Immigration

Mark Ruffalo and Andrea Guidry narrate this important and frightened chapter of David Pepper's prescient podcast. This chapter captures the struggles of 12-year-old Alvaro and his mother desperate to escape a fictional detention center in West Texas and soldier Jake Caldwell as he witnesses the overwhelming influx of women and children, and the systemic failures of the camp. The environment strips away humanity, leading children to escape in search of freedom.

In Chapter 3, the fact-based fictional story of Dr. Yvette Hardman and JJ Newsom depicts the dismantling of expertise and science-based decision making in the federal government under a possible second Trump administration guided by Project 2025. Dr. Hardman, an experienced infectious disease expert, is removed from her position at the CDC and replaced by JJ Newsom, an unqualified political loyalist with no relevant experience. This reflects Project 2025's plan to fill government positions with partisan appointees rather than nonpartisan experts. The new administration rejects science-based pandemic response recommendations from Dr. Hardman instead prioritizing political and economic considerations over public health. This aligns with Project 2025's directives to limit the CDC's ability to make public health recommendations. The story highlights the Trump administration's hostility towards science and the displacement of experienced civil servants, which Project 2025 seeks to accelerate through measures like the "Schedule F" executive order to reclassify and fire federal employees. Overall, the narrative illustrates how a second Trump term guided by Project 2025 would undermine the role of expertise and independent scientific advice in government, with potentially disastrous consequences for public health and safety. We'd like to thank all the artists who volunteered their time to make this episode: CCH Pounder, Richard Schiff and Jason Kravits who read the chapters and Omid Abtahi, Tom Nichols, Laurie Burke and Joanne Carducci who did the voices. Sound design by Marilys Ernst and Jon Moser. Trump's Project 2025: Up Close and Personal was written by David Pepper and produced by Pepper, Melissa Jo Peltier and Jay Feldman and is a production of Ovington Avenue Productions and The Bill Press Pod.

Fox made a dramatic pivot from trashing Kamala Harris to promoting Donald J. Trump. The network also obsessively covered the second assassination attempt on the former president. Fox hosts complained about heated rhetoric while ignoring Trump’s inflammatory words. The network also featured a lot of Trump including him on a n episode of “Gutfeld,” and giving away it’s primetime coverage to show a live feed of a Trump rally in Long Island, NY. Laura Ingraham whipped up fear about Haitian immigrants while Lawrence Jones claims there was no racial aspects to their harassment. Fox & Friends tried to make it seem like the recent interest rate cut by the Fed was a bad thing.

Fox New promoted a lot of stories about crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. While the network pretended to care about the safety of American women it ignored a Supreme Court ruling that supported a law that bars domestic abusers from owning guns. Jesse Watters attempted to mock Joe Biden for walking like an 81-year-old man. Newt Gingrich compared Trump to Reagan and predicted that Trump would be calm and controlled while sparring with Biden. A data expert didn’t seem to know that wages have outpaced inflation for 12 straight months and there was some drama about a Fox News poll that showed Biden inching ahead of Trump. I also compare how Fox and PBS handled the new law in Louisiana that mandates the Ten Commandments in all school classrooms.