Full Episode Unlocked: Interview With Nebraska State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh On Defending Trans Rights
The full Muckrake Podcast Weekender Edition has been unlocked for everyone this week as Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman are honored to have Nebraska State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh on the show to discuss her filibuster to force the conservative majority to back down in the their attempt to pass a law that would make gender affirming care illegal in her state.
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This is going to be a free preview show of the Weekender episode of the Montclair podcast.
Nick was lucky enough to sit down with Michaela Kavanaugh, a state senator in Nebraska, who's currently filibustering to stop anti-trans legislation.
We thought that this interview warranted a full release of the episode because we think that what Michaela is doing is incredibly important.
Plus, also, we want to give you an idea of what it's like to go ahead and get that extra episode.
Every Friday.
So if you enjoy this, and you should enjoy it, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
Nick, I think you agree.
It's a good move.
It's the right move.
Oh, yeah.
A lot of you guys are listening to the Friday teaser version of it.
And I'm sure you love the whole thing if you join the Patreon.
So head over there.
Join us.
Join us.
Patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
All right.
And now to The Weekender.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm J. J. Saxton.
I'm here, as always, with my co-host, Nick Halseman.
Nick, how we doing?
Is it warmer in California?
Have we gotten to a point where we can actually live in the Golden State?
Yeah, I mean, OK.
I mean, the sun is out, at least.
It's not raining, which is really, really important.
And I mean, we had flash flood warnings.
It was crazy, but it's not raining.
The sun's out.
It's getting closer to 60 degrees, but not quite I think I speak on behalf of the entire McCree universe when I say that we're waiting with bated breath for you to crest over the 60 degree margin.
I fully deserve whatever ill will I'm getting right now from the rest of the country.
I think I speak on behalf of the entire muckrake universe when I say that we're waiting with bated breath for you to crest over the 60 degree margin.
We're not going to rest until you can go outside in shorts.
Well, I'm going to Florida on Saturday night just because I can't take it anymore.
I need to find somewhere else that's warmer.
Well, fantastic.
Well, for the show today, we got jam-packed.
People are living at home with their parents.
We gotta talk about that.
We gotta talk about Havana Syndrome, guys.
I got news for you.
I got news for you!
Breaking news!
Turns out all along we were right about what that was and what it wasn't.
We also have an interview.
Nick was able to sit down with Michaela Kavanaugh, a state senator in Nebraska who's currently filibustering to stop anti-trans legislation.
Great interview, correct Nick?
Great interview.
I mean, she's on Rachel Maddow earlier this week, and I got even more in depth with her, and she's really doing some important work to try and stop legislation, which, by the way, really parenthetically, she's stopping the entire Nebraska state from getting anything done, any bills passed.
And some of the other bills coming in there are not great either, Jared, so it's not even just anti-trans stuff.
It's a lot of issues that she's standing up to.
Shut it down.
Shut it down.
Do the battle when it's in the States.
Stop this thing while it's already going.
So we got to start this this weekender edition by talking about the big dog over at Fox News, Rupert Murdoch.
Uh, snails slimed his way into a deposition room, uh, because of the Dominion voting defamation case, uh, which, uh, $1.6 billion, Nick.
I don't know about you.
It looks like, uh, Dominion might very well get their money's worth.
Out of this, Rupert was brought in for a deposition.
They're starting to leak out these details.
And Rupert, you know, is one of those corporate overlords that for years now has been on the record through a lot of different sources as being the type of person who understands that the conspiracy theories that he airs are completely cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
This goes all the way back to 2010 in which he made God knows how much money and how much political power airing the Tea Party conspiracy theories and giving birth to birtherism.
But it seems like he has been caught dead to rights here in a lawsuit admitting that he knew full and well that the 2020 election was not stolen and that Trump and his cronies were selling everyone a big pile of bullshit.
Yeah, I mean, big surprise.
We've talked about this for a long time.
We knew this is what sells.
And again, if you're looking at the bottom line in a purely capitalistic sense, that he did exactly what he's supposed to do.
He's built an empire off of this.
This is the whole, this is it.
This is the whole business model.
So it's like, what are you supposed to do at that point?
This is what, you know, this is what makes money.
We have to make money.
The $1.6 billion will not, you know, kill Fox.
But what should kill Fox is them losing their FEC license.
And wait, efficacy?
Yeah, that's right.
Whatever the broadcasting license is.
And that's the issue that's not going to happen, even though these strongly worded letters by these, you know, Democratic senators and congressmen, you know, they're wagging their finger really hard.
But like, unless there's a threat that they lose their license, I don't see what would do anything to stop this.
Yeah, we're going to read that letter in a little bit.
My stomach already hurts because of it.
These are some quotes from good old Rupert's deposition.
When asked about this big lie that was spreading throughout Fox News, he said that he didn't believe these lies, but he said of his hosts and anchors and personalities, quote unquote, they endorsed.
And by the way, Nick, in case you're wondering what that sound is, That's not only someone getting thrown under the bus, that's the bus backing up and then running them over again.
This is incredible, incredible strategy by Rupert Murdoch to go ahead and blame it on his personalities.
He says, this thing was never true.
I wish they would have denounced it.
I wish they wouldn't have spent time on it.
He was asked at one point, though, could you have stepped in and stopped it?
And with a devilish, Grinch-like grin, he put up his hands and said, I guess maybe I could have.
I guess I could have done more.
Lots of evidence in this deposition of him doing exactly that and controlling what they were doing and what they were covering as if, you know, and by the way, generally like his position is supposed to be completely sealed off from news.
You're not supposed to be able to have that kind of influence, but he clearly had that and he clearly had lines to all the different hosts as well.
You know, I did my toe in the Twitter sphere and the right to see what they were responding to and You know, they don't believe any of this, and they also are... but you do see some parsing of, you know, the opinion shows at night versus the news shows in the day, which I can attest to.
Remember, I've spent a couple times watching only Fox News and Newsmax, you know, for a week at a time.
And, you know, there is that notion that they were guys during the daytime, before the freaks came out at night.
And we're reporting some version of what the truth was, but there's no question he had as much influence as he wanted to, to change this if he had the gumption.
You know, that parsing out, Nick, it reminds me of when I was little and I used to ask my grandma that I talked about in the Midnight Kingdom book when I'd say, is wrestling real?
And she'd say, oh, most of it isn't, but the big fights are.
And it's like, oh, OK, yeah, I'll wrap my head around that.
I'll chew on it for a little bit.
And what we've seen in the wake of this thing, and for the record, if this was a sane, functional country, this, the quotes that are coming out, the text messages, the revelations that they didn't believe in this stuff, this would be the death knell for Fox News.
That would be the end of it!
Like, we would be having big, giant conversations about how to stop this in the future.
Instead, obviously, all we have to do is now put forward an alternate narrative.
And one of the things that we're seeing, and there's an interesting thing that's occurring.
Donald Trump, of course, has been going after Fox News over the past couple days, because what else would he do?
He was over on Truth Social Rumble, whatever we're calling it nowadays.
He truthed Quote unquote, called them MAGA-hating globalist rhinos and talked about the rigged stolen election and said that they should get out of the news business, which then brings us around, Nick, to kind of the issue that's at the Fox News-Trump dichotomy in the first place.
Rupert Murdoch was quoted as saying that he wanted to, in post-January 6th Fox News universe terms, he wanted to make Trump a, quote, non-person.
Well, by the way, he's accomplished that, right?
That's exactly what we've seen, is that Trump has been persona non grata, he hasn't been invited on the network.
By the way, if you turn on Fox News right now, dollars to donuts, they're talking to Ron DeSantis.
That's exactly all you're going to find on that network right now.
Trump is now going after them, calling them globalists, which is a dog whistle for Jewish puppet masters and the New World Order.
The battle lines are being drawn.
We talked about this immediately after 2020, which was, is Trump then going to go towards another network?
And is there going to be another network that starts to build up his case and trumpets his bullshit?
I think now that we're looking at the upcoming primary, that's up in the air, right?
I mean, that's in play at this point.
And I don't know if it's going to be Newsmax or A&N or whatever, or whatever the pillow guy farts up next week, but it feels like there's going to be some alternative that at least the millions of MAGA devotees are going to swarm to.
It feels like that's almost faded at this point, doesn't it?
Well let's not forget this was the whole thing in the beginning of Trump's run in 2015 was just simply to create a new version of Fox News that he could own and control.
So why not start that up again with that in mind?
He's lazy!
That's the problem and it should have already happened.
They would have made so much money if they weren't lazy and incompetent.
You're exactly right.
That was the entire purpose of it.
It wasn't to get elected president.
It was to raise his stock and brand and then start an alternative.
Right, and so if he loses again in 2024, great, it's a great opportunity for him.
Well, I'm fine.
This is too much.
The Fox News wasn't behind me.
I have to start this new thing.
We have to because the movement is going to die otherwise.
And what's interesting about when you mentioned it's just the end of Fox News, you know, a couple things.
We saw the panic when they went to Arizona for Biden.
That was a panic when they realized, oh my God, people are going to turn our channel off.
It showed you much They have the lead in ratings, right?
And they pretty much dominate the ratings, but it does feel like it's very tenuous, and then there are moments at any moment where they could simply lose it all in a heartbeat, because they were so quick to freak out about that.
And so, maybe what you're talking about, because I'm like, what is the end of Fox News?
I mean, the end would have to be that, like, just simply the viewers stopped watching, right?
That has to be the thing.
And now, how do you do that, though?
I mean, Newsmax was zorching a lot of their audience until somebody got them off of DirecTV.
I'm sure it's not the only way people consume that, but I tell you, I still think that there's a conspiracy about who got them off.
But then I guess you're right.
If Donald Trump had the alternative, maybe that would work.
It hasn't worked with the Truth Social Rumble or whatever, because that's, you know, a wasteland.
They can't even run that thing right.
But I wonder if a news medium of a TV looking like a TV show version, maybe that would do it.
I suppose that's your answer, but that's what the end of Fox News is.
It's just a mass exodus to some other platform.
Well, and you got to think about it, too.
A thing that's weird to wrap around our heads, right, is that Fox News has been one of the most consequential businesses in modern American history.
It has changed the political, social landscape in ways that I don't know if we're ever going to be able to wrap our heads around.
You know, it's almost exactly like the way that Facebook did.
It changed the way families operated.
It changed the way relationships operated.
Like, you know, it helped create a modern authoritarian movement that could almost dismantle democracy.
But here's the thing about it.
The business decisions at the heart of Fox News, and let's go ahead and let's think about Ailes, let's think about Rupert Murdoch, let's go ahead and think about the country club set that we always talk about, the Republicans.
Like, did they win elections?
Yeah, they did.
Did they get taxes slashed?
Yeah, they did.
Did they weaken the federal government?
Absolutely, they did.
Did they take the Supreme Court?
Sure.
But they also made one bad business decision after another that got them to here.
You know, in order to go full Trump, they thought all along, you know, much like Paul Ryan, who is now in Fox News leadership, they thought at first, Well, he'll go ahead and he'll help us move towards the right and we'll do this.
Oh, he's going to get the nomination.
Ah, we'll figure that out.
There will be adults in the room and the Heritage Foundation will tell them what to do.
Well, they did, but eventually the dog got off the leash, right?
And then you look up, and by the way, who advertises on Fox News now?
It's Catheters?
Gold and Mike Lindell.
That's literally all that they have.
And they have millions of people watching this, but you're exactly right.
They're always one segment away from leaving.
They're always one wrongly reported idea from leaving, which tells me that 2023 and 2024 in this primary, where they have decided to make Trump a non-person, I mean, you are skating a razor's edge at this point.
So, you know, it's a Faustian bargain at this point.
You went ahead and you went down the road, but look where it got you.
And, like, we are seriously looking at Fox News not only being in a little bit of economic and legal peril, but, I mean, business peril at this point.
Yeah, the legal thing I would much rather prefer to continue seeing, and by the way, there is this notion that they gave, you know, the ad-buying information from Biden's campaign to the Trump campaign and perhaps other things like that.
Of course they did, yeah.
Yeah, you know, and so, you know, that could be a violation of election law, like you can't get some value.
Well, I got good news for you, Nick.
I'm glad we're on this subject and I'm glad that we can, we can be the ones to report this because I got good news for everybody.
Hold on to your knickers.
The walls are closing in.
I mean, they've got him dead to rights, Nick.
I mean, this thing, it's going to work out.
I think the Democrats are going to take care of it.
Let's go ahead.
This is, you know, Nick, here's the thing.
I know I get a lot of shit for criticizing Democrats.
I read this letter that I'm getting ready to read for this podcast, and I had to go and take a walk.
You know, it was so strongly worded that I'm just gonna give you a taste of this.
Dear Mr. Rupert Murdoch et al.
As noted in your deposition released yesterday, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other Fox News personalities knowingly, repeatedly, and dangerously endorsed and promoted the big lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Though you have acknowledged your regret in allowing this grave propaganda to take place, your network hosts continue to promote, spew, spew, Nick, and perpetuate election conspiracy theories to this day.
The leadership of your company was aware of the dangers of broadcasting these outlandish claims.
This sets a dangerous precedent that ignores basic journalistic fact-checking principles and public accountability.
This is even more alarming after Speaker McCarthy is reportedly allowing Tucker Carlson to review highly sensitive security camera footage of the events surrounding the violent January 6th insurrection.
In closing, Fox News executives and all other hosts on your networks have a clear choice.
You can continue a pattern of lying to your viewers and risking democracy or move beyond this damaging chapter in your company's history by siding with the truth and reporting the facts.
That, my friends, is signed by Charles Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.
I saw an earlier version of that, Jared.
I saw an earlier version and they signed off, GOOD DAY SIR, in all caps before they signed their names.
Oh well, as long as they took their gloves off and laid them on the table to let them know that the nobles were upset.
What garbage!
You can't!
I'm sorry, but if this would have happened at CNN or MSNBC, Nick, we wouldn't be able to turn on the TV for the hearings.
They would have him in ankle chains, shuffling down the aisle.
Oh, okay.
So, well, obviously you can't do that with, like, with Congress, but so you're saying the Senate could be doing this because they saw the Democrats have control.
Okay.
I'm saying at least throw it out there.
I don't know.
Like, talk about reviewing licenses.
Talk about something.
Instead, it's just, it's something to put out there for people to retweet and feel better about.
Meanwhile, it's just, they're just running willy-nilly doing whatever they want, Nick.
Yeah, I knew that sound effect over here, so that's good stuff.
We need to get that on a board, is what we need.
Where's that from?
Is that from a show?
That's The Price is Right, Losing Horn.
And it is, it is, it has the most perfect vibe to it, I'll just say that.
Yeah, I don't think I really watched Price is Right much when I was growing up.
I know it, but I don't really watch it.
That's incredible.
Me and the rest of the Inside Kids with asthma during the summer were shaking our heads.
Speaking of the kids, Nick, the Census Bureau has come out.
I gotta tell you, this is one of the statistics that made my hair stand on end.
Nick, from the most recent census and from research from the Pew Research Firm, found that half of all Americans from the age of 18 to 29 are living at home with their families.
I gotta tell you, I don't know if you can think of a better indictment or damnation of neoliberalism and this terrible, terrible regime of the economy that we're dealing with.
How do you feel about this?
Well, as a parent, an empty nester for this whole year... Hey, don't renovate that bedroom, man!
Don't do it!
I mean, listen, do I miss my kids?
I miss them, and it's great to have them around, but when they're not around, it's quiet and the house is clean, and so I have a lot of... For the parents who, you know, we're looking forward to having their house back to themselves, I really have a lot of empathy.
For that end before we even talk about why the kids have to are forced to basically be back home You know, but but free Wi-Fi You know is a very big lure, you know, and it probably explains why maybe the our Unemployment is so low Yeah, it probably does, because people are trying to scratch together with multiple jobs because they're not being paid anything.
I'm sorry, but this kind of a thing, and it was buried in the middle of an article, basically.
Nobody else is talking about this.
Like, this is not a functioning society, where people are going to college, they're getting out with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
On top of that, not only are they graduating into a market where people are paid less and expected to work more, but have you looked around at all?
I know that we're both pretty happy with where we are.
Have you looked around at, like, not even housing prices?
Have you looked up an apartment price recently?
It is madness how much people are expected to pay for this stuff.
And it's not just that, I don't know, people are renting apartments out there.
You have giant multinational hedge funds who are out there just gobbling up real estate and then turning them into rental properties.
That way they can go ahead and create passive income and just leech off these people.
Yeah, well, you know, they have to raise interest rates, which then tends to make the housing market go up.
And then that means renters are renting more than there's more demand.
And then that goes up.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, in L.A., you would shudder.
You would blush, Jared, if you saw what you would have to pay to rent like a two bedroom or a three bedroom apartment.
It's insane here.
So it's always been kind of insane, but it's even more so.
Yeah, it's I mean, in some cultures, I feel like some other cultures and other societies around the world, you know, it's a little bit more common where the kids will live right in back with the parents.
But, you know, if you want to measure a capitalist society like we do in certain terms with how well the economy is going, then yes, looking at let's just present it's off.
Let's just say it's not 50 percent.
Right.
But let's just say it's like 40 percent.
That's ridiculous.
That's too much.
Yeah.
So once you see things like that, it's very, very concerning.
And you have to imagine there's a whole generation of Americans who will never own a house.
By the way, my neurodivergent brain got tickled when you said that about LA.
I'm currently looking at a one-bedroom studio apartment in Los Angeles for $2,625 a month.
What's the address?
Can you see?
Motor Avenue?
Yeah.
Okay.
Um, yeah, that's that's in a nice part of like on the west side.
Yeah.
So that's that's great.
That's actually two bedroom for $2,000.
That's pretty cheap.
Okay, great.
That's wonderful.
It reminds me, by the way, the first time I visited one of my buddies when he moved to Brooklyn, and it was like his shower was in his kitchen.
I was just like, this is great.
You can you know, wash dishes while you're getting your back.
Well, yeah.
It's an awful, awful situation out there.
And I want to point out, I don't think it's a bad thing for people to necessarily live with their families.
Like, I happen to believe that, like, maybe that is a way to, like, sort of restructure, you know, our communities and sort of look at this stuff.
Like, you know, there are other societies around the world that don't even, like, blink at that idea.
What I'm talking about is taking this society on the game that it proposes to play, right?
Which is, you're supposed to get out of school after you do all that work and you take on that debt, and then you go out and you're given a square deal.
You're supposed to be able to go out, make a living, and improve your status in life, save a little money, have a family, you know, do whatever.
It doesn't work.
It's gone.
That's done.
And like, you're exactly right.
If it was 40 percent, alarm bells should be going off.
But 50% is madness.
Yeah, and I just can't stop thinking about the parents, man.
Sorry.
The parents are incredible.
You know, think about that.
You lived your whole life, you raised your kids, and like, okay, now it's time to have our house back where we could do whatever we want in the house without having to worry about the kids walking around or walking in or whatever.
And then that goes away for another decade or so, and that's, man, that's rough.
That's rough.
That shouldn't happen this way.
I hope you have the mental fortitude to move forward with the rest of this show, because I can see the gears turning.
As somebody who now has an empty desk, I can see the gears just turning.
It's going to end in June, and you know, we've got to get back to it.
But you know what?
Listen, we do what we have to do.
Humans are resilient, and they have love, and they have empathy, and all these things.
I couldn't agree more.
I think that we are resilient.
That's a great way to look at it.
You know, less resilient, Nick, How's this for a transition?
You like this?
You like this for a segue?
Less resilient.
America's foreign affairs teams, intelligence people who are working in other countries.
We talked about this a while back when quote-unquote Havana syndrome popped up on everybody's radars.
And we were told, Nick, man, you know, all of these American employees and staff members Nick, they were being assaulted.
They were just- and by the way, it wasn't just like physical assault.
They were being driven mad and to the point of illness by a mystery weapon.
And what was that mystery weapon?
It was something that hadn't even been invented yet, which by the way was the first- I told you this when we talked about it.
That's the problem.
If we don't have the weapon, chances are it hasn't been invented yet.
And it was supposedly, the thing everybody kept talking about were energy pulse weapons, that in Cuba, around the world, they were firing these non-existent weapons at us.
And all of a sudden, and by the way, we haven't even talked about the relief funds, Nick.
And we'll get to that in a second, because I think that's an important aspect of this.
But a report comes out from the intelligence communities, and it has determined that it is, quote unquote, very unlikely that a foreign adversary is responsible for supposed Havana Syndrome.
Chances are, and they haven't gone ahead and made this official yet, that it is anxiety.
Uh, that it is, uh, maybe a psychosomatic and or undiagnosed illnesses but, uh, not energy pulse weapons as everybody was, uh, claiming there for a while.
Yeah, okay.
I just want you to tread a little bit lightly here because, you know, there is a notion that you can infer from your tone that maybe the people who are suffering are not really suffering and they are.
No!
Not at all!
That's not my problem.
It's not with the individuals.
The individuals in all of this are caught up in the middle of something that is a bunch of bullshit.
It has more to do with the way that we move around money.
We don't want to take care of people during a pandemic.
We don't want to take care of people who are houseless.
We don't want to help anybody.
But what did our government do the moment that we started talking about supposed Havana syndrome?
Do you know how much money they gave to each individual?
No.
From a unanimous vote in the Senate.
And how hard is it to get a unanimous vote in the Senate, Nick?
Impossible.
Almost impossible.
$100,000 to $200,000.
And the reason is because members of both the Democratic and the Republican Party got up and just absolutely stamped the lectern saying, we're not going to let America's people on the front lines be part of a war in which they're being targeted with energy pulse weapons.
It was another moment where they revealed that they can go ahead and make things happen when they want to make things happen.
All right, now I've navigated this course that you've laid out for us, so I understand why the outrage is there, yeah.
I mean, I would certainly have been really concerned if I was a diplomat in Cuba and all of a sudden my body is going haywire and I'm having horrible symptoms.
By the way, the report does say that they're not ruling it out.
If anything does exist they don't know about, then it could very well be somewhere out there.
But, I mean, you know, I'm more the guy who's like, we got to get House or Quincy or one of these guys out there to really, you know, do the differential and find out what is going on, because it's too many people.
Who are suffering from this, but I do recognize that it's almost like these are insiders into government who can then get special treatment because of their positions.
And, you know, that's especially when you think about burn pit victims from the Army who are not getting, you know, $100,000 or any even treatment that would help them.
No, it was a sexy story.
That was the whole thing.
And our media loved it.
Havana Syndrome!
You know, and they built it up.
And it goes back to, I mean, we've talked about this a little bit in passing in the past.
It was like the fad of UFOs in the 1950s and 60s, which just happened to coincide, Nick, with the launching of Sputnik, the first satellite that, you know, it felt like there was something out there that was more technologically advanced than us.
And maybe as a result, we should funnel a bunch of money into our war technology in the military industrial complex.
It was a sexy, sexy story because it made us think that there were, I'm sorry, but energy pulse weapons.
I mean, that's cool.
That's really cool if someone's out there like directing energy pulses, you know.
But yeah, everybody even said like this doesn't exist.
There's absolutely nothing on the record that this has happened.
And yet every single Republican and every single Democrat got up in front of Congress and allocated as much money as anybody wanted in order to treat this stuff.
All while waving the flag and talking about the military and we've got their back.
And meanwhile, people are going without.
They're cutting their pills in half.
You know, they're living out on the streets.
It's really awful when you look at it from that perspective.
You know, I didn't look at it that way, but you're absolutely right.
And we need to fix that.
They need to figure out a way where... Do you think they just forget?
Because you'll hear plenty of senators and congressmen talk about it.
We really got to help our veterans, we really got to... But then it just doesn't happen.
And I honestly feel like they just get caught up with other things and they forget about it and all of a sudden six weeks go by and they're like, oh crap, we didn't write the bill we need for veterans.
I don't know how else to explain it.
I think veterans are really disposable.
Like, they're really, really important when they're getting ready to go out into the field, right?
When they're out in the field, we don't give a shit, you know?
Like, we don't have to deal with it.
We don't have to look at it.
I mean, look at what Donald Rumsfeld, one of the most disgusting individuals, you know, in modern American history, who basically was like, ah, you know, go out there and get blown up.
We don't care.
And then what we saw after 9-11, what we saw after the war in Iraq, which somebody, I don't know if you've wrapped your head around this, somebody was interviewing me the other day and they brought up the fact that we're inching up on the 20th anniversary of the war in Iraq, which blew my mind.
I didn't even know really how to like make that make sense in my head.
But we didn't take care of them, and we still don't, because they don't matter so much.
It's this type of level of staff, you know?
It's like what happened after a couple people protested the Supreme Court.
They went ahead and allocated like incredible amounts of security funds and security staff to make sure that the Supreme Court was okay.
They took care of themselves and the Senate and Congress to make sure that they were protected.
It is a matter of elites taking care of themselves and going ahead and saying the rest of us can just sort of pound Sam.
Well, you know, speaking of that, it's time, I think, to bring on our guest, our interviewee, because I was able to sit down with Michaela Kavanaugh and discuss what she's doing.
And she is mad as hell and is not going to take it anymore in the local government and the way they run their thing.
It's a fascinating interview.
Rarely were you going to get behind the scenes and actually talk to somebody who's candid about the inner workings of the state government, statewide government.
And she did a fantastic job.
And I'm really excited to let everyone hear that.
Yeah, I can't wait.
Let's do it.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
I am your host, Nick Hauselman, and today I am extremely honored to have State Senator from Nebraska, Michaela Kavanaugh, who has been in the news recently talking about, well, talking, really.
So, Michaela, thank you so much for coming on the show.
I think I would let you kind of describe a little bit of what's going on right now this week that has become such a, can we categorize it as a firestorm in Nebraska?
Sure, let's categorize it as a firestorm.
Yeah, so we have, just like you're seeing across the country, we've had a slew of bills introduced during this legislative session, especially with this new incoming class of freshman senators that are, I mean, essentially the culture war bills.
So they, I call them the red meat bills, where We're a cattle state here in Nebraska, so the red meat bills.
And they just keep coming and coming.
And we have bill introduction for the first 10 days of session in January, so we quickly saw what was going to be here in Nebraska.
And I sit on the Health and Human Services Committee, and we kicked out of committee last week a bill that is an attack on transgender views.
And all of these bills are heartbreaking, legislate hate, just really upsetting.
But the fact that we kicked this bill out, we kicked it out with no discussion, no consideration for the hours of opposition testimony.
And I told my committee members that if we did that, that I was going to stop the session.
So that's what I've been doing by talking and using procedural moves and motions and following the rules.
People call me a rule breaker, but I'm actually a rule follower.
They just don't, they just don't like the rules that I'm following.
And so, yeah, so essentially I am stopping everything by talking on every bill.
Taking up as much time as possible.
We have a 90 day session.
We have a finite number of hours to do the work that we're going to do in floor debate.
And I'm forcing the hand of my colleagues to decide who we want to be as a legislature.
Do we want to be people who legislate hate?
Or do we want to be people who focus on economic policy and economic recovery?
So I'm kind of curious in the West Wing, for instance, the scene would have been, you find out like a minute before they're introducing the bill.
And then there's that moment where it's like quiet and the guy thinks, OK, we're going to filibuster like the music fades up.
So did you have a lot of heads up for this?
And what was the origination of the decision to do this?
How did that come about?
So since Bill introduction started this session, myself and a couple of colleagues have actively been trying to just take a little bit of time on things to slow things down so that we're not moving through things quickly.
Because we know that time is the only tool we have as a minority.
And there is only a finite of time every session to accomplish the work that we're going to accomplish.
So that's always been sort of a baseline strategy is to just slow things down.
But when we voted on this bill out of committee, um, It was just my decision alone in that committee.
The four men in the committee all voted for it.
And myself and my colleague Jen Day were the only ones that voted against it.
And it was, I think it was like eight o'clock at night.
I don't even know.
And then there was a snowstorm.
And so I was stuck in Lincoln overnight.
So I stayed here overnight.
I was sick.
It turned out I had strep throat.
So I went to the, you know, pharmacy, grabbed some toothpaste, deodorant, etc.
Stayed at a hotel, got up the next morning.
rolled into the Capitol and I was like, all right, I guess I'm filibustering.
And so I got on the microphone and I guess it kind of was like a West Wing moment in that like, no, there wasn't a lot of lead time.
This wasn't like a grand strategy.
It was a I'm fed up and kids deserve better.
So There I am.
Well, let's talk a little bit about that because obviously the bill wants to basically make it illegal to do any kind of transgender affirmative care.
And one of your states senators calls this a culture war.
And then they're fed up with it because it's a culture war.
So do you really think this is some sort of issue about like philosophies that should be compared on equal footing?
No.
No, this is not equal footing.
This is individuals who are legislating hate and they are pretending that they are doing it under the guise of protecting children.
The same people that are introducing this legislation are the people that are supporting bills that take away parental or give parental rights in schools over what books are in the library.
It's this complete disconnect of We know what's best, as long as you agree with us.
And if you don't agree with us, then as parents, you don't know what's best.
So you know what's best for your children when it comes to what books they should have in the library, but you don't know what's best for children when it comes to their medical care.
That's not equal footing.
That's ideological bigotry.
So I'm kind of curious, I'm trying to figure out what the main motivation is from the conservatives on this.
Do you think that it is that notion that you just described that they always seem to know better about a lot of things, right?
They like to push things that are not very popular because they want to say, well, trust me, this will be so much better for everybody once we get it in.
Or is there an appeal to sort of the phobia of the transgender community in general?
Or is this a kind of a perfect storm and mix of both of those things?
I want to step back from that a little bit, because I don't believe that this is who people are.
I don't.
It's very easy to get bogged down in political rhetoric and say it's the conservatives or it's the liberals.
The reality is that there are so many individuals that I serve with in the legislature.
Most of the people I serve with are conservative Republicans.
And so many of them don't want to legislate hate.
That's not who they are.
They came here to work on tax policy.
They came here to work on agricultural issues, on public education, on the functions of government.
And that is who so many of the people that I work with are.
They are public servants.
They are intentional.
But we have seen this national conversation that has created it allowable to have these attacks on families, on family structures that are different, that aren't what we considered the 1950s nuclear family, and it's become permissible.
And so while I have these colleagues that I think are wonderful, intelligent, compassionate individuals, they are being pushed also by this conversation.
into not supporting it necessarily, but not standing up against it.
And so I'm not here to force anybody to stand up and do something that they're not comfortable doing.
I am here to stand up because nobody else is.
And I'm here to stand up in hopes that they will have The strength themselves to realize that this is a moment in history that is really important and that what they do today is going to be historical.
And so I kind of got away from your question.
Sorry.
But I just, I worry, I worry about framing things in a way that is hyper-partisan and hyper-political because I, I think part of the problem is that we have made people feel like they have to dig in.
And I don't want people to feel like they have to dig in.
You don't have to dig in.
You can always, every day you can wake up and you can make the hard choice to do what's right.
You don't have to dig in.
And I think what you're also saying then is like you don't need to even embrace or accept the transgender community to do your job and to advocate for their rights.
I think isn't that sort of the key here?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, you don't have to.
You absolutely don't have to champion the transgender community at all.
What I'm asking my colleagues to do is champion their own agenda, which has never been this type of legislation.
For the four years that I've served already, And many of these colleagues are no longer here.
I served with fiscal conservative businessmen who every time we had an abortion debate, they would say, am I allowed to curse on this?
They would say that they don't want to be talking about this shit.
Whenever the abortion debate came up, all of these businessmen would be like, I just don't want to be talking about this shit.
And I'm like, well, you don't have to vote for it.
And they're like, well, you don't have to vote for it.
But all they ever wanted to be talking about was tax policy.
That's it.
That's all these people wanted to be talking about.
Some of those people have been term limited, but there's new businessmen in here, businesswomen in here now.
This isn't what they care about.
This isn't why they ran for office to tell families how to make medical decisions.
They ran for office to help their businesses and to have economic development and tax incentives and all of those things.
And so, yeah, you don't have to join me in fighting for trans kids.
Just join me by saying, I don't want to talk about this.
I want to talk about this.
This is my agenda.
This is what the people in my district want.
This is what the people in my district need.
So, really quickly, can you give us an insight into what this is really all about?
Like, the transgender care that you're advocating for, what is so triggering, I suppose is the word, that makes them want to, you know, literally legislate this out of the state?
On their side?
Yeah.
That's a great question.
I don't really know the answer to.
I don't understand it.
I really don't.
Everything that they say, there's verbal gymnastics to make it sound like they aren't transphobic and that this isn't about hurting kids.
And so with that level of disingenuous rhetoric, it's hard to get at the crux of what it is that they are trying to do.
All I can tell is that the people behind this, the people pushing this, are transphobic.
For sure.
So Kathleen Kaus, who is the sponsor of the bill, she does sound empathetic in her statements when she says that, you know, kids need therapy instead of medical treatment.
And so that's an interesting, perhaps even disarming statement because you're supposed to sort of say, well, that's not what this bill is.
So, you know, the bill is trying to protect kids from like, well, can you give us a quick overview of what you are advocating for then and what should be, you know, accepted practice then?
What I'm advocating for is what is currently the rule, the standard of care in Nebraska, which is children and their parents make medical decisions together.
Children who are facing questions around gender identity and If they are fortunate to have supportive family members, supportive parents or guardians, they are taking them to therapists to talk through those questions and help guide them through the conversation of self-discovery and awareness.
And if, and it is an if, if a child is not in the gender assigned, if the gender assigned body that they are in is not appropriate for them.
There are avenues and they are long, they are robust, they are lots of guardrails, and they all require parental consent for transitioning.
Some of them, the most basic of them, start with puberty blockers, which is reversible and not easy to get.
That is the most baseline thing that you can have as a transgender youth is puberty blockers, so that as you grow, You can make those decisions without having irreversible things happen.
It is considered compassionate care, and it is something that you can only access with parental consent.
This bill seeks to take away parental consent in medical decisions, and I don't understand why anyone who believes in liberty and freedoms would support that.
I just fundamentally, diametrically opposed to everything that my colleagues talk about.
Yeah, I said this in the last show where it seems like they're just they're assuming that these eight year olds are walking down the street smoking cigarettes and, you know, going to bars and then deciding to have hair versus how measured it is.
I mean, this is a process that takes a long time that I don't think maybe that's the information that's not getting To them perhaps.
It's a fascinating argument because which is why I kind of get back to the sort of the fear of the other and it probably falls into like LGBTQ fear as well or you know issues with that in a way that it's interesting that you said that you go to serve in local government because you want to do with taxes and farming and those kind of things.
Is this sort of a new norm where local politics are now going to sort of embrace the national, you know, issues that we've seen that have seemed to take hold and get coverage now?
I hope it's not the new norm.
I hope that this is going to be a blip in the history of the Nebraska Unicameral, that we had the year 2023, we had an enormous number of hurtful hateful bills.
Sorry, still kind of recovering from strep throat.
And that, that it went poorly.
And the legislature mentally recovered from that bad judgment.
And moving forward, we go back to what our roots are.
Which is, we are required to pass a balanced budget every year.
Nebraska never passes an unbalanced budget.
We have no debt.
So we are required, that's our actual only constitutional requirement is to pass a balanced budget.
And beyond that, you know, we work hard to, we have a very strong public school system here.
We don't have charter schools or school vouchers.
And so that's another, that's a constant fight here, of course.
And that will probably be a fight this year.
But I hope that that's the thing we go back to is public education, good steward of public tax dollars, Medicaid, property taxes, like that's what my first four years were.
I'm kind of curious.
You know, we just saw what happened with a state senator in Florida trying to pass a bill that would basically make being a Democrat illegal.
Are you actually sorry for that?
Are you?
I wonder if the filibuster now are you are you preventing other kind of radical bills from the right as well from the conservative side that would also be trying to get pushed on the legislation right now?
Oh, yes, for sure.
We have other ones.
I mean, it's not just the anti-affirmative care bill.
We have, of course, the total ban on reproductive health care.
And we have a bill on trans sports.
We have a drag show bill, which I used to work for the opera.
So this bill is really hilarious to me.
We used to have high school students.
Well, when I worked there, they probably still do.
But high school students would volunteer at the opera, and then we'd give them free tickets to come to the opera.
Like, is that gonna be not allowed with this drag show, Bill?
I mean, this is the thing, is the practicality of some of these things are so short-sighted and far-reaching and overreaching.
But yes, there's lots of terrible things that have been introduced this year that my filibustering will hinder.
Sure.
I mean, my worry is, and I mentioned about the local side of this, is that these are the kind of issues you do if you want to do a national campaign.
And by doing this at the local level, I kind of get the feeling they really, these are people who really believe in these bills and really believe that they're doing things that are right.
And that's what's troubling, right?
Because now you have an intractable, because listen, a lot of the senators in Congress now, I sense they don't necessarily believe any of this stuff, but they're just using it as ways to get on, you know, on the news.
So this is what makes me concerned, is that these are the kind of things where you said, like, people really dig in and they truly believe these things.
I don't know if we're going to be able to change that at this point, because, you know, is there a way?
I suppose the answer for you would be elections.
More people need to be voted in who agree with you.
Well, they don't have to agree with me, but it would be great if more people were voted in that agreed with the idea of what the role of government is, which is to serve the people and be good stewards of tax dollars.
I mean, the role of government is not to get into people's homes and people's medical rooms.
That's not, that's never been the role of government.
I don't, it doesn't matter what your political ideology is.
I think most Americans, certainly Nebraskans, would say it is not the role of government to get involved in my medical decisions.
And it is not the role of government to get involved in my parenting decisions.
It is the role of government To be good stewards of my tax dollars and to return any of my tax dollars that are not essential and we've gotten away from that by all of these sort of cultural ideological topics.
And I think everyone has, I think we get so fired up about it, that we lose sight of what our role is.
And so I'm just in here in Nebraska, I'm just trying to push people back into that.
Push, just push and push and push and say, As long as we're not doing our jobs, I'm gonna stop us from doing the job that we are doing.
If we start doing our jobs, then great, I'll take a lozenge, drink some hot tea, and probably take a nap, to be honest.
Oh, listen, I can't thank you enough for even taking the time, and you have a very precious voice you need to have, and you're giving us, you know, 20 minutes.
My brother is actually speaking on the floor right now, I can see, so we've got another gal and I taking care of it.
So you had your whole family or your family is involved in politics.
I take it they all are completely supportive of you and even going back to generation before you were really involved.
I think they are completely supportive and and happy that you're doing this.
I'm completely supportive.
I don't know if happy is necessarily the right word.
I think I think my family recognizes the significance of Public service and the significance of the role that government should play.
And I'm, I am very fortunate.
I'm not doing this alone.
Sometimes it might appear to that, to the public, but I do serve with my brother, John Kavanaugh, who is an enormous support system and ally.
And he shows up for me every time I ask him and he stays out of it when I say, Don't get involved in this.
Don't get in their crosshairs.
I'm already in their crosshairs.
So he's a great advocate as well.
And yeah, my dad served in Congress and in the legislature.
And my mom may as well have done those things.
Probably should have.
But, you know, public service is a calling.
And I'm grateful to have learned from some really wonderful, thoughtful, heart, heartful people.
about what it means to be in public service and that we should be legislating with compassion and care and not hate in our hearts.
Well, Michaela, I cannot thank you enough for coming on and giving us your voice in what's happening and what we need to continue to advocate for.
In an agnostic way, you're doing the Lord's work.
Thank you so much for doing this.
And thank you for coming on the show.
I really appreciate it.
Well, in a non-agnostic way, I am Catholic.
So I am doing the Lord's work and it is Lent.
So I'm really doing this is my penance.
This is my Lenten penance this year is to just fight for children, all children.
And our trans youth are our most vulnerable youth.
So I'm just grateful to have the platform and for you to have asked me to be here today.
So and I would just like to say that anybody who is watching that if you're if you're struggling, please reach out.
You're not you're not alone.
Get help if you're struggling, if you are feeling that there's nobody there for you, there are people there for you, there are people fighting for you across this country.
I'm just one of them.
And I'm one who's been fortunate to have a little bit of an elevated platform, but don't give up hope.
Again, thank you so much.
And you know, get back out there.
Don't let us take a little bit of your time.
I will.
Thanks, Nick.
It was wonderful to talk with you.
Alright everybody, we are back, and that was Mikayla Kavanaugh, a state senator in Nebraska who's filibustering to stop anti-trans legislation.
I wish we had a lot more Mikayla Kavanaughs out in the world fighting this battle.
Nick, before we go, people always want to hear this.
What have you been watching?
Oh dear, what have I been watching?
I watched Chariots of Fire over the last couple nights, finally.
I listened to a pod about it, and I had to listen to it, or had to watch it.
You haven't seen this movie, have you?
I haven't seen it.
One of the most rousing soundtracks of all time.
But I have not seen the movie.
I'm jealous.
I mean, it was on a loop in my car growing up.
I mean, I know how to play it on a piano.
I mean, it really is... What a brag!
I know how to play it on the piano.
I do.
I used to play it with my signature thing.
Oh, there's Nick.
He's going to play Shards of Fire again.
But it really is, when you're merging editing, slow motion, and music, and then great acting, great writing, it really is one of those things that like, you understand why it won the Academy Award in a number of levels, and it defied the odds because it was a crazy year in 81, but Just a terrific movie, and it has everything, Jared.
It's got religion.
It's got monarchy.
It's got class.
It's got war.
It's got, you know, Europe in there.
It's a whole lot, and it's got sports.
It's, you know, it's literally the trifecta of everything you'd ever want in a perfect movie.
Monarchy, sports, Europe.
They've got it all.
What are you watching?
Well, so I finished up the best pictures for the Oscars.
I still need to get some of the side categories taken care of.
But lately, I've been doing a lot of work.
And so as a result, I'm relaxing One thing I just went through is a Netflix dating show called Perfect Match, in which they bring together a bunch of contestants from other shows.
And as I keep saying, when they create these little universes, and it's the same thing with like Road Rules, Real World, we know that, right?
Like where they have the challenge shows or whatever.
It's so fascinating to gain insights into these little ecosystems.
Like these people who have been on TV before, they know they're being watched.
As a result, how do they behave?
I think it's an incredible psychological sociological experiment.
I cannot recommend it highly enough.
And then I've been re-watching The Office.
I go through some of these sitcoms just to sort of have them in the background.
In my rewatching of The Office, I have arrived at the post-Steve Carell era, which is a tough watch.
That's a tough time when you get to post-Steve Carell Office.
But I will say, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on this, James Spader comes in as a boss surrogate.
And I gotta tell you, every time James Spader is on any screen, I am just absolutely blown away Hardly anybody does what James Spader does.
That's his lane, is being James Spader.
He has a weird, magnetic, off-putting chemistry to him.
Do you agree?
Oh, absolutely.
And it started in the 80s with, what's the Molly Ringwald, with Ducky?
Sixteen Candles.
No, no, no, not 16K.
Oh, Pretty in Pink, sorry.
Yeah, thank you.
Wow, and I'm really embarrassed that I forgot Pretty in Pink for a second.
It started, I think it probably started there, and like, yes, the smarm, and he is really great at that, and he's been able to create an entire career with fantastic, oh no, I'm sorry, Sex Alive's videotape was, I think, the first, or actually, I don't know which one came first, but nonetheless, just, he's really good in what he does, and yes, all of that, and he's captivating on the screen.
Yeah, and by the way, it was also weird, there was an episode where Dave Anthony, the comedian and podcaster who's a buddy of mine, I don't know if you still have this, because I know you live in Los Angeles, you're like, you're closer to fame than I am.
Every time somebody I know comes on the TV, I'm like, I know that guy!
Hey, that's my friend!
I'm like a dog watching their owner come home.
It's kind of embarrassing.
Oh, no, it's just nice excitement.
You're happy for your friends.
Good for you, Dave.
I have a new way to show up on the office.
All right, everybody.
That's going to bring this show to an end.
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.
If you need us before next week, you can find Nick.
