you can take cat losing as a rejection of her necessarily like full

threaded rejection of her as a candidate.

No one in that race cracked 40% the guy who won one with like 30 something percent of

the vote because there were so many candidates and Illinois doesn't do runoffs like in Texas.

I thought as a candidate, it's an incredible, I think it's an incredible showing.

I think to get national attention on a campaign that ran in the style of Mamdani of other progressive

politicians who are doing very grassroots work focused on economic issues.

And it was also a race that had a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton of foreign interest money

or outside interest money, a pack dumped, I think upwards of 20 million dollars into

races in Illinois, including cats race.

Their candidate was widely rejected and we should do a whole other episode about what's

going on with a pack, the selection cycle.

But you know, of course, personally, I'm disappointed that cat didn't win.

I was rooting for her, but I think she ran a great campaign.

And I think one of the things that I'm walking away with is I, personally, I think a lot

of other reporters need to be a bit more judicious about how much we allow online conversations

to reflect what is happening in races because it's just like this weird crossover of

outline digital influence that doesn't understand the races in the places they are running, doesn't

understand the electorate, doesn't understand the candidates and is dictating coverage of

these races because they're being really loud online.

Yeah.

And not because they necessarily understand what's happening in a race.

That's my big takeaway.

Big takeaway sounds good, doesn't it?

Big takeaway, no, I guess please.

Yeah.

But my big takeaway from shining is good.

Yeah.

Yeah, followed by curry.

Yeah.

You're a Chinese food hawk.

Yeah.

Of course.

Yeah.

Look at me.

Going back to the conversation we had with Amanda Litman, who's the founder of Run for

Something.

I mean, one of the first things she said to us was that people never win on their first

run.

They never win.

And the fact that she came, I think she got 26% compared to the winners like 30%.

Like that is a really fine margin for someone's first race.

No, yeah.

And I said this to Kat after, like after the results came in, I was like, again, this

is me speaking as a friend, but I think it applies to pretty much any candidate.

It takes a lot of guts to run, it takes a ton of guts to subject yourself to the national

scrutiny about your personal life, your politics, your relationships, your history, every

single statement you've ever set online.

And so I so admire everyone who's running all the progressives, especially who are

running for office, this cycle because I could never do it.

I am too afraid.

No, you'll do it.

Yeah.

Go on.

I don't want it.

I've said too much shit on the internet.

Go on.

Nikki's going to be the big never-trumper.

Come back for the Republicans.

Nikki and like some sort of chainy ticket.

I'm going to start pronouncing my name as Nikki McCain.

Yeah.

Nikki McCain from Miras and Liz Cheney.

Join ticket.

Yeah.

You heard it here first, guys.

You heard it here first.

Chris.

Oh.

Afro man.

I want to talk about Afro man.

Yeah.

Nothing to do with politics.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, it is a little bit.

No, yes, it does have to do with politics.

What are you talking about?

It's politics, actually.

Because the politics of policing.

Oh.

Yeah.

You know, and policing is political in America.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Tell me what the folks are going to have.

Afro man.

I just want to make you explain this really.

And you're way only you can.

Okay.

So, I mean, Phil.

Hey, so, geez.

What?

He said, K-so.

Geez.

Oh, okay.

I mean, too.

Food's good, though, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

Food's good.

Right.

So, pick.

If there's any holes in this, pick me up at the end.

Okay.

So, in short, defamation lawsuit was filed by.

Stopstifle in the yard.

Sorry.

That's the second time in the set.

Sorry.

So, you've done that now.

And I have to.

I'm sleepy.

This time.

This was a defamation lawsuit bought by seven members of an Ohio sheriff's office against

Afro man.

Ooh.

Set the scene.

2022.

A raid was carried out on Afro man's home by this sheriff's department.

It was fruitless.

They didn't find anything.

No fruit.

Don't make a joke.

No fruit.

And Afro.

It was very unhealthy.

Afro man.

Afro.

Actually, though, there was some kind of fruit there.

And I will get to that.

Afro man very publicly said that this was wrong.

It didn't enjoy the fact that this had been carried out.

But he knew it had been carried out, not just because of the damage it was there.

But because he had video cameras, he had home security in his home.

And he wanted revenge.

So, what he did was using the footage from the security cameras inside his home.

He made music videos using that footage of the police officers for songs like lemon pound cake

and will you help repair my door?

And I'll read you some lyrics first from lemon pound cake.

These are the lyrics.

He's an Adams County sheriff.

He's hungry and he's big as hell.

He was sniffing for weed.

Then he smelled another smell in brackets.

What was that?

Mam is lemon pound cake.

And there was basically, there was some cake left on the side.

Nice.

And the police officers.

Boy, did they want some?

Yeah.

They were staring that cake out.

Really?

Yeah.

So, basically, Aframan making a song about the police officers being fat.

Okay.

Essentially.

That's fine.

And then from, will you help repair my door?

Here's some of the lyrics.

The warrant said narcotics and kidnapping.

The warrant said narcotics and kidnapping.

Are you kidding?

I make money wrapping.

Why does the warrant say narcotics in brackets?

Well, I know narcotics.

But why kidnapping?

Let me ask you something, officer.

Are there any kidnapping victims inside my suit pockets?

Are there any kidnapping victims inside my suit pockets?

You crooked cops need to stop it.

Whoa.

There was more.

Does he make money from wrapping still?

He probably does.

He probably does.

He probably does find a royalty from the one song.

I think he makes money from wrapping historically,

based upon those, the quality of those bars.

I mean, I don't think he's going to be sort of at the Super Bowl at the time.

Oh, no.

Some of these actually slap.

Okay.

But there is one that is a bit gross.

There's a female officer that he makes a song about,

which, you know, not nice.

I'll say, I'll say, quite gross.

But the police officers involved said that these songs caused pain, embarrassment and ridicule.

I think one of the lyrics is also about sleeping with one of the police officers' wives.

Yes.

Which obviously didn't happen.

Afro-man's defense to all of this was that it was protected under free speech.

Yeah.

And, you know, what?

The jury agreed with them.

It was under free speech protected under that.

This is America.

So he left the courthouse victorious wearing a very bold American flag suit,

which you can go online and see.

It's outrageous.

This whole story is...

I know.

I love it.

I love it.

It's pretty crazy, Jov.

I think that was quite political, really, sort of, about how the police conduct themselves,

the police wanting to get revenge upon someone they've wronged.

He was the wronged party initially.

And then, they don't care.

The police don't care about free speech.

And I think protesters should have free speech.

And so should Afro-man.

And the fact for a man is protesting.

So should Afro-man.

Okay.

Right.

Listen to question time.

We're getting ding, ding, ding, ding.

That's the jingle for it.

Skirt, skirt.

Listen to question here from Gabby.

I don't know why I said your name so aggressively, Gabby.

I'll say it more gently.

Gabby.

Listen to question here from Gabby.

What is happening with ice in Minneapolis, Chicago, DC, and the other cities they were deployed

to?

Nicky, what's the ice situation?

It's a mixed bag.

They're still there in large capacity.

But enforcement has been really wound down from what I understand.

Okay.

Especially in Minneapolis, there was a pretty big withdrawal because it just got to be too much.

From what I understand and what I've heard from people.

It now looks a little more like enforcement used to look.

Pre-Trump, where a lot more targeted, a lot more localized.

These big flashy raids are becoming less common because the people don't like it.

They come out.

They protest.

There are still very active ice monitor in groups, local community organizing, tracking these things.

It's sort of like a, if you look at a graph, there's a very intense period.

Why is Chris laughing?

Sorry.

I moved and cheesed.

The dog who sat on my feet, absolutely shat herself.

Sorry, chees.

Sorry, chees.

Oh, wait, she just got scared.

Yeah, that's, yeah, that's the British.

Because when you sat herself, I was like, y'all are acting extremely cold.

Yeah, no, no, no.

She just bricked it.

She just bricked it.

Oh, poor baby.

Okay.

If you imagine a graph, it's like a very exponential rise and intensity.

When it first starts, the administration makes big show of it.

It's on TV.

They're going out.

Christie.

No.

Formerly goes to the city and is doing our press conferences and we're doing law enforcement,

blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then as it tapers out, as things get ugly, it then kind of tapers out, it levels out.

They move on to a new city.

I think for now, they're trying to act, they're trying to keep things on the DL when it comes

to immigration enforcement because it's become so unpopular.

They don't want to stoke that fire much more.

I also think that's partially the reason you've seen a rise in Republican lawmakers talking

about the threat of sharia law and, you know, the Muslim threat to the United States because

it plays into the anti-immigrant sentiments and it also plays into the Iran war debacle,

but it doesn't necessarily directly call attention to ICE and the law enforcement operations

that have been taking place under DHS.

We'll see.

I think it's going to ramp up again.

One of the interesting things that I think I've seen from, I think it started in Chicago

but it spread across the US, is these anti-ice zones, so basically like local authorities

have set up zones where ICE agents can't operate in terms of detaining or arresting.

I'm not 100% sure how it works, but it basically means that local authorities have complete

jurisdiction in certain areas which makes the process longer for ICE agents to be able

to do the things that they've been trying to do and that has happened quite frequently

in Chicago and I think is kind of happening all over the US at the moment as well.

I'd like to do a bit more research into that, but I think that's quite interesting.

Now, we're not going to give anyone any valuable information at this point, we're going

to get into silly questions.

So, we have had sometimes people complain about silly questions, if you want to stop

listening now, do, it's going to get silly, please do stay though because it'll be funny

in our opinion.

Chris, silly question.

Well, you've put pressure on it now, haven't you?

Yeah.

You've put pressure on it being funny.

Yeah.

We should say it's the minority complain, it's the unfunny people that complain.

Boo.

Idiots.

Who could play it to?

Who the fuck complain?

Yeah.

Just dissenters and naysayers and naysayers.

Yeah.

Get out of here.

Anyway.

Who's your evil crush?

Yeah.

Who do you crush on?

Who's evil?

Nasty.

Jav.

I'm going to say, you're going to take mine, aren't you?

No, I'll leave you of yours.

We can share your one.

I think Mohammed bin Salman's actually quite handsome.

Okay.

Yeah.

You can maybe look past it for Mohammed bin Salman.

Just past it.

Very good.

Okay, it was starting strong.

Yeah, man.

It's been Salman.

It's starting strong, though.

You're on the stalling as well.

You haven't seen Salman yet.

Yeah, it's a young stalling.

Young stalling.

Young stalling doobie sexy.

Yeah.

He doobie.

Yeah.

I could fix him.

Too late.

I could go back in time.

Very much too late.

Okay.

What about you?

Well, all my crushes are evil, but I have for several years now had like a very, it's

very low level, but Kurt Mills, the editor of the American conservative, I saw him on

Dunker Girls in one day was like, oh, he has a pretty face.

That is really neat.

That is so neat.

No one's going to know who that is.

Let's Google Kurt Mills.

I mean, props to any of the listeners if they know who that is.

Kurt Mills.

I may as well have just said my next door neighbor.

He had its what now.

Come here, I think conservative.

No, he's a nerd, man.

Yes, I know.

I don't think he's a very good looking man, I'm going to say, but fair enough.

He's my evil crush.

He's my evil crush.

He's my evil crush.

It's like your evil crush.

It's my evil crush.

So you just basically like, you know, guys who look like they live in a cool bit of New

York and maybe like the 1975 a few years ago.

That's kind of the type.

Basically, like at some point in time, you vaguely like the 1975, but you're now age appropriate.

Then you're Nicky's type.

So yeah, Bruno guy.

I don't have a type is the problem.

All of them and I've dated are vastly different from each other and maybe I'm the problem.

Okay.

I might be the evil crush.

Well, Kurt Mills is your type.

Then yeah.

I'm pleased.

Stop saying his name.

Kurt Mills.

He listens, actually.

No, he doesn't.

No, he doesn't.

It's less than that.

He's so good.

He does.

He listens.

He told me.

Anyway, any sort of 30 to 35-year-old men in New York, if you get your hair cut in a vaguely

shaggy way, play the keyboard, you get quite skinny and you sort of look like you like

the strokes.

They don't need to speak.

Okay.

No, so there's even less criteria to it now, it's getting easier by the minute.

But yeah, if you, I don't know, likes neutral milk hotel at some point, then yeah,

Nicky.

You got a chance.

You're late.

You're in.

Okay.

Who else is your evil crush and Nicky?

Who's on the everyone all know, like the fictional one or whatever?

Oh my God.

Who's the guy that's not your weight?

Right.

We might be here a while.

So while Nicky searches for that, Simon, evil crush, producer Simon, he's your evil

crush.

This is, this is like a hard question, you know, because thinking about it, it makes you

realize how good Simon, you might get philosophical with this.

I am.

I am.

Think about this.

Think about how many evil women there are versus how many evil men, like not very many.

There are so many evil men.

And then we try and think of right.

Yeah.

So the problem is, my friends and I discussed this question all the time and one of the controversial

things was Kristie Nellon.

Well, there you go.

Yeah.

Well, I was just about to say that Chris has revealed his and we went a bit before the show

and I won't spoil it exactly.

But Magger definitely do kind of lead the charge on this and like good looking women who

do appear to be just a little bit evil.

Yeah.

But yeah, I can't bring myself to say really that I'm crushing on any of them.

For me, there's, there's a, you know, I'm going to go with a fictional character.

Yeah, nice.

Don't know if you guys have watched Yellowstone.

Yeah.

No.

No.

The character Beth Dutton from Yellowstone is like, she's, she's pretty evil.

You know how I like some, sometimes people say, I'd die for you to show how much they

love, you know, the other person, she's like, I'd kill for you.

She would, she, she would literally do anything and she's, yeah, like psychotic, but you

die for her.

But you would, you would, you would probably go to hell with her.

She's, it's the actress Kelly Riley who is, there's, there's like two plays.

Oh, right.

Okay.

Okay.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I can see that.

I'm going to say, I'm calling cop out Simon.

No, he filled the criteria.

Yeah.

Simon fancies Kelly Riley.

Kelsa Freys.

Yeah.

Right.

Should I do mine?

Go on then Chris.

Okay.

Wait.

I think I came up with an actual answer now that I've been reminded.

Okay.

Nicky, let's go back to you.

Go on.

Okay.

So I tried to think about it.

I was like, okay.

Like a hot Republican in government, John Thune has like an old man hotness kind of thing

going.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know what?

What is your time, Nick, for 65?

I don't have one.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

I will, at some point, show you side by side photos of all the men I have painted.

It makes no fucking sense.

Very good.

Chris.

Yeah.

Evil crush, then.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to do some honorable mentions first.

Number one, Hades from Hercules.

Yeah.

Two.

Phil Mitchell from EastEnders.

What?

I don't think fictional character.

Okay.

I'm getting very real.

I think that's just going to be real.

Yeah.

This is a choice.

You will make everyone.

I said Mohamed bin Salman for God's sake.

Phil Mitchell from.

For real.

From EastEnders.

He's got a ruggedness about him, hasn't he?

But my genuine answer.

I'm not sure.

Maybe I can see.

No.

Phil Mitchell, mate.

Not Phil.

He owns a pub as well.

Sorry, did.

At one point.

I've just accidentally given you the finger the job for people who are watching the video,

but I didn't mean to.

Tulsi Gabbard.

Yeah.

She's, she's nice, not, not nice, but she, I think the thing about Tulsi Gabbard, she's

got, she's got hope in her.

Like it's kind of like, you know, when Anakin becomes Darth Vader and eventually goes

back to being Anakin.

Perhaps that could happen with Tulsi Gabbard.

Yeah, absolutely.

She never became a burn victim, essentially, Darth Vader became a burn victim.

I don't know why he left him.

That's fine.

He literally laid down in volcano fire.

And then he came back as Anakin as a ghost.

Yeah, I don't see that, I don't see that on the cards for Tulsi, but she does.

I have the high ground, so, you know, Tulsi did, Tulsi did have like the hot little, like

the hair.

She also looks like, she's hot.

If I was in a bit of trouble, she would, she'd come and save me.

She, yeah, she looks like a character from a Marvel film.

That's what I mean, yeah.

You know what I, you know what I've also learned?

The men in my life, including y'all, seem to like women who look like they would yell

at them.

Okay.

I don't think Tulsi Gabbard looks like she's, she's, you know, you don't think Tulsi Gabbard

looks like she would burn you.

No, no, no, no, I don't, I don't think, I think she can gain control, keep control

of herself.

I think there are other ways other than shouting.

I think you would know, you would know when you've best her off, and it's not because

she's shouting at you.

That's not me saying she'd be nice with it, I'm just saying, I don't think she'd scream

and shout.

I could be wrong.

I could have been wrong before, and I could be wrong again, but I don't think I'm

wrong here.

What is it you like about a personality, then?

Oh, you're just a shallow, she's very, she's very direct, isn't she?

By the way, Lauren, I know you're listening, Lauren's my fiance, I'm sorry about this.

I know it was my question, but I do feel somewhat forced into this.

Just keep it coming, Chris, this is the goal, Tulsi Gabbard, maybe feel Mitchell first,

though.

Lauren, Lauren, beat the shit out of him.

Right.

Listen, let us know your evil crushes, please, in the comments, please, and with that,

that brings us to the end of this episode of American Friction, Chris, you're my not evil

crush.

I don't like that.

Thank you.

Simon, you're my not evil crushes.

Oh, what?

Thanks, man.

Yeah, that's a good and nicky.

I've got a not evil crush on you as well.

You're not evil.

It's okay.

Sure, sure.

Sure, sure.

Thanks.

She's the dog.

You are evil.

Yeah, my evil crushes.

By the way, when I'm hoping this will stay in the, in the, in the curb, but when I scared

her earlier, and I said she'd chat herself, she actually did rip one.

She said I was shriveling.

I was really, I was hanging off dead life for quite a while.

Geez.

She's who's your evil crush?

Grella DeVille.

Okay.

I'll switch it on now, just to look at her face, because that's outrageous.

Oh, what a sweetie.

He's so cute.

Right.

That brings to the end of American for Rikshon.

If you enjoy what we do, someone has to help us keep doing it, search American Friction

podcast Patreon, or go to patreon.com forward slash American Friction.

So you can help us keep the podcast going and you get bonus content and the show about

adverse.

If you can't back us there, we get it.

But please do rate, review, and subscribe, wherever you listen to the show.

In comment, comment loads tells you evil crush.

We would like that.

I'm Jacob Jarvis.

Perhaps I'm your evil crush.

Who knows?

This is American Friction.

Thank you to me.

Thank you to you.

Aha.

See you later.

Bye.

Bye.

See you later.

Bye.

See you later.

Bye.

See you later.

Bye.

See you later.

Bye.

See you later.

Bye.

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