Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. starting a business can be overwhelming you're juggling multiple roles designer marketer logistics manager all while bringing your vision to life shopify helps millions of business sell online build fast with templates and ai descriptions and photos inventory and shipping sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl that's shopify.nl it's time to see what you can accomplish with shopify by your side To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know, there's no better place than right here on the DSR Network. And there's no better way to enjoy the DSR Network than by becoming a member. Members enjoy an ad-free listening experience, access to our Discord community, exclusive content, early episode access, and more. Use code DSR26 for a 25% off discount on sales. Sign up at thedsrnetwork.com. That's code DSR26 at thedsrnetwork.com slash buy. Thank you, and enjoy the show. 9, 12, 10, 28, 2, 23. This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our super-secret studio in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of SNARK in Washington, D.C., and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to Need to Know. We're each and every week, and sometimes twice a week, we talk to people who are making news that we think you need to hear about. This week we are very happy to be joined by our friend Miles Taylor, who once again has gotten under the skin of the President of the United States. Well done, Miles. And has done so by helping to put together a network of prosecutors from around the United States to coordinate an effort to ensure that we don't have federal government overreach of the type that we have seen recently. And I would have to say, Miles, first of all, welcome. But secondly, you put this together, it obviously irritated the White House. But I also read today that the president's drawing down troops in Chicago and L.A. He's pulling back a little in Minneapolis. I get some sense that he's feeling that this is not going to be as easy as he thought it might be. You know, David, you have that happening, but you also have the side by side of the immigration chiefs going and sitting before Congress and saying that their directive from the president is a mass deportation. And so you see them walking back some of the optics, but not walking back the underlying directives and policy. And I think this is very common when it comes to Donald Trump. If he's getting bad publicity, he steps back and reorients. He never changes his ultimate goal of going to do the egregious thing that he set out to do. He just has to repackage it, rebrand it, call it something else, put someone else in charge. I mean, think about the Muslim ban and how many iterations the Muslim ban went through. It started with Donald Trump on the campaign saying Muslim ban, and people said, that's terrible. You can't say those words. Don't call it a Muslim ban. Then his first week in office, he issues an executive order. It doesn't call it a Muslim ban, but it's the implementation of what he was saying. that gets protested around the country and held up in the courts. I went into the administration six months later. It was being recast as something else. So this is what he does. He iterates until he gets the thing that he wants. In this case, I think they're in one of those phases. I think they're in a strategic pause and retreat. But I don't think that means the administration isn't going to keep going hard. And another piece of evidence of that is what they are doing with these warehouses around the country. They're building the infrastructure to create a human conveyor belt and treating Americans in this country, migrants in this country like meat and putting them through that conveyor belt. You had the head of ICE compare it to Amazon Prime. He said, I want to do for human beings what Amazon Prime did for packages. That is the mindset of these folks. And one of the things, as you noted, that we're trying to do to fight back against it is we have brought these prosecutors together from around the country. We were surprised to find over at Defiance.org that the prosecutors, the local prosecutors in America were not stitched together in a network to hold federal agents accountable when they break the law like they have in Minnesota. That now exists. It's called the fight against federal overreach or F.A.F.O. And I think that, you know, the administration is unhappy to see that that group has been brought together. They're going to be even more unhappy when prosecutions start against those federal agents who have broken the law, ostensibly at Donald Trump's directive. I see what you did there with the FAA. Well, you know, I I I picked up on that because I am sharp. But I think, you know, there is some of that going on. I do agree, though, there is this kind of sense of defiance. You know, when you take, you know, you get rid of Greg Bovino and you place him with Tom Homan, that's kind of a fuck you. Because Tom Homan is the author of, you know, family separation policy. When you had the hearings yesterday on, today we're recording this on Wednesday, on the DHS activities, they were all, you know, towing the party line. And I mean, Pam Bondi, I don't know if you've watched any of the Pam Bondi show today, but it has been outrageous. Just a shouting match and a meltdown. And I guess we're getting the consequence of something you and I have talked about now for several years. And that is, you mentioned the Muslim ban. When the Muslim ban happened there were people You came into the government John Kelly was at DHS then Secretary Nielsen was at DHS There were people down people we talked to who are friends Elizabeth Newman and others who were down in the system who said no we can do this It against the law There are people to push back as you warned in the past and I tried to write there aren't any of those so we are now at the point where there's no internal constraints on the president and the only constraint and frankly there aren't any in the Congress where he used to work and there aren't really any in the Supreme Court so really a greater burden falls to states and localities to be the guardrail which fortunately some are being. Do you see that as the case that, you know, if the states and localities don't step up, there aren't real constraints on them? Yeah. And I would be even more explicit. Donald Trump said in that now infamous New York Times interview several weeks ago that he views the only constraint on his powers as his own conscience. And you've talked about that, David. Others have talked about that. I want to be more explicit about what Donald- You mean the fact that he doesn't have a And I want to be even more explicit about that because when Donald Trump says conscience, it doesn't mean what the rest of us think it means, his commitment to a moral code. For him, his conscience is, does it make me look good or not? So if I was advising governors and state's attorneys general and people fighting back against these policies, what I would tell them is, in addition to holding Trump accountable in court, which for the time being you're able to do, they have not defied major court orders, although they have defied dozens of court orders in less significant matters. They still could. But the next best thing you can do is make him look bad because that will change Donald Trump's mind. When he says, I do things when my conscience says I can do them. What he really means is if I start looking bad and the PR is bad, I'm more likely to change course. And those things have to go together at the same time. And I can't even believe that that's the strategy I'm proposing to defend the rule of law in this country, but is take them to court and make him look very bad. That is what he responds to. And right now, that's what all the way down to a local level we have seen Americans do successfully. We've seen the state of Minnesota suing the federal government. But it wasn't just suing them. The people of Minnesota wholly rejected Trump's immigration crackdown. That started to look bad. Trump saw that he was losing. And the one thing in his life he doesn't want to be that he's most pressure sensitive about is looking like a loser. He obsesses over it so much. So, David, as you and I have talked about in the past, we internally used to write memos to the president in the language of winners and losers to convince him to do one thing or another. And the best example of that was in Afghanistan. The president wanted an immediate sudden pullout that we were worried at that time would result in a lot of lives lost. We actually saw a version of that under Biden, a lot of criticism about how that drawdown happened. And so we said to the president, look, you can either look like a winner and do this responsibly, or you can do it in a way that makes you look like a loser. And the terrorists will say, you are a loser and they are the winners. And the president said, oh, now I totally get it. We're not going to do it that way. That's what it took to convince him. And I will say, when it comes to these controversies, he's still pressure sensitive on the optics front. Sounds like you're dealing with a not very smart eighth grade. It does sound like that, doesn't it? I mean, yeah, that's I mean, but that that does seem to be how he responds to these things. Now, of course, the way they're handling mass deportations is an outrage. And, you know, we now have the reality that I mean, deeply disturbing reality right now, that the biggest building project our developer president has ever been involved with is the construction of a network of concentration camps across the United States of America. having those concentration camps is producing nimbyism people pushing back it's another place for states and localities to push back but we also know that the next phase of this the the other reason for having troops in the streets has to do with the elections and the desire to intimidate voters. And so presumably states and localities, states are responsible for the elections, will also have an interest in ensuring that free and fair elections take place. Was that part of the idea behind this network? Are secretaries of states as well as prosecutors talking to each other? Yeah, we're hoping so. We're hoping that that's another thing that they can do in addition to holding federal agents accountable, making sure that there is communication between these district attorneys' offices about other aspects of potential federal overreach. And what we saw in Fulton County is a perfect example of that. I still think people are understating the significance of armed federal agents going into an election office and taking ballots from 2020 and relitigating an election. And so that's another area where it will be useful to have prosecutors like the incredible Larry Krasner, who has just joined us, the district attorney from Philadelphia. And Larry, we were just chatting about fight against federal overreach and bringing prosecutors together. And David had asked if election security is going to be another example where we see federal agents potentially violating state and local law. I'd be curious, Larry, to throw that question also to you and what prosecutors can be doing to protect our elections against that type of intervention. And before you get to that, Larry, I'm David. Nice to meet you. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. David, wonderful to meet you, too. And greetings from the beautiful University of Chicago Law School. Yeah. You know, it is a traditional role for prosecutors to protect elections. We have a historically perhaps unique threat to elections, at least in my lifetime, that's coming up. And we need to be extremely vigilant, especially when somebody like Steve Bannon is saying, here's the plan. We'll surround the polls with a bunch of guys in camo. We need to be very vigilant about that And yes it a primary concern of the prosecutors who support or are actually members of the project to fight against federal overreach which you can learn about at federaloverreach Well, so let's go back because we did explain a little bit of the origins of this project. But because we have you here, I'd love to hear your, you know, your own motivations for getting involved and your sense of the motivations of other district attorneys and prosecutors across the country. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. Shopify helps millions of business sell online. Build fast with templates and AI descriptions and photos, inventory and shipping. Sign up for your one euro per month trial and start selling today at shopify.nl. That's shopify.nl. It's time to see what you can accomplish with Shopify by your side. You know, my motivation for getting involved is I have an oath to uphold the law in the Constitution of the United States and to seek justice. And frankly, I think any prosecutor who even remotely suggests they're going to be less interested in prosecuting the mask and the gun when the mask and the gun have a badge hidden in their back pocket as opposed to the civilian with a mask and a gun are not doing their job. And I feel the same way about other electeds who got to be not profiles in courage, but profiles in quiet. You know, we should be all doing this. All of us should be stepping up to protect our democracy. There's a lot of Republicans in this country who feel very strongly about preserving this country. They should. That's the right thing to do. So let us not lose track of the reality. There is a reason why when you fly into Paris, the airport is named Charles de Gaulle, as opposed to being named after some of those collaborators in the French government. It is time to stand up. And when people stand up, they will be on the right side of history. They'll be able to sleep at night and they will be remembered whether or not they have, you know, you fly through their airport. Do you have a sense that the fact that people are coming together is having any impact on the actions of the federal government? Or do you see them sort of redoubling efforts or trying to come up with new ways to pressure you? I think it is having an impact, you know, more than anything else. I think the absolutely maniacal behavior of Donald Trump is starting to undo him. The insanity, the malice, the evil of some of the things that he is doing is striking a chord. Certainly when we saw the second homicide, which I would absolutely argue is a criminal homicide occur in Minneapolis, I think that was one of those turning points. Maybe I shouldn't say turning point, but I think it was one of those important points in history. But I will say this. I think it's very important that elected officials everywhere remember that this is not an insider game. The British Empire was driven out of India by mass action by political outsiders that was completely nonviolent, that was totally lawful. And to some extent, what we are doing is going to happen within courtrooms, and it's going to happen by protecting elections the best way we can. But to a very large extent, what we are doing is we are making sure that people who are not elected, who are not rich, who are not insiders, but are actually outsiders, know that we have their backs. And when they do what is lawful and they do what is nonviolent in massive ways, which I believe will happen, and it will happen around the election, they're going to be doing it partly because we said it was OK, because we said that we would have their backs and we would protect them. Just think for one second about what it would look like when they try to put a bunch of out-of-towners and camouflage around polls to scare away voters. And instead, it drives out incredibly large, historically important high levels of voting. Instead, it drives out massive numbers of people who should be given permits by their cities to be out there marching and moving. They just don't have enough wheels and enough shoes to take that on. They just don't. And if they did, it would only make things worse for them. So we need to remember what Lincoln always said, which is that it's all, I don't remember the exact quote, but basically it's all about the public opinion. It's all about the public sentiment. We are a small part of that, but we are delighted to be a part of that. Well, you're an important part of it. I think you've been an important spokesperson for it. And although in a minute, I got a question for both of you. I have one more question for you, Larry, directly, because following Minneapolis, troops, federal agents moved into Maine, and then they dialed that back a bit. But right after that, the buzz was that Philadelphia would be the next target. Where does that stand? Well you know we shall see You dealing with one of the most mercurial and irrational actors in the history of national leadership in the United States We shall see I would like to think that what the FAFO group is doing and what a lot of our city council members are doing and what I'm trying to do in Philly makes us, you know, the parked car that's locked. And whoever's walking down the row of cars to steal one will decide that, well, maybe we'll just go to the car that's unlocked, where the leadership is quiet, where they're not committed to prosecuting crimes committed by federal enforcement. I would like to think that they know better than to mess with the city of Rocky, where you got six Democrats for every one Republican and where you have a population that is 40% white, 40% black and 20% people of color. You know, this is a city that famously in 2017 chanted after they won the Super Bowl on the steps of the art museum, which is where Rocky ran up. Some of you may remember that. We all chanted together, along with Jason Kelsey, who gave a rousing speech. We're from Philly. F in Philly. You don't like us. We don't care. I love me some Minneapolis. It's in the land of Minnesota nice. And they are mighty spunky, spunkier than ever because of what happened with George Floyd. But Philly ain't the place to mess around. It just isn't. I don't know whether they know that or maybe we're reminding them of that. I certainly hope that by doing what we should all do, which is raising our voices by remembering that silence equals death, we are going to be able to deter any kind of federal overreach in Philly. Yeah, I mean, I'm from New Jersey and there are traditionally some tensions between New Jersey and Philadelphia. But on this one issue, I feel bonded. I feel we share an attitude with regard to that. So let me go to both of you. We only have seven, eight minutes left here. Let me go to both of you and I'll start with you, Miles, and then go back to you, Larry. But what next for the FAFO project? Larry, do you want to take that one first? And I'll layer in. Larry just came out of a meeting the other day with all of the prosecutors. So I'll defer to him first. And then I've got some thoughts. Big picture. Happy to do it. Well, you know, we're roughly 10 actual members of this group. We are organizing all the details, which is necessary for fundraising purposes, for other purposes. We're getting that all done. But we already have a lot of interest from other prosecutors, including big city prosecutors like Seattle, places like that. I just met today with the district attorney from Lake County, Illinois, Eric Reinhart, who is a real reformer and also very, very interested. He and I actually spoke together here at the law school, University of Chicago. I think we'll see the membership grow. I think we'll see the people we can support by supplying them with resources, by giving them the legal research they need. You know, another circle, as it were, of support coming from prosecutors. I think we'll see that grow. But I'm also hearing about an organization of sheriffs that may be coming or that may be growing. I'm also hearing about the possibility of an organization of mayors. There was already an organization of governors. I think the more that we stand together or at least stand within our group together, the more that we are going to make it clear that the Constitution and the laws still apply, that we're going to seek justice, that this is not a caste system where certain rich people get to steal everything and run everything and kill whoever they want. So I think that's what's coming next. But, you know, I mean, we know their playbook. We've already read it. I don't intend to give them every single thing in my playbook. Just stay tuned. It's going to get exciting. I will tell you that. Look, the only thing I'll add in there, David, is I think we are going to see the accountability. You are going to see charges brought against federal agents who have obviously broken the law. You are going to see more lawsuits against the federal government to keep them from encroaching on states' rights. You are going to see more of these networks being formed to ensure that happens on an enduring basis and not just a one-off. Every single time the Trump administration violates states' rights, violates the Constitution and the constitutional rights of individual citizens, we shouldn't have to scurry to make sure the right people are talking to each other. So what Larry and those prosecutors are doing by coming together in the fight against federal overreach, I think, is really crucial. And there are ways for people to come support these efforts. I mean, Larry mentioned people can go to federaloverreach.org if they want to read about this, if they want to read about how they themselves can help crowdsource courage by supporting these types of networks. That's how this is going to be done. And I will just say, personally, I mean, you know this, David, I had intended to be away from politics and public life indefinitely. We moved out of Washington, we're growing a family. But you know what, this is an absolutely existential moment for our democracy. And so folks are jumping back into the fight, folks are contributing their lives and their livelihoods to make this happen. And and you also get strange bedfellows. You get a progressive like Larry Krasner teamed up with a libertarian conservative like Miles Taylor fighting for the same cause. And that gives me, I think, a lot of confidence about in the end, which side is going to win here. Can I just can I just throw this in? Can I just throw this in? I love the fact that Miles said conservative because conservatives are not our problem. The problem is radical fascists. Conservatives believe in democracy. They believe in the vote. They believe in the preservation of the law and the Constitution of the United States. They are our natural allies. We may not agree on every single thing, although I think we probably agree on more than some people might assume. But we believe on the crucial point here. And that's why I would love to see more conservatives, like real Republicans, not radical fascists. Totally, totally agree with you. And what I was about to say was, I do this a lot every week, and it's frankly kind of a wearing job because most of what we hear drives us crazy or is deeply depressing. This is uplifting. This is the direction we'd like to see things go. This is real leadership from you, Larry, and from the other district attorneys and prosecutors involved in this, from you, Miles. And we are grateful for it. We'll get the word out. I hope people follow and support what you are doing. And hopefully we can check in with you in a few months and see what the latest is. For now, thank you, Larry. Thank you, Miles. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Bye-bye.
