Resilient Journeys

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast , where stories about the power of focus and resilience are revealed by the people who live those stories and now the host of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast , Jack Hopkins , Hello and welcome to the Jack Hopkins Show podcast .

Speaker 2 0:22

I am your host , jack Hopkins . Today's guest is Nina Burrel . She's a writer and an investigative journalist and if you've listened to previous podcast episodes of the Jack Hopkins Show podcast , you know how much I love investigative journalists . They play such a critical role in our society , particularly in the last decade . The realm of Nina's work is vast . It's vast geographically , it's vast in terms of the topics she's written about , stories that she's covered , and I think you're really going to be impressed with the depth of her knowledge and understanding of the topics that she talks about .

Speaker 2 1:16

She's authored several books , the two that I'll mention and you can check out . By the way , you can check out the rest of her bio and all of the books that she's written at NinaBurleigh . com and I will list that in the show notes the Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox , that was published in 2012 . Golden Handcuffs: the Secret History of Trump's Women that was published in October of 2018 . Virus: Vaccinations , the CDC and the Hijacking of America's Response to the Pandemic , which was published in 2021 . There are many more books which was published in 2021 . There are many more books . There are lots of stories and many rich and colorful experiences , and Nina Burleigh is going to talk about some of them over the next hour . So get ready , buckle up and let's dive in to my conversation with Nina Burleigh . All right , Nina , so I know your parents were hippies . You were raised by hippies , and , looking at your accomplishments , they didn't do too bad of a job of raising their child . Did you have siblings ?

Speaker 3 2:47

I did . I'm the oldest of three and I say they're hippies . But they were counterculture . But they weren't like . And we did live in San Francisco during that period , the summer of love . I was a little kid and there were lots of hippies around but they didn't look like hippies . My dad was probably a little bit older than that generation , my mom too , and dad was a poet and he bailed out of the University of Chicago PhD program to go join the movement out in California to write poetry and , you know , be part of the scene .

Speaker 3 3:30

They weren't like huge drug users Like you know . That part of it was not something that I experienced . You know , like the Joan Didion , you know that horrible story of the kids being fed acid , that's not part of our life at all . They were not . You know , they basically were teetotalers , I mean , they didn't drink smoke , no drugs in the house . So you know , that's a big difference from the classic . But they were people who were trying a different way of living in some ways and one of those was , you know , not adhering to the , let's say , the mores of , certainly my dad's parents , who were , you know , pretty conservative for sure , like Nixon people in Chicago , and the grandfather was in finance and so they were not at all happy with what was happening in our family . But we were close , we saw them and , yeah , what they did was both my parents were writers and teachers and they did teach us to love literature .

Speaker 3 4:44

They kept the TV off . I did not have , I was the oldest and they took , they experimented with taking the TV . It was out of the house or locked up in a closet for I guess , a couple of years when we lived in the Michigan farmhouse and they eventually relented when my brother and sister were a little older and they , I guess , needed something for them to do . So they gave up . But because I didn't , I went from , you know , like third to sixth grade , without TV . I never really got into it . You know , I never would just sit there and vegetate in front of a TV . So I was a reader and that's , I'm sure , why I do what I do now . I mean . So you know , they raised us . The other thing that they did was that they did right . Was that ? I guess I would say right is that ? My brother just pointed this out to me the other day . We were talking . He's two years younger .

Speaker 3 5:44

They raised us to be not materialistic . It wasn't about what kind of car do you drive or how does your house look , and I mean , of course , I wanted cool clothes and I always wished that my parents had a house with a white picket fence and the classic like dad got up and carried a briefcase to the office and we had a station wagon . I actually longed for that when I was younger . That kind of stability was not there . But we are not materialistic and I think my brother just pointed that out to me recently and I thought , you know , yeah , that's interesting . I mean , even though I cover recently . And I thought you know , yeah , that's interesting . I mean , even though I cover .

Speaker 3 6:30

You know , for many years I've covered politics right , really started out covering it in Springfield , illinois , when I graduated from college . Down there in central Illinois , I've been covering people who's you know , who are just laser focused on getting power and my job , as I saw it , was always to expose their corruption , or at least that was a lot of what we tried to do , and it really was only again until recently . Well , when I covered the Trump campaign in 15 and 16 . And when he got elected , when I started to think about how I really didn't understand people who crave power , even though I've spent a lot of time studying what they do . I don't understand their psychology and that has something to do with our raising also the issue of like not understanding power , even though I've written about powerful people a lot . So that's , that's hippie ish childhood for you .

Speaker 2 7:33

And let me jump into that , since you brought that up Did covering the Trump campaign . Did that change you in any way ?

Speaker 3 7:47

Yeah , yes , it did . It changed me in , I guess . Well , I would say that the summer of 16 was one of the most stressful summers of my life because of trying to keep up with what was going on . You know , the dumping of the Hillary emails on us halfway through that summer was , you know it changed the way that we do our work because the Bannon Steve Bannon's flood the zone with shit concept , which is brilliant . It is what the Russians do in , you know , and what you know these autocrats would . Well , certainly in a developed country like ours with a with a complex , complex media ecosystem , that was genius , because what happened was from that point on , especially after Trump got elected . But even that summer before , we didn't know what hit us in the media and we were still trying to do things that we had all the way , we'd always covered politics . They're still doing that . Actually , you see that happening right now .

Speaker 3 9:00

I'm not in it the way that I used to be . I do . I approach it differently . I'm not in it the way that I used to be . I approach it differently , but you know , what happened was every day , certainly once he got in , every day , there were like five things happening that you knew . If it was normal times , you would spend a month or two investigating it and then you would win the Pulitzer Prize for exposing this epic sort of corruption . But it was happening on steroids . It was five things every day , you know the emoluments clause and the racism and the you know just complete bare knuckled kleptocracy and the just you know disgusting pandering to the lowest common denominator of everything and the people that he was bringing in to the cabinet where you started to look at not every one of them , but many cronies corrupt , and so there was just a lot more going on that you had to pay attention to and it was impossible to do that .

Speaker 3 10:11

And so you know and you could see , like these disinformation , things were going on . People were siloed off , which actually was not a Trump , that's not a , that's not something that Trump created . That's part of our ecosystem , our media ecosystem , and that's actually what provoked me to sit down and write that novel , or actually it's the basis for that , because I think the book is about the Vegas . It opens with the Vegas massacre of 2017 . I mean , it's fictionalized , but you can see that that's what it is , and I stuck very closely to that , but then I invented characters who were confronted with , who were journalists or truth tellers , confronted with trying to understand what's going on in this ecosystem of using public trauma for political gain and mass disinformation , and the sense among the public which has been bubbling and building ever since JFK assassination , and that's underlying all of this , that there are things that are going on that we don't know , we don't understand .

Speaker 3 11:26

There's this mirror world where some other things are happening , the whole conspiracy , conspiracism of our society . And so that's what the novel is about , and I wrote it because I think it's very short and I'm going to write more of them because I think I've come to the conclusion I love journalism and I love what I do and I love being on the scene and so on , all the things that we you know , journalists love to be in the middle of chaos . But I think sometimes fiction can get more to the heart of the truth than the truth telling of non-fiction . And I'm not saying throw the facts out , but I'm saying that you can explain what is happening um better if you can do it through fiction and go on , go to people's inner lives , which is what I was trying to do long answer question .

Speaker 2 12:20

Do you feel ? I I think , if what I heard you say is fiction gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of okay , yes , I can see that . Yes , Absolutely .

Speaker 3 12:42

I mean , yes , you're are tethered to , we tether ourselves to the facts , but the information ecosystem is filled with people who's fake journalists , calling themselves journalists , who are actually influencers , which you see . Just what just happened with a bunch of them , where they were like , oh yeah , it's getting $100,000 a week , but well , I didn't know it was Putin . I mean , only person who could say I didn't know it was putin , you know , like I mean the only person who could say I didn't know where that 400 grand came from is elon musk their their man , right , the only person on the planet who would go .

Speaker 3 13:18

Well , I didn't notice . 400 000 suddenly showed up in my bank account . You think those guys down in tennessee or wherever they're based with their little basement operations , uh , broadcasting , you know . It's like you think that they didn't notice . They suddenly had some hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing in every week yeah , that might spike your curiosity a little bit , huh oh my god , I mean I maybe , you know , maybe if that happened to me you'd go .

Speaker 2 13:43

I'm not going to look the gift horse , but when the gift horse says , uh , dasvidanya , comrade , maybe that would be your first clue right , oh yeah , and you , though , that I hadn't really thought about , but that is true , it seems they did go out of their way to give the appearance of just some kind of stodgy little basement setup . You know that didn't have a massive influx of of money coming and they were , you know , just kind of uh , shoestringing it . But as we know now , those were some expensive shoestrings I don't know .

Speaker 3 14:32

I mean , maybe they didn't upgrade their systems , maybe they just put , put in the bank and we're going for the wanting , the yacht or the uh , the gated , you know , community or mansion or something you know . True .

Speaker 3 14:45

I mean what ? Maybe they didn't reinvest it in their gear , but whatever it's , it's absolutely fascinating . You know what a development and at least you know the DOJ is on top of it a little bit . I mean , they've been so slow to act for too long , I think , and , and you know the , you know where , that , where the sheepdogs . They have not been around no , no that's .

Speaker 2 15:14

We'll get to that in a moment . Uh , because that's been a real sore spot of mine .

Political Awakening Through Pandemic Response

Speaker 2 15:22

Yep , I want to talk about something for just a moment , because it played such a vital role in where I am today politically . Although I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 , I still always considered myself a Republican . I had always voted Republican . My family although there were some exceptions for the most part , I mean , it was a rural Midwest right . It's just everybody around you was like that , so you just that's how it happened with me anyway . Well , I'm embarrassed to say it , but for most of my young voting life , there wasn't a lot of thought that went into that . I just knew I was a Republican and Republicans vote for Republicans . It's embarrassing to say that now , but that's the truth .

Speaker 3 16:20

People do . I mean , look , we're politically attentive people , but most people aren't . And that's hard for us to or at least in my group , it's hard for us to get out of this head and go , you know , people down the road with the Trump signs maybe they're paying attention , but a lot of people aren't paying attention and they're not paying attention . But a lot of people aren't paying attention and they're not paying attention . They may not even have their signs . I mean , obviously , the people who don't have the signs out right now are those , you know , in Pennsylvania , which is right across the river , looking out those windows behind me , I can see Pennsylvania across the river and that's the big swing state Right and the swing voters are . They're like normal , they aren't thinking about this stuff , they're just doing their thing . You know , they're mowing the lawn or they're getting ready for the birthday party , or they're having a baby , or they're dealing with their parents' cancer or whatever .

Speaker 3 17:13

They're just not in the head that we are , where we're just paying such close attention . So so I , you know , I don't hold against them that I kind of do now because I feel like I mean this what's going on in our country has to have penetrated . I just don't , I don't . I actually don't understand how you could not be paying attention . But I don't actually hold it against them either , because I just think people's lives are like there's just more going on . You know , and my God , like you know , especially if you're working in the trades here and you've got to get up five in the morning and go work on somebody's house or something , and you know , I get it .

Speaker 2 17:59

I've got a neighbor two houses down just retired , a pharmacist . I've probably known him 40 years okay , not that we've been really close friends , but in a small town everybody knows everybody and you interact or cross paths with most people on a frequent basis . I never knew what his political affiliation was . I I never had any idea . I doubt that he knew what mine was , but the guy has an embarrassing amount of trump flags and signs not just one multiple on his house in his yard .

Speaker 2 18:48

And see someone like that who I know has a higher education . He had a career as a pharmacist , so if you were inept at some point , your license would have been removed and you'd have had to find another profession . So I look at someone in that situation and I ask the question how does someone with that kind of analytical thinking ability wind up getting sucked in ? And sadly it comes back , at least for me , to some pretty simple ideas , and I believe it's as simple as their emotional brain has hijacked their prefrontal cortex and it's a lot less involved than the emotional centers of their brain , although when you challenge them on it , that's where they will kick the prefrontal cortex back in or attempt to to rationalize why they feel as they do . But they're at their gut .

Speaker 2 20:01

Feeling with Trump is lacking in logic . Which brings me back to where I was going to go . I got sidetracked . So your book , virus Vaccinations , the CDC and the Hijacking of America's Response to the Pandemic that was the pivotal moment for me . That is when I was so disgusted that I not only decided I would be voting for Joe Biden , I wanted to dissociate with the Republican Party completely . I wanted no connection to it , and for me , the most sensible way to do that was identify as a as a democrat what was it ?

Speaker 3 20:48

what was it about the pandemic that kicked you over to this what it ?

Speaker 2 20:53

was about the pandemic . I was a hospital corpsman when I was in the navy the army would call that a medic and then I did some nursing for two or three years after I left the Navy , before I pursued the different path on the psychology track . But I'm one of those people who had such an interest in those fields that when I left nursing I still subscribed to nursing journals because it interests me so much . I still read medical journals . So my career changed , but not necessarily my interest , and so I was watching that , as millions of Americans in a similar situation were physicians , nurses , healthcare providers with a foundation of the scientific method , and how critical , in a time like that , the experts in the various fields having to do with public health are . I watched these very ambiguous statements he was making , like give it a couple of weeks and it'll be gone , just like it vanished . First of all , I knew that's not how it works , right , that there was nothing about that that had even one foot in truthfulness , had even one foot in truthfulness . You don't have a pandemic or an emerging pandemic that all of a sudden it's gone . I don't know what happened . That's just not how it works .

Speaker 2 22:34

And as time went on and these crazier and crazier claims that he was making . It wasn't just that he was making those . I already knew he was prone to saying very stupid things . What I didn't know was how resistant he was to letting somebody else have what he felt like was the spotlight . How resistant he was to the idea that somebody else knew more about something than he did . He was guarding that as much as anything . And then there's how it was going to impact the election aspect of it .

Speaker 2 23:15

Now , at that time , clearly , we hadn't yet had hundreds of thousands of people die , or we certainly hadn't passed the one million mark die , or we had hadn't certainly hadn't passed the one million mark . But my background gave me just enough knowledge to know that the way he was handling handling it , we were probably going to see that number of deaths . And I was just furious . I , I was in , and at the time the only thing I could do to vent was I jumped on social media .

Speaker 2 23:53

I didn't just want to change parties , I didn't want to just leave Trump and the Republican Party . I wanted to make it known that , hey , I was once one of those people . I'm not now . I'm disgusted , I'm going to be disgusted for a long time and I'm going to write about it . So that's one reason , your book . When I saw that , I was like , oh cool , cool , she wrote a book on

Rampant Greed and Lack of Empathy

Speaker 2 24:22

this . This may be kind of such a broad question that it's hard to know exactly what I'm asking for , but just however you perceive the question , if you had to boil it down to one concept that encapsulated several things that described the flaws and , I guess , the dereliction of duty , in my opinion , or the negligence of our leader , did it come down to something as simple as ego as a driving force , or did you find there were other factors that superseded Trump's ego ?

Speaker 3 25:04

Well , I mean , there was money which is right up there with ego for him , probably the same in some ways , uh uh thing , um , but yeah , I mean the utter , complete lack of empathy , the inability to uh , care , I think what was at the bottom of it . I think money , I mean definitely money that you know , they , they , they were on track , you know , to have . This economy was humming along and he was going to win , and then so he was this , this was a big , this was , this was the problem he was . This was going to stop him from being able to win . It was also going to stop him from raking in more bucks .

Speaker 3 26:17

And the people around him , like Mnuchin and Kushner , are hardcore market , NBA market capitalists , and that entails what the Naomi Klein book , chaos Capitalism , or what is it called shock , the shock doctrine , right , so this was the shock , that that could be used to make money and , and they saw it that way um , that was part of it . I mean , obviously he wanted to stay in power , but the people like kushner , you know , I mean remember when they set up the , I mean again , you know , this is the problem with what's going on here is that there's so many things that were happening every day that we can't even keep them all , so many outrages , it was almost impossible to keep them in our heads and that you know , there's things in my book that I'm sure I've forgotten about . But but like when they um , you know they needed the ventilators and the states that were really hard hit , like york , which you know ravaged the neighborhood where I have an apartment . That was where the frontline workers , the grocery store , the cta , were sorry , that's Chicago , the metro workers , the subway people , emts those people were getting sick and dying right away and it was virulent in the beginning and they needed these ventilators . They thought that that was what was going to keep people going and they had no other means .

Speaker 3 27:30

And he said to the states , to the governors , something like well , you know you should bid against each other . You know competition is good . At that moment he reverts to , or he can't get beyond , the like MBA market capitalist , because he has no compassion . But also so does Kushner , who then they set up . He puts Kushner in charge of procurement and Kushner doesn't know what he's doing , but he likes to keep it in the family because this is a gang and that's how they operate . So the family member gets to run the procurement operation for the PEPs . Meanwhile in the Bronx , the nurses were wearing , as you remember , black garbage bags .

Speaker 2 28:24

Yes .

Speaker 3 28:25

The richest country in the world , they were wearing black garbage bags , like they wouldn't even do in the Central African Republic . And that's what was going on in New York City . And he says to Cuomo well , you know , you should compete against each other , because that's what we do . This is a market , and may the best man win , or may may the biggest price win , the highest price or the . You know , maybe you can get a better deal on it if you bargain with each other . It was so disgusting and um . So to me , yes , money is greed , and but other underlying all that is a complete and utter absence of ability to be compassionate and feel empathy for people , and that's the hallmark of Trump . And then the other part of the hallmark is what you just said , where he was saying well , it's just going to disappear in a week , week , um , that is uh , that is the . You know , the , the essential trump is really the , the , the , ah , the circuit , circus , barker , the oz , the , the , the pr man , um , whose motto is um and , as ivanka wrote in her book , his genius is that it doesn't matter what reality is , it's all about perception . And , and you know , this is what he , this is who he is .

Speaker 3 30:00

You know if he says and in fact the disgusting Rich Lowry column in the in the Times , which I don't know if your listeners think this is close attention to this stuff , but they actually put the National Review editors and call me to Trump why he's going to win . And Rich actually wrote , you know , one of his . You know , the genius of Trump is that he can . If he said he says things enough times that people will believe it , he never relents . And basically what he was saying was yeah , he's able to lie and repeat the lies , which is actually what we know he does but to repeat the lies until people's brains are like mush and they think that's real . And that's his genius , according to Rich Lowry and people on that side who , like your neighbor , are , you know . I mean , I think some of these upper middle class people who support him are not completely involved as on an emotional level , I think they're looking at their bank accounts and they're going .

Speaker 3 31:07

This guy is going to keep me from paying any more taxes . That's for sure what a lot of the rich people who support him are doing . Schwarzman , they all got back on board . You know , the corporations . I mean it's about the bottom line .

Speaker 2 31:22

It is .

Speaker 3 31:22

Getting off track . So back to the virus , if you want to talk about that .

Speaker 2 31:27

I can confirm your last statement that they aren't really engaged and that it's I essentially said . Look , dave , you're an educated man . This blows my mind . And his first response to me was do you have a 401k ? And you know , I did what I just did . I just kind of laughed in disgust and disbelief and I thought , my God , like that's the only issue there is I guess the million-plus dead Americans from COVID , that didn didn't bother you , even though you were working in a pharmacy that entire time and getting a first-hand look at part of what was going on in our community . Um , and at that point I really I realized the futile nature of continuing to try to talk to somebody whose response to me was asking me if I had a 401k . I thought , you know , I think I'll just go mow the yard because I'm not going to get a rational engagement here .

Speaker 3 33:10

But to them that is rational .

Speaker 2 33:14

I'm glad you bring that up .

Speaker 3 33:16

It's every man for himself and it's um , uh , you know it's the bottom line and and that's what they're . You know that it's wolf , it's it's wolfishness , it's the capital , you know the , the end result of just unfettered market capitalism . And they're all in with this guy because , well , he's the vehicle by which they can carry out and carry on as they have been . And I think you know all of the other things that he's doing . Well , the word salad , the ridiculous , you know , but also the criminality is like they don't care , and they certainly don't care about what he's doing to women . I mean , that's actually part of the benefit .

Speaker 2 34:02

Aside , you know , make sure that women are home and not in your way , or you know , I don't know , it's just so craven just so craven , and I know that's a huge area of importance for you women's rights and reproductive rights , the whole gamut of how our political spectrum impacts women .

Challenges Faced by Women in Journalism

Speaker 2 34:27

How were you early on in your career Because I don't know that this is true of you . It looks like on paper it probably was , but I'm making some assumptions I see you as somebody who , early on , was like this fearless . You know , I don't mind pushing the envelope . I know what path I want to take . I know some of the things I'll bump into . I'll deal with them when we go head to head . How was it for you as a writer , as a journalist , early in your career ?

Speaker 3 35:07

Well , I mean , yeah , I mean I was , you know I came out of college . Yeah , I mean I was , you know I came out of college Midwestern educated and I would not say that I was super confident . I certainly I was very insecure and I was not . But yeah , I mean , I guess people did think I was pretty . I certainly had a reckless side and adventurous and I was up for , I was game for stuff , but I wasn't confident .

Speaker 3 35:37

You know it takes a long time to get confident in your writing , anyway , anyone doing it , and confident in your style and that kind of thing . So that took many years , but you know I was ambitious . That took many years , but you know I was ambitious and I guess that was part of it . But you know , but for me , like I don't know , I mean I was young , when I was young and you know , say , let's say , in Springfield , illinois , or then in Chicago , you know , dealing with these powerful men , they , you know , and this is the 80s , the early 90s , you know certainly there was a lot of , I guess , some sexism or what you would call sexism . I don't , in my , you know , in my memory of those days , I remember more my lack of confidence and insecurities than I remember being mistreated by men that I was working with . I certainly never , ever , experienced anything like what these Me Too stories were that came out of .

Speaker 3 36:45

You know , after Trump got elected , women started saying , oh , this guy did this . Or you know , these were people I knew , like Mark Halperin , oh , this guy did this . Or you know these were people I knew , like mark halperin , abc news guy . He was like the adult , like the incredibly , you know , um , just a block of wood , like he wasn't interesting and he wasn't , if it certainly wasn't flirtatious or in any way harassing . And then you come to find out , oh , he would lock interns in or he would be in this room , uh , in his office you get an intern and he would jerk off in front of the intern . Or you know , the 20 year old and I'm like I just it doesn't even compute . But it also doesn't compute because if somebody had done that in in my when I was in my 20s , I would . I've talked to my friends about this . We're like we would have left or we would have run out the door . I mean , I just don't understand that . Like , I know there's that scared rabbit thing that they talk about , but I just don't like that . I had insulting you know , overtly insulting men , probably saying things to me , probably , you know , like some kind of subterranean or you know subliminal kind of thing going on , but it was . It was always there .

Speaker 3 38:22

What was always obvious , especially when I got to Washington , in Clinton , you know , when Clinton got elected , I got taken to Washington or taken dispatched , and I loved it . I was so happy to be there and I worked at the Time Bureau and there were a lot of old timers there and what I did know then was that the women there were women in the office but that our ideas and our suggestions were , I didn't think , getting taken very seriously . I didn't have a lot of input into the decision-making . Now again , I was very junior and there were a couple of women who were pretty senior and I think they certainly were confident and they were listened to . One of them covered the FBI , I think , and one of them covered campaign finance . They were terrific journalists . I worked with another one who's been at the Post for years I think she's retired . These were terrific journalists and I'm not saying that they weren't given their due , but there was a general feeling that you know that younger women , our group of women , the ones that were my age . We were not maybe on the same level as the guys who were our age and coming from the Midwest . Also , in going to Washington , I always tell people this the first thing I noticed was I knew a lot about McClentons because I had spent all this time in Little Rock and that's why they dispatched me to Washington .

Speaker 3 39:52

And as soon as I got there I was meeting these people who were men , who were pretty authoritative in the way they would speak . They had these voices of authority and I knew they didn't know what they were talking about and I couldn't get , I couldn't like get around that . There was just this wall of like authoritative speak and that still kind of goes on in the media , especially in the TV world . I mean , people are trained to talk like that , to sound like they know what they're talking about . And I think now that I'm older , you know I probably have crossed the line where I can sound authoritative and I just think you know I probably have crossed the line where I can sound authoritative and I just think you know , when you're young and female you're not , you're assumed not to have authority and I think that was a problem . So , yeah , there was sexism .

Speaker 3 40:44

You know there are all the other things that women have to deal with on top of that Our bodies , I mean it's just you know when you're young , and hormones , and you can get pregnant at any time . Or you have to think about birth control pills , and you know there's a lot going on with young women and health , and that's another reason why this assault on reproductive health is so outrageous , because it's not just abortion , it's the Planned Parenthoods . My daughter went to one in New York . She's going to school out of the country and she needed to get some stuff , some birth control pills or something . They're like closing down in New York City . They're running out of money . It's a complete mystery . That's a story that needs to be done . One of these days I'll get around to it . What is going on in this state , this big blue state , where they're shutting down planned parenthoods ?

Speaker 3 41:39

yeah , I'm about to go to texas to do a story on what's going on with the um , these , you know , thousands , tens of thousands of women , millions actually , are affected . But you know , every day there are thousands of women in the state of Texas and all these other states where they've done these laws , who are in dire need of birth control and abortions and , if not abortions , the DNC that you need if you take that pill or if you're just having a miscarriage . They can't do anything to them . They can show up at an emergency room and they have to bleed out in their own house before they come back . Now , this is not something that men have ever experienced , but I can tell you it is terrifying . It's terrifying to have a miscarriage , it's terrifying to bleed like that and they just say , oh , you know , go home and you know , call us when it's out , and then we'll . It's incredible .

Speaker 3 42:38

I'm going down there soon actually to do a story about just . I'm just going with somebody to through the whole process and you know they have to drive like 26-hour round trips if they don't take the pill , if they don't get the pill in the mail or they don't want to take the pill in the mail which , by the way , the pill in the mail is it's not great Like it works , but again , you want to be under a doctor's care when you're doing that , because you're bleeding and you can have a lot of problems and you cannot go to a doctor If you take that pill in Texas , you can't go to the ER if you think something's going wrong and say I just took this pill . They instruct them to say I'm having a miscarriage . You cannot tell your provider what's going on with your body . That's insane . This is the richest country in the world , most technologically advanced , and you know our 50 percent of the population is reduced to , like you know , taliban level . Well , breeding stock . I mean , anyway , you got me started and I'm not gonna .

Speaker 2 43:47

I'm I made that point , I , I , that's exactly why you're a medic .

Speaker 3 43:52

Medic , you were a medic . I mean , these are things that , like you know , it's a scary thing If you don't have care from a nurse and you're bleeding . It's a scary thing . And this is what's going on with people . Thousands and thousands of women a day are reduced to putting up with this crap . Right ?

Speaker 2 44:12

are reduced to putting up with this crap . Right , I , as a former medic nurse , again , it's one of those things that's so infuriating , because it just violates so many of the principles that are embedded within me that it's hard to get my head around . That's why I love to let people who know a lot more about it than I talk for as long as they want , because I learn a lot and I think even I don't know more about it than You're a medic .

Speaker 3 44:46

I don't actually know the medical things that OBGYNs do . I'm on the receiving end of that . I've had two children , but you know again like thousands and thousands and thousands of women daily are putting up with this . And you know I am not saying that you should use abortion as birth control .

Speaker 3 45:08

I don't think it's a good idea to have a willy-nilly going to get an abortion and have sex and then , oops , sorry , you know , let's do this thing , especially when there's easy access to birth control . And if there is easy access to it , you will have fewer of these surgical abortions . But I'm not saying that that should be the way that you should , you know , operate Women should be the way that you should , you know , operate . The women should be responsible . But again , you know why ? Is it just the women that have to be responsible for this ? The men are . The men are making the babies . So what is you know ? Anyway , you know all this .

Speaker 2 45:44

Well , no , that . That brings up the next next thing I want to ask you about , because I know you are really big on the idea of separation of church and state , right as I am . How much ? And I think , anecdotally , most people have a sense of what the answer to this is , but from your perspective and from the experiences and the writing and research that you have done , how much of this do you think comes back to religion At the end of the day ? How much of this is driven , originates from and driven by religion ?

Speaker 3 46:24

You mean in the courts . In the courts it's entirely , entirely driven by religious people . It's entirely that . I mean this is a . I have a piece in the New Republic today about Project 2025 , where I quote somebody saying you know , this is like a massive conspiracy of a small group of people who are hyper religious . This thing that's happened in the courts is and it is and I'm actually writing a piece about Catholics hard right Catholics in Washington for New York Magazine Not right now , that's going to be out in a couple of weeks and they captured the courts and , yes , it is

Religious Right and Legal Power

Speaker 3 47:08

religious .

Speaker 3 47:08

It is a dream of the religious right to control female fertility . I mean to have women be controlled so that men can decide what to do with them , when to have babies and so on . And it's a very ancient battle really between the sexes . It's like kind of the oldest war in the world . This issue of who gets to choose , decide , you know , when you have a baby is and really power between men and women , power in the household , power in the workplace . You know it's like this constant . You know there's a conflict there that's been there forever and we live in a patriarchal society and you know , so the religious folks are . I mean , again , I grew up around the Amish and I grew up around the Mennonites and I don't have a problem with Christians . Like you know , a lot of my friends are like , oh , it's the Christians . Well , you know , there are actually good Christians out there , just as there are good Muslims and good Jews , whatever else religion you want to be .

Speaker 3 48:16

But these sects are , you know , they're looking for something more , and especially the hard right Catholics which , again , they've been overlooked . Because when we talk about the religious right in this country , for years what we were talking about were the hayseed down in Louisiana , like Mike Johnson , who thinks the dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time and that God made everything 6,000 years ago , and they have theme parks to celebrate that right . Or they listen to Jerry Falwell and they listen to the televangelists . That's not who's behind what's going on in the courts . These people are , they're Catholic . They have a tradition , an intellectual tradition of , you know , 2,000 years of text and Jesuit . I mean , I'm not blaming the Jesuits , it's actually the Dominicans . That's what they're sects .

Speaker 3 49:16

And then the Opus Dei Catholics , who are the hardest right fascist , adjacent they're in Washington , they are attached to Leonard Leo , they are attached to Samuel Alito . You know , this is a very , very specific hard right sect in the Catholic system , not even I mean . They don't like Francis , they don't like their Pope , because what they want is this and they're the ones who have introduced into our political discourse ideas like post-liberalism , common good , you know , post-constitutionalism . They're aligned up with people like Peter Thiel , who is not Catholic . But these people who think well , you know , there's a natural hierarchy and men like really brilliant men like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel , who managed to get rich , so they must be super brilliant geniuses should be able to have as many babies as they want but also should be running the things , because they're the ones who can keep this country in order .

Speaker 3 50:19

And all of that is being pushed by these people around JD Vance . Jd Vance was converted by them , by this group , and he's their guy . And you just saw yesterday or two days ago , I just saw Trump announcing they're putting together a Catholics for Trump organization . Well , the majority of American Catholics are not on board with this stuff , but the ones who are , they have fanatically , with Leonard Leo running the you know bag man for big money . They have fanatically focused on amicus brief after amicus brief after amicus brief for 20 years in the Supreme Court People . There's a guy in Princeton , there's a guy in Harvard that these guys are . They are writing amicus briefs , pushing the court , giving them , giving them arguments to overturn Roe . But further , going much further now .

Speaker 3 51:17

And this is they work quietly . The Opus Dei does not put a sign up on the door saying they're Opus Dei , but they have a building in Princeton , they have a building at Harvard . I think They've infiltrated the Ivy League schools . They churn out these people like Amy Coney . Well , amy Coney Barrett is from another sect , but all of these other guys , the Scalia's , the Kavanaugh well , kavanaugh's just a political hack but Alito , these hardcore believers , clarence Thomas , they seed up their offices with their clerks who are coming out of these schools , these schools of thought . So that's the religious element here , that's the effective religious element , and they are extremely effective in taking over the courts .

Speaker 3 52:05

And they're about to take over the government , because Kevin Roberts in the Project 2025 is a document filled with people from that sect whose names are in there , like Severino . They're going to put Severino in charge of the HHS . He was already in there . He's going to come back . He's the guy who wrote the HHS part of Project 2025 , right , right . So it's a sect within a sect within a sect . They're hard right . They are absolutely not in line with most American Catholics and they're definitely not in line with most Americans . And they have seized power in Washington and , if he is elected , they are going to be running rampant in the court system . They've already got it set up . They have a base of laws that they're ready to use to turn things around into the way they want things to be Now . All that said , you know what ? There are problems with the Constitution right now there are problems in our country that are really , really . There are big problems .

Speaker 2 53:06

And the .

Speaker 3 53:06

Constitution is not solving them the way you know , the 18th century writers did not anticipate what's going on here at all . They couldn't possibly have with the siloed off information , the uneducated voter , the low information voter and the electoral college . That's the one thing . That is , in fact , the way they wanted it to be , because the slavers needed to have their way and they were going to be the minority , and that's how we got this electoral college . So the numbers now are showing Harris , 20 percent% up on the popular vote , is still going to lose . Right .

Speaker 3 53:42

It's just unbelievable . Anyway , you got me started .

Speaker 2 53:46

Let me tell you my big concern , or what I hope is not happening , and then I'll get your feedback on that .

Speaker 2 53:55

I'll get your feedback on that . You talk about the people who are just filing the amicus briefs and who are ready to just what I hope is not going to prove to have been the case . It's hard to know for sure for the average person because , as you said , they do work quietly , but we know , as you stated , there are a massive number of very smart attorneys with all the money they need to do anything they need to do . This is their job 24-7 for the last four plus years at least the last four years , but we know it went on before that . That's all they do . That's their focus . I envision when I get this thought of concern . I envision that situation going on and on our side you have the equivalent of a public defender who has got a lot of cases , makes time for it when they can fit it in , but it's not their full-time job to be how they're strategizing for what they can assume is is happening , uh , with , like , the heritage foundation and some of the well okay , so you're .

Speaker 3 55:24

When you say the public defender , you're talking about the doj or people who are on payroll for the um government and it's really not the government side . Uh , job to to defend against . I think what's what's happening is it is . I mean , if they go after let's say they go after agencies like the Chevron case , and that was definitely the government had to defend those laws they have to defend . Allow the agency rule that says our experts are um , better than , or the expert at the agency gets priority over your fake scientists from who's saying cigarette smoking is good for you , right ? That that's what the case is , right , it says science out the window . Let's the corporation tell us what to do . Forget the scientist who works for the government . Who knows ? If you put Roundup down the drain , you're going to mess up the watershed . Right .

Speaker 3 56:29

Well , no , but Roundup , or whatever the company is , Bayer , or whoever owns it , no , no , that's not true . It's fine , right . Yes .

Speaker 3 56:37

That's those people , not true , it's fine , right , yes , those , that's those people . Um , but what I think I've learned from , like I just did as I said , I did this it took forever to do this project 2025 piece because the story kept changing and we had to hold it for various reasons um , not to do with me or the changing , but there were things going on in in Foundation and the company that I work for , but that's a whole other issue . Three , four , five months have gone by . The last iteration of the story is now finally published today . I recommend your listeners to look at it . I hope you'll take a look at it .

Speaker 2 57:14

I hope you'll take a look at it .

Speaker 3 57:15

It's a deep dive into what Project 2025 , what people who are in experts , subject area experts think is the worst thing within their subject area . That's in that Project 2025 , because it's 900 pages long . I actually have a copy of it , the physical copy , even though I only use I'm only using the PDF because I can word search the PDF . But when I went into the Heritage Foundation to interview these guys , they insisted that I take this book with me and I took it . I took it on like I went to dinner with friends . I'm like , should I just leave this in the restaurant ? But now that I have it here , I've got friends come over and they're like , oh my God , it exists . Anyway , long story short , interviewed people who are from NGOs and civil society organizations and legal organizations . There are hundreds of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lawyers and experts who are pouring over that document and they are the ones who raised the alarm not just the Democratic Party , but they're all of these people that came together , went through this thing with a fine-tooth comb , divided it up amongst themselves , and that's why you see Trump running away from it and that's why it's a meme now that they have to stick to him , because it actually is what they're going to do . I mean , they may not be able to get through , get everything done , but this is what they're going to try to do and it's massive and it's a massive change . And yeah , that's so .

Speaker 3 58:52

I don't think it's just within . I think that the , the , there is a defense . There's a defense out there . There are people that are defending the ACLU . There are big operations , the ACLU immigration lawyers , but then there are others that they just don't have . You know , they don't have the power . You know , and they won't have the power if he gets law enforcement behind him or puts the power of the federal government or the power of the Justice Department onto revenging , vengeance or rounding people up .

Speaker 3 59:25

Okay , when they start to do that , there'll be a lot of lawyers out there fighting against this and fighting against these things . But they've again , because of these hard right Catholics , leonard Leo , but they've again , because of these hard right Catholics , leonard Leo , seizing power and seeding the judiciary with people like Eileen Cannon down in Florida and many , many . So you know , the mechanism is pretty well in place now and that's . You know , it's a serious like battle to the . That's why they say this is like the most important election in American history , because on their side they were regarded as that . Because they can't keep getting elected , because their demographic they've lost . They're losing the demographic . They can't keep it up , right .

Speaker 3 1:00:26

So , to them it's like a seat . They have to do this and from our side , it's well , what are we going to do ? You have to go wake up all these people who are snoozing , not paying attention or , uh , you know you , they're going to give it up . And and one of the interesting I was in , I was at the dnc in chicago and I went . There are things happening all day long , every day , all kinds of interesting things .

Speaker 3 1:00:50

And I went to one uh , talk by some pollsters who work in illinois , but they're , they work well , they work all over their their base . They work for pr Illinois , but they work all over . They work for Pritzker , but they work all over the country . And they were talking about what swing voters care about and they basically were saying , oh shoot , I forgot what I was going to say . Well , for sure , abortion is way down at the bottom , which is interesting .

Speaker 3 1:01:14

But one of the things they found was with respect to this thing and what they're talking about doing in here , which is really setting up a hungarian style autocracy or worse , because they you know trump says there won't be a need to be elected . No more elections , like I don't know that he could carry that out . Um is that people they talked to were like oh yeah , we've heard about it , but he's never gonna do that . They're just , they're blowing smoke , they're scaring the libs , they don't care . You know even the MAGA , maga adjacent people who are like you know , they might not agree with this either if they really had to pay attention to it . And he's just Trump talking , it's not really going to happen . They don't take it seriously . And I actually have a conservative pen pal out in Oklahoma who I really am fond of and I'll tell you how I met him and all , but it's a long story . But he's an interesting guy . We talk every couple of days . I mean we email .

Speaker 2 1:02:32

I've never actually met him .

Speaker 3 1:02:33

We text or email and I like to check in , you know , to see what he's thinking , because he doesn't like Trump . He's very pro-energy . He's not one of the energy guys out there , but he's in that big energy state . Again , like I said , he's . He's a good guy , he goes to church . I'm he's not hardcore , you know , proselytizing , but I'm sure he's , you know , a believer . I'm sure he doesn't like abortion , um , but he's reasonable , you know , and he's not like , he's not like climate change doesn't exist . You know , he's in the , he's in the ags , ag side , but he's one of these people when I tell , I tell you I'm , I'm like , okay , I'm doing this , you know this work , this thing on Project 25 .

Speaker 3 1:03:01

You know lots of all those think tanks . They don't do any , they're meaningless . Those Washington think tanks , they can't do anything . It's like , yeah , they can't until they have the power and the apparatus to pull it off . So take it seriously , folks off . So take it seriously folks . But I don't know that , again , I don't . You know , the big job is to break through the wall of inattention .

Potential Political Turmoil and Violence

Speaker 2 1:03:25

Your comment about if he can get law enforcement on his side . Now I can speak to this on a small scale , very conclus . Like I said , I , I live in a community of about 6 000 people , that's , you know , that's kids and everybody . So it's fair to say I may not hang out with or do things or with all of them , but I , I know them all right , they know my name , I know theirs , know where they live , their grandparents , that kind of community , right , I know for a fact this isn't speculation , and I'm only saying at least 80% , because there are some new hires that I haven't really met yet or had anybody give me feedback on , so with them I can't know for sure . I know that in the area that I live in , 80% of all police officers , deputies , sheriff and highway patrolmen , at least 80% of them , are Trump supporters , big time Trump supporters .

Speaker 3 1:04:44

Yeah , just today in my email I'm on the Trump campaign email list and they send me all of their updates and today he's crowing about the FOP endorsing him and I actually just put it out on Twitter I took a picture of it said you know , we endorse him and we will support him on election day , which I kind of find a little bit alarming , that wording of like we'll support him on election day . What does that mean ? You're going to be hanging at the polling places with your sidearm and you're looking at people or giving them a dirty look , or having people come through who maybe don't want to interact with a cop , all of it . So it's disgusting . That's the cops . But then you also have you were in the Navy , sure .

Speaker 3 1:05:37

You also have this question , which I cannot believe , that I actually have to think this , and it was on 2020 when I was actually first sort of aware of , like , whose side will the military be on ? Oh , absolutely , and that's the kind of question you only ask in a country like Iraq , or you know when the shit's hitting the fan in some African country . Which side is the ? Military going to be on Right .

Speaker 2 1:06:05

You don't even have to get to the answer for that to be troubling , the very fact that you are having to ask is troubling , you know , and this is just pure gut , but it's gut from keeping a fairly close eye on veterans on social media and their comments and their feelings and different threads on the Internet . I will say this I think the number of people who have infiltrated the military that are strong MAGA supporters is much higher than we know . I think it's much higher and I say than we know , because a lot of the leaders in the military who have spoken to this as I guess is kind of their normal day-to-day job to do so they usually try to downplay it , right , they definitely minimize what the numbers might be . I think the numbers are greater than as they would be with any other situation where they're talking about numbers of something negative .

Speaker 3 1:07:13

Exactly , and that's why they think the whole polling of the election Trump versus Harris is underestimating his support , because they call them the shy Trump voter .

Speaker 2 1:07:24

Right .

Speaker 2 1:07:29

They're embarrassed to say , yeah , we really like that racist . The last couple of years I try not to overdo it because , as you know , people can get burnout on a particular idea fairly quickly and then it's counterproductive . But periodically I have written about what I think is a very real likelihood that there will be violence associated with the election . Now I make very clear I don't know the specifics , the type or the magnitude of the violence , but I firmly believe that anyone who would say , nah , I don't think there's going to be any significant violence I , I don't think there's going to be any significant violence . I just don't buy that the form that it takes could be . I think we look to , if we are speculating and trying to kind of get an idea in our mind , what we can expect to see . We know , they know what didn't work last time . Right , if I were to guess it's going to be a much more fragmented and right multiple locations .

Speaker 3 1:08:55

Well , yeah , they're talking about assaults on state capitals .

Speaker 2 1:08:58

Right .

Speaker 3 1:08:58

Yeah , that type of thing .

Speaker 2 1:09:01

Where it's so overwhelming . Well , it's almost like a violent equivalent to Bannon's overwhelm . Yeah , so I know you need to go , probably pretty quick , so I want to finish up , I do because I've got calls Today's Friday and I've got calls .

Speaker 3 1:09:17

I've got today's friday and I've got a . I've got a lineup .

Speaker 2 1:09:20

I've told you I'm going to texas to do the story and I see their people reaching out to me okay , well , listen , I I I knew ahead of time how busy you are and I I can't tell you how much I appreciate you having carved out this much time for me and I'm honored .

Speaker 3 1:09:37

I'm honored to you . It's fun to talk to you . I'll do it anytime . I've got lots of stories to talk about , you know .

Speaker 2 1:09:42

I can rant on forever , so I definitely want , want to have you back sometime , for for sure you are . You are a fascinating woman .

Speaker 3 1:09:54

Thank you for sharing for saying that you and you too likewise , and you're in california missouri you're in missouri right yes okay I ? I lived uh in california , in southern california , for about seven years uh , okay , I think you mentioned that in your when you were emailing me the other day about every february I went to springfield .

Speaker 3 1:10:17

I went when I was in springfield , I went to college near springfield and we used to go to missouri for the canoe rides down the current river , oh yeah . And then when I was in springfield as a journalist , and you know , when I was older , we well , in my early 20s , we wanted to go find fun . We'd drive to st louis oh yeah , you can find it basically , but compared to springfield that was like going to time square I'll bet it was well listen .

Speaker 2 1:10:49

Enjoy your time in texas and I'm looking forward to it thanks for sharing your wisdom and your experiences with us , and and I'll see you soon .

Speaker 3 1:10:59

All right , take care . Bye-bye .

Speaker 2 1:11:01

You too , bye-bye , we'll see you next time .