Weekly Roundup: The Military Occupation of Los Angeles - and the USA
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Brad and Dan reflect on what feels like a historic and ominous week. They unpack the rapidly unfolding events in California and Washington, D.C., including:
The shocking treatment of Senator Padilla, who was thrown to the ground and handcuffed
Governor Newsom’s response to escalating federal pressure
The deployment of Marines and National Guard troops
Judge Breyer’s ruling against Donald Trump—and the immediate appeal
What a military parade through D.C. could mean for American democracy
Widespread protests and what they signal about the weeks ahead
This episode captures a pivotal moment in U.S. political life—one that may mark a turning point for the nation.
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you you you Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
Great to be with you on a Friday that feels heavy with so many things.
I'm Brad Onishi, and I'm here today with my co-host.
I'm Dan Miller, professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College.
Good to be with you, Brad, even if it is, we were talking before the show, a pretty heavy day, pretty heavy week.
Yeah, it is.
And I think this is one of those moments, Dan, I think that for me I'll remember in terms of this week.
And it may portend some of what's ahead of us.
I think everyone who's listening can already feel that.
We're going to spend a lot of time today talking about Los Angeles and California.
We'll get to Governor Newsom, Senator Padilla's being thrown to the ground and handcuffed.
And we'll just break down everything that happened with The appeal is happening as we speak.
And this all leads in a couple days.
By the time you're listening to this, there will have been, most likely, a military parade through D.C. and widespread protests across the country.
So we are here and we are in it.
Let's get to it.
you you you All right, Dan, I'm going to throw it to you.
I think we've both got about a billion things to go over.
There's really no way in an hour to break down what happened in California this week, but it...
And I think, for me at least, one of the major goals today is to cut through the noise.
There's so much information.
There's so many things to pay attention to.
Can we boil things down for people so that they can walk away with a few clear points as to what is happening, why it is more than problematic, and what the next steps will be?
So off to you.
Yeah, so just a little bit of background.
And I think everybody has some awareness of what's going on, so I'm not going to rehash everything.
Obviously, in California and L.A. specifically, there were protests and confrontations with ICE around immigration raids.
It's not the only place this has happened.
People have looked, especially like, I don't know, wherever you live, if you live around like major cities, if you live in a blue state, things like that, you will have seen protests and confrontations that have erupted when ICE has gone in to, you know, remove people from different places and things like that.
Everybody probably knows I live in Massachusetts.
There have been protests and confrontations in different places in Massachusetts where like crowds would surround ICE agents and so forth and try to prevent them from doing what they're doing.
Local law enforcement then gets involved.
And in places like Massachusetts and California, where they're very clear that they are not aiding federal agents in enforcing immigration policy, they are there to like...
And so you get all this kind of confrontation and conflict, and that's what was going on.
And so Trump federalized something like 4,000 National Guard troops at like 2,000 two different times and so forth.
Hegseth activated.
Apparently, it's ambiguous about exactly what they're doing, but 700 Marines stationed in the area.
This was all over the objections of California Governor Newsom, and that'll be relevant when we get into the court cases and so forth.
And so that's the thing.
That's what people hear.
Some of the big issues with this that stand out to me, again, sort of in terms of background, is that, number one, and CNN and other places have reported on this, this was not a spur-of-the-moment decision by Trump.
It was positioned, like, kind of played out this way by the Trump administration.
California's in trouble.
We had to go in and help.
And we're going to, you know, his big claims that California or L.A. would have burned to the ground if he hadn't sent in the troops.
They have been working for months to try to come up with a rationale for having.
Federal troops and /or Federalized National Guard units.
Part of the reason is they don't have enough people to actually do what Trump said he wanted to do.
He talked about rounding everybody up and deporting a million people and all of this.
There simply are not enough ICE agents.
And when you have municipalities and states like Massachusetts or California or a lot of other particularly blue states that have said, we will not use local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law, they just don't have enough ICE agents.
And so I think it also goes with all the stuff about flooding the zone and shock and awe and whatever.
They want to just be able to do this.
They wanted to use the military.
We also, I think this ties directly into Trump's parade, and it is very much Trump's parade.
Trump loves the military.
He loves his show.
He loves looking strong.
He loves looking powerful.
We could go in, in a lot of, frankly, really crass ways if we wanted, into the masculinity stuff that I think is wrapped up with that.
But all of this is at play, and so Trump has been itching.
For an excuse to deploy the National Guard, to deploy the military, especially if he can do it in a big blue city, blue state, a place where he can essentially punish a state for not voting for him, which is very much, I think, part of what's going on in LA.
So that's the first piece of this, is that he's been planning this for a long time.
I think it's also important for people to know that this is largely a show.
Again, Trump has talked a big game.
He said L.A. would have burned to the ground if he didn't send in the Guard.
He's presented as if the Guard has brought them under control.
They have not invoked the Insurrection Act.
That would be the federal act that, if anything, is going to let them actually use the military as a police force.
And even this is contentious, but that they would need to invoke this for various reasons they haven't.
The Guard and Marines have largely been deployed to protect federal buildings and to protect federal personnel.
And most reports on the ground are like, you don't really even see the Guard.
There have not been a lot of confrontations.
This is not like Kent State kind of confrontations that we're seeing and so forth, despite the fact that Trump wants to sort of present it as this powerful show of force in this confrontation.
It largely hasn't been.
It's largely been a $134 million publicity stunt.
And that number comes from congressional hearings about this and so forth.
So it's largely been, I think, about showmanship.
It has largely been, you know, obviously the MAGA base loves this.
But it's been a long time in the making.
This is Trump.
It's an instigation he's been waiting for to take on a blue state, a popular blue state governor, a popular and well-known, I think, I think Newsom has a fair amount of national recognition, name recognition, and so forth.
So I'll pause there.
I think all of that's background and context.
We can get into more of the specifics, but you can take us wherever you want to take us.
Reflections on those points, moving us into some other points, as you said.
I think we've both probably got about two hours worth of stuff we could talk about here, so I'll throw it your way.
So this is a spectacle.
It is a show, but it has a very specific purpose.
Well, I think it has numerous.
I think one is, Dan, I went on PBS NewsHour in the first week of January before Trump was inaugurated, and I talked about Pete Hexeth.
And the thing that I said on that segment was, if you want someone at DOD who is willing to use the U.S. military on domestic soil, Pete Hexeth is your man.
And he wasted no time.
Wasted no time in putting the Marines on notice and so forth.
He's even talked about President Trump's, quote-unquote, focus on the homeland and the use of military personnel on, quote, the homeland, okay?
Number two, Project 2025 has two enemies of the United States.
Like, if you read those chapters, it is China, and it is internal domestic enemies of the state.
The goal with Los Angeles is to test something out.
Can you go to Los Angeles?
And then after that, can you go to Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Baltimore?
Boston.
Yep.
Any of those places.
Yep.
And can you convince the Fox News audience, the Newsmax audience, the MAGA audience, et cetera, that they had to go because L.A. was burning?
They had to go because those cities had become captive by socialists.
They had to go because the violence and the unrest.
And if you can do that, if you can set the context for that, then you're setting the context for widespread military use in the future all over the country.
And we've talked about it at length on this show.
Anybody who you read or listen to who's an expert on fascism, who has any research background in totalitarianism or authoritarianism, whether it's Tim Snyder, whether it's Ruth Ben-Ghiat, whether it is...
So I think that's on my mind.
This is also a distraction from the big, beautiful, terrible, ugly bill that Trump is trying to get through.
One of the things that I think we shouldn't miss about that bill is it is directly related to what's happening.
David Dayen, writing at the American Prospect, puts it this way.
A big chunk of the money goes to border wall construction.
Talking about money in that bill that's for immigration agencies and other things.
But even more goes toward detention and enforcement.
The $45 billion earmarked for building new detention centers.
Would represent a 364% annual increase to the construction budget, supercharging the detention beds available to at least $125,000.
The entire federal prison system only holds a little bit more than that.
So this is a bill that would dramatically increase ICE raids in every part of this country, including the blue cities that you've talked about.
I just want to make one more point.
I'll throw it to you, which is...
Karen Bass, the mayor of L.A., came out and said clearly, we don't need this, we don't want it.
So, Dan, my takeaway number one, if you're listening and you have already listened this week and watched this week to double-digit hours about Los Angeles, and there's so much info and so many things swirling in your head, let me give you one takeaway for today.
Are you ready?
The governor of the biggest economy in this country.
And the mayor of the city in question, both said, we do not want the National Guard on our soil.
And the president of the United States ignored them and sent them anyway.
The last time National Guard has been sent to California and anywhere, the governor was on board.
You can talk about the 92 riots.
You can talk about other times.
There was a time when the National Guard was sent in.
Against the governor's wishes, but that was to protect civil rights protesters and activists, Dan, who were being attacked by law enforcement and, like, militia extrajudicial groups and actors.
This was him clearly just saying, I am going to go against the chain of command, I'm going to go against your wishes, and I'm going to send the military to your state.
I am going to use troops in your community.
I'm going to send people who are trained to fight foreign enemies to think of people in L.A. and Paramount as domestic enemies.
Like, takeaway number one is clearly that the president just said to any other official in charge, I don't care about your opinion.
I don't care about you being on the ground.
I don't care that you know what's happening better.
I don't want to work with you, collaborate.
I am in charge, and I am sending the military, and I will do that anywhere I want.
That does not sound like separation of powers.
It does not sound like federalism.
It does not sound like states' rights.
It sounds like authoritarianism and a dictatorship.
Yeah, so I want to jump in, and we'll be jumping around today, I think.
But to me, that brings me to the court side of this.
So Governor Newsom in the state of California sued the Trump administration over this in federal court.
And U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that Trump unlawfully federalized the National Guard and had to return control of the troops to California and to Governor Newsom.
And to your point, the reason was he ruled that Trump hadn't complied with federal law requiring presidents to issue National Guard orders, quote, through the governor, end quote, of the state.
It says it has to go through the governor of the state.
It did not.
And that was very clear and so forth.
Now, here's the bigger deal to me, were the things that Breyer had to say about this in his opinion.
I'm reading from CNN that summarized some of these.
But I want us to just listen for a minute to some of the things that he said.
Because as you say, the Trump administration has been presenting this as mass riots and LA is burning and so forth.
And it's also worth a side note here.
I talk about this briefly in my book.
The media does no favors here.
Oftentimes people who are on the ground in these things are like a block away from what's happening.
Like, oh, I didn't know that there were any cars that were overturned.
I didn't know there were any windows that were broken.
It's often super, super, super isolated, sporadic, small scale.
But that's what gets clicks.
That's what gets ads.
That's what draws people to it.
And so often the media makes it look like there's like these mass riots going on and so forth.
So anyway.
You have all of that backdrop, but here are some things that Breyer said.
He said in his ruling that the protests, quote, the protests in Los Angeles fall far short of rebellion, and rebellion is in quotes.
He goes on to say, violence is necessary for rebellion, but it is not sufficient.
Even accepting the questionable premise that people armed with fireworks, rocks, mangoes, concrete, chairs, or bottles of liquid are armed in a 1903 sense, The court is aware of no evidence in the record of actual firearms.
There is little evidence of whether the violent protesters' actions were, quote, open or avowed, end quote.
That's all a quote from Breyer.
And what he's doing is taking on directly the claims- Just want to note, you said the word mangoes.
You said the word mangoes.
Okay, sorry.
I said it because Breyer said it.
And I don't know all the background if this is a list of supposedly what these rebellious people have been fighting with.
Mangos?
Throwing mangoes or something?
So in California, there's a culture of mango carts.
So if you go outside of wherever it is, a stadium, a park, you can stop.
And it's something that comes from Mexican culture, but you can stop and buy a mango that is then adorned with things that make it spices or whatever that make it more tasty.
So my guess is...
They're throwing street food.
Yeah, exactly.
And I mean, the point is, I think that gives the context.
Part of what Breyer's doing here is showing just how ridiculous these claims are.
How much of a threat is it, honestly, to anybody in law enforcement, if people are throwing food at them?
Like, this is what rises to the level of armed rebellion and so forth.
He goes on to say, he says, quote, and I'm quoting Breyer a lot here, nor is there evidence that any of the violent protesters were attempting to overthrow the government as a whole.
The evidence is overwhelming that protests gathered to protest a single issue.
I think we can pause here.
I think that's really important because Trump and the Trump administration, they keep trying to argue that this is about insurrection.
And the language is key here.
They'll use the same language here that they would not use about J6.
This is rebellion.
This is insurrection.
So my geography, Brad, is not good.
I'm one of those people that if somebody's like, draw a map of how you get from here to there, like I draw a map and it is completely wrong.
I'm not good.
But you can correct me if I'm wrong.
You live in California.
But my recollection is that California is really far from Washington, D.C. And that if, in fact, somebody was trying to overthrow the U.S. government, like, maybe the worst place to start would be in L.A. Like, it's really far away.
I mean, there are federal offices there, but the president's not there.
Congress isn't there.
Breyer is making what should be an obvious point in saying this is not about rebellion as such.
This is not about overthrowing the United States.
This is not about any of this.
It's about exactly what all the protesters say it's about.
It's about the immigration raids.
And part of what Breyer is doing in this decision that I think is significant is really just bringing out into the open and making very explicit what I think to any reasonable observer.
Is clear in highlighting just how premeditated this is by the Trump administration, how much the language they're using is inflated and is intended to justify something that they always already wanted to do.
I'm going to be just a couple more points, and I want to throw it to you for your thoughts here.
But he also goes on to say this, and this is, I think, really important.
He says, A core civil liberties protected by the First Amendment can justify a finding of rebellion.
In short, individuals' right to protest the government is one of the fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment, and just because some stray bad actors go too far does not wipe out that right for everyone.
The idea that protesters can so quickly cross the line between protected conduct and, quote, rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States, end quote, is untenable and dangerous.
And that cuts right to the heart of what I think every critic of Trump has said.
This is not about stopping rebellion.
This is about violating the rights of people who don't toe the MAGA line, people who didn't vote for Trump.
People who don't support Trump policies.
People who, the language that I use all the time, they're not real Americans to Trump.
These people are not real Americans.
They are not protesting.
They don't have rights that need to be protected.
They have rights that need to be taken away, and that's what this is about.
So the Breyer decision, which was then put on hold, the Ninth Circuit put a hold on it, and I think hearings are scheduled for next week.
It's a pretty pro forma move.
I think this is significant.
I think it highlighted and really clearly stated in pretty succinct ways the falsehoods that are driving the MAGA movement and highlighting the real goals and aims of the Trump administration.
So your thoughts on any of that as it relates to the legal rationale, but also all the things that you're talking about of what it is that Trump wants to do.
And has wanted to do since Inauguration Day with the military and with all those people that he doesn't consider to be the MAGA faithful.
Yeah.
Let's take a break and we'll come back and get into some of the details of this lawsuit, what will probably end up in the Supreme Court very soon.
And then we'll go to, I want to make some points here about states, states' rights, FEMA, abortion, and the way that Trump wants to rule but not govern.
And it's pretty clearly displayed this week.
Be right back.
So just to finish up the thought on Judge Breyer's ruling and some of the quotes you gave, I want to give takeaway point number two.
So again, your head is spinning.
You're afraid.
You've listened to way too much content or watched too much content this week.
You don't know what's happening.
I think this is one of those moments, Dan, to say...
That if you are going to react to protests of this nature by sending in not only the National Guard over the governor's wishes, but then sending Marines in ways that are, like, the National Guard is one thing, the Marines on domestic soil.
And we're not, look, we're not going to overstep our lane.
We're not military historians.
We're not ex-military.
We're not people who are going to pretend that we are in that lane professionally and so on.
But I think all of you listening know that, as Americans, the idea that the Marines would be on domestic soil for a case and a situation like this is a step towards authoritarianism and, dare I say, fascism.
Period.
This is a moment.
And we can point to so many.
And I know that the last five months have just been dizzying.
Doge and federal cuts and USAID and everything in between.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the disappearing of people from the street, including graduate students.
There's so many of these.
This is one that should be a clear marker for everybody.
And I think Judge Breyer did an incredible job.
As I was reading this last night and this morning, I was like, I'll read one more thing from Breyer's opinion here.
Memorandum for adjutant general of the California National Guard through the governor of California.
The order further states that the commander of U.S. Northern Command would control the 2000 National Guard troops.
Defendants did not, or members I should say, defendants did not notify Governor Newsom of their intent to federalize the California National Guard.
Think about what I said was point number one to take away.
They didn't tell the governor of their intent to federalize the National Guard on California's, you know, territory.
But the memorandum, if you read, Dan, says they went through Governor Newsom.
So it wasn't that Governor Newsom worked with them.
It wasn't that he was a collaborator, a part of a chain of command, part of a...
Everybody just stick a pin in that.
When they want to, they will treat every other authority, political, elected leader, governing body, institution, as a subsidiary that they can take over.
If you can simply step in.
As the federal government or as the president, in any situation you want, and treat the local or state authorities and government as a subsidiary that you can take over at any time, that is not called democracy.
That is not called any kind of local control, state autonomy, and so on.
And this brings me to a further point, Dan, that I want to make sure we highlight.
And that's this.
On June 11th, We're moving it back to the states so the governors can handle.
That's why they're governors.
If they can't handle it, they shouldn't be governor.
That's what he's saying about FEMA and all of these, right?
I was just going to quiz you.
You passed.
So, everybody, here's point number three to take away from today.
You ready?
Your federal government is telling you this.
When it comes to disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, flooding, you are on your own.
It's up to the states.
We're not going to have money for that.
Sorry.
Federal, the richest country in the world, the richest country in world history, we don't have money to help when the next tornado hits Houston, when the next hurricane hits.
We just don't have money for that.
Sorry.
And you know what?
If you're a governor, you should be able to handle that.
What's wrong with you?
What, you don't know how to do your job?
You're a governor.
Oh, there's a minor protest?
They're throwing mangoes?
Send in the Marines.
I don't care what the governor says.
You know why?
Because the richest country in the world, with the biggest military you've ever seen, does have money to militarize your city.
Here's the thing, y 'all.
We have money to militarize your city.
We don't have money to help you when the hurricane hits your city.
That's point number three to take away from today.
He also said that FEMA has not worked out well and it's extremely expensive.
How much did you say that the troops going?
$144 million.
Ah, got it.
Yep.
Yep.
Thanks for reminding me.
He also said, and I'm going to, this is a blast from the past.
Do you remember what Trump has been saying about abortion?
Got to send that back to the states.
Send that back to the states.
Do you all get the message?
When it comes to life, staying alive, it's up to you.
When it comes to maybe death because you protested, Government's ready for that.
They will send every weapon they got, whether it's a drone, whether it is Marines, whether it's a National Guard.
Thoughts, Dan, on the states' rights, federalism.
We can't help you survive or flourish, but we can militarize you if you get out of line.
Yeah, I think a lot of thoughts about it.
Everything you say is right.
And we've said this for years, right, that the whole the GOP is about small government and all of that being nonsense that is about state rights.
It's very, very selective.
Throw it to the states when it suits their purposes.
Try to consolidate power when it doesn't.
It's worth noting.
We don't have to dive into it far.
But number one is, I think, the masculine model behind this, the model of masculinity.
Men exercise power and authority.
Men exercise vengeance.
And that's what Trump wants.
Men don't nurture.
They don't care.
They don't help.
That's all soft and effeminate and weak.
And so I think that there is a deep connection with all of the stuff about toxic masculinity or militant masculinity, as Kristen Dume would say, or stuff Sarah Mosliner would talk about with purity culture and masculinity.
All of these models.
About a stereotypical image of the so-called alpha male and what they are.
And I think that's one thing that maps onto this, right?
So they love the military.
They love force.
But helping and caring and nurturing, that's not really the stuff that we're about, right, as men.
And so I think that's one sort of overarching theme.
Another one is, again...
I want to take us to a statement that, excuse me, Kristi Noem said, Homeland Secretary in a press conference.
We can get into the Padilla stuff, but this is before that.
But she said this, and I think that this is a telling point as well.
She said, quote, we are not going away.
We are staying here.
So she says, we're staying here, staying in LA.
Why?
To help people?
To quell riots?
To enforce immigration policy?
Nope, she doesn't say any of that.
Here's what she says in this moment where she seems to say the quiet part out loud.
She says, we are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country.
End quote.
She's basically talking about regime change.
She says we are here because we don't like that there is a Democratic governor and a Democratic mayor of a large state and a prosperous city, and we are here to take control of that.
And even a shift there, right?
The burden that this mayor and this governor have placed where?
On this country.
They are a national threat, Brad.
It is a threat to have.
Blue states.
It is a threat to have Democrats in control or power.
And so when she has to defend this, it's not even about the reasons that are being given in court or to justify this.
She basically is like, yeah, we want regime change.
We are here because, again, the burdensome leadership and the socialism of the leadership of California.
And I think that that highlights all of this as well, of like, what's really going on?
Why California?
It's not just because we want to consolidate power from states.
It's because it's a blue state.
It's a state that is seen as an enemy of the people.
It's a state that's an enemy of the U.S. It's a state that's an enemy of Trump and MAGA.
And so we're going to send in the military and bring them into line.
So a couple things just to wrap up on the military occupation front.
One of the reasons this is a big moment is because if this goes to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court rules in Trump's favor, they're basically saying you can send the National Guard wherever you want, whenever you want, and they're, not to mention the Marines, so you can stay in L.A. indefinitely.
Just, I mean, you know, Dan, I mean, think about it.
Gavin Newsom, that's what I'm saying, right?
So you're not, the Insurrection Act is not in play yet, but you're basically saying, Governor Newsom, Karen Bass, Mayor of L.A., sorry, we're just sending in troops to your city indefinitely.
That's martial law.
That's military occupation.
And then I'm telling you all, this summer, and probably starting this weekend, by the time you've heard this, there will have been mass, mass, mass, mass, mass protests all over the country.
We're recording this June 13th.
June 14th, you're going to have historic protests across this country, and most of you are going to be at one of them.
Where's the next play stand?
Is it Portland?
Is it Seattle?
Is it San Francisco?
Is it Baltimore?
Where is it?
So that's what's happening to me when this goes to the Supreme Court.
That is what's at stake in a lot of this.
Yeah, I mean, I want to get to...
So Christy Noem is saying the quiet part out loud.
Alex Padilla, as I'm sure most of you listening know already, went into her press conference.
If you watch the video, clearly identified himself and was thrown to the ground and arrested.
So not only do we have the military occupation of Los Angeles, but we have a California senator who is one of about 14, I believe.
It's either 14 or 15 Latinos who've ever been in the United States Senate.
A man who got more votes.
You want to say something, Uncle Ron, this week?
Alex Padilla got more votes than 48 out of the 53 GOP senators combined.
Add up 48 senators' worth of votes in the GOP, and they're less than how many Americans voted for Alex Padilla.
Now, that begs a whole question about the Senate, and that's not what we're doing today.
He was thrown to the ground.
Who are the elected officials who've been standing up?
MacGyver, Baraka, Padilla.
All people of color.
All people with the most to lose who will be punished the most.
And we are still at a point where the Chuck Schumers and the others are concerned, have questions, sending memos.
Once upon a time, it would have been the- Not sleeping well.
Sending the strongly worded letter.
It's like, I'm going to shoot off an email.
I'm going to let them know what I think.
Yeah.
So, you know, I will tell you right now, Dan, and I'm open to what you think of this, the military occupation of L.A., the attacks on the press, the shooting with a rubber bullet of an Australian reporter for no reason, the attacks on the press.
I mean, those are things we could spend another two hours on.
There have been just press and journalists who don't, there seems to be no freedom of the press anymore.
They can just be arrested.
Who's going to do anything about it?
We're reaching that point.
What are you going to do about it?
I am Stephen Miller.
I am Donald Trump.
I am Kristi Noem.
I am Pete Hexeth.
You're going to keep suing?
You're going to keep asking the judges to stop us?
Keep going and we're just going to keep occupying.
We're not going anywhere, is what Kristi Noem said, right?
But the point I want to make here, before we get to Gavin Newsom and some other stuff, the world is noticed.
Like, Dan, you think our friends in the UK and Denmark, you think our friends in Australia and Japan, people in China and Germany, you think they did not see Alex Padilla get thrown to the ground and handcuffed?
Like, what does that look like?
Dan, if you and I lived in the UK and somebody from the House of Lords got thrown to the ground and handcuffed, like, what the hell would we have thought of when we, you and I, like, if I was in France and a member of the parliament got thrown to the ground and handcuffed for no reason?
He was not, like, waving a gun or a knife?
Just thrown to the ground and handcuffed?
What would we think?
And believe me, the world knows, the world understands the gravitas of this.
I just want to give one more thing about L.A. L.A. is America.
I said this on the Bonus Content Monday.
You know, friends, I get it.
If you don't love L.A., I'm not going to force you to, and I'm not going to beg you to like California.
I'm not.
Okay?
I'm serious.
I'm not going to ask Dan Miller to like the Patriots.
Okay?
You know, none of you should even think about asking me to like cauliflower rice, quote-unquote.
I put rice in quotes there.
Or the Celtics.
Okay?
So if you don't like California for whatever, that's fine.
I don't care.
But don't call California not America.
Don't call L.A. not a real American city.
18 million people live in L.A. metro area.
There's more people in L.A. than like 18 American, 19 American states.
Okay?
It is not Hollywood and Malibu Beach.
Those things are there.
The majority of L.A. are people at mango carts.
People trying to go to work.
People trying to feed their families.
People sitting in traffic trying to get to their job.
And it is an immigrant community.
And it's a microcosm of this country.
Don't write off California as not a real part of this country because one in eight Californian Americans are Californians.
And in terms of federal taxes, California pays $80 billion more in federal money than it takes.
It's the fourth or fifth biggest economy in the world.
So just don't, don't let Uncle Ron get away with that stuff either.
Any final thoughts, Dan, before we take a break and talk about Newsom and the military parade and the military bases?
That you have a Latino lawmaker who is arrested and thrown to the ground and everything you described in the context of asking for answers about a crackdown on immigration.
And the reason I say that is because if you look at the rationale that's been given, there's been a lot of effort to try.
Like, Kristi Noem's like, I didn't know who he was.
You know, they said that he didn't identify himself.
You can hear it in the audio and see it in the video.
He identifies himself.
They said he didn't have his Senate security pin on.
They said he quote unquote lunged at Christian.
Like the effort to try to justify this, I think says.
And, you know, if we have time, we can get back into some of the other political implications of this.
But I think it's worth noting that even they recognize, I think, this was a real tactical error.
And it happened so publicly and so visibly that it's—I hope the Democrats can make this work the way that they should.
And Padilla had made statements afterward that I think were really important.
He said, Following this, he said, quote, if this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers.
We will hold this administration accountable.
I hope they find a way to do that.
But I think it was a significant event.
didn't get as much attention as some of the other things, but I think it was really significant for all the reasons you highlighted as well.
Hey, let's do two minutes on Kristi Noem as...
I think, you know, if you follow us, you go to accessmooney.us and look at a podcast series we made called Pure White with Sarah Maziner, and you will understand everything I'm saying to a degree that you cannot get in the two minutes we're going to give it.
Accessmooney.us, Pure White.
Go listen to that podcast.
Kristi Noem has been wearing uniforms and cosplaying all over the country.
Fireperson, ICE agent.
You know, Maureen, everywhere she goes, she dresses up.
She has had significant changes to her appearance.
Now, this is not me judging a woman's appearance.
I'm not saying her appearance is good or bad.
I'm not saying she's pretty or not pretty.
I don't care about any of that.
What I'm noticing is, if you look at pictures of her from five and ten years ago, it appears she's had surgery and her hair is way different.
She looks much more in line with the kind of woman that Trump seems to think is a real woman, right?
With long flowing hair and so on and so forth.
Okay.
When you put a white woman like Kristi Noem, who's been cosplaying all over the country, in that role, and then here comes Senator Padilla, a Latino guy.
He's a big guy, too.
If you look at him, he's a big, tall guy.
You get the optics of, like, a brown man attacking a poor, innocent, helpless white woman.
That's exactly what Sarah Mosner's work is all about.
We've talked about it endlessly on our show.
But there's a reason Kristi Noem is Kristi Noem in that position.
One is she seems to be sadistic.
She killed a dog.
And so her sense of the suffering of others does not seem to be high on the score there.
But some of it is the optics of a small, traditionally feminine woman being attacked by big, strong brown and black and whoever else men is a thing.
I don't know.
Just give me 30 seconds on that.
Does that seem accurate or am I whatever?
It does.
And we could talk about other pieces of this.
And this is the question we can't ever answer is...
Or is it, honestly, I just saw a big brown man and was scared?
And we've talked about this before, that one of the things that we often talk about, you know, I talk about emotions a lot, right, and the role of emotions and political affect and so forth.
We often have this notion you can't judge people for what they feel.
You're not responsible for your emotions.
You can, right?
Emotions are something we learn.
And I think the scarier thought is that perhaps she actually literally can't see a senator.
She just sees a big brown man.
That she embodies that sort of model of, as you say, the vulnerable white woman to such an extent that it really has become what she is.
And that, as you say, the cosplaying, it becomes reality, right?
that it's entirely possible.
And I think that this is If she literally was just afraid in that moment because it's a brown man who's there, who's asking the questions, who's, as you say, has a large stature and what have you.
I think it shows the real feelings that drive the MAGA movement.
I think it's important to recognize that for millions of Americans, those are real.
People of color are scary because they're people of color.
People who aren't white are scary because they're not white.
Women who are not traditionally effeminate in that MAGA world kind of way, there's something wrong with them.
Queer people scare us, right?
The level of fear and loathing and anxiety about difference is real, and I think it has to be appreciated.
And I think that that's just another dimension that harbors in all of these issues, whether it's anti-DEI stuff, the anti-immigration stuff, the anti-LGBTQ.
Like, notice all the antis there.
It's all about what we're opposed to.
It is always an opposition to difference, which I think often comes from a deep-seated fear of anybody who's not straight and white and Christian and patriarchal and all of those things.
Thank you.
Let's take a break.
Be right back.
Talk about Gavin Newsom.
And the military parade that is coming up.
All right, Dan, so Gavin Newsom emerged this week as the resistance leader, quote-unquote.
Now, that's just, put it in quotes, that I think a lot of people expected, including myself, in January and February.
Now, let me explain what I mean by that, because I talked about this on the bonus content Monday, but I have some additional thoughts.
Gavin Newsom for months has been doing things that have enraged liberals, neoliberals, progressives, lefties, everybody who is not a Republican or on the American right.
He's been podcasting with Charlie Kirk and all these other figures who many of us take to be a true toxic source of information and ideas in our public square.
A lot of people have been wondering, what's he doing?
And I think Gavin Newsom, I want to be very clear, is an opportunist who is always thinking about how Gavin Newsom can become more.
Okay?
And I don't think that's every politician.
I think most politicians have a large sense of, I want something for me, but they also, in many cases, are inspired by their communities and the people they serve.
Gavin Newsom is an opportunist who wants to be President of the United States, period.
Okay?
And so why did he emerge this week as somebody who has probably, Dan, articulated as an elected official the most clear and powerful rebukes to Donald Trump?
I mean, he has been on Twitter calling out Mike Johnson and Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth.
You know, Tommy Tuberville.
Tubby's Flubby's tried to come at him about chaos and all this.
And he tweeted at him, the murder rate in your state is three times higher than in my state.
Stick to football, bro.
That's a quote.
That's a quote.
I'm going to play some clips from from Gavin Newsom this week because he came out as the most truth telling, clear and articulate about Trump, about his lies, about his dictatorship, about his his actions in L.A. and so on.
So here's some clips of Newsom talking about that.
He's calling for a sitting governor to be arrested.
For no other reason than to, in his own words, for getting elected.
And we all know this Saturday, he's ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.
Do it peacefully.
It's a vulgar display.
It's the kind of thing you see Kim Jong-un, you see it.
Putin, you see, with dictators around the world that are weak and just want to demonstrate strength.
Weakness masquerading as strength.
To defeat the dear leader on his birthday, what an embarrassment.
Honestly, that's about as small as it gets.
How weak, how weak do you have to be to commandeer the military?
To fet you on your birthday in a vulgar display of weakness.
That's Donald Trump.
Branches he can't handle.
Because the other night, or he came out and said that when you guys spoke, he warned you that if you didn't get things under control, he was going to bring in...
Stone cold liar.
He made that up.
Like he makes up so many other things.
He never said that.
And he also seemed to make up this idea that the National Guard did a great job last night when they weren't here.
They weren't even deployed any claim victory.
He's lost it.
He hasn't lost a step.
And I saw him trip on the steps today.
I mean, he, this is serious.
He is not the same person that I dealt with just four years ago.
And he's incapable now of even a train of thought.
He's making things up and he's putting people's lives at risk.
And he's got a band of people that are complicit in this.
And that's what's so damn alarming.
Now, here's my take, Dan, is this does not make me trust him more.
This does not make me believe in him.
I do not wake up in the morning thinking, how can I help Governor Newsom become the next Abraham Lincoln?
I don't think that.
What I do wonder is why does it take Newsom to do this?
Where are the other governors?
Where are the other electeds?
Why can't they distill the anger and anti-democratic fear and rebuke that he has distilled?
That's number one.
Why is he the one that is the leader of the resistance, who so many of us on the American left are like, That guy is, if you live in California, you know he does not care about trans people, and he certainly does not care in any, like, real way and has done a lot of things to hurt unhoused people.
Why does it take him to be the leader of the resistance?
That's one question.
But two, he has a formula, Dan, that works, which is stand up, don't take it, tell the truth about what's happening, and challenge them out, like, He told Tom Homan, come arrest me.
Come on, tough guy, let's do it.
And Tom Homan the next day was like, oh, I didn't mean it.
There's a formula here of saying, we're not going to soft tail around the issue.
We're not going to go hide.
And I'm going to tell you why in a minute I know that this is happening.
I'm going to give you my psychologizing of Gavin Newsom.
and explain to everybody why Gavin Newsom is here in this moment, doing what he's doing, but I'll throw it to you for thoughts on Let's do it.
What is your response to the Gavin Newsom emergence this week?
Well, I think everything you said about, you know, I think anybody who consistently and authentically holds the kind of views that, you know.
I think we do.
Nobody wants to hitch their wagon to Gavin Newsom, right?
Like, nobody trusts him.
He's an opportunist.
All those things.
Even all the news articles this week are like, yes, we recognize Gavin Newsom is looking to 2028, but here's stuff he said and did and whatever.
But he does tap into, and maybe this is where his opportunism is working and revealing something true, is it is highlighting something about the politics of this.
Because there was also polling this week that came out.
I was going to say, tell us about the polling.
Yeah.
The polling came out and said, yes, a lot of Americans support, let's say, what Trump says about immigration.
They don't like, quote-unquote, open borders.
They think there are too many illegal immigrants in the country, you know, as the language that they would use.
They think that they're dangerous and violent and so forth.
But turns out, Brad, people don't like Trump using the military.
They don't like that, you know, So much so that Trump this week on Truth Social, the same time all this stuff's going on in L.A., he's got to have this Truth Social thing talking about how they need to get rid of fewer farm workers and service industry people and so forth.
It's his own damn policies.
The point is that the polling shows there's a real, like, something that brings about something like a 10 percentage point swing if people emphasize Trump's overreach, his use of authority, his use of executive orders, his defiance of court orders, his appeal to law and order while he's violating law and order.
These are real issues.
These are real things, especially on one of his signature issues, where Democrats and others who oppose Trump can gain ground and do some real work.
And I think this is what Gavin Newsom is both recognizing and doing this week, is highlighting that there's a certain sense in which, if you want to highlight Trump's overreach, yeah, have him send the National Guard.
What I think it's doing is both highlighting that and illustrating it and creating a blueprint.
And lots of analysis have said this.
They've said, look, the Trump administration just lifted up Newsom, but what happens now, and this is me speculating, how much has the Trump administration potentially painted themselves into a corner now?
Do they have to send the National Guard everywhere where the No King rallies happen?
Are they now obligated to do that, to try to show that it's something more than just targeting California?
But if they do, there's no hiding from the fact that you are an authoritarian.
There's no hiding from the fact that you weren't actually talking about targeting dangerous criminals.
There's no hiding from the fact that you want to target everybody who's not white, and that, oh, by the way, if you are white, but you're in a blue state or a state that didn't support Trump, or you didn't vote for Trump, we're kind of after you, too.
I think it just opens up a bunch of things where there are real points of leverage and real gains to be made and real opposition to come forward.
And I think what Newsom is doing over the last several days is showing us that, oh, hey, it can actually work if people stand up to this administration.
And we could put Harvard in that.
I am not a Harvard file, right?
There's lots of things about Harvard I don't like.
But compare Harvard and Columbia.
And how this is playing out with public opinion and in the courts and everywhere else, I think you're starting to see these incidents where we can see that standing up to this administration can work, and you can be strategic about how and when to do that.
And I think that's where Gavin Newsom's opportunism comes together with some real insights that could be generated or could generate momentum in other places that are maybe, let's say, more authentic or more serious.
Or with leaders that I would like to hitch my wagon to, and I'm just kind of waiting for them to come forward.
So Gavin Newsom, I want to say two things, and then we'll shift, and then we'll close for today.
Gavin Newsom has a lot of cards to play because California is an enormous, enormous place.
Again, you may not like California.
You may hate hearing about it.
Just please try to put all that aside for now.
One out of eight or nine Americans is a Californian.
Okay?
It's the fourth or fifth largest economy in the world.
As the governor of that state, he is now standing up and saying, I have a bully pulpit too.
And I can go on offense.
And I think that's the thing that people are finding refreshing.
It's like, finally someone is on offense.
It is not strongly worded letters.
It is not, we will hold them accountable.
It is not, we must, Chuck Schumer, we must get answers to these questions.
It's him going on TV and saying, a reporter asks, hey, what did Donald Trump say when he called you and told you to cut it out?
And Newsom's like, he never called.
He's a liar.
He's a stone-cold liar.
Oh, okay.
What about this?
Come arrest me.
Come get me, dude.
You're a tough guy.
Let's do it.
Like, people don't do that to the Trump lackeys.
And he does it.
Now, why is he doing it?
There's a history of Gavin Newsom being this Gavin Newsom.
when you step on his territory, when you step on his lawn.
Gavin Newsom is best when another...
He is best when another man challenges him to a pissing contest.
Ron DeSantis did it, and they debated, and I thought DeSantis looked pretty dumb.
When you bring the military to what he thinks of as his yard, and he didn't ask for the tank to roll across his grass, And so he's been waiting for this moment.
And if he smells that this is good polling-wise and he smells that this is a way to hurt Trump and his public perception, then you've got to know that as somebody who has more internal data and internal polls and numbers and a whole staff of people telling him, What will get him to the White House?
Then you've got to know that they're telling him that the military, the Marines, the National Guard being in California is an overstep for Trump.
And a lot of centrists, a lot of independents hate this.
And he is trying to say it's time for us to move the chains, Democrats, on this.
Now, again, does that mean I think I'm going to go put up the Newsom 2028 sign in my yard?
No, but honestly, friends, that's what we're looking at right now.
If you said right now, who is it?
It's Gavin Newsom.
I mean, just today.
Now, not because I want that.
Not because that's what my hopes and prayers have been.
Like, who else is it going to be?
Like, right now, is there anyone else in your mind, Dan?
Who has, like, stepped forward that you're like, well, I mean, other than probably AOC.
Right?
I mean, AOC or Gavin.
And, you know, the Elizabeth Warren, Tim Walls, Pete Buttigieg, they're just fading.
Really quickly, and that's not what today's about.
All right.
We got a couple minutes.
The military parade is upcoming.
90% of you will have already been at a protest and heard.
I'm sorry, the parade will have already happened when you listen to this.
So we're not going to spend time on something that by the time you hear it will have already happened.
We'll get to it next week.
I want to say be safe out there as you protest.
Have a plan.
Know what you're doing.
Know why you're there.
And find friends and community members to link up with.
We will break it all down next week once we know what happened.
But tell us about the military bases, Dan, that are being renamed and the ways that the Trump administration is being very creative about that naming.
Yeah, so everybody probably remembers that under the Biden administration, a number of military bases were named after Confederate leaders were renamed.
And so it came out this week that they are— And Trump said this.
He said, quote, We are going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee.
And he said, We want a lot of battles out of those forts.
It's no time to change.
Fort is in the name, Donald Trump.
They're not forts.
They're military bases.
They're not like a wooden stockade, but whatever.
So they wanted to do this.
You can't make this up.
So I started looking at this.
I was like, oh, this is interesting.
And we know this is part of the anti-DEI.
This is part of the, you know, all of this kind of stuff.
But what they decided to do was to return the forts to their original names, but to try to find other people who had those names so that they could be naming the fort in their honor.
So, for example, okay?
Fort Pickett.
I'm reading from CNN.
It says, According to the Army's Tuesday announcement, Fort Barfoot, a Virginia base previously named after Confederate General George Pickett.
So it was named Fort Pickett after Confederate General George Pickett.
It will now be named in honor of First Lieutenant Vernon W. Pickett, a soldier who received the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroism during World War II.
Fort Hood.
Fort Kavazos in Texas will be renamed Fort Hood in honor of Distinguished Service Cross recipient Colonel Robert B. Hood, who fought in World War I. And we could go on and on and on.
The point is that they're doing this thing where they're like, let's just find somebody somewhere.
These are Distinguished Service people.
These are people who sacrificed for their nation.
They fought for their nation.
These are real people and presumably good people.
But restoring the Confederate names This isn't really about white supremacy or the Confederacy.
We just like the names, and so we're going to go find—I just got this vision of them searching the Army database, of being like, who had the last name Hood?
Let's find somebody with the last name Hood that we can now honor by naming the base after them.
So the base names are reverting, but the Trump administration is trying to say that this isn't actually about Confederates or white supremacy.
Or any of that.
It's not about anti-DEI.
We like the names and we're going to basically scrub and sanitize the names.
It's this weird thing that's going on.
For me, what I see, though, is such a kind of wink-wink, dog whistle sign to all the MAGA people who really, it doesn't matter that they were named after Confederates, right?
That's better than whatever else they're named after now.
The other piece that stands out to me about this, again with the timing, You are busy sanitizing the history of people who actually rebelled against the United States, people who did try to break away and form a different nation, people who were, in fact, treasonous, all while you are stationing National Guard troops in a major American city, labeling anybody who disagrees with your policies.
As a rebel and somebody committing treason against your nation.
And again, I think there's a lot of symbolism in the timing of these things and kind of the news that was coming out here.
And again, just the machinations and the sort of rhetorical gymnastics that the right will take to try to mask in plain sight what they're doing and why they're doing it.
So, I'll just add a piece today.
Mother Jones, Amanda Moore, who was a previous guest on this show, and Dan Friedman, report that the planning of the military parade is being done by many of those who planned the J-6 rally.
And they go through the names, whether it's Brad Parscale or Monica Crowley, all blasts from the past, like third- and fourth-rate Trump universe people.
And it just highlights what you just said, Dan.
You're sanitizing the history of Confederates, and you're asking J6 people to come back and plan the military parade of the guy who started the insurrection.
Those are one and the same thing.
Yeah.
Right?
All right.
Let's go to reasons for hope.
I'll give you mine first.
Number one, there is a widespread conception that less people have protested Trump this year, There is widespread activation on the part of Americans.
The question is, will we have the energy and the solidarity to keep it up?
The second one—well, what's yours?
You go ahead, and then I'll give a second one.
I keep doing this, but mine was the Breyer opinion.
And again, whatever happens in appeal, the way that it was laid out so very, very clearly to cut—you mentioned earlier at the outset trying to cut through the noise.
I feel like that opinion cut through the noise.
And it was like, you call this a rebellion, here's why it's not.
You say that these people are being violent, here's why they're not.
You say these people are a threat to America, here's why they're not.
And I think it really brought that into view.
And people ask me all the time if it's not about facts and it's not about data, like why bother with the arguing and why bother with showing this?
In my view, it brings forward what is really at stake and what is really at issue.
And I think it really very, very clearly revealed that.
And I think that that language that he used, the way he presented that, that is language that should also be taken up as people hopefully pick up on the lessons that Newsom is providing right now that we were just talking about and try to deploy these in different ways.
That kind of language, that kind of clarity, that kind of focus really gave me hope.
My second one is that the first U.S. bishop appointed by Pope Leo XIV is mobilizing priests to accompany migrants at immigration court on June 20th.
So if you were unsure where Pope Leo XIV was going to land on at least the immigration question and the refugee question, here's a clear answer.
The first guy that he makes U.S. bishop is an organizer for immigration rights and in order to protect refugees.
That is a small bit of good news and something that I think is worth thinking about and highlighting.
Alright, y 'all.
If you're listening to this before the protests, please be safe and do everything you can to have a plan and to make your voice heard, but to do so in ways that you will have backup and community and know how to react to everything that might come your way.
We're thinking of all of you as that happens.
We'll be back next week with regular programming.
But for now, we'll just say we're so grateful for all of you.
Thank you to our subscribers for making this show happen.
If you haven't subscribed yet, please think about it.
We've got some great things in the hopper and a bunch of new dynamics we're going to be adding to our repertoire.
More on that soon, but for now we'll say thanks for being here.
