And after another wild week in politics we want once
again bring in the host of the podcast Grounded Maritza
Giorgio, Maritza and former Senator John Tester break down
the top stories of the nation every week. So
Maritza, thank you so much for joining us this
Friday afternoon. The biggest news of the week coming
out yesterday. Mike Waltz as national security advisor.
He's out as that. He's now nominated for UN
ambassador. Is he a scapegoat from this whole signal
gate mess with the, uh, Secretary Hag Seth
? Well, it's so good to be with you
Stephanie. Listen, scapegoat, I don't know if
I would use that word because if you're a scapegoat
or you're really nominated to be the US ambassador to
the UN, but that's a separate issue. A
lot of people saying, well, how come you
know Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wasn't um penalized or
or punished because he's the one who actually put.
Top secret information um in you know attack plans into
that signal chat but then people go back and say
, hey, it was Mike Waltz who added the
Atlantic editor in chief to begin with, so this
lands on Mike Waltz but I really think the question
around this won't really be about Mike Waltz or Pete
Hegseth. I think the name that we should be
talking about is Laura Loomer because she, uh,
called for this last week at a conversation with Tara
Palmieri on her podcast and subs. And she basically
was asked directly who would you fire or advise the
president to fire next and and she kind of was
a little bit coy at first and then said well
you know I I think that he is not loyal
to President Trump and she brought up a video that
he recorded in 2016, Mike Waltz, you know
, going after, uh, President Trump, then
candidate Trump over his comments about John McCain and other
veterans. So I think this goes deeper than just
signalgate. Uh, well, uh, certainly we'd
be curious to watch as especially as he now will
have to face the Senate confirmation process. National Security
Adviser doesn't go before the Senate. He would need
to be confirmed by the Senate to get this UN
UN ambassador post, and so I think that signalgate
story is not one that's gonna go away anytime soon
. Marita, I wanna ask you also about something
that happened late last. Last night President Trump signing
an executive order stopping funding for PBS and NPR.
Patricia Harrison, the president of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, issued a statement today saying that the White
House does not control the organization. Now we've seen
him do something similar earlier with Voice of America,
um, their funding. So where do you think
this goes next? I think in short we're going
to see this end up in court. I mean
, the PBS president has already called this blatantly unlawful
. NPR said that they vowed to fight this,
and you know you're, you're really seeing a lot
of uh PBS and NPR stations saying, well,
what does this mean for us exactly? I have
a lot of friends who work in public broadcasting and
they're very concerned specifically about the smaller, uh,
more. Rural stations across the country where they might
not have any other source for news and let's not
forget emergency information like you know storm warnings, tornado
warnings, that kind of thing and NPR and PBS
hit they estimate about 99% of the country so I
think that we are not going to see the end
of this fight just yet and it will um end
up back in court and then there's this other question
of like what exactly is happening to. The money
so for this fiscal year Congress approved$535 million for
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and they say they're
funded for 2 more years. So it does this
go into effect then or you know we are already
hearing I have my friends in public TV saying that
the Trump administration is trying to claw that back that
money right now so we will see, but I
think the short answer is we're going to see this
in court. Uh, I think that is probably
a safe bet. A lot of the more surprising
, um, decisions are more, um, extreme
as some people view them decisions of the Trump administration
. He's been in court a lot and one of
those headlines that is in court in really multiple ways
is, of course. The case of Kilmar Abrego
Garcia grabbing a lot of headlines around his um arrest
and then deportation but you've been covering a case in
Montana of a man that was in the US legally
, but he was still taken by authorities that one's
not making the headlines yet. So what is happening
there? We are seeing it make a few headlines
, but I think the bigger broader thing if we
zoom out is that people are worried if this can
happen in a place like Whitefish, Montana, it
can happen anywhere. So really what happened is a
week ago, uh, this man, a Venezuelan
man here, um, you know, seeking asylum
under temporary protective status was pulled over, arrested,
and there was already a group in place that had
planned for. Something like this and they mobilized on
social media. They went down to the border patrol
agency in Whitefish, Montana, very small resort town
in northwest Montana, and they protested all night long
they uh were able to get an attorney there for
this man. Well, he was eventually sent to
an ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington, and they
fought and fought and fought and tried to get media
coverage on it. They knew what to do.
They called people like me. They called other.
Journalists they called lawmakers and on Wednesday this man was
released and his lawyers say he was just said you
can let go. He wasn't given his ID or
um some other paperwork his his wallet right away and
and his lawyer says that he was just allowed to
leave but that's in Tacoma, Washington. That's a
9 hour drive from Whitefish, Montana and last I
heard he was still trying to get back to.
Whitefish, but the lawyer says no charges have been
filed and they're not really even clear if there will
be charges or if there's any explanation for exactly why
he was detained but this attorney says they think a
lot of it comes down to what you just talked
about Stephanie, these court orders and the legal challenges
because bear with me here we're gonna go back a
little bit but these um temporary protected status. for
people like like this man from Venezuela also for Haitians
we did that whole special in Springfield, Ohio last
year. President Donald Trump said he was rescinding that
status. Well, a judge said no, no
, no, you can't, and they put it
on hold. So this attorney thinks some of the
confusion might be that law enforcement agencies don't really know
what the current law is at that moment. And
I think you know you mentioned that he left without
you know his ID given back into given back to
him without some of his paperwork and for these immigrants
, especially people in the country legally I would imagine
not having those documents is worrying because those documents are
the ones that prove. That they're allowed to be
here um so certainly curious to see uh what happens
with that story, um, what happens as things
uh continue but Marita Giorgio, host of the podcast
Grounded, thank you so much for joining us this
week, um, and I'm sure we will keep
in touch. You can of course find her podcast
grounded on Blue Sky SubSA, Instagram, YouTube,
as well as wherever else you get your podcasts.