846: This is the Cake We Baked
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So this week lets people go to the election results and thought, and this is the country that I thought I was after. Some people, there is a really hopeful thing, and others on the opposite. And let's start with the winners.

I'm joined in the studio right now by chase color here. There's zary. So election night, you are in michigan together, and you got to go to the republican Victory party. I did. Let's bring in .

the sound as I walk in. The polls were closing. The results were starting to come in. I have to say I walked in kind prepared for the last war, like the last election.

You an well.

I know what a lot of these republicans in michigan, I know we've been mobilizing for years and army of poll watchers and poll chAllengers and lawyers to chAllenge the results of a fragile lin election. So I come in expecting super tie results in a long fight, and tension and anxiety and suspicion.

and that is .

not what I found. What are people cheering for?

You are, oh, we just tied in michigan? 不知道。

My heart gonna pop out of my chest feels like .

it's eric castle, a long time republic and activist. He runs a pack called brighter michigan. He believes the last election was ripe with fraud, not this one. In fact, there was never a moment once the count started where anyone in this room wasn't keeping the results.

Yeah, because this was all breaking their way.

I know. But also, these are the people on the ground to run the ground game in michigan. And they were feeling really good about what they did. Alright ery, he was gonna.

I think it's gonna win, baby, it's gonna win. I'm so happy. I am so happy.

So no idea. There was obvious that they were going to win way before was obvious to you. Yes.

very much like when I was talking to Amber Harris, we first met last year. She's republic lan activist. I didn't amnesty. Expect the way to go this way in general.

Oh, I really yeah, we .

weren't really .

hard for this. And i'm happy. I'm very happy. We worked really, really hard. We need a lot of doors.

We went into territories that we never would have, whether it's detroit, because we have nothing to lose as a party. We have nothing lose the sides talking to people. And I think that this is a very. This is, this is what came when you just start to people.

She's right that more people came out. The republican vote in michigan was unprecedented, trumped up more votes. And he did last time. He ran in detroit in the surrounding suburbs and almost every conney in the state of michigan.

okay. So then at some point in the night.

trump ins, yes, much earlier than .

I was expecting. Thank you.

And I see a guy breaking down crying at the front of the room. He's the regional director from a com county. What was IT that you think did IT?

What did IT? yeah. I think people realized that we are Better off with president trump, that he provided a great, great way of living for us, that he provided a way for us to provide our families.

I think people miss that. I think people truly miss that. I think they is learn to go back to where we were. And I think people believe in that's true. Some people and some did not.

I believe I ve heard that.

Somebody I checked with a couple days after the election with danny hodges ges is watching in dc policemen who was one of the officers who defended the capital building. Back on generate six, he was beaten. Someone to tried to gouge out his eye.

He was trapped by the crowd one point, and the man took his nights ck and hit his head in the way of that. He's testified in congress and the trials of a number of people who attacked capital going one last week. And when I talk to him, he said something that I heard from a bunch of democrats. It's like IT wasn't just disappointment, he was feeling, but a whole feeling that I can only describe as, wow.

like many people are sad and confused. Still raising my head around how so many people could vote or trumps after you know everything we know about them, everything he's done. I don't understand that that will get .

IT since any six you you you spoke and so much about what happened you at the capital over four years when you struck down on that path. Like what did what did you hope you would accomplish?

The opposite of this, I hope that I would communicate to the people that what happened was real, that trumps sent in the armed mobs to stop the people transfer of power. I wanted people to understand this and in the hope that they would respect all uh, as they would have respect the constitution and choose their leaders with that mind in the future. But I guess that wasn't at the top of the ones priorities.

And what i'd like to look at the possibility that the president truman might do what he said he would do and get all these people free from january sex.

I it's it's start the process. I don't I don't know, I don't know what to what to say about that that you know, I have no influence over that. And i've GTA roll with IT. However, IT happens today after .

the billions of dollars spent in the county, hours of litter, hundreds of dozens around the country knock themselves out for this election, canvassing, donating, poll watching, doing everything they knew how to do. Now here we are still about the country, staring at each other across in a bus.

But with a clear winner, we thought what we could do here in our show, they spend some time with a few of the people felt very strongly about the outcome of this race. You have a special personal investment in IT. Looking ahead with them to what's next? W B. Easy, chicago to american knife and amErica gas stay with us.

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The line is a podcast where we tell stories about a place crowded in mystery, the past. And to really understand that, we take you there. Something happened .

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Listen to hear us reopen stories from the past and find clues to the present on blur. The history podcast from npr.

this american live at one, our Adams today, by the way, of quotes from the president elect, the largest deportation Operation in american history. So mass deportations are coming down trm promised. IT people waved mass deportation science, that is raley.

He was the first item on the republican party's platform this year and the republican convention time home man, an ice centre. Trump, the immigration and customs enforcement have a message for undocumented immigrants. You Better start packing now.

President, tribes claim is going to be able to support between fifteen and twenty million people, his vice president, J. D. Vance, said. The numbers of lower that they could do one million people per year. But on the tragedies team, i've never spelled out exactly how they would do this. Our producer, not raman, wondered about that and walked into what mass deportation could actually look like even when he comes to pass.

I was kind of unfed at first when I heard about trump's ash deportation campaign promise have been covering immigration for years. There are so many undocumented people here that we can't even keep count. The closest estimate is thirteen point three million.

So it's a big job to round up all of these people to send them back to countries that may not take them. It's expensive. It's time consuming. It's a crazy task.

But then I was talking to a source inside the department of homeland security, and I said something like, I mean, I know there's no way trump can do this mass deportation thing. And they stopped me. They were like, so sure I can happen.

They said, IT so casually, like I was a given. So I wanted to talk to someone who could break down how, like exactly? How could you do something so massive?

I tried talking to tom homan. He's rumor to be the next ice director under trump, but has denied there's a written plan for mass deportations. And he ghosted me.

Jason houser, however, was eager to talk. He was the chief of staff for ice under biden for a couple of years, has been working for dhs on an off since nine eleven, mostly an enforcement. He's passionate about all of this in his monkey government guideway.

I talked to him for three and a half hours as them basically to play per ten game, some stuff out with me. What would happen in the first hundred days if he was in charge of ice? What could he do to Carry out this mass deportation Mandate? Jason thinks that, first of all, the new trumpet administration will immediately start to prep for this. Like the day after the election this week, they would start talking to law enforcement in different cities and getting them to agree to CoOperate, hit the ground running in january, eyes were talk to home countries to get them to agree to take people back. And after those two things alive, Jason says ice could decide to deport someone, and they'd be out of the country within twenty four hours.

I think the first ninety days is gonna hell. You're going to see the buses. You're going to see the migrants in your home, not just blue cities, red cities, miami, houston, shared like you like red states, kansa city, saint Lewis, right?

You're gona see the, you're gonna see kids not in your schools. You're gona know where they're at because they're waiting in the detention cell and they have cell phones. You're gone to see IT in in social media.

You're gg onna see businesses not be able to open up because that the workers didn't show up. You're gonna a see businesses being raided and it's gonna become more intimate. This isn't gonna be about like separating family at the border that somebody doesn't know that family member. You're talking about separations and moments in your communities where you're gona know the guy bill won lies. You're gonna know the individuals.

One of the things I would have to work around is which nationalities to deport first. You know, if you wanted to make the most impact, a lot of countries don't take their own people back. When is well, a, for example, hardly accepts any immigrants back. Brazil only accepts two to four flights of immigrants a month. So who are the first people who would be deported like in the first hundred days.

the amount.

Patience and guta malins, these countries .

take back the most flights. So I have a billing to remove at volume individuals. Um a lot of them have entered you know through pathways that we've developed where we've gained biometric, we've gained betting and we have .

mean we know where they are.

yeah we know where they are, right? We know where they are. The work in non criminal, we go out, we find them. We are going to find nationalities that are easily removable.

And we're probably going to do IT at volume with single adults first because removing when you know families is is more complex. You've to hold them to change them, put them in hotels. It's very staff intensive. So i'm going to target down on single adults and nationalities where I know the country will will take them back very, very quickly.

Oso hatin, ts and bottom allons. And .

right .

next to next.

after how we talk about bottom and and turns. Nick Rogers, you know the ones that the countries that are where you see daily just in take you know in in the news in the reporting by dhs element started where the most removal flights occurring, those are the countries that accept those flights. But if i'm in this, the scenario where I am the head advice for trump, all the rules of engagement and policies are out the window.

Why not load up a few plane loads of cuban nationals and send them to the bahamas and just send them to a third party? why? Why not just I could go find a country that says they except three, four plane loads of cuban nationals, and i'll send them to a third party country.

Jason says I can focus on getting people in eight major cities with airport hubs, philadephia dc, chicago, houston, miami, denver, new york and I those have access to quick ice flights to people's home countries. Jason thinks ice can get people out before they can get to a judge or a lawyer. And one way to catch a lot of people quickly, especially the ones was snuck in and ice has no info on, is to bring back worksite enforcement.

A K, A large scale raids. The by administration stopped doing those. Do you think there would be raise then in the first hundred days?

I think there would be raise within the first three weeks.

really?

Yeah, those those are not hard to like turn al, like those are not to Operation alive. Those those are not .

like where where would they do them?

You know you would go back to where there's big ice in customer border protection resources to do sort of enforcement, and you would do them in communities that would show the most the most cruelty, right? So there's nothing that would stop, you know, a trump administrator from going into the workplace, going into hospitality sector, going into like restaurants or businesses, arresting individuals at scale. Can you like walk .

through what that would look like? What what do you think that would look like?

What I mean, I I think that would be very easy to focus on industries that have large numbers and high, high numbers of migrants working within them. What would stop them from going within into a meat processing plan in Virginia, right? Say there is a couple hundred migrants. There's a eighty on shift that day you go in. You know there's one individual there that has a final order removal, maybe has a non violent criminal background.

You go and you do the RAID, you line all the workers up and you start checking status of each and every one of them, right? And then maybe you just arrest them all, bring them into the attention and then do that the checks to see, you know who is removable. There's nothing that could stop, stop ice at that point for just bringing people into custody, the training them and then figuring out who was removable at that time.

Tom holman has not denied this. By the way, he said publicly something like this would be necessary. Holman also said he would do national security threats first, but then raids.

Sure, Jason says the rates under a two point old trump administration could be more military. Ed with sweat style teams. That's not how we've been done in the past. He also told me he thinks nothing would stop ice from going to hospitals or schools or churches. Normally ice doesn't do that, but this is just a policy, not a law.

So after doing these raids and trying to get people out quickly, ice would be left with lots of immigrants that they have to hold until they can get them deported. I wanted to know, where would you hold all these people? Would you build ten camps to hold people?

If it's, if it's i'm not looking out for the care of the blaw enforcement officers that are overseen IT or the migrants. When we when we did all the evac and ice had a very big support in the evacuation out of afghanistan, we brought on soft sited facilities at for dex, new jersey and other places around the country. But again.

sofi ted facilities that is that you forming for .

tense that is you. Yes, there are just there are big sort of like um like like fair ten like corner's tents are very thick plastic and so yeah but what i'm saying is is let's say we put a they're rather proof. They're the proof, but they'll not they're not just like cold, intense know that you would get to the camp.

But but what i'm saying is like but you're tell me about the problem here is, is those afghanization coming to safety? Now you're saying i'm going to bring on a soft tent to hold people so I can remove them in like ninety days. The the idea that they're just gonna, okay, i'm going to live in this deplorable conditions and not cause on red that's that's where IT gets very dangerous.

Dangerous because Jason sings, there would be fights, riots, people would be hurt, possibly even die. He thinks. And just so i'm clearly here. Yes, he means immigrants, but also officers. Jason's very concerned about the safety of the ice.

Officers.

where else can you hold people you want to deport? Can you house migrants and jails?

yes.

Could you lower jAiling standards to put more people in a sel?

yes. Well, yes, absolutely.

Say, could you there are standard. What was three people per sell?

Now we're saying at six, that is policy. That is not law. So yes, of OK um .

could you turn places quickly into detention? Others or camps like can use change the standards to make .

IT faster? Yes, I I could have between female and ice and dhs. We could have we could turn on twenty five old warehouses, old department stores in a week.

wow, in a week. So definitely do able.

In the first hundred days, we have a new building. We're some match. And then I make sure we have porter parties, some food, right? I have a couple of docks there in case some to get really sick, and then I bring in, you know, a couple hundred security guards I can .

do that week at the end of one hundred days. How many people do you think will be gone?

Let's just say this. Let's say all rules are out that and I can remove people that aren't removable like i'm going to see the third party countries, ice has forty eight thousand people in its custody. Now ice has fourteen ice plains that are harden plains.

They they hold one, thirty, five hundred, thirty five souls. I need more of those. But why i'm singing those forty eight thousand, i'm probably gonna go out in bring another fifty to one hundred thousand into custody. So if you're talking in thirty to sixty days, you could remove hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand people.

So two hundred thousand people in the first sixty days. So in the first hundred, that gives you to a White like how .

many I mean, you could get if all rules are gone. And I can remove them anywhere you could get yeah you know you can do a million.

A million people, of course, Jason is predicting here, assuming there will be no major road blocks. But the brand on center did this thing where they stressed, tested with experts and government people whether mass deportations could be done, game this out loud in their simulations, funding was a big obstacle right away. So their deportation numbers weren't as largest Jasons.

But that was also assume that the house wouldn't go, which is looking like IT will be. As I record this, that would make Jason's math of a million people more possible. And when a million people disappear from the country, it's more than just bodies gone. There's a ripple effects.

One will see massive inflation continue in this country because we just pulled a million people out of our workforce. G, D, P businesses, small business, especially in they will see thousands of people losing their jobs. And small business is closing exeter to law enforcement activity, federal specifically, and in cities and states where state, local law enforcement is supporting this mass deportation program.

Will halt, halt going out arresting the rapist and murder in your carney will stop why your sheriff is over playing grab ass with human and these individuals and trying to do some big, massive portion scheme and thrown gram all back to cuba. So law enforcement will be killed. Three migrants will go deeper into the shadows. They will do the steps they need to stay in this our country because it's so much Better than going back in, risking death n than the other that they will hide even more into the shadows.

And so those that are left behind, it's like they become ghosts. They might stop showing up to work. Maybe we'll move. You'll notice them missing at your local grocery store, your bar, your daycare, and at the same time your screens will be broadcasting the deportations on T, V, on social media, shouting the images of a million who are actually gone. Jason thinks this will be strategic.

I think there's going to be like lined up planes, engines, running imagery of mass removals. I think they are gone to grab people and intentionally break our policy that break the law and throw some people back to their home country. And then when the courts push back, they can be like, see what the courts made us, stop.

And then, because then they can go, hey, look at these bureaucratics bureaux pencil next. Get in our way. This is the deep state.

This is the deep state. I guess. I guess my thing is to what end .

of winning the mid terms, you think it's all political.

You don't think there's an the ideological thing that he wants out of IT?

sure. I think he's ill equipped and he's bit like there's eight million on the just on the the immigration docket. Now how many people are have status here on our first generation? Migrants are like from migrant families. I mean, we're talking, this would affect like fifty million to one hundred million people like these sort of actions. The idea that there isn't political outlet consequences to that, even for Donald P I don't I I think the pendulum would swing back.

I'm not so sure. I think it's way harder for the pencil to swing back. If you look at the democrat immigration platform, what you see is the border bill. That by and try to pass that bill is the most restrictive immigration bill we've seen in years. It's a child burn out of the trumpet administration, but also parented by the democrats, making a harsh agenda seem away, more middle the road.

Think peace after think peace uses this failed bill as an example of how far to the right we moved on immigration, how much enforcement and severity have taken over, how much the idea of a nation of immigrants is dusty and polyana is. This fall, a brokers poll said that about a third of americans agree with trumps quote that undocumented immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country. Poisoning the blood.

This phrase chills me. It's not about legality or order. Its visceral. It's got a repulsion. IT is a violent feeling about a massive group of people. And when the president is the one that leads IT, it's not just a feeling anymore. IT becomes an action.

Native ayman, she's an editor on our show. Two days after the election, two of our producers, a manuel ty and lily solvin, went to the church near our office in new york city, where on certain days there are migrants and asylum m seekers getting free legal advice, meals. And I met this guy, Robert, who told him that he raved in the U. S. Five months ago of mcadd, and .

he's been .

having trouble. So you spoke with them.

yeah. He has been staying in a shelter nearby. And he says he can already picture IT what ice rates there would be like.

Let me describe IT like a movie pictures, a group of a hundred, two hundred arriving, who .

locked the building and go .

floor to .

have no be to get .

out the map into buses or cars.

or whatever .

ice .

uses to .

hear about my.

He fears a little fear, he told me.

because of someone .

tried .

to grab him, he could run like you to have that option.

But shelter, he's between .

four walls. That's .

where to run.

I asked him.

where do you .

feel safe? He told me here in the church, I talk to him. There's another place where you can feel calm because IT tells me ice can't come into the church.

So of course, in president of next term, that may not be true.

Yeah like we have this idea of sanctuary spaces, but anytime I decides they want to go into churches or hospital or schools, they can do that.

Like to nobody loves argentina community and our porter weekend community more than I do. So don't trap one record numbers of a tino voters this year when any republican candidates since I started tracking their demographic and exit polls back to one thousand nine hundred and seventy. So how would happen actually kind to russia spent the day with the guy who's been getting for this for years. I first met .

sam the ground a few weeks ago outside a trump rally in Allentown, pensylvania. He's waiting in the VIP line because one, he's a constable that's like an elected share of and two volunteers a lot for the campaign knocks and doors, the phone calls is something called a trump force captain and works with latinos for you.

I never had no paul nicknames like pokey to same.

but seems a proud porter. We can, the guy, classic cup haircut, and he gets personal fast. When I tell him ake is my nickname, he says, we tend to do that in america, shorten things. Then he calls me .

his brother s we're surrounded by the long .

lines of trump supporters who start chanting because they see a protest coming down the street. It's maybe a couple dozen people wave in portal and flags there with the latter x social justice crew here to protest the island of garbage comment that a comedian recently made at a trump rally.

观众 一个， 观众 一个。

a couple of sams friends from latinos for trump brush over they're onna, cross the street to go confront the anti trump protesters and they assumed.

To join.

Yes, he tells them, I don't like to fight, let them speak.

I don't like to do the combat and thing. I didn't hear what there was in, but another .

trump supporter nearby, a White lady in red shirt, is shouting over for us at this whole scrum of spanish speakers, not really differentiating between the trump supporters and the trump protesters. SHE says they don't even speak english.

Go back to your own fucking in country .

that it's not cool.

But you know what? I'm poor region, Bobby. I grouped in the self branch in the seventies.

I've gotten racism from everybody because you see my color right? I'm very nice skin. Grown up in the south branch was an easy in the seventies.

Doesn't get under your skin.

no. So I tend to ignore that. If you know what I found out working on this campaign, that is not the majority.

For most of his life, sam supported democrats, but in twenty sixteen, he broke with the party protest, voted for jills stein. He got into trump from videos shared by a latino trump supporter. Then just in the past two years, he lost about the sun.

In the sun in law. They overdosed on fat meal. He says it's a big problem in allott.

And he felt like the democrats, biden weren't helping and made him want from back even more. So he started evanishing trying to convert people. He's got lit and science.

Borry was for trump. The minicars for trump, got these little scratch for trump. He was lonely at first in this democratic city, but slowly and started to feel like I was working. You've been stepping IT up for months, and then island of garbage dropped on him.

I hear my my wife going, looked what just came out. Look what they said that, you know, he was furious.

IT was hurtful because that's where there from. But also frustrating because he's been out here in these streets trying to pull his people one by one.

Trump, I was double upset because i'm like, one that's an ugly joke too. There goes all the work i've done for the last four, five years.

Did you think those comments might just cost him the whole election?

Total brother, my god, there goes everything we've done right out the window.

So how to reconcile all this being a proud porter rican and a diehard trump supporter for them? He took twenty minutes of google. Anytime something .

controversial comes out of that kind paigning, there's something else behind that. You know what I found out?

Here's how he explains that there is actually a deeper message hidden inside that joke.

what recals drawn and and trash. They haven't been able to get rid of their trash for the last four years. This twenty nine dump sites, all the reporter recall that are mountains of trash because they can burn because of carbon emissions. And who did that back four years ago wasn't as bad IT went way over over four years ago. So that's what I believe was the reference that was being made to .

twenty minutes of research. Got sam from live IT about a potential campaign derAiling bad joke to outrage at an environmental disaster. Hey, lays at the feet of the by administration.

If that sounds like opportunistic reasoning, same gets that. Did you need to find a reason for IT? hi. Yeah.

I needed a reason for IT.

So he went on a mission the weekend before the election to do damage control, tell people what he learned and get them to vote for trump.

t.

He also wanted to give people a chance to talk through the ways they felt let down by democrats. I tagged ed along because I wanted to know if people would buy IT in part of what I heard. Help me understand White trump took a historic share of the latino vote in the way sams doing IT.

He's not following an orderly list of registered our independent voters. He's going off book here in the supremo grocery store parking lot in the heart of a lino neighborhood. It's a busy sunday, is a lot of shoppers steady flow of people on the sidewalk. It's a target rich environment. Hi.

good mom. How you do you voting this year? Come talk to make .

up same spots. A porter, reckon. Woman, he knows, pulling into the parking lot.

You parking. Come, come talk to .

me right then.

if I do.

damned if I don't SHE else from the car. This is Melissa. Same, her clearly go back, but he says he doesn't know how she's gona vote.

So do I got a bad filter right now?

I know. Are you .

feeling .

right now? But what are you upset about?

What I said is that i'm a taxpayer. I don't get shit. And you got other people that come into our country and they give up everything, but then you want to say here, you want to downright spends people make that change makes sense.

She's upset about democrats giving support to new arrivals in the country, instead focusing on the people already here. Like herself.

SHE also doesn't .

tolerate insults against spanish speaking people.

so SHE .

doesn't like her option. What can we talk about sunday, a week ago at the garden and .

joked the comedian made. Okay, how you feel about that.

how you feel about IT live .

IT sam walks you through .

how we figured out the island of garbage comment is actually a sneaky PSA about landfill's management.

Mollison, I believe, was the reference that was being made .

to how does that sit with you.

that fact.

that the facts, but again, everybody y's so much into the social media. The social media only portrays one side of each story in the stand. When, I mean, so if you seeking and you analyze both side of the stories like us, that earlier my car, that if you do that, if you know the time, I mean, because here we got our feelings.

couldn't never vote of immigrants able to vote.

Now, exactly.

Why not true illegal immigrants can vote.

That been here all our, and that's a right. That's a citizenship, right? You know that's not a human right. That's a citizenship rate. You want to vote, go back to your country and vote, not in a bad way, not meaning that you should go back to your country. But you know what? Get in line and wait like everybody else, because there has been a lot of illegal immigrants in this country that have been here for years, still waiting for their papers, thousands of and can .

even though, and paid access, paid taxes.

The backdrop here is that Simon, millie a, or there are already citizens who can vote if they live on the mainland. They don't have to wait in .

any sort of line.

Eight years ago, Melissa supported Hillary. SHE says bill clinton was a hell of a president. Now he likes trump. inspired. The comment.

was I in the sample? And me, great business man, great business man. Well, far time out was his filter and how he .

speaks of people body.

But let's be realistic here, the way he spoke in front of our kids, you're the president, but he put IT out there. And again, maybe in a person who does, who have no fields of myself, I can understand that, but there is a time and a place, everything. But at this point i've had to go here and go there because I don't want to get more dick in a hole then when I am now, and get the same shit that I got for the past four years.

The militia ends the conversation by telling sam she'll vote for trump.

Same approaches, another porter we can guide, soft spoken Young man name Marcus, and asked him how he felt about the insult.

I think he said he was a, do you guys know there's an island, you know, of garbage falling in the ocean? I think it's called porter recall. How do that make you feel Better?

I mean, as as a porter weekend, I made me feel like shit me.

I live IT, but I was mad. I was well. But what that there for me, I went online and started looking up as there a problem, a porter, a any type of garbage journey thing. You know what I found out?

The same takes mark through a speed from lived to landfill. Seems like it's sinking in. They talk more about the Price of eggs, just smart given markets just left the grocery store. And after same finishes, ask Marcus how he feels about sams explanation about the island of garbage.

I mean, when I first heard that I was I was appalled, you know, I mean, that our leadership could speak so disgustingly about about us that way. And even as he was just mentioning right now, it's disgusting he still .

pissed about the comment but he was planning to vote for trump anyway and sams explanation .

IT just made to feel all much Better mean that there's A A valuable explanation as to his comment um because that who am leaning towards the trump so IT feels he feels very, very good to to know that the next guy.

a spanish speaker Carrying a large bag of dog food, didn't even need to hear some explanation. He just wants to share his critique of .

the democrats failures so they saying that neither party .

wants to fix immigration. Obama had two years to do something when the democrats controlled the help the senate, and they .

didn't even for.

And is he .

going to vote for .

trump?

He's voting .

for trump to the .

garbage joke. People can get past that. But what they can get past is how democrats have been letting them down in a bunch of different ways. Sam is pleased.

I'm feeling a lot more positive than I was a couple of days ago. And i'm glad that especially the porter reckons that we did talk to we're still going to support. And regarding that, we all feel the same way. We're mad about the .

comment IT upset us.

but its policy over over fear. Brother, you cleaned up today the boxing gloves. You want to get out with people. And IT hasn't been that at all.

I don't think you ve met here.

here. No, and they're out here.

Sam did talk to one hair, a supporter, Younger dominic, men.

The man says he can't vote. He'd like to become a citizen vote someday. Again, this is where a traditional .

canvas, or would be IT that's not same.

could vote. He vote for commoner. And there's one. Now this close to the election campaigns are a numbers game of maxi zing turnout of eligible like minded voters. This guy .

is neither.

The guy says he wants to change .

exam season opening. Change .

from what?

Sam makes this pitch for .

trump and ask them to think about IT.

I get, I get them up. I get up like me under the I, I get in some.

I love them thinking he's almost flipped. My whole mission is to wake people up in my community. To me, not about the vote, to me is about our people. And that's why I .

look at to sam. It's the long game. This isn't just about the election that just happened. It's about the next one and the next one and the one after that.

Actually, karasu is a producer on our show coming up. All those people in trumps enemies list who has been calling for retribution against are they packed in their bags, which check in with a couple that in a minute radio when our programme continues support for this .

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This american life for mara glass, today's program, this is the cake we baked today. We have stories of people who have some special personal investment in the outcome of this week's election, and we look at what's coming for them. We've arrested actor of our show actually come attribution.

So in the final weeks of his campaign down the trump on, we stepped up his threads of retribution against potato enemies, including saying he used the military to go after the enemy within. Two people have been keeping an eye. These sorts of comments are Alexander and Rachel whitman.

Alex is the army officer who officially reported would be like an improper phone call between president trump and the president of ukraine, which LED to trump's first impeachment and trial metals. His wife, back after I visited them, and they did not agree about what they were gna do the president from one another term and started taking revenge. Regio said they should consider leaving the country.

The things got bad enough. Alex said he'd never consider that. No, not possible. I think the fact is that I served a full military career to protect this country, and i'm not going to go IT up.

My argument is, if Donald trump is reelected, this will no longer be that country. This will be the place where that country was. I want to be able to leave if I feel like that's what I need to, to protect, mainly my daughter.

We were doing this interview in their living room, and we were standing because I had about furniture for yet they went to wait and see what the outcome and the election was going to be first for Alice, this is just prints and saving money against an uncertain future for Rachel IT was, maybe we will have to leave this house. When I reached out this week, I have the election.

Alex didn't return a text to set an interview, but rache was happy to talk. He told me they did finally buy the bullet by furniture. And there's early days when como Harris took over. There's a democratic omy.

They have two office and we have a coffee table and like a side piece thing. And so that's measure we ordered that kind of after all, the bugs about her and you know everyone was very excited and we are like we're onna stay here and I think we are very optimistic. So in the months .

reading up to the election, alexon, Rachel have both been campaigning actively for Harris. Speaking of fundraisers, that kind of thing, regions said she's probably done three events a week for the last six weeks on video or in person in all seven swing states, with IT plans to talk on election night once the winner is clear. But when I texted them richer, a back SHE didn't ell up to talking.

I am freaking out, he said. When we got on the phone later in the week, I asked if their views had changed since we talked in march. Was IT still that he would consider leaving the country .

and he wouldn't? Nothing is after table.

but I want to stay because .

this is my country. And I think there's a possibility to continue to be here and to be part of the discussion and make a different alex absolutely wants to say it's not even a question. So maybe my decision is just based on his options that it's nonstarter. So I have to bring myself around to that reality. I thought of you guys .

in the last week of the campaign when IT seemed like, uh, downtown p was increasing his calls for retaliation and talking about going after the enemies within the country. Like, what do the two of you think this is gona mean for you? Do you feel like you're going to be facing some sort of a retaliation?

Do you think? Get just a complete open question. Like where are you on this?

We have no idea. I MIT all depend on signals from their actions that the only way we will know is to see what they're doing. But um there is the guy who has a retaliation listed so long lessons, like three hundred and three thirty people, something like that. And alex, his name is on IT.

This is a list that was circulating on social media, put together by a trump supporter of people that he thinks deserve revenge. There has no affiliation with trump. There is no sign that anybody in trump world list to him. But saying alex y's named, there was alarming reminder how visible alex is, is somebody stood up to the president and how likely a targeted is for the real people in power.

So that's a concern. But are they going to retaliate against all of this? People will be all one like Crystal x or well at the overtime.

And yeah, do we have time? I don't. If if that's the road they go down, I mean, I don't know or what they just do on january twenty years.

Yeah but we'll definitely be washing the indicators and kind of A A list of criteria you know to say if this then this you know some kind of places or instruction point um which is terrifying. But we certainly haven't gotten to that point. Like everyone, we're trying to process all of us.

Can you name another one of the educators that you gonna keep an eye.

but we have up talks about retaliation then? Yes, yeah, but maybe IT was the election retorted, and that's not something that's going to come out. There are so many unknown of trump, he said, is going to do a lot of things that he doesn't do.

They're going to keep an iron. His appointments, especially who he appoints the secretary of defense, racial l pictures that retaliation against us could be as small as they try to take his retirement benefits, his health care and pension, or as big as they could put him on trial for actions in the impeachment hearings. SHE really doesn't know to expect what your feeling, what you got.

My head says it'll probably be okay. My heart is very scared, but I don't want to live my life and fear. I don't want to live in my own country, afraid when neither I or my husband has done anything from.

Rate of them. We reach out to the other people we interviewed in march for the episode did about possible retribution down on trump. Take, see our concern they are.

But what might happen to them now from a trump said an aggressive didn't return our calls. Fred wellman used to be at the linking project, said he was watching to see how things are gonna fold gaming our possible scenario. But what you might do.

Like four, i've had an unbelievable job on the abortion question. So I think guess everybody knows at this point, camera Harris and the democrats were bedding the abortion rights. But i'll put her over the top in ten different states at abortion rights measures on their ballots, seven of those past.

And there was a very particular kind of TV add that are many those states, all of the very particular feeling and particular music, very similar language. In his adds, women whose lives have been put at risk from complications with the pregnancies told their stories to explain why abortion bans needed to be lifted. Whatever producers making make became interested in these commercials this week, SHE checked him with a fewer of the people who appeared in them. Here's miki. Since I was struck .

down two years ago, i've been reporting on cragged ant women in doctors and states with abortion bans. And i've noticed that it's almost always the same group of women, about twenty and all being called on again and again to account the worst moment of their lives in media interviews, in court cases, at the state legislature and in congress.

I don't love IT to be perfectly .

that passage a who was denied an abortion in nebraska, SHE shared her story in one of those ads.

It's this heartening that we are putting the tough as conversation on the people who are affected the most um and having to relive that trauma and just relive the worst parts of their life to try and make change. And even today I am sitting here and i'm exhausted the how how am I even standing here still here? The last two plus months has just been exhAusting and you see online and people are like, we have to keep fighting. And I, like, I have been fighting. Where have you been?

Nebraska abortion rights measure failed this week.

I actually, I made the jokes in my husband yesterday was like, all all my new followers on twitter are going sapin posting basketball fall. Until we resolve the issue, I feel like always say something. But um I am going to a have to step away from me for a little bit just for my senate.

I think I don't think i'll ever stop pushing how important the issue as though because there's until there aren't any bands, some moment always gonna affected. Some girls going to be affected. And I I hate that for this country. Of all the end.

I watched debt dormer's really got to me IT was so emotional I almost couldn't finish IT. There is thirty four years old and from florida she's got a six year old sun. Two years ago, SHE was twenty three weeks pregnant, her second child, when he went into her doctor's office for a routine scan and learned that her baby had a lethal and rare condition called potters syndrome.

He had knew kidneys, his lungs weren't developing. If he survived birth, he wouldn't ve long, maybe just minutes. Her doctor recommended SHE terminated pregnant y as soon as possible.

He was now at higher risk for create lamps, a which could killer dever agreed. He also didn't want her baby to suffer, but florida had just banned all abortions after fifteen weeks, with some rare indeed exceptions. Deborah says the hospital told her that because her baby still had a heart be, they couldn't help her.

They were actually wrong about this. Florida law allows for abortions in cases where there's a lethal fetal anomaly up to twenty eight weeks. But there's a lot of fear and confusion among doctors and hospitals in states with bands so ever had to Carry the baby to term, knowing all long he wouldn't survive SHE in her husband named in my law, he lived for nine, four minutes.

Debris husband told me he didn't expect her to speak publicly, seemed at the character, and I felt that way to her too. Debord describes herself as shy, reserved, conflict, diverse. But while he was still pregnant with my lou, SHE was so angry, depressed that SHE decided to talk to a reporter from the washington post, and after he gave birth, he decided to keep talking. Is a specific conversation of interaction you had with someone where you realized, like I did change their opinion about for as abortion law.

my parents, my parents, they are very conservative people. And IT was my dad, having witnessed what I went through when, you know, I he found out the news, and then he found out that I could not get induced, and I was being forced to Carry to full term. And he had to watch his daughter suffer for months, and he didn't understand why I could not get the care I needed.

Her parents were catholic, and before this they were against abortion, but seen her experiences up close, changed them. So when the organizers ers of the ballot measure in florida approach her to do A T, V ad, SHE said, yes, the measure would put abortion rights into the state constitution.

I remember the doctor handing me a baby boy that was blue, and I just held him because he was so cold in the .

ad debris city on a account in a Green grass. Her husband, lee, is right next to her. His ARM rapped around.

Her government had no right to do that to my family. This spying is torture.

Governor, the santis fought abortion measure hard. He sent playing close police to knock on doors, looking for fragile ant signatures on the petition for the ballot measure before the health department sent season desist letters to T, V stations here in a different ad that supported the measure, a judge writing with the TV stations wrote to keep IT simple for the florida, is the first amendment stupid?

On election night, debora or husband, headed to a watch party with the organizers of the Better measure, a group called yes. On four, there were balloons everywhere. The full bar, Debra felt hopeful and had a speech prepared.

The measure got passed ever since row was over, returned whenever voters got a chance to vote on abortion measures like this one. They passed even in red states around nine pm. The results were in a clear majority of floridians voted in favor of the about initiative, but IT still failed because in florida, ballot measures need sixty percent of the vote to pass. I got fifty seven percent.

We were upstairs in a private little room, just waiting for the result. And once they told me that yes, on board failed IT was just, honestly was a shocked IT was like a punching the stomach and I just brought me back to that day in the doctor's office and IT was just that shock and that numb. We did go downstairs to hear the director speak, and after SHE spoken, a few other gas spoke.

I remember getting that out of the room and going outside. And that is when I had just broke down crying, and my husband came down me and I was just, I was on my knees. And crime because they just they took the law, took everything from me.

It's one thing to decide to tell this page story over and over, but it's another thing to do IT and not get the .

results you wanted. It's hard. You feel like a lot of weight is on your shoulders to try to get the government and legislature to understand, like, look, what these laws are doing. You know, I do feel tired. I, you know, just sharing my story is a lot of work.

Do you ever have a feeling of? When can I be done and stop talking about this?

So yesterday, we spend a lot of time navigating. Do we keep fighting a fighter? Or do we. Just step away. And for me, like i'm up on the fence, like I don't want to back down now like I want to see through that the log gets change.

What people don't see when debora tells her story in public is how hard she's still trying to get back to real life. Just enjoy small moments again, crowded classes on thursdays, pizza on friday with her husband and her six year old sun.

Mike mike is a producer in our shell. 天地 也 高。 You can hear a baby cry. As the train in new your city. 将来。 And they tell the amErica bar, say, I made IT, but this one, it's morning in america, but I can see the well, so that they was produced, edited by gaster chesty and a meanie berry.

People put together today's program and could be out of one me michonnin value tigers and semi elson ryan remi, a ship with spevak risa Roberts and text mani and w managing editors are up to and or senior editors David down so as thanks the data of forest aron. S. If on wet sanz terrace, new mo mec, drew kata choy, john Green, on a paramo of artist, athletes, activists in ork, this american life is to go to public radio stations by P, R, X, the public radio exchange, to become a this american life partner and get bonus content.

Add free listening asked me anything sessions and the greatest hit archive of hundreds of favorite episode in your podcast feed sign up at this american life that org slash life partners thanks this week to life partners cure alert regimen Martha dw and orn tolerant thanks always your program's co founder, mr. r. mAnita. You know, he is such an annoying person to meditate with. Seriously, every time we're finally into IT and a quieted our minds, he starts chatting super loudly.

This is the deep state. This is the deep state.

I'm ira glass back next week with more stories of this american life.

Next week in the podcast with this american life, this animal rights activist gets car and deck from hollywood. Producer, gave him a mission.

He was like, nobody else can do this. You have to do this. The kids are depending on IT.

Will you try that on take captive ker whale, attain creature, the districts somehow teach you to be wild again, put on the plane and fire home to set IT free in real life? True story next week on the podcast on your local bubble radio station.

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