0:01

Stephen Miller here. Right now,

0:03

my organization, America First Legal,

0:05

is fighting back against the

0:07

lawless left with scores of

0:09

aggressive lawsuits and hard -hitting

0:11

investigations. We're exposing Joe Biden's

0:13

massive corruption. We are suing

0:16

woke radical corporations battling to

0:18

stop their illegal anti -American DEI

0:20

agenda, but we need your

0:22

help to achieve the mission. Through

1:00

it, I'm Jared, and I'm

1:02

Mike. Thanks for joining us

1:04

another week. The Tim Pool

1:06

Who the Hell is Tim

1:08

Pool episode with Bob last

1:10

week is already the most

1:12

downloaded episode of this podcast

1:14

to date. Damn, you guys

1:16

really hate that guy, I

1:18

guess. But we have another Who

1:20

the Hell is installment in

1:23

the works. It'll probably come out

1:25

sometime next month. I won't say

1:27

too much, but I will say that

1:29

I am already getting copied onto emails

1:31

with lawyers for the person that it

1:33

is about. To be clear, you have

1:35

not even reached out to this person

1:37

for comment yet. Just people that they

1:40

know. Right. I've just been reaching out

1:42

to people being like, hey, I

1:44

have a couple questions about this

1:46

person's early career. Would you be open

1:48

to answering a few questions? And

1:51

this person's PR firm reached

1:53

out to me at my

1:55

work email for some reason and

1:57

copied in the lawyer. this

2:00

person and was like, heard

2:02

you riding a hip piece,

2:04

huh? Just very comical, hilarious

2:06

way to deal with the

2:08

press in general. But keep

2:10

your eyes peeled, it's bound

2:12

to be a good one,

2:14

especially if the cages are

2:16

rattling this early on. So

2:18

this week, we are talking

2:20

about a pretty grim but

2:22

extremely important topic, which is

2:24

what is happening with immigration

2:26

in this country, and namely

2:28

what the Trump administration has

2:30

been doing as part of

2:32

its agenda for what they

2:34

call mass deportations, whether it

2:36

is planes of men being

2:38

sent to El Salvador, students

2:40

who criticize the Israeli government,

2:42

having their green card provoked,

2:44

being arrested, deported, or ICE

2:46

agents roaming the country, terrorizing

2:48

communities, sometimes in plain clothes,

2:50

there's been reports of them

2:52

going to elementary schools to

2:54

question children about their parents,

2:56

just all very bleak stuff.

2:58

And when Mike and I

3:00

were talking about it, a

3:02

name kept coming up, Stephen

3:04

Miller. Stephen Miller, who is

3:06

widely considered to be the

3:08

architect of MAGA. I think

3:10

that's safe to say, it's

3:12

sort of the brain behind

3:14

Trump. mean, I think it's

3:16

been that way, really going

3:18

back to his first term.

3:20

And the more you know

3:22

about Stephen, the harder it

3:24

is to like him as

3:26

a human being or to

3:28

respect him, all of the

3:30

stuff that's happening is really

3:32

coming from his own perverse

3:34

fantasies. We know that in

3:36

part because we've seen his

3:38

private emails. We know that

3:40

he reads white nationalist literature.

3:42

We've heard him speak. We

3:44

know his rhetoric is openly

3:46

racist about immigrants. And it's

3:48

just not hard to put

3:50

two and two together when

3:52

you see people being sent

3:54

to El Salvadorian torture prisons.

3:56

There's no other way to

3:58

put it. You know it's

4:00

coming from Stephen. He's back

4:02

in the White House during

4:04

the first Trump administration. He

4:06

was the top Trump policy

4:08

aide who was credited with

4:10

things like the Muslim ban

4:13

and child separation

4:15

policies. He's

4:18

back in as the U .S.

4:20

Homeland Security Advisor and Deputy

4:22

Chief of Staff for Policy

4:24

in the second Trump White

4:26

House. So it's not just

4:28

appearance. If the buck stops

4:30

anywhere that's not Trump, it

4:32

has to be Stephen Miller.

4:34

And the way he's been

4:36

profiled, his appearances in the

4:38

press lately, it's clear that

4:40

Stephen Miller has more power

4:42

than he's ever had and he

4:44

is just loving that

4:46

shit. I think what his

4:49

title is right now is

4:51

less important than just knowing

4:53

who he is, what he

4:55

believes and seeing what's happening

4:57

because the title might as

4:59

well be like head chef

5:01

and you know that Stephen

5:03

Miller's imprint is all over

5:05

this, the grotesque human rights

5:07

abuses that are taking place. So

5:11

to understand Stephen Miller a

5:13

little better, let's rewind the

5:15

clock to 2019. Mike, you

5:17

are, and I'm very sorry,

5:19

one of the nation's foremost

5:22

experts on Stephen Miller's history.

5:24

What was happening around that

5:26

time? Well, yes, a rough

5:28

one for me. But I

5:30

happened to go through Katie McHugh,

5:33

get a whole bunch of

5:35

over 900 of Stephen's private

5:37

emails to Breitbart that were sent around

5:39

the time. I mean, he was

5:41

trying to influence coverage in Breitbart and

5:43

get them talking more about these

5:45

immigration issues, the MAGA issues and kind

5:47

of shape that trajectory, riding off

5:49

Breitbart's really prodigious traffic at that time.

5:51

They were one of the most

5:53

trafficked during the first Trump years. They

5:55

were the most one of the

5:57

most trafficked websites in all of New.

6:00

I'm not really news or propaganda,

6:02

but they had a lot of traffic.

6:04

So the story comes out, my story

6:06

comes out in SBLC in November of

6:08

2019. And you see, you know, at

6:10

the very beginning, people like Bernie Sanders

6:13

started to tweet about, I was so

6:15

flattered at the time, I couldn't believe

6:17

it, Bernie. AOC, we're tweeting about it,

6:19

but then all of a sudden, like,

6:22

Hillary Clinton starts to post about it

6:24

and things like that. And there's this,

6:26

you know, It gets covered in every

6:28

major paper and on cable news. And

6:31

this creates an environment in which

6:33

democratic lawmakers start calling for

6:35

him to step down because

6:37

of his ties to white

6:39

nationalism and his, you know,

6:41

this understanding that he has

6:43

a white nationalist perspective on things.

6:45

And this drumbeat to get

6:47

him to step down becomes

6:49

very, very loud. And what I

6:51

think is compelling here is that

6:53

This had happened before with

6:55

other Trump administration officials. Darren

6:58

Beatty in 2018, K-file, reported

7:00

from CNN about Darren Beatty's connections

7:02

to the white nationalist movement. He

7:04

was a speechwriter for Trump, and

7:07

he was forced to step down.

7:09

You had in the immediate aftermath

7:11

of Charlottesville, going further back, Steve

7:14

Bannon, there was a drumbeat around

7:16

Steve Bannon, he ultimately left the

7:18

Trump administration because of his connections

7:21

to the extreme radical right. But

7:23

Miller turns out to be

7:25

the one guy who doesn't

7:27

back down or has too much power

7:29

inside the Trump world to back down.

7:31

The road they took with Miller instead

7:33

was to hide him. And a lot

7:35

of people don't know about this because

7:37

he just kind of disappeared and people

7:39

stopped paying attention to Stephen Miller. But

7:41

he used to be on Fox News

7:43

quite frequently and then for about a

7:45

six-month period, seven-month period, Miller kind of

7:47

disappears. He actually doesn't go anywhere. And

7:49

that's partly because they didn't want anyone

7:52

asking him about him, you know, reading

7:54

white nationalist literature. I mean, one of

7:56

the things that he was reading was

7:58

American Renaissance, which is a publication that... dehumanizes

8:00

black people to an extreme degree,

8:02

like sort of portrays black people

8:04

as, not sort of, but literally

8:07

portrays black people as being predisposed

8:09

to being less intelligent than white

8:11

people. So they don't want him

8:14

to be exposed to questions about

8:16

this and he kind of hides

8:18

for a little bit. And in

8:21

2020, summer of 2020, the RNC

8:23

puts out a. a condemnation of

8:25

SPLC that seems to be coming

8:28

from Stephen Miller, but we can't

8:30

prove that. And I started to

8:32

get worried. I thought, oh my

8:34

God, if Trump wins this election

8:37

in 2020, they're going to put

8:39

me in jail or something. But

8:41

in general, Miller's keeping a pretty

8:44

low profile. And he starts to

8:46

come back on like Fox Business

8:48

and these type of places. They

8:51

kind of bring him in slowly.

8:53

And then he becomes a very

8:55

underrated player in the sort of

8:57

stop to steal election, denialism. trend

9:00

that leads up eventually to January

9:02

6th. He's there in the background,

9:04

people are not paying attention to

9:07

Stephen anymore, and then he funds

9:09

a new group called America First

9:11

Legal. Yeah, so obviously Trump did

9:14

not win the 2020 election, so

9:16

that left Stephen Miller without a

9:18

job. Former... administration officials, you know,

9:20

you have a few paths ahead

9:23

of you, people go on to

9:25

write books, people go on to

9:27

be cable news pundits, people go

9:30

on to sit on the boards

9:32

of non-profits, yada yada, yada, yada.

9:34

But Stephen Miller is an ideal

9:37

log. So what he does is

9:39

he joins up with two other

9:41

Trump administration staffers, Gene Hamilton, who

9:44

was a, I believe, DOJ attorney

9:46

in the first Trump administration, and

9:48

Matt Whittaker. And Matt Whittaker. who

9:50

was the acting US Attorney General

9:53

after Jeff Sessions resigned during the

9:55

first administration. And what America First

9:57

Legal is, is basically the far

10:00

right legal arm of the MAGA

10:02

movement. I've seen it described

10:04

in media as like the

10:07

suit-wearing attorney foot soldiers of

10:09

the administration. You know,

10:11

even though the Trump

10:13

administration is just fucking

10:15

flooding courts with lawsuits,

10:17

this is an organization that's

10:19

flooding them with all kinds

10:22

of other lawsuits. And a

10:24

lot of them on issues

10:26

that are maybe even too

10:28

hot or too weird or

10:30

esoteric for the administration to

10:32

even jump into. I mean,

10:34

I'm sure that's going to

10:37

age very poorly over the

10:39

next few years, but so

10:41

they filed lawsuits or motions

10:43

or supporting documents for these

10:45

lawsuits that are about immigration,

10:47

LGBTQ issues, lawsuits alleging anti-white. bias

10:50

lawsuits about DEI, social media censorship,

10:52

and they get a lot of

10:54

press. Every time they file one

10:56

of these lawsuits, they get press

10:59

coverage for it. It's a chance

11:01

for Stephen Miller to go on

11:03

TV and scream and holler and,

11:05

you know, go crazy. And when

11:07

you put the stupid dog shit

11:09

claims into a legal filing, it

11:12

gives them legitimacy, right? So the

11:14

places like Fox News and stuff

11:16

have something to work with. This,

11:18

you know, develops further. America

11:21

First Legal helps craft project

11:23

2025 and they also get

11:26

in like real deep on

11:28

the election denialist movement too

11:30

of 2024 all the lawsuits

11:33

that you know quote-unquote voter

11:35

integrity lawsuits trying to purge

11:38

voter roles trying to you

11:40

know get concessions from election

11:42

officials villainize election officials America

11:45

first legal is like at

11:47

the forefront of it. They're

11:50

at the forefront of it and

11:52

the primary criticism of America First

11:54

legal, or should be, if you

11:56

were a person who donated to

11:58

them or anything like that. Also,

12:00

I should point out, they've had

12:02

some absolutely hilarious ads. Okay, I'm

12:05

going to send you a sound

12:07

bite for that. If anyone who

12:09

listens to the show is also

12:12

a fan of breaking bad or

12:14

better call Saul, those beloved series,

12:16

you may notice, you know, kind

12:19

of a similar, you know, I'll

12:21

just let you listen to it.

12:23

Who are a victim of bigotry,

12:26

disguised as diversity or equity, please

12:28

contact us now? at one eight

12:31

seven seven AFL, five four, five

12:33

four, that's one eight seven AFL,

12:35

five, four, five four, or AAF

12:38

Legal.org/hotline, racism must be defeated. Thank

12:40

you. Yeah, and America First lawsuits,

12:42

for people who donate to these,

12:45

I mean, they should be highly

12:47

critical because they are really primarily

12:49

designed to create media coverage. But

12:52

there is some savvy to it.

12:54

Because the media coverage forces people

12:56

to report on issues that Miller

12:59

wants them to be talking about

13:01

in the press. And he has

13:03

always been one of the smartest

13:06

propagandists, even if you think he's

13:08

the most horrible person in America,

13:10

and he may arguably be. But

13:13

he is very good. at getting

13:15

people to talk about the things

13:18

they want to talk about. That's

13:20

why he gets positive press sometimes

13:22

in the New York Times, it

13:25

seems. And that's why also, you

13:27

know, he was, when you look

13:29

at what he was doing with

13:32

Brightpart, that's why he was doing

13:34

it. He wasn't talking to Katie

13:36

McHugh, he was talking to Katie

13:39

McHugh, because he wanted the culture

13:41

around conservatism to move. to the

13:43

beat of his drum. So he

13:46

does things like he, like, like,

13:48

like, he sues Kellogg for trying

13:50

to sexualize its products, right? You

13:53

know, I've been saying that about

13:55

Tony the Tiger. It's just, it's

13:57

distracting. It's way too distracting. You

14:00

know, I hear he's like a

14:02

really, a really. macho top. Anyway,

14:05

the, so specialize this product and,

14:07

and NASCAR for discriminating against white

14:09

drivers, which is completely insane, considering

14:12

that white drivers have formed like

14:14

the entire brand of NASCAR going

14:16

back to its foundings. But God

14:19

forbid, they try to reach out

14:21

to, you know, people of color

14:23

and try to expand their

14:25

business. So things like that

14:27

ultimately. end up forming the

14:30

kind of intellectual foundation, if

14:32

you want to call it

14:35

an intellectual anything, of what

14:37

becomes 2025 Trumpism. The new

14:40

version of Stephen Miller is

14:42

one that is kind of

14:45

forged. in his time experimenting with

14:47

these lawsuits. And he's sort of

14:49

trying to figure out ways, I

14:51

think, to execute. And he's dealing

14:53

with the frustration of just having

14:55

his kind of clown show legal

14:57

operation and not being able to

15:00

execute on his desires. And he's

15:02

trying to figure out how do

15:04

I get... these things done in

15:06

a fundamental way and we know

15:08

that he believes that we know

15:10

that he has the values of

15:12

any white now any other white

15:14

nationalist we know that he's extraordinarily

15:17

bigoted against Muslims from his history

15:19

and now he gets into power

15:21

and he starts executing on his

15:23

fantasies which brings us to today

15:26

in terms of immigration he is

15:28

on TV a lot defending it

15:30

and it seems like even when he's

15:33

getting a friendly interview on

15:35

Fox News it's like some sort

15:37

of switch goes off in his

15:39

head and he just turns into

15:42

this like rabid animal

15:44

it's it's like if

15:46

I have you know

15:48

a spoonful of peanut

15:50

butter in front of

15:52

my dog it's like

15:55

what Stephen Miller turns

15:57

into he's just like

15:59

rah-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh- Because that does seem to

16:01

be what you're arguing here. These same,

16:03

these same district court judges didn't

16:05

do a damn thing to stop

16:07

Joe Biden from flooding this nation

16:09

with millions of illegal aliens. Do

16:11

these district court judges didn't issue

16:13

any injunctions to save the lives

16:15

of Josslyn Hungary or Lake O'Reilly

16:18

or any one else? Is that what you're

16:20

saying? What you said, there's a separation

16:22

of powers. The judiciary exercises

16:24

judgment and relief. I don't

16:26

speak for the White House. You are here

16:28

to speak for the White House. You're here

16:31

to speak for the White House. I just

16:33

want you to answer that one simple

16:35

question. Okay? He just melts down.

16:37

But despite this, there's sort of

16:39

like a half real, half ironic

16:42

embrace of Stephen Miller among maga

16:44

supporters that I don't remember seeing

16:46

during the first Trump

16:48

administration. He was in the

16:50

first Trump administration, the kind

16:53

of the propagandist online, didn't

16:55

like him. And part of the

16:57

reason is the most kind of

16:59

hip, for lack of a better

17:01

word, because he's the most awful

17:04

people he can imagine, people on

17:06

the vanguard of Trumpism were actually

17:08

anti-Semitic, and Miller is Jewish. And

17:11

so you didn't have like a

17:13

full embrace by the kind of...

17:15

crowd that liked Richard Spencer or

17:17

the Right Stuff Network, like Michael

17:19

Penovich and that sort of thing.

17:21

They were skeptical of him because

17:23

he's Jewish and he's pro-Israel.

17:25

But now you have this kind of blend

17:28

between sort of white nationalism

17:30

and pro-Israel politics that kind

17:32

of coincides with what's going

17:34

on with MAGA now. And

17:36

you see these kind of

17:38

online activists posting these things

17:40

with that sort of like

17:42

vapor wave like... style with like flashy

17:44

like kind of degrading graphics that

17:46

say things like you're due to

17:49

be processed by ice right in

17:51

a picture with a picture of

17:53

Stephen Miller looking insane and they're

17:55

kind of like the memes around

17:57

them are almost people embracing the

17:59

fact that Miller looks always sweaty

18:01

and insane like they're kind

18:03

of like that's our guy now. I

18:06

don't remember that being the case

18:08

either in 20s from 2016 to

18:10

2020. Stephen Miller and I should

18:12

note in conjunction with his wife

18:14

Katie Miller have emerged in the

18:16

second Trump administration even more so

18:19

during the first one as power

18:21

players and this has gotten him

18:23

some glossy coverage in the New

18:25

York Times that's like you know

18:28

classic Batman villain kind of thing.

18:30

In all of those stories, I

18:32

always slam my head against the

18:34

wall because you have to scroll

18:37

down to paragraph like 800 and

18:39

then they're like, yeah, so

18:41

he's like pretty racist though. And

18:43

it's just like, I don't know,

18:46

I mean, I kind of feels

18:48

like that's maybe like more important

18:50

than Stephen can read a little

18:52

American Renaissance and Videre as a

18:55

treat. Yeah, yeah, I mean. Geez,

18:57

but I think his increase

18:59

to power, his his rise

19:01

even further in the second

19:03

Trump administration, I mean, he went from

19:05

being sort of like the mastermind to

19:07

the one that they, it's like a

19:10

kid on a 16th birthday, you know,

19:12

the dad walks out and throws the

19:14

keys and is like, why don't you

19:17

take it for a spin, son? It's

19:19

like that, when you look at what's

19:21

happening in immigration in America today, that

19:23

is the mental image that comes to

19:26

my mind. Is Trump, you know, throwing

19:28

the keys to the fucking cyber

19:30

truck or whatever to Stephen Miller

19:32

and being like, why don't you

19:34

take her for a spend this

19:36

time? And we're laughing about this

19:39

because if we don't laugh, we

19:41

will cry. We will cry. And,

19:43

you know, and, and, but to

19:45

be clear, nothing about what Stephen

19:47

does is funny. And, you know,

19:49

you'll, you'll hear why when, when

19:51

we speak to, Ramirez next. It's

19:53

really what he's doing. What

19:55

he wasn't able to fully

19:57

do in the first time round.

19:59

The death star is fully

20:01

operational now and it is

20:04

really really horrible. He is

20:06

ruining people's lives. He's ruining

20:08

the lives of family members.

20:10

And he's going to ruin

20:12

many more lives until we

20:14

figure out a way to

20:16

stop this administration. It's a

20:18

really scary situation. Let's go

20:20

to our interview with Mickey

20:22

Williams. Welcome

20:36

to Posting Through It. Good friend

20:38

of the pod. Nikki, what's up?

20:40

How's it going? Hey, good to

20:43

see you again. Mike, good to

20:45

almost meet you in person. This

20:47

is like a process we've been.

20:49

Yeah, well, you know, that's the

20:52

thing. We're, uh, the internet brings

20:54

us closer together. We post through

20:56

it together. So listeners can't see

20:58

this obviously because it's an audio

21:01

podcast, but Nikki's cat is chilling

21:03

on a little shelf that's like

21:05

built into her window. So we

21:07

actually have a ghost fourth mic

21:09

during this interview. Nikki, can you

21:12

introduce your cat? Yes, this is

21:14

Yoda. He's about a year and

21:16

a half old. He enjoys trying

21:18

to fight pigeons and contemplating the

21:21

rain, which is what he's doing

21:23

right now. Also begging for treats

21:25

because you like to beg don't

21:27

you so he's a sweetie and

21:30

he's also the unofficial co-host of

21:32

my podcast American Friction so listeners

21:34

if if you're listening to the

21:36

show and your pets start going

21:38

crazy It is probably some you

21:41

know cat speak being picked up

21:43

on the mic You know Nikki's

21:45

cat is known to have some

21:47

rather provocative takes on immigration. So

21:50

that might be what's happening. No,

21:52

but Nikki we wanted to have

21:54

you on this episode because you

21:56

wrote a piece in the outlet

21:59

you write for Rolling Stone about

22:01

the what you call judicial black

22:03

hole of the prison in El

22:05

Salvador, that the Trump administration is

22:08

something planes full of people to,

22:10

some of whom they have admitted

22:12

erroneously. For people who are

22:14

out of the loop who only come

22:16

to posting through it to get

22:19

their news and are maybe hearing

22:21

about this for the first time,

22:23

what has been happening around this

22:25

prison? There's been a lot of

22:27

media coverage. I saw 60 minutes

22:30

covered it. What is going on

22:32

here? Yeah, so the prison is called

22:34

the Terrorism Confignment Center in

22:36

Spanish. The acronym it's known

22:38

by an is SECOT. And

22:40

the thing I think people

22:42

need to understand about SECOT

22:45

is it is sort of

22:47

the culmination of Naibuquele El

22:49

Salvador's president, the culmination

22:51

of all of the propaganda. and

22:53

all of the sort of state

22:56

erosion, he's undergone to take control

22:58

of El Salvador's institutions and hold

23:00

on to that power. I think

23:02

one of the things that in

23:05

the interviews we did for this

23:07

piece really stood out to me

23:09

is how many people told me

23:11

that secote is the public face

23:13

of a much more dangerous, much

23:16

more lawless prison system for which

23:18

the prison itself secote this like

23:20

state of the art massive complex.

23:22

functions as both a negotiation

23:25

tactic for some of the transnational

23:27

gangs that operate out of El

23:29

Salvador and we can get into

23:31

that in a bit. But also as

23:33

almost a a film stage, a sound

23:35

stage for the Buchale regime and

23:38

the Trump administration, it's a place

23:40

where they send people and have

23:42

already, and already have all

23:44

the equipment set up to

23:47

film the landing, the soldiers

23:49

man handling these prisoners, whether

23:51

they're you know, deportees from

23:53

the United States or people

23:56

in El Salvador. It's a

23:58

very crafted image. of

24:00

this sort of state-sponsored repression

24:02

that is taking place in El

24:04

Salvador under the state of exemption,

24:07

but what people need to understand is

24:09

the people in El Salvador who are

24:11

being put into the system, who are

24:13

being sent into the system from the

24:15

United States, aren't necessarily

24:18

staying in Secot. We have at this

24:20

point no guarantee of where these people

24:22

actually are, because from what I

24:24

learn speaking to these human rights

24:26

activists, people who work in El

24:28

Salvador, Transfers are frequent.

24:30

The right to habeas corpus is not

24:32

respected. One of the activists I

24:35

spoke to said that they know

24:37

have at least 7,000 writs of

24:39

habeas corpus sent to the El

24:41

Salvadoran Supreme Court asking them to,

24:43

hey, we need you to produce

24:45

this prisoner because they have a

24:47

right to do process. Only 1%

24:49

of those petitions have been

24:51

reviewed or argued in favor of

24:53

the people. So we are in effect, well,

24:56

I'm not going to say we, sorry. The

24:58

Trump administration is in

25:00

effect sending these people into,

25:02

like Jared said, a judicial black

25:05

hole. A place where we don't necessarily

25:07

know where they are. Their lawyers

25:09

do not have access to them.

25:11

Their families have no way to

25:13

contact them. And in many cases,

25:15

figure out if they're even

25:17

alive. It is a place where

25:20

the El Salvadoran government has been

25:22

disappearing over 100,000 people

25:24

into for the last three

25:26

years. And now the United

25:28

States is dumping people into

25:30

that same system and pretending

25:33

they have no control over

25:35

their safety and future. So

25:37

how did we get there

25:39

where the United States is

25:41

exporting people they accuse of

25:43

being gang members, undocumented migrants?

25:45

I say that almost with

25:47

air quotes because the people

25:49

that they're sending there are

25:51

not afforded a chance to

25:53

defend themselves in court or

25:55

or refute any of those

25:57

claims. But we now have very

25:59

solid. reporting indicating that the majority

26:02

of these people had no

26:04

convictions or criminal record whatsoever.

26:06

So how did we get there?

26:08

Why is the Trump administration

26:10

sending them to El Salvador?

26:12

Why not a Super Max in

26:15

Colorado or something? Well it's

26:17

primarily a show of force and

26:19

there's a couple things we have

26:21

to consider here. The first

26:23

thing is immigration detention by

26:25

virtue of the fact that like

26:28

crossing the border illegally does

26:30

not constitute like a crime. in

26:32

this country, it's not something that

26:35

you get tried in front

26:37

of a jury for. Immigration detention

26:39

is not supposed to be punitive.

26:41

The government has the capacity

26:43

to hold people in detention centers

26:46

while they await deportation, in some

26:48

cases while they adjudicate their

26:50

immigration cases, but you're not

26:52

supposed to, you know, put these

26:55

people in solitary confinement, which

26:57

is what I say supposed to,

26:59

it happens regularly. We know... decades

27:02

of documented abuse in US

27:04

immigration detention centers. But since the

27:06

first Trump administration throughout the entirety

27:08

of the campaign, you have

27:10

heard this message from Trump from

27:13

his Republican allies that describes immigration

27:15

enforcement as almost a vengeful

27:17

practice, as something punitive, as

27:19

something to almost get back at

27:22

these people and cultures who

27:24

are coming to the United States.

27:26

And as deterrence, right? Like if

27:28

they make the process uncomfortable

27:30

and make the people that they

27:33

do round up suffer, then people

27:35

will quote unquote self-deport. I

27:37

was watching local news the other

27:40

day and there's a DHS commercial

27:42

that was just like, you

27:44

know, has Christie Noam gated

27:46

up and battle rattle or whatever,

27:48

basically saying like... You better

27:50

get out. Yeah, no, and...

27:53

We can talk

27:55

about her and

27:57

the cosplay she's

28:00

doing as an

28:02

immigration enforcement

28:04

agent. For someone who's

28:06

so good at shooting her own dogs,

28:08

you'd think she'd have like better rifle discipline

28:10

and no, not to point it at

28:13

one of her agent's heads, but that's another

28:15

story. The thing that

28:17

the Trump administration runs into

28:19

here is that the United States

28:21

does have a constitution and

28:23

laws, however inconsistently they're enforced that

28:26

do prevent them from taking

28:28

a punitive stance to

28:30

immigration enforcement, to

28:32

doing those things that would

28:34

qualify as cruel and unusual punishment and

28:36

violate the rights of these people. So

28:39

what we saw was the

28:41

Trump administration essentially, from

28:44

the reporting we've gotten planned out,

28:46

these roundups, the roundup of it

28:48

was about three plain loads of

28:50

primarily Venezuelan migrants and some Salvadoran

28:52

migrants. And what

28:54

they attempted to do was get them in the

28:56

air and to El Salvador before the courts could

28:59

intervene and they managed to do it. But

29:01

a D .C. district,

29:03

circuit court judge, Judge Bausberg, attempted

29:07

to halt the planes from taking

29:09

off. The Trump administration tried

29:11

to invoke this century law

29:13

known as the Alien Enemies

29:15

Act, which basically allows the

29:17

executive branch to round up

29:19

and deport people without any

29:21

due process in times of

29:23

war. The most notorious use

29:26

of this law was during World

29:28

War II when thousands of Japanese Americans,

29:30

Japanese immigrants were rounded up and

29:32

put in concentration camps States. Something we've

29:34

been forced to apologize for publicly.

29:36

Yes. So they tried to invoke

29:38

this law, tried to put these, like

29:40

they put these people on planes, sent

29:42

them to El Salvador. And then when

29:44

the judge attempted to intervene said, oh

29:46

my God, they're out of U .S. airspace.

29:48

We no longer have control or jurisdiction

29:50

over these planes and these people. The

29:52

big caveat there is that the United

29:54

States is actually paying Bukele's government, something

29:56

to the tune of at least $6

29:58

million. It could be. more to hold these

30:01

prisoners in El Salvador's prisons. Also

30:03

the notion that the US being

30:05

the superpower it is cannot just

30:07

tell little old El Salvador like,

30:09

hey, I need you to put

30:11

those people back on those planes

30:13

and send them the fuck back

30:15

is ludicrous. The United States absolutely

30:18

has the power to do it.

30:20

It simply won't. And now what

30:22

we have is a court battle

30:24

that has made it all the

30:26

way up to the Supreme Supreme

30:28

Court, which is basically, the court

30:30

argument is do people have rights.

30:32

Does someone in the custody of

30:34

the United States have rights? Whether

30:36

you're an immigrant, whether you're being

30:39

held on criminal charges, the concept

30:41

of habeas corpus, the right to

30:43

contest your detention, is a fundamental

30:45

principle of American law, of law

30:47

throughout the world. And if the

30:49

Trump administration is testing the limits

30:51

of that right, it speaks to

30:53

a whole other host of legal

30:55

crises that could emerge. To that

30:57

I'll say that in the last

30:59

week, we've seen Trump and members

31:02

of his administration float the possibility

31:04

of deporting US citizens. Right. On

31:06

that note, you know, it seems

31:08

to be like one of many.

31:10

potential inflection points around this, you

31:12

know, are we a fascist country?

31:14

Have we become a fascist country?

31:16

When do we become it? I

31:18

mean, it's a word that's that's

31:20

so heavy that people have a

31:23

hard time wrestling with it. But

31:25

it is kind of important about

31:27

like when do we lose any

31:29

idea, you know, any concept of

31:31

being a republic? One thing that's

31:33

that stands out to me and

31:35

what you said so far is,

31:37

is it being a stage, right?

31:39

The prison itself being a stage

31:41

and propaganda is so important to

31:44

fascist regimes, and it seems to

31:46

be like so important to Bukale.

31:48

I want to just do a

31:50

quick aside, which is that MS-13

31:52

is really bad. They've done some

31:54

like absolutely horrific things, particularly to,

31:56

you know, to Latino people, in

31:58

places like in Long Island, for

32:00

instance. Not far from where I

32:02

live, you know, in Suffolk County,

32:04

there are people getting butchered with

32:07

machetes. I've done some reporting on

32:09

it. It's horrible. So MS-13

32:11

is bad. However, this show of force

32:13

seems to be, the emphasis seems

32:15

to be around the show. And,

32:17

you know, and I'm just curious,

32:20

you know, is there any, how do

32:22

you think that that is playing, you

32:24

know, among the type of people they're

32:26

trying to scare? I mean, like,

32:28

in terms of immigrants, I mean,

32:30

is it actually scaring immigrants? This

32:33

is actually keeping people from coming

32:35

to the country. Like, what is

32:37

the effect of this propaganda? How

32:39

effective is it, I guess? It's very

32:41

effective. And to your point about MS-13

32:44

and this all being a show, there

32:46

is nothing stopping the United States from

32:48

arresting a member of MS-13 trying him

32:51

in criminal court and keeping him in

32:53

a US prison. Mike, you're completely right.

32:55

The idea is... that the cruelty is

32:57

the point and the cruelty is a

32:59

deterrent. We're already seeing reports from airlines

33:01

and other groups that monitor, you know,

33:04

travel to the United States and tourism,

33:06

saying that tourism is really down in

33:08

a year that, you know, a lot of travel

33:10

companies expected to be a boom

33:12

for the United States. That was just

33:14

getting back, you know, post-pandemic. We were

33:17

like, during the pandemic, no one was

33:19

traveling, airlines have sort of been experiencing

33:21

this bump. They were hoping for a

33:23

really good year this year this year.

33:25

people are scared to come to the

33:28

United States. I'm Mexican. I have a

33:30

lot of relatives who are on, you

33:32

know, advanced parole and visas and green

33:34

cards, and I am currently planning my

33:37

wedding in Mexico. A big question

33:39

my very large family is dealing with

33:41

is, okay, if people come to Mexico

33:43

for the wedding, is there a risk

33:45

of people not being allowed back

33:47

in when they come to the

33:49

United States? It's raising all these

33:51

questions. I have friends who are Palestinian,

33:54

who are also on, you know,

33:56

temporary protected status,

33:58

friends from Venice. people

34:00

who have been trying to get

34:03

their green cards for years, who

34:05

now feel if I step one

34:07

toe out of line, if I

34:10

get the wrong customs agent coming

34:12

back into the country, all these

34:14

years I've invested in the legal

34:17

immigration process could just go to

34:19

shit. And that doesn't even begin

34:21

to cover the feeling that undocumented

34:24

migrants have right now. Yeah. I

34:26

mean, of course, the United States

34:29

has been scary to parts of

34:31

the world, you know, throughout its

34:33

history. So let's not mince words

34:36

about that. But, you know, I

34:38

mean, but this just, this idea

34:40

of becoming kind of a, like

34:43

a cactus, right, where nobody wants

34:45

to touch us, is quite depressing

34:48

for me. I know all of

34:50

this sounds concerning, but at least

34:52

everything's gonna get, like, grossly more

34:55

expensive. too. So like, at least

34:57

there's no more woke in the

34:59

schools. Yeah, Jesus. So all of

35:02

this is, of course, concerning, I

35:04

mean, you detail some of the

35:07

allegations that have been made about

35:09

the prison conditions in this center

35:11

in El Salvador, including torture, just

35:14

gross human rights abuses. I think

35:16

it's important to know that once

35:18

people are sent there, There's not

35:21

like a time frame, right? They're

35:23

just being handed over to the

35:25

government. Effectively, I mean, for American's

35:28

sake, disappeared, right? What happens to

35:30

them when they get to El

35:33

Salvador? The administration is just kind

35:35

of like, well, I don't know,

35:37

you know, we're just, you know,

35:40

a little small being the United

35:42

States, what are we gonna do?

35:44

You know, but in terms of

35:47

like, obviously this has generated a

35:49

lot of outrage, it seems like

35:52

every... New piece of reporting that

35:54

comes out about what's happening with

35:56

this is just more damning than

35:59

the next. But what is the

36:01

Trump administration and its allies telling

36:03

the MAGA base? Right? I mean,

36:06

I think to anybody who is

36:08

ingesting the facts of the matter,

36:11

the concerns are pretty obvious, not

36:13

just in terms of what's happening

36:15

to these people, but if it

36:18

succeeds and goes through court and

36:20

the Trump administration really does say,

36:22

well, what are you going to

36:25

do about it, huh? And the

36:27

answer is effectively nothing. Like

36:29

all what that means for

36:32

Americans and like just random

36:34

people who might dissent from

36:36

the administration. What are they

36:39

telling their base? How are

36:41

they rationalizing it? Because it

36:43

seems like whether you turn

36:45

on Fox News or go

36:47

through the cesspool that is

36:49

Twitter now. It's like to maga

36:51

supporters, from my

36:53

perspective, it's like not clicking. And

36:56

I'm just curious, even if it's

36:58

bullshit, like what is the message

37:00

they're hearing about this? The message MAGA

37:02

is getting here is that if

37:04

you oppose the actions the Trump

37:06

administration is taking against these deportees

37:08

to El Salvador, Palestinian students

37:10

and professors who are getting stripped

37:12

of their green cards and deported

37:15

to countries that they may not

37:17

even have a connection to at

37:19

this point anymore, all the chatter

37:21

about deporting US citizens. is if you

37:23

do not support this, or not if

37:25

you do not support this, the people

37:27

who are opposed to us doing this

37:29

support the terrorists and

37:31

the criminals and they don't want

37:34

to bet America to be more safe

37:36

and they are prioritizing these

37:38

criminal immigrants over you and

37:40

your safety. That is the

37:42

drumbeat that is being sounded all

37:44

over Fox News, all over mega media

37:46

on the sort of right wing fever

37:49

swamps of the internet. It's a message

37:51

that. I think Noah Bullock, the director of

37:53

Cristo Sal, who I interviewed for the

37:55

piece, laid out really well, and it's

37:57

the same message that Pukele used to

37:59

just... his own crackdown against criminal

38:02

gangs and what he called terrorist groups

38:04

and his attacks against the judiciary,

38:06

it was, I need you to

38:08

sacrifice some of my, your rights,

38:10

temporarily, of course, temporarily, I'll give

38:12

them back. It was supposed to

38:14

be 30 days, it's now been

38:16

three years in El Salvador, in

38:19

exchange for your security, in exchange

38:21

for the security of the state.

38:23

And that is a false bargain,

38:25

because the person in power, when you...

38:27

relinquish your rights, even thinking that

38:29

it's temporary, even thinking that it's going

38:32

to be good for you because they're

38:34

getting the bad guys. They're getting the

38:36

enemy from within, the poison and in

38:38

the blood, as Trump called it during

38:40

the campaign. They're not going to give

38:43

that back to you. Bukelle used what

38:45

was supposed to be, a 30-day suspension of

38:47

rights in order to crack down on the

38:49

gangs. He has turned that into a

38:51

three-year state of exemption where he

38:53

has militarized the country, taken over

38:55

the court, taken over the

38:57

equivalent of their attorney general,

39:00

tossed tens of thousands of

39:02

people into prisons without due

39:05

process, without trials. Gristo

39:07

Sal estimates that hundreds, if

39:09

not over a thousand people,

39:11

have been killed in prisons

39:13

in El Salvador over the course

39:15

of that period. And at the

39:18

end of the day, what Buchelle did

39:20

was reinterpret the constitution

39:22

of El Salvador to re-elect

39:25

himself. What Trump and Republicans

39:27

are asking of the American people

39:29

of their supporters is kind of

39:31

the same thing Buchelle asked of

39:34

people in El Salvador. It was ignore

39:36

these overreaches, ignore what we're doing

39:38

to your rights and these principles

39:40

because we're not doing it to you

39:43

right now. We're doing it to these people. And

39:45

the problem with living in a

39:47

fascist regime is not a zero

39:49

or one. It's not a switch

39:51

that one day you're a completely

39:54

fine Republican. and the next something

39:56

breaks and you live under

39:58

the regime, it is a... step

40:00

by step, period by period, era

40:02

by era decline. And once you

40:05

lose something to people who use

40:07

power in this method, it's incredibly

40:09

difficult to get it back. And

40:12

what's being teed up here, in

40:14

this particular case, with the migrant

40:17

who were deported to El Salvador,

40:19

is a clash between the Supreme

40:21

Court and the president. Because the

40:24

Supreme Court said, you have to

40:26

try and bring back Kilmara Rego

40:28

Garcia. a migrant who the United

40:31

States government, the DOJ, admitted was

40:33

wrongfully deported, and the executive branch

40:35

is now saying, we don't know

40:38

if we can do that, like,

40:40

we don't know how long it'll

40:43

take. The theoretical principle was when

40:45

the Supreme Court rules on something,

40:47

it's final. How does the Supreme

40:50

Court go about enforcing that ruling?

40:52

It's a major question that challenges

40:54

a lot of the constitutional principles

40:57

that theoretically keep this government stable.

40:59

So... I was going to say,

41:02

you know, JD Vance, Stephen Miller,

41:04

they are currently, you know, trying

41:06

to associate Mr. Garcia with MS-13

41:09

without any evidence that he ever

41:11

had anything to do with it.

41:13

And on the note of what

41:16

Maggie is hearing, there has been,

41:18

I think we lose track of

41:21

how long, but it's really been

41:23

almost a 10-year period of steady

41:25

propaganda dehumanizing. people who are from

41:28

Mexican origin or from Latin America

41:30

and associating them with drug dealers,

41:32

associating them with gangs, regardless of

41:35

what they may have to do

41:37

with those things or not. And

41:40

I think that that is really

41:42

benefiting them in the same way,

41:44

right, like, you know, using Palestinian,

41:47

it's like, obviously, I have Palestinians

41:49

and Arabs in my family, but

41:51

using that as a slur. against

41:54

Chuck Schumer because he just slowed

41:56

just an inch of compassion, maybe

41:59

barely, towards Palestinian's. I mean, I

42:01

think we can't underrate how potent

42:03

that has been, just like that,

42:06

just using social media to dehumanize

42:08

and other. people in the op-ed

42:10

pages of you know this nation's

42:13

biggest newspapers and stuff that are

42:15

just like, oh no, it's a

42:18

crisis. Where is the voice of

42:20

reason? I should just, you know,

42:22

I think we could just look

42:25

at like CPAC, the Flagship Conservative

42:27

Conference, and the fact that they've

42:29

been bringing in people like the

42:32

president of El Salvador, like Victor

42:34

Orban of Hungary, like, uh, Bolsonaro,

42:37

like, and they're very clear. They're

42:39

like, these guys rock, these dudes

42:41

are awesome. and like this this

42:44

this writing was on the wall

42:46

for so long I can't say

42:48

I'm terribly surprised but it is

42:51

just on a on a deep

42:53

core level just heartbreaking to watch

42:56

I don't know but pivoting Christie

42:58

no famous dog assassin the hounds

43:00

of this I think we need

43:03

to I need to explain the

43:05

dog assassin I don't know if

43:07

it's famous to everybody in the

43:10

audience people have heard it but

43:12

She had a dog named Cricket

43:14

in her book, talked about, you

43:17

know, Cricket was badly behaved, and

43:19

she had tried everything, and then

43:22

she had to do what was

43:24

right, and just gone the dog

43:26

down, essentially, right? And then there

43:29

was, but even more disturbing. There

43:31

was a goat who she, speaking

43:33

of, it's not dehuman, but whatever

43:36

you do to an animal, taking

43:38

the soul out of it, basically

43:41

just described this goat as being

43:43

like smelly. you know, mean go

43:45

mean is smelly and just you

43:48

know blew its head off. She

43:50

has been appearing in in images

43:52

around this prison. Yeah, she actually

43:55

took a trip to El Salvador

43:57

where she went into And this

44:00

is what I mean when it's,

44:02

you know, it's a propaganda sound

44:04

stage. It's built practically with

44:07

studio lighting. It's these

44:09

massive cells where they're holding

44:11

dozens of people on like

44:13

four layer bunk beds. Everyone

44:16

is shirtless so they can show

44:18

the tattoos. And I will note

44:21

there that like prominent gangs stopped

44:23

tattooing people as a symbol

44:26

of affiliation years ago. because

44:28

it made identifying them incredibly easy. So one

44:30

of the things that Noah pointed out to

44:32

me in our interview was if you

44:35

look at some of the images of these

44:37

people who are really heavily tatted, the majority

44:39

of them look older. They look like middle-aged

44:41

men. And it's because the gangs stop

44:44

doing this and El Salvador's government kind

44:46

of selects very intentionally who they keep

44:48

in secote. what they look like, what

44:50

the visual is. Oh, that's fascinating. So

44:53

there's sort of like central casting for

44:55

which gang members they want to showcase

44:57

as like trophies, which is really, that's,

44:59

that's, that's, that's, actually when you think

45:01

about it, I was like really dark.

45:03

Now I know that we live in

45:06

a country where as soon as you,

45:08

the people suspect you have being a

45:10

criminal of any kind, where you're a

45:12

prisoner or whatever, that for many Americans,

45:14

you're not a human being being being

45:16

anymore, advocates, but that is like really

45:19

like, that's like really fucked up. That's

45:21

like Disney movie villain like evil shit

45:23

that you would do to an animal. And

45:25

but doing it to a doing it to

45:27

a human being. Oh yeah. And you

45:29

also see how these people are like

45:32

treated within these propaganda videos. It's like

45:34

the like holding them down and shaving

45:36

their heads, the making them like sit

45:38

and kneel against each other in really

45:40

weird stress positions. If you look at

45:42

some of the images coming out of

45:45

Sekot, then some of the photos we

45:47

got out of Guantanamo, the similarities are

45:49

horrendous. And the photos we got out

45:51

of Guantanamo, the photos we got out

45:53

of Abu Ghraib, those were incredibly

45:55

damaging to the public perception of

45:57

the United States' war efforts post-9.

46:00

11, which were bad in and of themselves, but

46:02

those images kind of killed the

46:04

notion that we were on some

46:06

moral crusade to like liberate these

46:08

people from their oppressors. We were

46:11

very clearly the oppressors. I mean,

46:13

it's very similar to cable news coverage

46:15

of the Vietnam War, right? Yeah,

46:17

absolutely. But the thing

46:19

that's fascinating is now we see

46:21

Kristi Noem making a pilgrimage down

46:23

to this prison to pose

46:25

in front of these detainees wearing

46:27

a $50 ,000 Rolex and talking

46:29

about how, oh, if we

46:31

catch you doing stuff, we'll send

46:34

you here. We will send

46:36

you to this hub of abuse

46:38

and torture and mistreatment. And

46:40

again, I want to stress the point

46:42

that like Mike, you nailed it.

46:44

It is central casting. The majority of

46:46

prisoners in El Salvador are not

46:48

held in Sikot. There is a body

46:50

of evidence that Bukele really doesn't

46:52

like people talking about that points to

46:55

that indicates that Sikot was built

46:57

almost kind of in collaboration with some

47:00

of these gangs. When Bukele

47:02

came into power, the first

47:04

thing he tried wasn't the state

47:06

of exemption. It was to

47:08

kind of negotiate with the gangs

47:10

like, hey, stop killing each

47:12

other. We'll make some deals. We'll

47:14

give you better prison conditions.

47:16

We want to get the murder

47:18

rate down. And it's fairly well

47:21

documented, but Sikot

47:23

is never full. It has

47:25

far comparative to other prisons in

47:27

El Salvador, far nicer installations. And

47:29

they get to pick and

47:31

choose who stays there. So again,

47:33

we have no guarantee

47:36

that the people that were sent from

47:38

the United States to Sikot for

47:40

those propaganda spots are still there. Because

47:42

in El Salvador, there is no

47:44

way to track a prisoner unless the government

47:47

directly tells you where they are and

47:49

they don't do that. There are hundreds of

47:51

families who don't know if the person

47:53

that they are looking for is even alive.

47:55

Yeah, supposedly the record keeping is

47:57

extremely bad in that country. in

48:00

general, and I'm sure it's deliberately

48:02

worse around this. Oh, yeah. You

48:04

know, I just wanted to freeze

48:07

real quick about, like, you know,

48:09

we mentioned that they're, like, their

48:11

bodies, because I've seen people kind

48:14

of, like, assembled on top of

48:16

each other, this, like, really dehumanizing,

48:18

kind of, just, like, just like,

48:20

look what we can do with

48:23

these, you know, like, like, like,

48:25

like, they're clay or something. in

48:27

such a sadistic environment. It's like

48:30

so it sadism is the word

48:32

that I keep coming back to

48:34

in my head because it really

48:37

is you're you're punting the United

48:39

States case we're punishing people for

48:41

not having proper documentation because theoretically

48:44

being aligned with MS-13 is not

48:46

a crime. It's what evidence 13

48:48

does that is criminal, right?

48:50

So you have these people like you're

48:53

doing these sadistic things. I am

48:55

Sure, but I don't know for

48:57

sure but like sadism kind of

48:59

filters down always from the top I'm

49:01

sure that the Treatments of prisoners

49:04

within each you know to each other

49:06

must be pretty brutal Do you have

49:08

any idea like how people are how

49:10

people living here? What kind of

49:12

you know abuse are they going through

49:15

on a day-to-day basis? I've only read

49:17

a little bit of it, but it sounds

49:19

just horrible Yeah, absolutely

49:21

and Cristosal has a plethora

49:23

of very detailed reports about the

49:26

cases they've analyzed, the testimonies they've

49:28

heard from some people who've gotten out

49:30

because a year or two ago the

49:33

El Salvadoran government was forced to concede

49:35

that they had wrongfully arrested people and

49:37

released a couple thousand prisoners. That

49:40

is a drop in the bucket compared to

49:42

the people who are still in the system.

49:44

They have documented thousands of reports of torture.

49:46

Obviously it is a bit of a doggy

49:48

dog world in... A lot of Latin American prisons,

49:51

and I can kind of attest to this

49:53

because I did some work with a local

49:55

juvenile detention center when I lived in Mexico

49:57

and Guadalajara. The state does not provide for

49:59

a lot of your basic needs,

50:01

like you'll get fed, you'll have

50:04

a bed, but most things like

50:06

toilet paper, toothpaste, like basic goods

50:08

you need for hygiene and self

50:10

maintenance, need to be provided to

50:13

you either by your family, someone

50:15

who knows you, or like a

50:17

nonprofit who collects them and brings

50:19

them to the prison, which is

50:21

what I did when I was

50:24

in Mexico. In El Salvador, that's

50:26

the system. So you have. All

50:28

these people who are grouped together

50:30

in very poor conditions, who are

50:32

essentially like fighting for resources, where

50:35

families and Gristo Sal has collected

50:37

a ton of testimony from families

50:39

who say like, hey, we're spending

50:41

like 120, 150 bucks a month

50:43

on this package of goods for

50:46

the person from our family who's

50:48

been disappeared into this prison. We

50:50

take the goods, we don't know

50:52

if they get them, we don't

50:55

know what happens, there's plenty of

50:57

evidence that sometimes guards just keep

50:59

this stuff for themselves. that it's

51:01

withheld from prisoners. So you do

51:03

have a lot of interprisoner violence

51:06

that that happens. It happens in

51:08

any prison system. On top of

51:10

that, you have a level of

51:12

impunity among the guards, the staff

51:14

that manifests in horrendous tales of

51:17

abuse, torture, murder. Christosal has so

51:19

one of the things that Christosal

51:21

did in a I think 2023

51:23

report that we mentioned in the

51:25

article. is they got a hold

51:28

of some reports from El Salvador's

51:30

Forensic Medical Institute, which had analyzed,

51:32

I think, a couple dozen prisoner

51:34

deaths. And in the autopsy reports,

51:37

it was abundantly clear that these

51:39

people had been tortured, lacerations, bruising,

51:41

internal organ damage. But what will

51:43

happen is that the government, in

51:45

a lot of these cases, will

51:48

just say... Oh, they died of

51:50

kidney failure. Because the other thing

51:52

that happens here is they don't

51:54

have access to clean water. They

51:56

don't, you know, the nutrition is...

51:59

So you'll have 24 25 year

52:01

olds who had no previous medical conditions

52:03

going into these prisons and dying

52:05

of kidney failure within six months.

52:07

Or dying in a hospital after

52:09

getting emergency release because they got

52:11

beaten so badly they're intestine exploded.

52:13

Those are the kinds of stories

52:16

coming out of these prisons and

52:18

you best believe that the people

52:20

who are being sent there by the

52:22

United States probably aren't getting

52:24

special treatment. I mean, you would

52:26

almost imagine the opposite, right? Because

52:28

you have a bunch of people

52:31

from the US showing up in this

52:33

prison that, you know, they may have

52:35

no connection to this country,

52:37

right? So they're outsiders immediately.

52:39

So I, yeah, I

52:42

certainly don't think they're

52:44

getting preferential treatment. If

52:46

anything, you would imagine

52:48

the opposite. Not only from

52:50

the prisons, but also from

52:52

the other prisoners. Right. Yeah. And

52:54

also. These prisoners who were sent

52:56

from the United States, like I said,

52:59

the local, the people who were picked

53:01

up locally and disappeared into the

53:03

system rely on their families, rely

53:05

on the community from whence they

53:07

came to help keep them alive in

53:09

the system. The majority of the families

53:11

and connections people deported from the

53:13

United States have are in the

53:16

United States. Families are there, their

53:18

lawyers are there. They also are

53:20

experiencing an extra level of

53:22

detachment. from an already broken, in

53:25

an already broken criminal system,

53:27

that's going to make it exponentially harder

53:29

to get them out without basically

53:31

a direct order from the president,

53:33

from President Trump, telling Buchelle, I

53:35

need these people back. And one of

53:37

the things I can't get out of my

53:39

head is I really hope Kimara Brago Garcia

53:42

makes it back to the United States.

53:44

I hope he is returned. When that happens,

53:46

the question that I still have in the

53:48

back of my mind is what happens to

53:50

the other 200-something people. who haven't

53:53

been deemed an exceptional case

53:55

by the United States. How do

53:57

we enforce their return? Because

53:59

as of now, it kind of feels

54:02

like that question has stalled. It seems

54:04

like something that could only be fixed

54:06

through a reckoning, like a national reckoning

54:08

about the horrors that we're causing right

54:10

now. And it's difficult to get a

54:12

handle on it because so many insane

54:14

things are happening at once. Right? Like

54:16

I said, there's all these inflection points

54:19

around the question of fascism, but like

54:21

there's just so many. And as soon

54:23

as you start thinking about. Oh, sorry.

54:25

Well, we're talking about this completely horrific

54:27

thing. Two Nikki's cats are... This is

54:29

my roommate's cat. Oh, okay, okay. Nikki's

54:31

roommate's cat are like quite literally boxing

54:33

each other while I'm talking about the

54:36

entire fall of America. But yeah, I

54:38

feel like we need a national reckoning

54:40

of some kind about these horrors. And

54:42

I, the other thing that really scares

54:44

me about it, I think, I don't

54:46

want to make people... miserable or anything

54:48

is I am afraid that things have

54:51

to get like extremely bad for that

54:53

to happen like something for that to

54:55

really break because we've seen so much

54:57

resilience of Trump's support just these people

54:59

just love Trump they can't get enough

55:01

and no matter how screwed up the

55:03

economy gets and whatever there seems to

55:05

be about a floor of about 38

55:08

to 40% of the of Trump's base

55:10

that will not budge no matter what

55:12

and that makes me really scared because

55:14

this is like a huge nightmare in

55:16

terms of human rights. That's the thing

55:18

that kind of like guts me, is

55:20

that you have all these horrific things

55:23

happen. We're literally sending people to a

55:25

torture camp in El Salvador. And the

55:27

thing that might actually break the back

55:29

of Trump's support among Republicans is the

55:31

tariffs, like is the economy. Which like,

55:33

or just a stock market. Yeah, literally.

55:35

I'm like, but if that happens, if

55:37

the like bubble of support does break,

55:40

like good, but it is just frustrating

55:42

from a human perspective that that was

55:44

it that it's not the fact that

55:46

we're subjecting these people to cruel in

55:48

human conditions that by the way very

55:50

clearly violate multiple tenants

55:52

of international law.

55:54

I'm going to shout

55:57

them out here

55:59

because everyone I talked

56:01

to said, we

56:03

got to be like

56:05

pounding this non -refalement, which

56:07

prohibits a country from sending, deporting someone

56:09

in their custody into a situation

56:11

where they might face imminent harm. And

56:14

then I've used the term a couple of times, but like

56:16

forced disappearance, which is when you

56:18

arrest someone without due process and then

56:20

claim not to know where they are

56:23

or to not have any recourse to

56:25

get them. It's not that that's like

56:27

making Republicans anxious. It's, oh my

56:29

God, Apple Apple stock is crashing.

56:31

Yeah, the which is bad.

56:33

I saw someone joke, sort

56:36

of not joke the other day that

56:38

the, you know, the last

56:40

cheeto in the door lock protecting

56:43

American democracy is

56:45

the Dow Jones industrial

56:47

average. One

56:49

hates to see it. One

56:51

hates to it. Just a

56:53

joke country. I mean, there

56:56

there's also this, you know,

56:58

inability, it seems, to point

57:00

out hypocrisy among

57:02

Trump's base and among Republicans. And

57:04

it's become completely futile. If you

57:06

think about things like, for example, the

57:08

the debate around free speech, right?

57:11

Remember that? But like that was

57:13

like a big deal for like the

57:15

last five years. mean the crisis,

57:17

Mike? Oh, the crisis around free

57:19

speech. Well, I mean, meanwhile, you know,

57:21

not only are we disappearing people

57:23

who are green card holders and

57:25

and literally for their speech. And they're

57:27

telling us as much because they

57:30

they're telling us they didn't commit any

57:32

crime. So it's just what they believe or

57:34

wrong think to use their terms. But

57:37

not only is, you know, not

57:39

only is that happening, but, you know,

57:41

they're they're threatening to take federal control

57:43

of a university,

57:45

which imagine if

57:47

the Biden administration did that to

57:49

like liberty, you know, is

57:52

it Liberty University or college Liberty University? Yeah. Yeah.

57:54

I mean, imagine they did something like that. I

57:56

mean, it would be it would be the it

57:58

would be the equivalent of like Waco tax. if

58:00

they tried something like that. Oh my

58:02

God, think about how long

58:04

has Jim Jordan been crying that

58:06

like the FBI released one memo

58:08

being like, hey, there might

58:10

be some extremists among these

58:12

like fundamentalist Catholics. It was

58:15

a memo and they've been

58:17

yelling about that holding hearings

58:19

about it for what like

58:21

two, three years now. It's

58:23

absurd, it's absurdist. Also, you

58:25

guys want some really interesting,

58:27

a little interesting breaking sound

58:29

bite that is quite typical. So

58:32

this is, we're recording on a Friday,

58:35

the White House press briefing is currently

58:37

happening. A reporter asked Caroline Levitt, the

58:39

press secretary, you know, Bukele is supposed

58:41

to be coming to DC on Monday,

58:44

he's meeting with Trump. Does Trump

58:46

want him to bring Gilmar Abraigo

58:48

Garcia with him? And Levitt's response was,

58:50

the Supreme Court made very clear

58:53

that it is the administration's responsibility

58:55

to facilitate the return, not to

58:57

effectuate the return. Come

58:59

on, come on. Come on, like,

59:01

what is there to facilitate? If you

59:03

say something like that, you should

59:05

not be, you should not feel comfortable

59:07

like showing your face in public

59:09

for the rest of you. I mean,

59:11

people, I mean, that to me

59:13

is just so diabolical. This guy

59:15

didn't, this guy apparently has

59:18

done absolutely nothing to deserve

59:20

imprisonment. Nothing, no charges, no

59:22

criminal conviction. He left El Salvador

59:24

because of the threat of gang

59:26

violence and had a protection order

59:28

against being deported back to El

59:30

Salvador because he would face imminent

59:32

harm. Married to a

59:34

US citizen from everything I've gathered

59:36

has been like cooperating and

59:39

attending all the hearings he

59:41

needs to to get not

59:43

like legal status. They

59:46

picked him up in front of his like

59:48

autistic son and just disappeared him to

59:50

another country. It's

59:52

evil and then the justification

59:54

for it is completely

59:57

cowardly. It's just like, instead

59:59

of just. being like, no, we

1:00:01

don't want to. He's the wrong

1:00:03

skin color, which is the fucking

1:00:06

truth as far as I see

1:00:08

it. They're just like, well, actually,

1:00:10

according to Webster's dictionary, this word

1:00:12

doesn't necessarily mean that we have

1:00:15

to do anything. And it's like,

1:00:17

you've got to be kidding me.

1:00:19

It's just, it's cowardly. I don't

1:00:21

know. I'm skeptical that they will

1:00:23

ever want to bring him back,

1:00:25

because I saw some people

1:00:27

observing online online today. What happens

1:00:30

if he does come back? And

1:00:32

then Garcia is on every

1:00:34

major news network telling the story

1:00:36

of what happened. What happens to

1:00:39

public opinion? Like... Yeah, and it is

1:00:41

being paid to look the other way.

1:00:43

It is basically like a bomb. Like

1:00:45

the court is like, you need to bring

1:00:47

back this thing that is going to...

1:00:49

Yeah. And I just don't think they're

1:00:52

going to do it. I think they're

1:00:54

going to continue to say, like, well,

1:00:56

why don't you come make me? And

1:00:58

he's not going to just bring

1:01:01

back his testimony. He's going to

1:01:03

bring back the experiences of

1:01:05

hundreds of other people that he

1:01:07

was locked away with. Yeah. Like, you

1:01:09

can't hide that. Well, they need these

1:01:12

prisoners, these people who are locked in

1:01:14

a torture prison, they need them to...

1:01:16

to stay flat, to not have any

1:01:19

kind of human dimension. When he

1:01:21

starts, as soon as somebody starts, you

1:01:23

know, and you see this because you

1:01:26

get annoyed when newspapers report on radical

1:01:28

right figures and fluff them up

1:01:30

a little bit, which happens with Stephen

1:01:32

Miller and people like that all the

1:01:35

time. As soon as somebody starts has

1:01:37

a favorite breakfast cereal. and like you

1:01:39

know a favorite a favorite time of

1:01:41

year and like a place that they

1:01:44

like to go take a walk or

1:01:46

whatever they become a human being and

1:01:48

as of right now they are these

1:01:50

people are just MS-13 and that's the

1:01:52

way they want to keep them it's

1:01:55

just it's a nice easy thing to

1:01:57

say it's it's two letters and a

1:01:59

number and You know, magga supporters don't

1:02:01

have to know anything about MS-13,

1:02:03

where they came from, what they

1:02:05

do. They just need to know

1:02:07

that they're bad ombres, right? Like

1:02:09

that's the word term that Trump

1:02:11

used back in the day. So,

1:02:13

I mean, that's it. I mean,

1:02:15

they just don't want to fill

1:02:17

in any details about this guy's

1:02:19

life. The fact that he made

1:02:21

like certain music or like certain

1:02:23

art or, you know, has, you

1:02:25

know, certain quiet times a day

1:02:27

in which he likes to talk

1:02:29

to talk to talk to talk

1:02:31

to talk to his wife. view

1:02:33

J.D. Van, Stephen Miller, Chrissenome as

1:02:35

monsters, and they're not going to

1:02:37

let it happen. I will add

1:02:39

here, I think it is important

1:02:41

to point out that some of

1:02:43

the people who have, were sent

1:02:45

to El Salvador, were members of

1:02:47

MS-13, and one of the deals

1:02:49

that I think has been underreported

1:02:51

that's taking place here outside of

1:02:53

the Trump administration, for working over

1:02:55

millions of cash, or Buchel let

1:02:57

a hold these prisoners, is that

1:02:59

Buchel is also seemingly requesting specific...

1:03:01

prisoners that were already in US

1:03:03

custody being set be set back

1:03:05

to El Salvador. Primarily leaders of

1:03:07

MS-13 who had knowledge of the

1:03:09

sort of negotiations his government engaged

1:03:11

with with some of these groups

1:03:13

that were arrested in the United

1:03:15

States were waiting for trial. One

1:03:17

in particular his name was his

1:03:19

like I guess moniker is Elgrenas.

1:03:21

He's a very prominent leader of

1:03:24

MS-13. who has testified that he

1:03:26

was involved in deals with the

1:03:28

Buchelle government. He was slated to

1:03:30

be tried in the United States

1:03:32

for crimes related to the gang's

1:03:34

activity. He's been returned to El

1:03:36

Salvador, where all the testimony that

1:03:38

he could give about Buchale's relationship

1:03:40

with the gangs, about what he

1:03:42

knew, that's not going to happen

1:03:44

anymore. He's been disappeared into a

1:03:46

system. And I think you're kind

1:03:48

of... hitting it where it hurts

1:03:50

the most is as long as

1:03:52

long as they can keep up

1:03:54

this facade that all these people

1:03:56

are connected to this criminal enterprise

1:03:58

that all these people to be

1:04:00

there because, you know, how are we to

1:04:02

know that this guy, you know, didn't know

1:04:04

MS-13 members? Or, oh, he hasn't

1:04:06

been convicted, but he's from El

1:04:08

Salvador and Nana-9, he has this

1:04:10

tattoo. You guys are right. The

1:04:12

biggest incentive to not return these

1:04:14

people to the United States is

1:04:17

to stop them from opening their

1:04:19

mouths and talking about the

1:04:21

reality about what this administration

1:04:23

is doing. As we're wrapping up here, this

1:04:26

has been a pretty bleak episode.

1:04:28

But an important one, I

1:04:30

think. Are there any reasons

1:04:33

for hope? I mean, we're in

1:04:35

very scary times, but

1:04:37

is there any reason

1:04:40

for optimism? The

1:04:42

9-0 Supreme Court decision

1:04:44

on Thursday was a

1:04:46

little shocking to me in a

1:04:48

good way. You know, it's rare

1:04:50

these days. Yeah. Yeah, it's so rare

1:04:53

these days that Thomas and Alito aren't

1:04:55

just like, no, no, no, the president

1:04:57

should be allowed to do some fascism.

1:04:59

So that to me, Sparkdale, like to

1:05:02

me, it indicates that the Supreme

1:05:04

Court is willing to say, no, you

1:05:06

can't fucking do that, which shouldn't be

1:05:08

something that gives me relief, but

1:05:10

in this day and age, it absolutely

1:05:13

is. And I think then the problem

1:05:15

there, as we said, is you kind of

1:05:17

run into the enforcement mechanism. But

1:05:19

the other thing I think. Does

1:05:21

give me some hope is that as

1:05:23

much as you know Trump's base is

1:05:25

near impossible to move There

1:05:27

is a lot of anger about this there

1:05:30

are a lot of people Fighting the

1:05:32

fight not just in the courts, but

1:05:34

You know protesting for this

1:05:36

speaking out publicly if they're like

1:05:39

loved ones have been imprisoned through

1:05:41

these mechanisms that to me like

1:05:43

you the worst thing you can

1:05:46

do is give up before the

1:05:48

fight is lost and The reality is

1:05:50

it might take time. It might take

1:05:53

years of litigation, but the worst thing

1:05:55

people can do is just drop it

1:05:57

and let the Trump administration get

1:05:59

it. away with it because that's

1:06:01

exactly what they want. They want

1:06:03

this to get so exhausting and

1:06:05

to flood the zone with so

1:06:07

many court cases that things just

1:06:09

start kind of like falling off

1:06:11

the map. You have to keep

1:06:13

pushing to keep these things on

1:06:15

the front page. It has to

1:06:17

be on the front of people's

1:06:19

minds. It has to be litigated

1:06:21

in the courts. And you just have

1:06:24

to hope that we'll get some

1:06:26

more 90 decisions saying, hey, fuck

1:06:28

you, you can't do that. You're

1:06:30

kind of spinning off of this.

1:06:32

If you are looking for something

1:06:34

positive for something positive. Trump really

1:06:36

threw an interception with this tariff

1:06:38

stuff and fucking up the economy.

1:06:40

And again, I agree with you

1:06:42

100% Nikki, that you want to see

1:06:44

people mad about the other things.

1:06:46

But this, you know, by opening

1:06:48

up this particular wound, other things

1:06:50

will start to roll in. And

1:06:52

yes, it should be. People should

1:06:54

be pissed off about what's happening

1:06:56

in El Salvador. Columbia University, not

1:06:58

the country. People should be pissed

1:07:00

off. But we can't control what

1:07:02

breaks people. And if the economy

1:07:04

is the thing that opens things up,

1:07:06

they will care about this more

1:07:08

then, right? Because I definitely know

1:07:10

of some like finance focused friends

1:07:12

that I have that are. If

1:07:14

press will be like, yeah, this

1:07:16

sucks, this is awful, who are

1:07:18

not going to click in until

1:07:20

they have a reason, like, it

1:07:22

affects them, and you can call

1:07:24

them selfish, and probably they are,

1:07:27

but this is a self-inflicted wound, and

1:07:29

maybe it'll bring more attention to

1:07:31

these other horrific things. Well, well,

1:07:33

the promise of it dies, right,

1:07:35

because it's like, okay, if you're

1:07:37

one of these people, it's like,

1:07:39

well, this is an ideal, I

1:07:41

think they're going a bit too

1:07:43

far, I disagree with them, I

1:07:45

disagree with them, I disagree with

1:07:47

them, like this is what we have

1:07:49

to do to be a prosperous

1:07:51

next generation American nation and if

1:07:53

it becomes very clear that like

1:07:55

everything is going to get more

1:07:57

expensive and your 401k is going

1:07:59

to bottom out and Uh, you

1:08:01

know, American manufacturers are very clear

1:08:03

about, like, no, we are never

1:08:05

going to make an iPhone in

1:08:07

the US. Are you fucking kidding

1:08:09

me? Like, it's... Forty thousand

1:08:11

dollar iPhone. When the illusion

1:08:14

evaporates, then like, the, the,

1:08:16

the, like, selfish justification that

1:08:18

I think a lot of

1:08:20

people have rationalized things with

1:08:22

up to this point, I

1:08:24

think just kind of evaporates,

1:08:27

I don't know. Put the pronouns

1:08:29

back in the bios. Yeah, we

1:08:31

need, if anybody's familiar with that

1:08:33

reference. The answer was more woke,

1:08:35

not less, it turned out. Nikki,

1:08:37

let's wrap it up there. We're

1:08:40

going to link to your great long-form

1:08:42

piece about this prison

1:08:44

in El Salvador in the show

1:08:46

notes, but where can people find

1:08:48

the rest of your writing, the

1:08:50

rest of your work, your podcast?

1:08:53

You've got a lot going on

1:08:55

these days. I'm a very busy

1:08:57

woman. But you can find me on

1:08:59

Blue Sky at Nicki MCR. I no

1:09:01

longer post on X at that for

1:09:04

my own sanity. Obviously all my writing

1:09:06

can be found at Rolling

1:09:08

Stone.com. And my podcast is

1:09:10

American Friction. We are American

1:09:12

Friction on all the socials

1:09:14

and we're out every Monday

1:09:17

and Friday. Doesn't it feel good

1:09:19

not to be on X? I love it.

1:09:21

I love it. It's so good for my

1:09:23

program. It just sucked on there so bad.

1:09:25

I locked my account because there was just

1:09:27

like a lot of historical Fox news

1:09:29

clips that I didn't want to delete

1:09:31

by outright nuking it, but not posting

1:09:34

there. Greatest decision I've made in the

1:09:36

last year.