Trump's Gaza Ceasefire Takes Hold

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Welcome to Pot Save America.

I'm Tommy Detour.

I'm John Levitt.

Favro is off today.

On today's show, it's a huge moment for the world as the Israeli hostages come home and a ceasefire begins in Gaza.

We'll explain how this deal happened and what comes next.

Then we've got some new court rulings on Trump's invasion of America's cities, a crackdown on free speech at the Pentagon, and of course, we are still stuck in a government shutdown.

But there are some key dates coming up that might force action.

Finally, Lovitt catches up with Leah Greenberg from Indivisible, one of the organizations helping to organize the No Kings Day protest this weekend, and not unrelatedly, one of the groups being targeted by the Trump administration as a domestic terror front.

It's getting to be a long list, huh?

Wild.

Long list of domestic terror friends.

Indivisible, like the most good-hearted and sort of civic-minded organization

that you could imagine.

Yeah, just encouraging people to care about what's happening and get involved.

But let's start with the latest from the Middle East.

We are recording this on Monday afternoon at about 3:30 Pacific time.

Overnight, all 20 of the living Israeli hostages came home, as did the remains of four of the deceased Israeli hostages.

Nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel.

That breaks down to about 1,700 people who were picked up in Gaza since October 7th and held there without charges, and about 250 others who are serving prison sentences, including for violent attacks on Israeli citizens.

Trump arrived in Israel on Monday to a hero's welcome.

He gave a speech at the Knesset.

It was a mix of justifiable celebration and then the usual hyperbole and bullshit.

Let's listen to an excerpt.

If you think we settled eight wars in eight months, I'm now including this one, by the way, if that's okay.

They may say, well, that was quick, because yesterday I was saying seven, but now I can say eight.

The hostages are back.

The forces of chaos, terror, and ruin that have plagued the region for decades now stand weakened, isolated, and totally defeated.

And because of us, the enemies of all civilization are in retreat.

This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.

Understated.

There's a point where he said that we've been waiting 3,000 years.

3,000.

3,000 years.

That's a long wait.

It's a long time.

It's pretty amazing to solve a conflict

before at least one of the major religions involved was created.

Yeah.

He's good.

He's that good.

So after that appearance of it, Trump flew to Egypt.

There was a big summit there on the Middle East piece featuring a bunch of world leaders minus the leadership of Israel and Hamas.

Let's pause here.

How are you feeling about all this?

So

it is just an unalloyed good

to see hostages returned to their families.

Cannot imagine what it is like for those families to have

their child or their sister or brother family member kidnapped, hidden away, not sure if they're alive or dead, not sure if even if they are alive, they will remain so.

That is a kind of torture

that

is an unimaginable circumstance.

So that is

a beautiful thing to see.

Also reports today that aid is surging into Gaza,

that humanitarian aid is able to flow much more than before to help people, many who are living under famine conditions.

That is also welcome and incredibly important.

That sort of was my reaction to it.

And then

you start to see the immediate kind of old debate not not old debate but the kind of the the beneath the very good news sort of the contours of like how hard this is going to be moving forward the acrimony about those that view what happened in Gaza as a genocide well those somehow claiming that because Israel was willing to end the conflict at the return of the hostages, that means its conduct in the war was justified when it was not.

The fact that Gaza is leveled

and Trump is signing a document with a bunch of leaders that I don't, have we seen it yet?

No.

Claiming that they're all going to take part in the rebuilding, even as we have no idea what they're even agreeing to.

You just, beneath the surface of what is a very, very good

moment is the reality that Trump can kind of do his bombastic celebrations around.

But

this remains a really difficult and intractable situation.

And it's just so unserious the way he talks about it.

It makes you terrified for what could happen.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, it's unequivocally a good day.

I'm glad the hostages are home.

I'm glad that there's a ceasefire.

I hope it all holds, like, period, full stop, right?

I think a question a lot of listeners are asking is, like, how much credit do we think Trump deserves or doesn't?

I would argue, like, people may not like to hear this, but I think he deserves a lot of credit for getting this deal done because Trump clearly.

put real pressure on Netanyahu to say yes to the deal, while at the same time, the Egyptians, the Qataris, and the Turks pressured Hamas to say yes and make some real concessions that I think we can get into in a minute.

But like the broader backstory, if listeners remember, like Trump laid out this 20-point peace deal.

He let Netanyahu kind of like massage and shape the deal before it was public to make it more advantageous to the Israeli side.

But ultimately, what Trump did that I think was really important in that moment was he forced Netanyahu to say yes.

And I think that happened in part because Trump has a lot of leverage, because he's a popular Republican leader and Netanyahu needs him, but also because the Israelis had just fired a bunch of airstrikes airstrikes into Doha, the capital of Qatar, which pissed off a lot of people.

And Netanyahu didn't want to piss him off again.

So Trump pockets this yes from Netanyahu.

Then a few days later, Hamas responds to the plan with kind of like a yes, but.

They're like, yes, we do a hostage release.

Yes, we would transfer governance to some technocrats, but we're going to ignore the rest of your whole proposal, especially the parts like we have to disarm and no longer exist, et cetera.

And this is the moment where I think Trump was really pretty smart.

He like, he just took that yes from Hamas and he ran with it.

He didn't call Netanyahu.

He didn't coordinate a messaging.

He didn't let Netanyahu shape it in the public.

He just said, yeah, this is great.

This is historic.

This is world peace.

And if anyone asked, well, what about the other stuff that you put forward that Hamas has to do that they ignored?

He was like, it's phase one.

You know, like, we'll get to that later.

And that allowed all the parties to get into more detailed talks where I think then, surprisingly, Hamas gave this big concession where they said the IDF can remain in parts of Gaza.

There's some reports that they might control half of the Gaza Strip.

And what the Wall Street Journal says is like Qatar and Turkey said to Hamas, like, it's now or never.

You agree to this, or we no longer are going to give you diplomatic cover.

We're kicking your political office out of the country.

And the Egyptians were like, and on top of that, we're not going to lobby for you to be part of the future governance of the Gaza Strip.

And so they said yes, and they agreed to it.

And everyone else just like punted on all the other stuff about Hamas disarming and having to de-radicalize, et cetera.

And also, Trump, like he let Steve Witcoff and Jared Kushner meet with Hamas directly.

Usually that's done through intermediaries.

That doesn't happen.

And that, I think, got them over the hump of feeling like, okay, Hamas, that is, if they give up the hostages, as sick as it sounds, that's their leverage in this deal, right?

And they needed Trump's assurance that he would force the Israelis to go through with the rest of the deal.

So I do, like, I really think he played a critical role here.

So, this is the part that I,

The original Trump plan required Hamas to disarm,

seek exile outside of Gaza, not be part of governance.

Is that still what is expected?

Do we know what the outcome is going to be for members of Hamas?

Are they allowed to remain in Gaza?

Do they have to simply not be part of the government?

Do they have to declare they're no longer part of Hamas?

Do we have any sense of what happens?

I think that's all to be negotiated now.

And I think you're right.

That's why this deal is so big.

It's an enormous moment.

It's like the entire, everyone in Israel exhaled for the first time in two years, right?

But there's so much work ahead.

To your point, though, about like how much more there is to do, it really is a mixed bag for the people of Gaza and the Palestinians, because

hopefully the ceasefire holds.

I mean, it's been two years of fighting.

I assume it will.

But this is a generational reconstruction project.

And you mentioned all these leaders who got together today who...

assigned some deal that we haven't really seen yet that says they'll fund it, but it's going to require a lot of focus, a lot of money,

a lot of governance, right?

Like, like, we don't know what it's going to look like for, like, what is

what, what does Israel's security look like on the border of Gaza now?

How big of a buffer zone are

they going to demand and keep?

Like, how much are they going to require in terms of like visibility into what becomes of Gaza?

Who is going to oversee it?

It was supposed to be Tony Blair last week.

I don't know if it's still going to be Tony Blair next week.

Trump is going to lead the board of peace still, I assume.

And then it's, you know, it's like, who is contributing this money?

Who is overseeing this rebuilding?

The place has been leveled.

You know, there's been like

an effort to say like, oh, you know, you know, Joe Biden was in a different position than Trump.

He could, you know, that this is not because Joe Biden failed to put pressure on Netanyahu in a way that Trump did.

I don't know about that.

But

Netanyahu was

sending the IDF into parts of Gaza, taking it, leaving it, retaking it, leaving it more level than it was before.

They have razed all of Gaza to the ground.

By the end, this seemed to be a conflict in which Nenya was just having the military kind of move up and down this kind of leveled place while claiming that they are fighting this brutal war because it is the only way to secure the release of

the hostages, while at the same time claiming that Hamas doesn't care whether their own civilians live or die.

So now Gaza is completely destroyed.

There are still millions of people there who have no place to go.

It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

If there is some security threat that Israel views as taking place inside of the strip, are they going to send

more military back in?

We have no idea.

Are they going to be airstrikes?

Just airstrikes in perpetuity.

The next phase is so

tenuous.

Yeah, and so, right, exactly.

Like, it's a huge relief for Israelis.

I think it's much more of a mixed bag for the people in Gaza and for Palestinians more broadly because, look, this is like the biggest ceasefire that's been brokered because of just the scope and duration of the fighting since October 7th.

But it's one of like a half dozen ceasefires that have been brokered in Gaza between Israel and Hamas in the last 20 years or so, right?

So

these things get broken.

And it's this generational reconstruction project.

You're right.

Gaza is unlivable.

Something like 70 to 90% of the structures are destroyed.

There's no plumbing.

There's no water.

There's no food for, like, there's no way to sustain life there without aid.

And I think there has to be an effort by the international community to make sure that what's happened, like a year from now, that it's not just nicer tents across the Gaza Strip, that there's actually a process put in place to begin to rebuild for people.

And it's also, this is, what's frustrating me a little bit is it keeps being called a peace deal.

It's nothing close to a comprehensive peace deal that would lead to a Palestinian state.

That's not even being discussed.

It does nothing to stop settlement construction in Gaza.

Obviously,

those are big, more challenging tasks that wasn't, you know, that not everyone was seeking to solve through this ceasefire agreement.

But Trump is like, it's a new dawn for the Middle East.

Well, that, so

what was it, a few months ago that Mahmoud Abbas is denied entry into the United States,

he's denied a right to come to the United Nations because he's a security threat.

Now he's in Egypt meeting with Trump and shaking his hand.

So like that, like it's like,

part of what makes this all so kind of confusing is it's so much based around Trump's ego and his specific relationships and the job people are doing to kind of make Trump feel like he's on their side or to make them feel like they're on Trump's side.

Like I guess, you know, Abbas had posted something about

the threat on Trump's life during the campaign.

And now all of a sudden they're kind of shaking hands and he's trying to lift him back up to what end?

I don't know.

Yeah,

that relationship is very odd.

I think there's a real question of kind of Netanyahu's future and what happens with him.

I mean, well, on this Biden question, I think it's worth talking about.

Like, I talked to a couple of people on Biden's team about this over the years.

Like, the kind of outlines of this plan,

I don't think it was special.

It wasn't some like perfect 20-point plan that was like the right jigsaw puzzle that picked the lock.

I think it was Trump using his leverage in a way that Joe Biden wouldn't that kind of changed things.

Now, the politics are different.

Like, Trump let Steve Wickoff and Jared Kushner talk directly to Hamas.

Imagine if a Democrat did that, right?

The entire Republican Party would light itself on fire and probably prosecute that person.

But like Trump, no one will say anything about it.

Like we don't want to relitigate all the Biden of it all, but like the times Biden pressured Netanyahu, it was usually about like humanitarian access and aid getting into the Gaza Strip.

It was not about real pressure to end the war.

I wish he had done that.

But I think what the Biden people would say is, well, you know, Biden knew that Netanyahu wanted Trump to win the election.

And in this case, you know, Netanyahu knew that if he pissed off Trump, he would lose not only support from all the Democrats who are already gone, but also from Republicans if Trump turned on him.

So he felt pressure in a way he didn't.

Now,

I don't know that I agree with that.

Like, I think Biden had way more leverage.

He just never really used it.

But that would be the argument from them.

Well, yeah, and

there's some truth to that.

There's also, I do think, time matters, right?

It's now been two years of brutal conflict, and you have like

just the, again, Gaza being leveled,

you have hostages, families, the families of hostages protesting outside of Benjamin Netanyahu's home.

The only other than a few rescues, which I'm glad took place,

there was a big hostage exchange in November of 2023, very early in the conflict.

There was another one in January of this year.

Why?

During a ceasefire, during a negotiation, right?

Like this was always going to require a negotiation.

Could Joe Biden have gotten to this point sooner?

I have no idea.

But like the the we are in part of the we are in the mess we're in with Trump domestically is because we're constantly being told how Joe Biden was not responsible and was constantly overtaken by events.

Like does Trump have more room to maneuver?

Absolutely.

Why?

Why is Donald Trump able to maneuver more than a Democrat?

Why is Joe Biden's leadership so fragile and brittle that he doesn't have the space to take chances and push Bibi or send emissaries to meet with Hamas in a way that Trump does?

How does he have the flexibility that a Democrat doesn't?

And like, why not answer that rather than say how much easier of a job Trump had?

I don't believe the job of being president is easy.

But Joe Biden certainly doesn't make it look possible.

Yeah, no, I think you're right.

Look, look, it's been two years, right?

Both sides were exhausted by two years of war.

But I also think Biden missed a big opportunity when the Israelis killed Yaga Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7th attacks.

That was about a year ago.

You know, that could have been a good window to try to push into the war.

Trump also missed an opportunity, right?

I mean, he brokered that ceasefire in January.

The Israelis and Palestinians were supposed to negotiate phase two of that ceasefire, which would lead to a permanent end of the war during, you know, that the first ceasefire that they had brokered, and they just never did it.

Never engaged.

And part of this also is

Netanyahu, we know,

his political interest required the war to continue.

That might explain why it had gone on for as long as it did, but it doesn't allow for the war to go on forever.

Right, right, right.

At some point, it would end.

end.

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The issue of Netanyahu's political problems was front and center today.

Presumably, now that the fighting is over, the pressure could start rising again on him, on his corruption trials, on his leadership, and the push for elections.

Though Trump had a helpful idea for how to handle those corruption charges, let's listen.

Mr.

President, why don't you give him a pardon?

Give him a pardon.

I happen to like this gentleman right over here, and it just seems to make so much sense.

Cigars and champagne, who the hell cares about them?

So, cigars and champagne, that's a reference to case 1000, which is one of the several corruption cases against Netanyahu.

In that case, he and his wife are accused of taking like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cigars and champagne from, you know,

donors, et cetera, friends in exchange for political favors.

So, love it.

Like, the conventional wisdom shared by

yours truly as well was that Netanyahu wouldn't take this deal because he would lose the right flank of his governing coalition.

They would then pull out of the government.

And for Netanyahu, that would mean losing power and also the risk of prosecution.

But he did take the deal, which leads you to wonder why and about his political standing.

I noticed Netanyahu was booed when Steve Witkoff mentioned his name during his speech at Hostages Square over the weekend.

But then, as we heard a minute ago, Trump was like, give the guy a pardon, and he all but endorsed him.

Do we think like Israel can finally get rid of this guy?

How are we feeling?

You know,

we have to see what, like, this is just a, like, as you said, this is a moment of like profound relief, right?

Like, kind of the end of,

well, hopefully the end of

like this war.

Part of the reason Netanyahu

felt political pressure to prolong the war is that once the war was over, the attention would then turn not just to his corruption,

but to his abject failure to protect Israel from the worst act of violence in its history.

And the fact that he had his attention focused elsewhere, the fact that even internal documents from Hamas

make clear that the division and internal conflict over his effort to take over the judiciary had made Israel look weak to its enemies.

That's real.

That is real.

And that will start, that will once again come to the fore.

But the bigger, I think, issue here, and this will be part of what we talk about in terms of Israel's place in American domestic politics too, is

the damage to Israel's standing in the world will remain.

I hope this ends.

I really do.

I hope the...

the ceasefire holds.

I hope we're at the beginning of something new.

I really do.

But it does not end the moral stain of how Israel conducted this war, even if you view Hamas as being responsible for it, which I do, even if you believe Hamas could have ended the war sooner, they prolonged it, I believe that, absolutely.

The fact that Israel was justified in conducting this war, in defending itself, and the fact that it had an achievable goal of releasing the hostages is not like a logic force field that allows you to to ignore the brutality of how they conducted it and the collective punishment they inflicted.

And that stain will continue.

And getting rid of Benjamin Netanyahu will be part of how you move past that, but it won't be enough because Israel will be held responsible for what it did.

And like how Israel moves forward, I don't know, but part of it will be moving past Benjamin Netanyahu and the politics he represented.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

I mean, the accountability question is really two parts.

It's like Netanyahu has never taken any accountability for October 7th.

He has demanded from others.

He has fired others.

But he's like deferred on his own.

He said, oh, after the war, that's when we'll figure it out.

Well, it's after the war, buddy.

Like, let's see if you're going to investigate yourself.

But also, you have to ask, like, if a country and a leader can get away with killing 67,000 more people in a conflict like this, periodically starving an entire population, committing war crime after war crime of being accused of genocide by countless scholars, like, what does it say?

if they just get away with it?

Like, what is left of like international laws and institutions that are supposed to prevent this kind of stuff or achieve some measure of justice if someone like Bibi Netanyahu faces no accountability, maybe is re-elected,

gets a pardon because the president of the United States stands before the Knesset and basically, Trump's argument there is like so perfectly Trump.

It's like, like, what?

You got yours, right?

You got your security in exchange.

He got some cigars and some bribes.

Like, what's the big deal?

By the way, he just got his beak wet.

He just got his beak wet.

Yeah.

And

the ugliness of just like, it's like, I'm here.

I'm in a good mood.

Like, Benjamin Andrew's been on my side.

I've been on his side.

You got to let these kinds of things go.

We're just doing business here.

Just a guy doing business.

And by the way, like

he's not been convicted.

He's not, you know, in the United States, the pardon power is different.

He can be, he can be,

you can pardon someone preemptively.

Now, that is an attack on the rule of law, but it's something that's happened here.

It would be unprecedented for an Israeli president to pardon a prime minister before he's even been convicted of a crime.

Yeah, it would be disgusting.

So, okay.

And also that.

So let's look internally.

We don't make this all about American politics.

Obviously, it's just an enormous moment in the world.

But I'm curious, like, we've seen this huge shift in U.S.

support from Israel over the last two years, especially within the Democratic Party.

Does Gaza, does a ceasefire in Gaza change that?

Is this inexorable?

Are there too many broader structural challenges like the need for a Palestinian state sort of standing in the way?

You know, it's not, it mirrors what we were just talking about.

The way Israel conducted this war has done so much damage to its standing amongst American Jews, among the American left.

You see it in the way in which anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have a blurry line between them in a way that is very disconcerting for Jewish people, especially Jewish people who are appalled by what Israel has done in this war.

At the same time, you see groups like the Anti-Defamation League use anti-Semitism like a cudgel against people with legitimate criticism.

And all of that has turned what was an issue that was pretty broadly felt, which is support for Israel's right to exist

now kind of in question.

And I don't know what happens from here, but I do think it starts with American Jews being able to hold two ideas in their mind at the same time, which is that Israel absolutely has a right to defend itself, but it does not have a right to commit atrocities.

And that an Israel that does not protect human rights of Palestinians is an Israel that is not safe,

is an Israel that is a pariah.

And so that if you believe in Israel's right to exist, if you want to have a safe and prosperous Israel, you have to advocate against its conduct of the war and in going forward a different kind of leadership in that country.

And so that's where I'm at on this.

But I do think

a lot will depend, I think, on what happens in Israel and also what happens with any plan to rebuild Gaza.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of talk about Israel's political problems in the U.S.

as purely partisan, but I think it's more generational.

I think it's like people under 40, they've only seen Bibi Nyahoo running the country, and they've seen him, his corruption, his racism,

the fighting in Gaza, the lack of accountability.

And they wonder, why does the U.S.

have to funnel arms to this country?

Why am I paying to bomb a kid in the Gaza Strip?

Like,

there is an older generation of Americans that was raised at a different time, in a different era, a different generation of leadership in Israel that views Israel very differently.

It's like when you'd always hear Joe Biden talk about gold of my year and this like, you know, beacon of democracy and hope in the Middle East and this, you know, like

the story of this like mighty little country, right?

Like fighting off

its opponents.

But I think younger people like just see it very differently.

And I think, you know, you mentioned it earlier, like the tactic like the ADL and other groups have taken to try to silence debate, I think has been really damaging.

I do too.

And by the way, like, if it's alienated me, like, I'm sorry, but I'm like, I got to be in the place where you're going to want, like,

I feel like I am extremely critical of Israel.

I am extremely critical of people that are knee-jerk anti-Israel and

who do not see enough of a distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

I am like pretty clear in believing Israel has a right to defend itself.

I hold Hamas responsible.

And then it like, I see the way in which they go after Mamdani in a completely bad faith way and how when he goes and meets with Jews, it's not the right Jews for the ADL.

I see a lot of shit like that.

I just think it's counterproductive because it turns people who have legitimate,

it makes opponents of people who have real and valid questions about Israel.

And you want those people, right?

Including, by the way, a lot of Jews, a lot of Jews, especially younger Jews, who do not understand

how their parents feel about it, do not understand this.

And

there is a lot of talking past each other, right?

Because they go to the story of like Israel founded, you know, and

that it is a bastion of Jewish safety in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

It is a place where Jews expelled by Arab countries came to find safety.

But that is an old story.

It's an old story.

And an old story about Israel's founding because of the Holocaust is not going to help us any more than an old story about how Israel is some colonialist project is going to help us.

Like, where do we, how does Israel conduct itself now?

How does it defend itself in a way that upholds a basic defense of human rights now?

Like that, that to me is

what matters.

Yeah, and just like doing this broadbush thing where telling everyone that like all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is wrong or like passing BDS laws across the country that

essentially make speech illegal.

Like why is it that people like you and I can be more critical of the U.S.

government than the Israeli government in certain settings?

And, like, by the way, it's not just you and me like having this conversation.

It was Charlie Kirk and Megan Kelly had nearly an identical conversation about their frustration with being

screamed at or called anti-Semitic if they didn't agree with, you know, 100% of like Netanyahu's line.

And I just think like that is such a bad way to do politics.

You're just going to turn people off.

Yeah.

And by the same token, like, there is a lot of like kind of,

I hear it all the time.

it's a very easy thing now to be like, oh, you know, it's because they're in the pocket of APEC.

APEC, often described as kind of foreign involvement in the U.S.

when it's funded by American Jews, becomes about like Jewish money.

And

clearly that is a threat of anti-Semitism that exists on the right as well that I think is really dangerous.

And at the same time, like the because

being anti-Israel became almost like a shibboleth in certain parts of the left, it became so kind of almost casual for people to be chanting things like from the river to the sea and other kind of

expressions that while those who say them might claim are not violent or don't speak to violence, it is kind of a

like a kind of abstracted idea that just that if you were to follow to its conclusion would require

what?

All Israelis to leave.

a vassive, terrible, and violent conflict, whatever it might be.

But it's like Israelis are there.

The Palestinians are there.

They all deserve dignity, peace, and human rights.

And like everything after that,

you know, I don't know.

Yeah, it's just, it feels like the two-state solution is very far off.

And for all the concern, you know, you and I might have about criticism of Israel veering into anti-Semitism or tropes.

Then you also have Donald Trump speaking for the Knesset, giving Miriam Adelson a shout out, talking about how she's worth $60 billion

and how she was the one who got him to move the embassy or to think about the goal on heights.

And you're just like, oh my God, this is like, we're on another planet right now.

By the way, also says to her, like, I don't know if she likes Israel or America more, right?

Which, by the way, like like the and i know it's like well you know he he's because because donald trump is on the right and and kind of seen as like an ally of netyahu he can make jokes that are basically about dual loyalty which is exactly like i i don't care what he means or what he thinks i don't care like like that is a corrupt that's fucked up yeah it's really bad okay well good healthy gaza section for sure we are going to take a turn though because trump uh he's over there playing peacemaker in the middle east but back at home he's pressing ahead with sending troops troops into our cities and having ICE unleash violence on immigrants and protesters.

On Saturday, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that National Guard troops could remain federalized in Illinois, but they maintain for now a lower court's ruling that blocks the troops from being deployed to Chicago streets.

But if Trump's plan was to inflame tensions here, he is succeeding.

The Times had a great look at how things have escalated just in the past month to the point where agents in tactical gear are firing tear gas and projectiles at reporters and peaceful protesters, including notoriously a pastor.

A federal federal judge imposed new temporary rules on force last week, but it's not clear that they're taking hold.

On Friday morning, an employee of the Chicago TV station WGN, a woman who is a U.S.

citizen who is not part of the news department, was tackled and pinned to the ground by masked Border Patrol agents during a terrifying neighborhood raid that was caught on video.

But this might not all be enough for Trump, as J.D.

Vance suggested to NBC's Kristen Welker on Sunday.

Are you seriously considering invoking the Insurrection Act?

Well, the president's looking at all of his options.

The problem here is not the Insurrection Act or whether we actually invoke it or not.

The problem is the fact that the entire media in this country, cheered on by a few far-left lunatics, have made it okay to tee off on American law enforcement.

So the media is the problem of it, not the troops in the streets.

There is a point that he's making that I do.

There is this strange thing that seems to happen where Trump does some kind of escalation.

He is just sending troops into Portland or Chicago.

He's trying to defy court orders by kind of getting around the order, by getting troops from California to Chicago and Texas to Portland, whatever he's trying to do.

Meanwhile, you've got mass ICE agents on the streets.

They are backed up by

members of the military.

It's like unprecedented effort against the wishes of state and local leaders.

And then all of a sudden the question is, but is he going to do the Insurrection Act?

What about the Insurrection Act?

He's going to do the next one.

What about the next one?

As if like that's the most important question.

Like Vance isn't wrong about that.

That isn't the most important question.

Whether or not he invokes the Insurrection Act to send troops into American cities or continues to have American troops on our streets protecting ICE, like both are very bad.

Both are very dangerous.

Why are they wearing masks?

Why are they there?

All of these are the more important questions.

I think whether or not he does the Insurrection Act is a pretty damn big escalation, though, right?

I mean, it's something you have like members of the U.S.

military, active members, conducting law enforcement, like imprisoning people, zip-tying American citizens, throw them in jail.

It is an escalation.

And he's like, oh, well, the media is at fault.

I think it is an escalation.

Of course it's an escalation.

I think it's very dangerous.

Do I think like members, like you have ICE, which is increasingly a collection of people that are kind of ideologically committed to the Trump project?

No doubt.

They're scary.

It's a bunch of 3%ers and oath keepers getting recruited.

extreme people.

And, you know, the U.S.

military is a much more diverse group of people who did not sign up to be part of Donald Trump's

urban police squad, which is what they would be.

I'm not saying it's not a really serious escalation.

I do think it's that what I'm getting at is more this idea that, like, oh boy, but the next thing Trump does, boy, that's going to be crazy, right?

He's already doing crazy shit.

Like, there's plenty of bad happening that J.D.

Vance can be questioned about.

And, like, what we've seen over and over again is Trump loves spitballing about the next thing.

He loves being asked about it.

Like, are you going to suspend habeas corpus?

He didn't even know what it was.

He was like, probably, who's he?

You know, like, so it's like,

that's like, I like, I'm not,

I, I like, come away with this.

We're constantly asking the Trump administration officials to spitball on how much worse they're willing to be.

And the answer is always worse.

Yeah.

Yes, they might do it.

Well, so the vibes in Portland are a little different.

We got protesters.

They're wearing costumes.

They're wearing animal suits.

There was a naked bike ride.

Where do you land on the antics in Portland?

Does protesting naked diffuse the idea that there's a violent Antifa army?

Does it make us look absurd and fringy?

Something in between?

I don't think Portland's going to do well in the Battleground States.

I don't really care.

Like naked people on bikes in Portland.

You know what?

Keep Portland weird.

And if it's going to be, let it do a thing.

Videos of naked people on bikes, everything that points out how ridiculous it is to claim Portland is a city at war.

I believe it was the Chicago Marathon this weekend.

I think it was.

The Chicago Marathon.

You know, it's like, this isn't, we're not a conflict zone.

Yeah, no.

And so I like, have at it.

Be weird.

As long as you're peaceful, be as weird and freaky as you want to be.

Yeah, I think

I'm there too.

I think if I had my choice between like dressing in a silly costume weird or a fringe, like nudity bike ride weird, I'd go with the costume because I think Republicans would like nothing more than to spin the naked people on bikes as going for your children or like whatever the worst version of it is.

And, you know, look, we don't always have to think like them.

I'm not scolding anyone for protesting.

If you're going to protest, more power to you.

Credit to you for putting your body out there.

Get in front of some Ice agents, but I don't want to see your dong either.

So that's where I am.

Yeah, I guess here's the thing.

It's like

the march of the Pete Buddha judges will have to take place elsewhere.

Portland is going to do it its way.

Yeah, I like, I hear you, but like,

it's it is what it is.

I'm just saying, like, all things being equal, if I could choose one, I, you know, I choose the Yoshi costume.

Yeah, for sure.

Let's just hear, though, how later on the show, you're going to hear from Leah about the no kings protests and all the organizing going into them.

But here's how Republicans are already talking about the No Kings protests.

They have a Hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18th on the National Mall.

It's all the pro-Hamas wing and the

Antifa people.

They're all coming out.

The terrorist wing of their party, which is set to hold, as Leader Scales just commented on, a hate America rally.

The No Kings protests, Maria, really frustrating.

I mean, this is part of Antifa paid protesters.

It begs the question, who's funding it.

Is it Hamas, Antifa?

Are we hating America?

It's a super group.

It's a super group.

Yeah.

I was at the first No King person.

You were at the No King protest last time, and it was so inspiring.

It really was.

It was so moving.

It was a lot of people with American flags, a lot of people out there with their dogs and their kids and their signs.

A lot of people who Mike Johnson doesn't care about.

Mike Johnson doesn't care about the concerns of people that don't think exactly the way that he does.

He doesn't care that millions of people are genuinely afraid for their country, also heartbroken by what they've seen in their country, like genuinely upset, not because they hate America, because they love America.

And they're upset about it.

And they know better.

It's like January 6th was a day of love now, right?

That we're spinning that.

terrorist attack against the capital as okay now and but like a bunch of people getting together in west hollywood holding signs with strollers listening to speeches like give me a fucking break it's so insulting it's also like just the way they've defined these terms down, like terrorism pro-Hamas.

Like terrorism?

What are you talking about?

What are you talking about?

And it's both ridiculous, but also it should trouble everyone because right now we're like,

terrorists are people you kill, right?

Terrorists are organizations that need to be disrupted and dismantled and taken down by law enforcement or the U.S.

intelligence community or what have you, right?

And so like, that is the kind of slippery slope with that kind of language to Stephen Miller's dreams dreams that worries me.

Yeah, we're far down it because it's not just what they're describing, how they're describing this protest.

I talked about this with Leah a bit, but

Indivisible, which was founded after Trump to just organize people at the local level, little chapters of people getting together to figure out how to do their duty, is on a list of people, a list of organizations to be investigated.

You have Christy Noam

at this Antifa roundtable last week saying that Antifa is just as dangerous as Hamas and MS-13 and Trende Aragua, right?

Meanwhile, as they're blowing up boats without any criminal charges or any

other evidence than what they're just sort of kind of reassuring us they know about the people on these boats

lawlessly.

Yeah, that's the thing.

In Venezuela, right, they're saying, okay, if you're part of a drug cartel, now you're a terrorist, which means we can now kill you for suspected drug smuggling.

Like that's

you are an unlawful combatant from a non-state actor terrorist group of a cartel.

It's like we can kill you from above and then use the footage to make a snuff film that we put on social media because we are murdering because you're killing us with drugs as if like they're, I don't know, like

forcing us to take them at gunpoint.

Yeah, it's really bad.

Remember the first boat they hit was traveling off the coast of Venezuela, saw a plane above it or something, turned around to go back, then it was struck.

And then whatever, the drone or the airplane or whatever, to the second pass and hit the boat again to kill all the people who survived.

And there were so many people people on that boat that most experts you talk to think there's no way that it was just drug smugglers, that there's probably also some people, some migrants who were trying to, you know, go to another location from Venezuela on that boat who are just innocent victims.

So deeply, deeply messed up stuff.

And we don't kill drug smugglers.

That's a criminal enterprise.

You have to arrest people.

Interdict the boat.

You can capture the boat.

Yeah.

You know where it is.

You have it on video.

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At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

While it drives us to create what could be,

that world can't wait to see what you'll do.

Where will your wonder take you?

And what will it make you?

The University of Arizona.

Wonder makes you.

Start your journey at wonder.arizona.edu.

Speaking of attacks on constitutionally protected speech, let's talk about their new rules for reporters covering the Pentagon.

So the Pentagon first announced this policy in a memo released on September 18th.

That memo demanded that Pentagon reporters agree to submit their coverage to the government for approval before publishing it, including reports about unclassified information.

Those who did not sign risked losing their press credentials.

That did not fly with basically anyone in the press corps.

So the Pentagon released a revised version of this memo on October 6th that dropped the language about submitting their coverage to the government in advance, but replaced it with a threat to take away press credentials from Pentagon reporters who, quote, solicit information that has not been approved for release, which is what we usually call reporting.

Love it.

It feels like this couldn't be a more obvious First Amendment violation.

No?

Yeah, I mean, look, Pete Eggseth

hates, he's paranoid about people leaking to the press.

He's been on a kind of a warpath about this from the beginning.

There's all kinds of reports internally have been worried about who's leaking against him.

He kicked out outlets from their offices to be replaced by people like Newsmax and OAN.

They also kind of changed where reporters were allowed to walk in the Pentagon so they couldn't go to as many places as if like these reporters were some kind of security threat, as if this hadn't been just sort of policy for a really long time.

And like a good thing, like just a good thing that, hey, like this is the Pentagon, the home of the most powerful military on earth.

But guess what?

Here, journalists can walk around and ask people questions.

Like, that's special about us.

That's a beautiful and good thing about us that they don't appreciate.

And so now they're releasing this.

Obviously, the New York Times, the Washington Post, other outlets you would expect said no, but so did Newsmax.

that they didn't want to sign it.

That was earlier today, earlier today.

They're refusing to sign it because this is an old line.

Journalism is everything that's unauthorized.

What's authorized is is PR, right?

That's what PR.

PR is publishing the stuff they want you to say.

Everything else is journalism.

And they're not going to sign a document.

And by the way,

you can take away people's press passes.

You can tell them they can't go to the briefing, not even holding the briefings anymore anyway.

It's not going to stop these people from doing journalism.

They're just going to do it from their fucking phones.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I think they have until October 14th, the reporters due to agree to this policy.

So we'll see what happens after that when this comes out.

Yeah,

this is coming out tomorrow.

When you're hearing this, it's Tuesday.

They had till the end of the day today.

Yes, exactly.

So, yeah, it just criminalizes.

It just tries to penalize basic news gathering.

And I think this is a long-term mistake because there is this anti-war kind of isolationist part of the MAGA movement.

They don't want America and foreign wars.

They don't want us to nation build.

They don't want the Pentagon to waste money.

They don't want service members getting killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, right, far away places.

And my argument is all those people would be like, okay, so you want a strong Pentagon press corps.

Like you, this building is spending a trillion dollars a year.

They need more oversight.

They need more scrutiny, or else we're going to see more waste, fraud, and abuse.

And then, like,

I personally, like, when I was on the NSC press team, like, I had a lot of arguments with reporters about publishing classified stuff.

That ranged from like sitting down with the New York Times and learning that they had a quarter of a million State Department cables from WikiLeaks and just being like, okay, like, guess we're fucked.

Or like one-off conversations where, you know, you're like, can you please be less specific about how we got that information and just say like reliable intelligence instead of like intercepted communications or something like that?

But when I look back on that, I really think the balance of concern was overly tilted towards national security over and over and over again.

And that overclassification is still a massive problem that has not been tackled at all.

And what these new restrictions will do, like you said, like reporters, they're not going to stop reporting because they can't walk around the halls.

But like in totality, it slowly chips away at their media access and their ability to do their job and their relationships in the building.

And it's, like you said, replacing like real outlets with fake right-wing ones.

And it's just like right now, Pete Hegseth, who was technically a member of the media until like six months ago, is just mocking them on Twitter.

Have you seen this?

He's doing like hand emoji.

He's waving at them.

And like the real threat to.

national security is what this guy's putting in his signal chats.

It's not NBC News.

Well, also, it's like you,

he, and one of these things, the Pentagon doesn't belong to the press, it belongs to the people.

And I know that Pete Hagseth doesn't understand that the press is meant to be our representative and getting information.

But by the way, like, he needs to be able to tell the story of what's happening at the Pentagon.

He'll continue to do interviews, and that starts by building trust with major

news outlets that have the resources still to

do journalism about what happens in our foreign policy and what happens in our military.

You know, like there's, we're, every week it seems like J.D.

Vance sits down for another interview with a major outlet like NBC or ABC, and then he gets a question he doesn't like.

And he's like, why does this even fucking exist?

You don't matter.

He's like, you're here.

You're here.

You're doing it because like, like it or not, like, you don't, you see value in understanding being part in talking to these people.

And like, he can be like waving goodbye, like, oh, what a tough guy.

You don't need the NBC.

Like, okay.

Like, you're just doing, you're just doing damage to your ability to lead a department that presumably at some point would like to inform the american people about what it's doing not just the people that are watching oan but everybody yeah it's just so childish and petty uh speaking of which uh by the time you're listening to this the government will have been shut down for two weeks celebrating its two-week birthday and as is the case with most two-week olds all we're really getting is screaming and lots of to clean up uh democrats still aren't signing on to the house funding bill republicans still aren't negotiating with democrats on health care premiums and mike johnson won't even bring the house back into session instead they're trying to extort leverage by firing people.

On Friday, Grim Reaper Russ Vogt announced the layoffs of 4,000 federal workers, mostly at Treasury and HHS.

And J.D.

Vance made this promise during his tour of the Sunday shows.

Let's watch.

The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be.

And Maria, to be clear, some of these cuts are going to be painful.

This is not a situation that we relish.

This is not something that we're looking forward to.

But the Democrats have dealt us a pretty difficult set of cards.

Do you think that the firings are

really putting leverage on the Democrats more than just the whole government?

I don't, especially when they

kind of giddily talk about how they're going after Democratic programs and

basically explicitly saying it's leverage.

The Bullwork actually covered one set of cuts that is eliminating our government's capacity to

do mental health programs and substance abuse treatment programs.

Which is sort of ironic as we were just talking about because they're claiming in order to protect America from drugs, they can kill narco-terrorists from the sky, but they're eliminating the programs that have helped reduce opioid deaths, which actually happened from 2023 to 2024, which is actually a great thing.

I mean, still too many, but a good thing.

But now they're decimating the programs that actually help people who are addicted to those drugs.

But we only know that because reporters are piecing it together because this is so ham-fisted and haphazard.

And they're not really interested in telling us what they're doing.

No, everything that they're doing is only underscoring that, well, this is a fight over healthcare.

This is an administration that is lawless and doing kind of an authoritarian takeover.

It should only make people more resolved to continue holding the line on healthcare at the very least.

Yeah, and the next big inflection point is Wednesday when troops will start missing their paychecks.

But Trump announced Saturday that the Pentagon is going to be moving funds around to make sure that there's no gaps in pay.

So like part of me hears this and I'm like, okay.

It's really bad that Trump is doing this without Congress being involved.

The other part of me is like, okay, well, it's good, I guess, that service members are getting paid, but also Trump is kind of giving up what seemed like what they thought was their biggest point of leverage against Democrats.

But I don't know.

Where do you come down?

I don't know.

This seems to me more in the kind of like

quotidian way in which administrations,

during shutdowns and outside of them, kind of like blur the lines and kind of move money around semi-legally.

Like Trump, in the way that, like, you know, there was a Congress passed a law that said

after a shutdown, people have to get paid what they missed.

The law is crystal clear.

And so the

2019 by Donald Trump.

And

the OMB puts out, OMB under Rust vote puts out a memo saying, actually, the law doesn't say that.

Because if you read this clause a certain way, Congress has to actually say to pay people back, which doesn't really make sense because the whole purpose of the law is to make sure people are paid back after a shutdown.

If Congress has to also say it, then you don't need the law that was passed specifically to do this.

It makes absolutely no sense.

But they're putting out the draft memo.

Why?

To intimidate people, to make people think they might not get back pay, to kind of make the shutdown more painful, to make Democrats feel like they're responsible for more pain.

And so, like,

the kind of moving money around to pay troops, fine.

Trying to kind of lawlessly figure out ways to hurt people, that is exactly why it was necessary to kind of draw the line on

this shutdown.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And the Republicans keep saying, you know, whatever things we agree to with Democrats, we'll just use the residence process to claw back money anyway.

So it's like, I don't know what we're supposed to trust from these guys.

There's also like a bigger point, which is,

I feel this in my life.

I hear it from others.

I feel like doing this show, this shutdown is just not commanding people's attention the way previous ones have.

And I've kind of, I thought about why that might be.

Like part of it is because the

drama around whether the government will shut down is a big deal.

And then once it's shut down, it's kind of like every day is just the same terrible shit.

But also maybe it's because Trump is just kind of like causing chaos in so many other ways.

I guess today he just wants to be talking about whatever's happening in the Middle East.

And that's for once kind of good news.

But it is notable that like, I'm sure it's impacting a lot of people.

I don't mean to minimize that in any way.

I'm sure there's like government workers listening or like, screw you.

I'm not getting a paycheck.

I'm scared.

I'm not dismissing that at all.

But in terms of just like the broader media conversation, I just don't know that many people are noticing.

Yeah, it doesn't feel like what it would have, it feels like it's less of a like concentrating event than it was in the past.

Like in previous shutdowns, it was like, that was all the news was shutdown day, whatever, like everything was focused on that.

I do think part of this is just like Trump is a chaos agent.

There's a lot of shit happening.

You've got ICE, mass ICE agents on the streets

causing chaos.

You've got troop deployments.

You have what's happening in the Middle East.

You have just the, he's charging his political enemies.

You look at the list of things and like, yes, it's not getting as much attention

as it used to be.

I wonder the same thing because I do feel it, like, which is like, this used to be a bigger deal.

I mean, it is true that over the years, they've kind of chipped it.

They've like, they've passed laws to make shutdowns less impactful, right?

Like to allow certain checks to go out to provide capacity.

So like it has, because it is a, it's a smaller share of the government than what it used to be.

I mean, last, you know, shutdown in the 90s.

That's where, that's where shit went down.

I mean, that, like, that, that changed the course of history that one in 1998.

Yes, that's well said.

But to you, add to your list.

I do remember that.

I do remember that.

Yeah.

Add to your list of

things that are kind of just not making news that Trump is doing.

On Friday, he threatened a 100% tariff on Chinese imports and then gave himself like

till November 1st to enforce it and then seemingly walked it back.

So yeah.

This is where it's like.

It's constant.

It's constant.

You never know.

You never know like.

like what what what was the what was the like

precipitating incident to cause him to say this to walk it back it causes the stock market to do a dip and then recover you wonder who's making money on that who's aware he's going to do that who's aware he's going to undo it like there's just like a like he's just a like the the amount of like he's a chaos agent in the markets yeah and now it's like once again you know he sees the i who knows right he threatens this thing he sees the market he he realizes it goes too far he walks it back who knows and some of it by the way like you look at the the the like trump in uh uh in this sort of summit that he's called together and you see all these leaders talking.

There was one moment caught where he's talking to one of these leaders, and that leader brings up meeting with Eric.

Oh,

of Indonesia, right?

Right.

Indonesia's leader brings up that he's going to meet with, was it with Eric and Don?

Who are not involved at all in anything government related.

They don't touch anything government-related.

There's no reason that they would need to meet with the head of a foreign state.

But yeah, Trump's telling them to go talk to Don.

Right.

And then you have leaders kind of going up there and saying, God, we got to get this fucking guy the Nobel Peace Prize.

He made a joke at Norway's Norway's expense, which I thought he handled it fine.

Like it's better than bombing Norway over this.

But like, it's just all so personal.

So you just never fucking know.

Yeah, everybody trotted up to the microphone and was like, Give this man the Nobel Peace Prize.

Even Net Guy was like, I'm going to give you Israel's greatest prize that's never gone to a non-Israeli citizen.

And then you'll get that other one.

It's like, okay, we get it.

Okay, one last thing before we get to Levitt's conversation with Leah Greenberg.

If you flew on a plane over the holiday weekend, you may have seen a video of Christy Noam, the Secretary of Homeland Security, playing at TSA checkpoints, blaming travel delays on Democrats.

Let's watch.

It is TSA's top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe.

However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government.

And because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.

We will continue to do all that we can to avoid delays that will impact your travel.

And our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the the importance of opening the government.

Airports in Seattle, Portland, Cleveland, and other places said they're not going to air that video because it obviously violates the Hatch Act, which prohibits the use of federal assets for political purposes.

Meanwhile, a separate, far more fun GNOME video is making the rounds as well.

Let's watch that one.

Our government agents are working without pay.

Luckily, my boys at ICE don't mind.

They're in it for the love of the game.

And how did I find them?

By running ads like this.

Do you need a job now?

Yeah.

Are you a big tough guy?

Yeah.

Tough enough for the army or police?

No.

But do you take supplements that you bought at a gas station?

Daily.

Do you like to use zip ties because people in your life don't trust you with keys?

You know it.

Then buckle up and slap on some Oakleys, big boy.

Welcome to ice.

I like that Tina Fey.

Somehow the accent runs from North Dakota to Alaska.

It's sort of like one kind of loose mountain accent.

Yeah, it was basically roll long O's.

Sarah Palin with a hat on, but I love it.

I didn't see that.

You flew over the weekend.

I flew over the weekend.

I didn't see that ad.

Did you?

No, no, I didn't see it.

No, but I doubt they would play it in Minneapolis.

I feel like Minneapolis was such a bastion.

Yeah, I flew out of Burbank, which a couple days earlier had had no air traffic controllers on duty.

Yeah, in the evening.

In the evening.

In the evening.

Yeah, I talked about it.

I love it or leave it.

For a brief flickering moment, LAX was the best airport in Los Angeles.

It was only those four hours.

Yeah, Hannah texted me and was like, did you see these reports?

Is this true?

Are we really going to do this?

My flight was delayed getting back here today, but only because a pilot called in sick.

So I can't really blame Noam for that.

Yeah,

it's so like

it is such a like, it's a small thing.

It doesn't really matter.

Do I think that like you're going to really get people on the line at the airport to say, you know what?

I am going to change my party registration.

Democrats are a bunch of fucking assholes.

You know, like, I don't know, that worried about it, but it's, there's such a like,

there was a, there was a, uh, uh, like a, a meme going around that said, hey, like, I have a theory, everybody's 12 and it's like why are people eating only red meat and franchise because they're 12 like oh there's crime we should put the army on it you're 12 you know and it's like oh like you're mad at the Democrats and you're head of the homeland security you can make a video and show it to everybody and you're gonna you're really mad so you're gonna express it and you'll be like you're you're 12 you're like you're supposed to be a fucking adult yeah it's one of those things where it's like it is we're we're from the before times before Trump it is a shocking violation of the law for people who had to like worry about the hatch act and try not to violate it and like actually be concerned about these kind of things to see that video it just like makes you realize that every you know it's just absurd um

I don't I'm kind of of the view that propaganda works in aggregate in the long term and that like videos like this and that all the other ways that government officials are just blaming Democrats through government channels and official communications through emails and letters to workforces like I worry it adds up I do too I do too jokes aside but it's it's there's something about like Mike Johnson saying it's a hate America reality or Christy Noam feeling like, you know what, I'm going to make a video where I blame the Democrats and I'm going to play it at all the airports, right?

Like there,

it's, I didn't realize how important like forbearance was, right?

Like we talk about the way in which Republicans are shameless all the time and how powerful shame was as a way of preventing terrible politics.

But there was also just this idea that, you know what, like I may be mad, I may be angry, I might fight Democrats annoying, I may want to beat them, but I'm just going to, like, I can be a little bit reserved and I cannot say everything and go all the way because we're sharing a country.

And I'm, I, there'll be a Democrat in this job one day.

And presumably, I would rather them not attack Republicans on the screens while you're waiting to go through the airport.

That said, when you're waiting online at the airport and you see the person responsible for the line, I don't think it's always helpful.

It's like a really good point.

I know.

Like when Eric Garcetti used to welcome me at LAX to be like, we got to get rid of it.

I was like, truly the worst responsible for this airport.

We got big problems.

Yeah, I have the same exact thought about no one.

It's like, ma'am, you don't want to be seen in this setting.

This is not good for anybody.

Okay, in a second, we're going to get to Levitt's interview with Leah Greenberg.

But before we do, we want to tell you about some big news.

Crooked Media Reads is releasing our next book on January 27, 2026.

It's called Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.

It's by an incredible journalist named Jason Zangerly.

You know him from New York Times magazine, lots of other places, just one of the best in the business.

The title comes from Tucker himself.

When he visited Hungary in 2021, he praised Victor Orban for being hated by all the right people.

And Jason wanted to write this book about Tucker because, you know, the key to understanding the Trump age is understanding how we as a society stopped seeking truth and started seeking outrage.

And Tucker's path from, you know, one of the best magazine writers or long-form writers in the business to

what he is today kind of traces that path.

So it's an excellent book.

I've read it.

You will all love it.

And you can pre-order your copy of Hated by by All the Right People at crooked.com/slash books.

Also, California voters, on November 4th, you'll vote on Prop 50.

It is a ballot measure to stop Trump from power grabbing extra seats in the U.S.

House and hanging it onto a federal trifecta.

I've never heard power grabbing as a

verb like that.

Until I read it.

The best way to make sure Prop 50 passes is to vote yes on November 4th and to make sure everyone you know knows about it.

So Vote Save America is hosting an event on Wednesday, October 15th at 8 p.m.

We'll get you up to speed on how to take action.

You don't have to live in California to join.

All you need to do is go to votesaveamerica.com slash prop 50.

This is paid for by Votesave America.

Votesaveamerica.com, not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee.

Also not paid for by any candidate or candidates committee.

I have a limited series that is on the love it or leave it feed.

In today's attention economy, the only thing worse than being hated is being boring.

That is true in politics, but that is because it was true in reality TV.

That is the world reality TV built.

I love reality TV.

It is my escape.

It is also clear to me that you can't understand politics in this moment if you do not understand how to win at Housewives.

In this series, Love It or Leave It Presents, Bravo America.

I am sitting down with icons of reality TV.

I had an amazing conversation with Dorinda Medley, with Parvati Shallow, who is one of the greats of Survivor.

I talked to Olivia Plath, who was on Welcome to Plathville, about what it was like to escape a Christian fundamentalist community.

I talked to Dr.

Terry DeBrow about practicing medicine and being a parent to LGBT kids on television.

It has been so fun to do these interviews.

I found them fascinating, interesting, and surprising.

A lot of stories that haven't been told before.

So please check it out.

It's going to be coming out every Tuesday for the next eight weeks.

You can listen to it as a podcast.

It's also on the Love It or Leave It YouTube, where we'd love for you to subscribe.

So check it out.

All right, when we come back, you'll hear Lovett's conversation with Leah Greenberg from Indivisible about the No Kings protests.

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At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

While it drives us to create what could be,

that world can't wait to see what you'll do.

Where will your wonder take you?

And what will it make you?

The University of Arizona.

Wonder makes you.

Start your journey at wonder.azona.edu.

Joining us now, she's the co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the organizations behind this weekend's No Kings protest.

Leah Greenberg, welcome to the pod.

Great to be here.

So the last No Kings protest was on June 14th.

It was time to counter Trump's military parade.

Several million people turned out.

It was genuinely surprising just how much enthusiasm there was.

Maybe that is a poor reflection on me.

I don't know how surprised you are by the turnout, but what led to the second No Kings protest?

What is this organized around?

Why this weekend?

Well, one of the things that we heard and we felt from the first No Kings protest was, you know, people needed to be part of a movement.

People came out in the numbers that we saw because there is growing understanding in this country that something extraordinarily dangerous and threatening is happening.

And there is a need for broad popular mass defiance of that.

And so over the summer, as we have seen these repeated escalations, right, the passage of the one big beautiful bill that rips healthcare away from so many people, the attacks on D.C., on Chicago, on Portland, the ways in which this administration is escalating attacks on the First Amendment across civil society.

You know, we've been feeling collectively that it's time to bring together again everybody across the country who will take that stand against authoritarianism, against corruption, against attacks on our neighbors.

And so, you know, it was an understanding that we had we had a moment that we could collectively build on and we had a frame that we could collectively build on, and that it was going to be important to continue to foster that sense of mass popular opposition and defiance as the administration tries to consolidate control.

So you've been getting a lot of free press.

Mike Johnson

called it a hate America rally.

Why do you hate America?

I mean, look, this is honestly, it's ridiculous and it's sinister in equal parts.

I think it's notable that he called it a hate America rally because he can't bear to say out loud the name of the actual rally, which is No Kings, which is about the most American sentiment in the entire

world.

Personally, as somebody who led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance of about 100,000 people in Philadelphia at our last rally, it was a little bit of a surprise to hear that.

But I think we can also be really clear about what's happening, right?

Which is that one, they are flailing, they are panicking, they don't have a message on why they are shutting down the government to stop people from getting health care.

So they're just trying to grab for anything they can.

And two, they're trying to legitimate and set up for the broad attack on civil society that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller have very clearly signaled that they are going to wage.

Yeah, so speaking of that,

we've seen this effort to tie a whole bunch of peaceful, progressive organizations to a nefarious organization called they're calling Antifa,

claiming that all these disparate groups are connected and inciting terrorism and violence.

That is obviously chilling.

And then it turns out Indivisible is specifically named as one of the groups potentially being investigated.

What was your reaction to that?

And are there any signs that this is anything beyond just something in a document somewhere inside the White House or the Justice Department?

Well, look, I think we have to understand it first in the context of the authoritarian playbook, which is that across a bunch of different fronts in society, they push as hard as they can and they claim powers that they don't have and they see whether people allow them to do it, allow them to get away with it, whether they fold in advance.

And we saw that in how they interact with businesses.

We see that in how they're interacting with higher education and law firms.

We're seeing that now in how they're interacting with civil society.

And so I was not surprised as they started to escalate.

I have not been surprised that they are targeting a bunch of the entities that they perceive as mobilizing their political opposition.

And it's also really clear that this is a moment when collectively

we have to stay rooted in who we are, what we value, what we stand for, and say, we are simply exercising our First Amendment rights.

There is a First Amendment right to protest this government and the harm it is doing to regular Americans.

And

whether or not they're going to try to assert powers that they don't have to wage this unconstitutional crackdown, somebody's got to stand firm and say,

we're here and we're going to exercise our rights.

And the best way to push back against this kind of unlawful, unconstitutional overreach is more free speech.

So, yes, I hear that, but

they could try to hurt organizations with process, right?

Indivisible is an incredible organization that popped up in response to Donald Trump, and it has mobilized people and has engaged people entirely peaceful in every way humanly possible.

But that wouldn't stop them from trying to put the government on organizations they don't like.

And I am genuinely curious.

I think that two things can be true.

One, you have to be defiant of something like this and

not treat it, not allow it to change what you're doing.

Well, at the same time,

organizations on the left need to be ready and buttoned up and figure out how they're going to be prepared for anything that may come.

And I just want to understand how you're preparing.

Absolutely.

Well, I mean, the short version is

we take these threats seriously.

We prepare in advance.

We think about what we need to do, both to make sure that we're 1,000%

intensively clear on our own values, on our commitment to peaceful protest protest and nonviolence, that we train and support people all over the country for something like No Kings intensively to make sure that they are capable of holding peaceful, joyful events everywhere.

And that we're preparing our own organizations in the event of some kind of unlawful or unconstitutional effort to shut down peaceful protest and organized opposition.

So we take it seriously, but we also understand that part of the purpose of this cycle of threats is to throw you off your game.

It's to distract you.

It's to make you back down in advance and not do things that you previously would have done out of the fear of oppression.

And so a big part of what we are trying to collectively do, both as an organization and as we call for and move forward with the No Kings protest is break that cycle of anticipatory obedience is say, we have these powers, we have these rights, we are going to continue to assert them.

And if you want to stop us, you are going to have to show that you are prepared to do unconstitutional things and then we will continue to push back.

So let's talk about what that looks like because we've seen millions of people come out at the previous protests.

I hope we see the same this weekend.

I'll be out there.

I think a lot of people at Crooked are going to be out there.

We're all going to be

the first time, it was an incredibly inspiring day because you saw all these people showing up for No Kings.

That was aligning with a bunch of unions that were coming out and that had been protesting, with immigration groups that had come out and were protesting.

It was entirely peaceful, patriotic.

It was a beautiful thing to see.

There's two big, big reasons big corporations, colleges, law firms, media organizations capitulate to Trump.

One, they give him power he couldn't take, right?

They are afraid of him and they bend.

The other is that they're not afraid of the opposition, that they don't view the vast number of Americans who don't want to live in an autocracy as any kind of political problem they have to worry about.

We've seen signs that that can change.

There was a lot of pressure on Disney over Kimmel.

But for the most part, they haven't been wrong that Trump is a bigger political problem than those that don't like Trump in terms of consumers and their reaction.

How do you make sure or

how do you transform this incredible enthusiasm that you have helped reveal and show, make clear that exists around no kings?

How do we turn that into actual political actions, turn that enthusiasm into specific pressure points and changes?

Yeah, absolutely.

And well, one of the things that we think about a lot at Indivisible is, you know, we've moved into a stage of authoritarian consolidation and power moves differently as an authoritarian starts to take more power.

And you have to think not only about your formal political representation, right?

Your member of Congress, your senators, et cetera, but the other places in your life where you have some leverage, you have some ability to weigh in.

Your faith institution, if you have one, your higher education institution, if you are a student or an alumni, your workplace, your professional association, the places where you actually, your role as a consumer, the places where you have some power over institutions that are making decisions about whether they're going to enable and go along with Trump or whether they're going to push back.

And so after the First No Kings, we trained about 250,000 people in strategic non-cooperation and how to kind of campaign and target and apply pressure to some of those pillars of society, those institutions that are not your formal elected officials, but that are in fact shaping how power unfolds in this moment.

And so we're seeing some of that.

come to come to fruition, right?

There is more organized campaigning getting up and running every day as it relates to higher education, bringing together students, bringing together alumni, people pushing back on this effort to get a bunch of institutions to sign a compact with the Trump administration.

So we're seeing some of that.

I think

the Kimmel incident was a really important moment for people in demonstrating our collective power as consumers.

And we're definitely looking at how do we continue to apply that and support it.

You know, things like pushing on the target boycott and also figuring out additional ways to use our leverage.

And I think we also just have to ask people to collectively figure out how do they push back within their own sphere of influence, right?

Who are you?

Are you a consumer?

Are you an alumni?

Are you a member of an institution locally that has some power to push back?

What are they doing?

What could they be doing?

You actually have to figure out how to work that leverage.

Yeah, it's interesting.

There's a vicious circle that certainly democratic leaders, they just don't have a lot of trust

either morally, right?

They're not viewed as sort of morally courageous leaders, that's the truth, and they're not seen as sort of strategic masterminds.

And so they have neither kind of strategic or kind of moral trust.

And so people look around, they don't see people doing things a lot of the times.

You've helped prove a big exception.

And they look up and they don't really trust what they're hearing from above, right?

But you kind of, you can imagine a like a virtuous circle where an organization that produces something like No Kings can direct people into a specific action.

People heard about friends and others and people online canceling Disney Plus.

Suddenly there's something that was happening organically.

And I guess my question is, how do we then, how do we, how do we get that next step, right?

Like, how do you, this is our second No Kings protest.

I'm very excited about it.

How do we then turn this into a pool?

What's the political action we get this big group of people to take next?

Yeah, well, first of all, I wouldn't overlook the value of continuing to push Democrats to stand up and to push back, right?

Because fundamentally, we've been on this journey with the Democratic Party over the course of the last nine months where we are trying to move people into a resistance posture.

And it has been a work in progress.

And also.

They are, in fact, currently, you know, really actually going out on a limb to push back on millions of people losing their health care, seeing healthcare prices rise,

holding their leverage as it relates to the shutdown.

That's actually huge progress.

And, you know, and I think when you get back to that question of how do you move institutions from being afraid, more afraid of Trump than they are of potential consequences for enabling Trump, a big part of that is, is there an opposition party that seems like it's actually willing to use its leverage in the future, if it regains power, to investigate, to enact consequences for people who went along with this regime of lawbreaking unconstitutional actions.

And we've seen a few of those moments where Democrats really start to say, and there's going to be consequences, but we need to have more.

Because part of how we got here in the first place is, frankly,

senior level MAGA folks did not experience consequences in 2020 after they literally tried to overthrow the government.

And so they have correctly concluded that the modern iteration of the Democratic Party is not one that's going to have consequences next time.

We have to fix that perception problem.

Yeah.

And to your point, right, why, why did we end up in, why were Democratic leaders willing to

go hard for a shutdown?

They did it in part because they felt pressure from their voters who said, hey, I need to see a fight from you.

And to their credit, right, there are a lot of people that were critical, I think, of making the fight about healthcare.

There's some people that thought there shouldn't be a shutdown.

There's some people that thought the fight needed to be over the entirety of the authoritarian

takeover.

But they focused on this issue, and it does seem to have Republicans on their heels.

That's right.

And, you know, look, politics is the art art of the possible.

And the ability of the Democratic coalition to successfully align around one issue is, it's a step forward.

Is it exactly how, you know, if I were in charge of all messaging of everyone, maybe I would do something differently?

It doesn't matter.

They were actually collectively able to get together around healthcare.

And I think what we've seen over the last couple of weeks is that that was a good gamble.

It is breaking through in a way that, in a way that a lot of people were really skeptical of.

You have helped put together with a bunch of organizations, what is going to be a ton of people, patriotic people who love this country and don't want to see what's happening to it continue, who are peaceful, who are going to show up with kids and with dogs and with signs.

And then you have Republicans like Trump and Mike Johnson and all these other people claiming it's some sort of hate America Antifa radical riot.

There may be places where random people decide to,

you know, throw a trash can, set something on fire, right?

Like they're going to try to use those examples.

Or there may be other people that show up to try to turn protests into something chaotic and dangerous, right?

How do we respond to that?

How do we make sure,

like that, how do we make sure that everyone understands that the No Kings protest is a peaceful action by people wanting to make their voices heard?

Well, first, I think we do everything that we can to ensure that they are peaceful actions, right?

And that is training tens of thousands of people in safety and de-escalation and making sure folks have safety plans in place wherever they are to to support peaceful and joyful events so that's the first piece the second i think is pre pre-messaging this exact playbook right It's really clear as Republicans go on the offense against millions of Americans coming out to express their First Amendment rights that what they are trying to do is create the permission structure for a broad crackdown on civil society.

We can see that coming and we should be saying that right now, right?

That they are collectively trying to put the wheels in motion to support this Stephen Miller vengeful quest to go after anybody who opposes them.

So I think we can tell people that story in advance in a way that helps them understand it if and when Republicans put that plan into action.

And then finally, I think we all have to just collectively understand that we're in a moment where there are risks on all sides.

And the way that we talk about The way that we talk about that in this country, a lot of times it's about kind of like, should I speak out?

Should I do something right now?

What we don't talk enough about is the long-term risk of living under a consolidating authoritarian regime where we are poorer, we are less safe, our kids are more likely to be killed by gun violence, we're all more likely to die of communicable diseases because there's no public health infrastructure.

Risks to all of us are going up all of the time.

And we have to think about it in terms of, you know, what is the path?

What is the collective action that we can take that puts us on a different path for this country?

And that is actions like No Kings, and that is actions like coming out this weekend.

Leah Greenberg, thank you so much for your time.

Everybody, get out there this weekend.

We will see you out there.

It's going to be fun.

I'm going to bring a dog or a sign.

It's probably going to be a dog, if I'm being honest.

That's our show for today.

Thanks to Leah Greenberg for coming on.

John and Dan will be back with a new show on Friday.

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At the University of Arizona, we believe that everyone is born with wonder.

That thing that says, I will not accept this world that is.

While it drives us to create what could be,

that world can't wait to see what you'll do.

Where will your wonder take you?

And what will it make you?

The University of Arizona.

Wonder makes you.

Start your journey at wonder.arizona.edu.

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