TRIGGERnometry - September 08, 2019


Andy Ngo on Antifa and Political Violence


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per Minute

159.30792

Word Count

9,849

Sentence Count

362

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
00:00:08.740 I'm Constanson Kisson.
00:00:09.920 And this is the show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet
00:00:14.100 over subjects they know nothing about.
00:00:16.820 At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts.
00:00:21.540 Our fantastic guest this week, you might recognize if you came to see my Edinburgh show,
00:00:25.600 he's an American journalist. And, you know, welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:28.700 It's a pleasure to be with you.
00:00:30.140 Thanks for coming.
00:00:31.160 Listen, for anyone who doesn't know you, which is an increasingly small number of people these days,
00:00:35.060 just tell us who are you, how are you, where you are, what's been your journey through life?
00:00:40.140 Most recently I became infamous, or depending on the audience, famous for being the victim of an Antifa beating and robbery in Portland, Oregon.
00:00:50.520 I cover demonstrations there quite frequently, and it was on the 29th of June that I was attacked, and part of that was caught on video, and I was left with a brain injury from that attack.
00:01:05.840 And we're now, as of this recording, over two months since that incident, and there hasn't been a single arrest.
00:01:12.180 and one of the the arguments that was that was used by some people inexplicably to me to to
00:01:20.040 defend these people beating you up was that you are right wing and that somehow entitles people
00:01:25.460 to beat you up as a journalist so and you have said that you are right of center so i i wanted
00:01:30.720 just to explore what that means not that that would in any way justify anyone attacking you
00:01:35.320 of course uh so where are you politically i'm just curious yeah it was joe rogan who who asked
00:01:40.580 me if there was I think he asked if there was a gun put out your head and you had to answer it
00:01:45.140 how would you that was the first time I said right to center I think I've avoided labels for a long
00:01:51.960 time but I guess if I had to pick I picked what I said because the positions that I have that are
00:01:59.140 important to me I think have been more so aligned with the right at least in the American context
00:02:04.840 For example, I'm very patriotic. I'm very thankful that the United States provided refuge to my parents who are political refugees.
00:02:15.200 And in the U.S., now that is seen as a conservative or right-wing position to have gratitude for citizenship and thanking America for what it is, for the freedoms that it protects, right?
00:02:34.840 So there's that. There's also my parents' experience with escaping communism. It makes me not have the luxury of viewing Antifa and other revolutionary far-left movements with the same rose-colored glasses.
00:02:52.860 So I am very critical of Antifa, as anybody who follows my work knows,
00:02:58.920 and I've written critically about Marxism as well.
00:03:02.560 So just because of, I would say it's those two main things,
00:03:06.400 it's been easy for people to label me as a conservative writer,
00:03:10.740 if they're being charitable, they're more trying to delegitize me or smear me,
00:03:19.320 they'll say that I'm a far-right person.
00:03:20.900 So you mentioned about Antifa. Now, Antifa is something that I've only recently become aware of. Who are Antifa and what do they want to achieve?
00:03:31.140 It's a movement that began in Europe, particularly in Germany, in the years post-World War II.
00:03:39.740 The subculture that it grows out of is anti-racist punk scene.
00:03:47.620 And the American version of it is, as we know today, a very recent phenomenon.
00:03:55.480 on. So I have much more knowledge on the U.S. version of it compared to the older German or
00:04:02.680 Western European versions. In the U.S., it's had some type of presence in some progressive cities
00:04:10.200 like Portland since the 2000s, but it became a much more mainstream thing from 2016 going forward.
00:04:19.240 I mean, you know, just rewinding a few years, nobody expected Donald Trump to win, and Portland
00:04:24.220 is a extremely progressive city. I explained to outsiders that it's basically what the SJW ethics
00:04:34.680 and ethos of a university mainstreamed into entire city and through city government. So we had three
00:04:42.580 days of protests that devolved into rioting in November 2016. And that was the first time that
00:04:47.380 I saw black bloc Antifa, they were going around in their masks and black outfits and destroying
00:04:55.740 property and starting fires in the street. And because Trump continues to be such a
00:05:02.460 polarizing figure and a lightning rod for fear-mongering on the left, him and his administration
00:05:12.120 has been a very powerful propaganda win for Antifa.
00:05:16.020 So now they are able to point to him or various things in his policies
00:05:21.400 or things that are done in his administration
00:05:23.320 as evidence of ascendant and rising fascism.
00:05:26.960 And it's pulled in a large number of people.
00:05:30.720 I mean, it's still a fringe movement,
00:05:32.080 but it's grown now to a point where the city and the public can no longer ignore.
00:05:37.380 So that's why footage in Portland keeps going viral
00:05:41.200 of these brawls on the street that look almost comical from the, you know, if you're watching
00:05:47.900 the videos, they look outrageous. But like people, innocent people, regular citizens get caught up in
00:05:56.180 it. And it's my perception that because of the political monoculture of the, not just the
00:06:03.320 citizens, but those who are in government, that it seems like they're turning a blind eye to
00:06:08.860 far-left violence and
00:06:11.360 Portland's political structure
00:06:15.300 is unique in that our mayor is also
00:06:17.460 our police commissioner
00:06:18.780 so you can see the conflict of
00:06:21.320 interest there and he's up for re-election
00:06:23.200 so there's just
00:06:25.280 all these variables coming together
00:06:27.560 is what you
00:06:29.420 see what caused kind of
00:06:31.280 what happened to me and I wasn't the only victim
00:06:33.400 there's been others before me there'll be
00:06:35.180 those after me
00:06:36.340 and just through the course of my speaking up about the far-left militancy that's happening
00:06:46.580 not just in my city but in that particular region of America, the Pacific Northwest,
00:06:51.780 I've been targeted quite a bit in the left-wing media.
00:06:57.360 And before we touch on what happened to your assault, what is it that they want to achieve?
00:07:02.840 Are they socialists? Do they want to overthrow the government and put in a socialist government?
00:07:07.620 Are they communists? What are they?
00:07:10.920 Antifa is a movement. I don't ever describe them as an organization.
00:07:15.980 And some people, because they're not too informed in it, describe them as a group.
00:07:22.340 They're not. It's an ideology that is made up of many groups.
00:07:27.360 and some of them are ad hoc so you know it could be something as a group antifa group that forms
00:07:33.780 in opposition to an event that's happening a certain weekend or a conference or something
00:07:39.760 that they oppose portland is a bit different that we do kind of have a an antifa organization
00:07:46.280 called rose city antifa that's been around since 2007 and they have a twitter facebook
00:07:53.240 an online store so so they they operate much more as a formal organization and they were the ones
00:08:01.000 who claim responsibility for my attack um what they it's a movement made up of wait and sorry
00:08:08.420 to interrupt hold on so this organization that exists that has a physical address that has a
00:08:12.880 store right it's an online online store okay but but presumably people know we know who they are
00:08:18.920 right? No, we don't. We don't. They're entirely anonymous. Okay. But we can track it through a
00:08:23.580 bank account. Well, I imagine if the police were interested enough, they could find out at least
00:08:27.680 some of the people who are connected. So they claimed responsibility for beating you up. And
00:08:32.660 yet, I presume they haven't been arrested. They haven't been tracked down. They haven't been
00:08:37.020 prosecuted. Is that right? Correct. And why is that? Well, I actually don't know. I speculate
00:08:46.680 that it's because of his lack of political will in Portland to prosecute Antifa because they have
00:08:53.400 quite a lot of support in the city. I have my own legal team that's funded through a legal fund. I
00:09:01.400 was taken on as a client for Publius Lex, which is a civil rights non-profit. And it's my view
00:09:08.900 that my civil rights were violated in that me just working as a journalist, documenting things
00:09:13.480 happening in a public space have been continually attacked and intimidated and more recently
00:09:20.000 left with a serious injury and that the policing tactics don't change and they just continually
00:09:26.400 allow citizens to get assaulted.
00:09:29.860 It's through that legal fund and my own legal team that we're doing our own investigations
00:09:36.360 to see what we can find because it doesn't seem like there are systemic issues in Portland
00:09:42.340 that it's not just isolated incidents of street violence.
00:09:47.560 But, I mean, this has been going on for years now,
00:09:49.840 and very, very few people ever get held accountable.
00:09:54.300 That, to me, just seems so bizarre and ridiculous
00:09:59.500 because you were seriously assaulted.
00:10:02.720 I mean, I don't know the American term, the British term would say,
00:10:05.420 probably GBH, Grievous Bodily Harm,
00:10:07.360 of which someone would go to prison for six months to a year.
00:10:10.340 and the fact that there doesn't seem to be any willingness to investigate,
00:10:14.320 have they opened an investigation about what happened?
00:10:16.660 There's an ongoing investigation,
00:10:18.240 but the Portland police aren't keeping me updated on where they're at.
00:10:22.900 And the one thing that I found quite upsetting, and I'm on the left,
00:10:25.880 is the lack of sympathy that I saw from people on the left
00:10:29.320 to what happened to you as if, oh, you know, he's on the right,
00:10:32.600 therefore he sort of deserves it,
00:10:35.080 which I found to be abhorrent and an absolute callousness.
00:10:38.440 Yeah, I think, like, you know, one of your questions earlier was, like, what do Antifa want?
00:10:47.140 It's a coalition made up of radical, extreme communists and anarchists.
00:10:55.360 And they really believe that they're at the vanguard of some revolution,
00:10:59.900 and that there's going to be a cosmic battle with the fascists,
00:11:03.860 and that they are going to be the ones who will be leading the anti-fascist side.
00:11:12.480 It's beyond that, which sounds outrageous,
00:11:15.480 there is a more coherent political theory behind it.
00:11:23.320 I focus on Antifa, but I don't think they're like an existential threat
00:11:29.120 to American democracy or anything.
00:11:30.780 and it would be foolish to think so. America is very, in this country as well,
00:11:36.900 it's very developed, in political science they call them developed, excuse me, let me start that
00:11:44.520 over, in political science they call them, I can't recall the term, sorry. No it's fine. In the United
00:11:53.460 States as well as this country have developed democracies, there's no way that a small fringe
00:11:57.840 movement can take over the country.
00:12:01.540 However, that doesn't mean that Antifa can't find success through other ways.
00:12:07.500 And I think what we're seeing in the U.S. is that one of their goals is really to normalize
00:12:13.680 political violence, and that used to not be a partisan issue in the U.S., but now it has
00:12:22.660 They come in that there are many mainstream politicians and thinkers and commentators on the left
00:12:29.280 who have the view that if somebody has or is accused of having abhorrent views,
00:12:37.880 they must be shut down by any means necessary.
00:12:41.160 And that's actually one of the anti-fuck groups that adopt that name, by any means necessary.
00:12:44.860 So it can be through shutting them down, through doxing them, intimidating them,
00:12:49.260 through assaulting them and then if need be something like what happened to me so there's
00:12:55.720 been a lot of disinformation and misinformation about me that have come from antifa supporters
00:13:01.720 and that they really accuse believe that i am a far-right threat to them we'll get to that in a
00:13:09.140 moment andy but actually none of that matters if you're a journalist even if you were a right-wing
00:13:14.760 journalist who was there with to to misrepresent part of you still doesn't entitle people to beat
00:13:21.380 you up that that's not how civilized society works and and the biggest problem of course with
00:13:25.940 all of this is that if violence is legitimized by one legitimized by one side what you're then
00:13:32.020 doing is you're sending a message that violence is acceptable what do you think the far the genuine
00:13:35.940 far right which does exist as a small fringe what are they going to do and as we know uh they are
00:13:41.200 probably better at violence than than the far left. So I don't think it in any way it matters
00:13:47.420 what your political opinions are actually for for whether this was legitimate or not. It's just not
00:13:52.380 legitimate. And, you know, you talked about it being comical initially or being seen as comical
00:13:57.280 by outsiders. I remember watching prior to your incident footage of these Antifa protesters in
00:14:05.420 Portland blocking off streets and directing traffic. And then an old guy in his car being
00:14:12.580 kind of, he tried to drive through and he was assaulted and all this stuff. And the police
00:14:18.260 standing there at the back just watching this whole thing. And anyone with any sense could see
00:14:22.700 that that would then lead to Antifa becoming emboldened. So how much of it is, as you say,
00:14:29.540 the lack of political will in the city that has encouraged these people to feel like they can run
00:14:34.720 around beating people up? You know, I mean, it would be just speculation at this point. But my
00:14:40.000 observation is what happens at these things is these demonstrations is police will be on the
00:14:46.340 periphery always within eyesight of sometimes the violence and things that happened before the
00:14:53.220 violence. So like on May Day, what happened to me was that I had been punched in the stomach and I
00:15:00.060 reported it immediately to police who were just several yards away and there's the response then
00:15:05.880 and i could still point out the suspect who was masked but still within eyesight the response
00:15:10.620 then as it's been every time is that we will not approach speak to confront or detain a suspect
00:15:17.740 suspect because it could incite the crowd so antifa and other far left militants have been
00:15:24.160 basically been given a blueprint it's like if you if we as a mob promise
00:15:30.460 violence then the police just won't intervene and that video that you talked
00:15:37.060 about that when they shut down the traffic in the street that happens was
00:15:40.600 actually quite routinely important like it's almost to the point now where like
00:15:46.760 the violence on the streets is the banality and people don't even like just
00:15:53.120 two weeks ago in Portland, there was the city was bracing for some major demonstrations. And
00:15:58.140 the fact that nobody was killed, but several people were injured, that was seen as a success
00:16:04.200 in the city. And it was described as peaceful, which was shocking to me. Some of the video you've
00:16:08.640 seen of people taking out concrete and throwing it at a bus that was trying to leave. I mean,
00:16:17.340 you know, my detractors keep bringing up that, but these are the far right, they're extreme,
00:16:22.260 They're white supremacists, whatever.
00:16:24.960 You know, what happened that day is regardless of whatever views these people have within the bus,
00:16:29.340 they were trying to leave the demonstration and they were leaving in the area
00:16:33.520 and they were prevented from leaving because traffic was shut down because of people in the street.
00:16:38.120 And then these people rushed the bus and then there was this footage of the hammer
00:16:43.000 and them trying and spraying people spraying bear mace inside the bus as they were driving off.
00:16:48.380 Like, to me, it's almost like the views here are irrelevant.
00:16:52.800 It's like this action of this violence where people are not just condoning it, but cheering them on because it's...
00:17:03.020 It's people they don't like.
00:17:04.220 It's people they don't like on the bus.
00:17:05.960 But how much truth is in this idea that it's essentially two groups of extremists coming together to fight each other?
00:17:13.600 because whenever I see Antifa being written about in the media,
00:17:19.880 it's always they are counter-protesters.
00:17:21.920 So the setup is that they are protesting against other people
00:17:25.780 who've come to Portland to spread the hateful far-right ideas.
00:17:30.580 How much truth is there to that?
00:17:32.220 There is some truth to that, but more often than not,
00:17:35.000 what happens is some type of right-wing or conservative group
00:17:39.040 will announce that they are holding some type of event in Portland.
00:17:42.280 It can be something as simple as a small rally or holding American flags.
00:17:47.720 The left-wing activists in Antifa will view that as a provocation and organized to come into, they say, defend our communities.
00:17:55.760 But in the language of Antifa, what that really means is come to physically confront them.
00:18:01.100 So there's that.
00:18:01.800 Sometimes what happens is that some of the right-wing groups will go to an event that Antifa has organized to.
00:18:09.440 they would say they're going there just to watch or listen to observe
00:18:14.000 peacefully. Antifa views that as provocation. So I mean
00:18:17.980 it's not like both sides are equally
00:18:22.000 to blame or both sides are equally blameless. But what
00:18:26.000 I see is that it's more so one side
00:18:29.440 being unable to accept that there's this small group of people
00:18:33.900 who have opposing views who want to speak openly
00:18:38.020 um like they can't tolerate that because they do believe that um their ideas are so dangerous that
00:18:46.740 if we allow if we give them an inch what we will have is the holocaust again essentially
00:18:52.600 so they use a lot of language from the interwar years they adopt uh the symbols of the anti the
00:19:00.420 anti-fascists from that time because they really think that they are part of that legacy of uh the
00:19:06.980 from the interwar years in Europe.
00:19:10.880 It's delusional, it's outrageous,
00:19:14.680 and it would be funny if innocent people
00:19:18.720 didn't get caught up in their violence.
00:19:20.980 And Andy, how much responsibility do you think
00:19:24.240 Trump needs to take for the fact that Antifa have grown
00:19:26.980 because of the use of his rhetoric
00:19:28.880 in his political rallies,
00:19:31.900 referring to people as sons of bitches,
00:19:34.140 Mexican immigrants using the word rapists
00:19:37.760 and does that not
00:19:40.200 does he not have to take some responsibility
00:19:42.540 for the fact that this hard left have become emboldened?
00:19:48.920 Well Antifa's
00:19:50.840 issues is with Trump but primarily
00:19:53.520 they take it out on his supporters
00:19:55.220 so
00:19:56.260 you know I mean in the US
00:20:01.980 actually all around the world we've been discussing for years now problems with
00:20:06.120 Trump's rhetoric and I just I don't you know I feel like it's the same
00:20:13.500 conversation over and over like he said something offensive he said something
00:20:17.940 that he didn't walk back very well and that we're just going to be angry and
00:20:22.740 upset about it and we're gonna go out to the streets and demonstrate I think what
00:20:27.000 What I appreciate about him speaking out more now about Antifa is that it's bringing attention
00:20:33.120 more to this extremist movement.
00:20:36.920 You know, I, of course, at the same time, we all have to recognize that it's not just
00:20:45.840 his things that he said but I think his lack of action in being a good unifier
00:20:53.600 has driven more this polarization in in America which in turn does empower
00:21:01.860 Antifa as well as fringe elements on the right and so but I think at the end of
00:21:10.380 the day it's about holding people accountable for their own actions rather
00:21:15.240 Rather than, I just think it's too tenuous of an argument to say that Trump is a radicalizing figure.
00:21:25.620 But would you not, so for instance, if you were, so if you're a Latino person and you live in America and you hear him use those words,
00:21:36.000 and you're a young, especially a young man of a certain age, certainly being impressionable, would that not radicalize you?
00:21:43.460 I can feel that I would be very angry at it
00:21:46.560 and maybe want to protest against it or get upset
00:21:49.100 and feel that the American president does not want to represent me.
00:21:51.800 See, the only problem with the argument is Antifa are incredibly white, right?
00:21:55.620 Yes.
00:21:56.220 They posted the mugshots of all the people who were arrested.
00:21:58.720 They're all white.
00:21:59.640 Oh, are they?
00:22:00.120 Yeah.
00:22:00.640 So I understand your argument, but it doesn't seem to be borne out.
00:22:04.200 I'm guessing most of these people are middle class vegans or whatever.
00:22:08.060 You know what I mean?
00:22:09.820 Yes, so the demographics of Antifa, at least in Portland,
00:22:12.780 Well, actually, in other cities like D.C. or Berkeley, whatever, predominantly white, they will try to elevate like the few individuals who they I think they use them as tokens.
00:22:24.340 You know, they're trans person of color or they're disabled person to put them at the front of the line where black bloc will stand behind them.
00:22:32.520 I mean, it's just for optics.
00:22:33.540 Every corporation does it, Andy, regardless, Republican, Democrat.
00:22:38.980 But, I mean, in response to your question, I think there's nothing wrong with protesting that's part of the American spirit.
00:22:49.840 But, like, what Antifa and the Allies are doing is it's not lawful protesting.
00:22:57.480 It's shutting down the streets.
00:22:59.900 They call it direct action, physical confrontations with people.
00:23:03.560 and the label and the type of people that they you know they sometimes do genuinely go against
00:23:11.700 oppose true far-right figures but because those number of people are really small and they need
00:23:18.020 a constant threat to not only give themselves meaning but to recruit other people they've
00:23:23.860 expanded very very broadly who they consider a fascist or fascist supporting or nazi in that
00:23:32.600 you know now encompasses people like me for example so it's like and the things
00:23:40.280 that they do are criminal and so I there's a lot to there are many issues
00:23:52.460 with Donald Trump I don't think that it that I'm not sure now at this point if
00:23:59.960 If he was just taken out of the picture of Antifa, it would just go away.
00:24:02.860 It would be definitely harder for them to recruit.
00:24:06.120 But many aspects of their ideology basically have been mainstreamed by some of our politicians like AOC, for example,
00:24:15.260 the demonization of law enforcement, even just delegitimizing the concept of sovereignty in the U.S.
00:24:23.560 So there's been, in the past two months, four incidents of immigration customs enforcement facilities being targeted.
00:24:31.180 And one of them was by an antifa militant in the state of Washington, close to Portland, where one of the firebombs of the facility tried to ignite a 500-gallon paint tank and came down with a rifle.
00:24:43.420 He got killed before he killed anybody, but he left behind a manifesto.
00:24:47.200 I'd actually crossed paths with him before.
00:24:49.880 That was massively underreported, by the way.
00:24:51.900 It was, it was.
00:24:52.660 So like the street hooliganism on the street is one aspect of it, but it's the ideology itself is very extreme.
00:24:59.920 I mean, it's it's like revolution by any means necessary and we will take up arms.
00:25:05.880 And, you know, the the shooter, the mass shooter in Ohio recently, he didn't leave behind a manifesto as far as we know,
00:25:19.200 But at least his social media footprint can give us a clue on his views.
00:25:23.160 And he was extremely, he was a part of Antifa in that he attended the demonstrations in his state, expressed support for their views.
00:25:33.280 And so I'm not sure if we can even really say that Antifa, that there's no body count on the Antifa side anymore.
00:25:42.340 I mean, we'll see what the investigation finds.
00:25:44.540 But, you know, we don't know anything about the Ohio shooter's ideology beyond his social media.
00:25:51.540 And he did leave a very extensive history of support for violent far-left militancy.
00:25:57.800 And why do you think, because when I was on holiday and I saw both the shootings, which happened in quick succession, and the first one, I think it was in, was it in Texas?
00:26:07.440 Yes.
00:26:07.680 So the first one was in Texas and obviously happened to a Latin American community.
00:26:11.320 It was awful, awful, of course it was.
00:26:13.280 and then there was another one that happened and that didn't seem to get as much press
00:26:18.560 didn't or that might have been just what happened in europe and the way the bbc presented it because
00:26:23.860 the bbc pushed forward the one that happened in texas and that one it seemed to be swept under
00:26:29.820 the carpet is that fair to say or it for sure received less attention i mean there were fewer
00:26:36.620 with fatalities in Ohio shooting, but still nine people were killed. That's a lot. And so I think,
00:26:43.460 you know, it's about media narratives. It's the fact that the El Paso shooter in Texas was
00:26:49.080 targeting Mexicans and he left behind a manifesto where his ideas created easy headlines, for
00:26:59.320 example, because he had xenophobic views. It's much easier to sensationalize that type of story
00:27:07.220 and make people go crazy on social media, whereas The Ohio Shooter was a bit more complicated in
00:27:14.960 that he didn't leave behind a right-wing manifesto in his social media account,
00:27:21.420 certainly didn't show him being sympathetic to white supremacy or anything like that,
00:27:25.660 Quite the contrary. So I think ideology has a lot to do with that. I mean, you see it often when criminal or violent acts are committed by somebody who is part of a historically marginalized community.
00:27:40.580 There's, I think with journalists, they don't want to focus too much on it because they're always afraid of how it could negatively impact the perception of the community, whereas if that suspect or criminal is a white man, particularly if he is seen as potentially conservative anyways, then it's a free-for-all.
00:28:03.460 So that's just the nature of the media in the United States as well as this country.
00:28:09.080 And how much do you think this is about language? Because we've had a number of people on this show talking about, you know, in Britain, Brexit voters being called Nazis, being milkshaked Brexit, pro-Brexit politicians being called Nazis, being milkshaked.
00:28:27.060 How much of this do you think is about the fact that if you keep calling everyone Nazis, there will be some people who eventually actually believe it?
00:28:33.760 And then, I mean, look, if I thought that there were genuine Nazis coming, right, well, I probably would use violence to try and defend myself.
00:28:42.900 Do you know what I mean?
00:28:43.680 So how much of it is about we've managed to persuade ourselves that there's this horde of Nazis coming for all of us?
00:28:50.120 And some of these people are now buying into that idea when the reality wouldn't suggest that.
00:28:56.120 you know i think it would be easier to for me to step back and just sort of accept that
00:29:04.860 the nature of of ad hominem insults is like you know constantly trying to outdo the other and so
00:29:14.560 like if nazis had just remained an insult and stayed that was used as part of this rhetoric
00:29:22.000 then that's one thing
00:29:24.660 but what happens is
00:29:27.020 that punch a Nazi
00:29:28.820 became a meme that was quite celebrated
00:29:30.860 and you know like
00:29:32.360 Richard Spencer is an easy person
00:29:35.160 for people
00:29:37.040 to hate but then
00:29:38.300 as I said a moment ago the definition
00:29:41.080 of Nazi has become
00:29:43.360 kind of meaningless now
00:29:45.160 and so it's just applied very very broadly
00:29:47.360 and there's people now who think
00:29:48.920 well if this person is a Nazi it's okay
00:29:51.040 to punch him or her right or do something worse so language has something to do with it but I
00:29:57.760 think it's more so that the actions now are the response to people you dislike like shutting them
00:30:06.960 down through violent acts is seen as acceptable I mean it was in this country that milkshaking
00:30:12.200 became this new phenomenon that very quickly crossed the Atlantic and it was pretty much
00:30:19.260 universally celebrated by your chartering classes, as well as the American ones too.
00:30:25.360 I mean, it was basically described, the American left-wing punditry, as a cute form of political
00:30:32.220 dissent. We can saw how quickly that slippery slope, right? And like what happened to me that
00:30:39.300 day, the milkshaking served a particular purpose, primarily one, to mark me as a target for everybody
00:30:46.120 else in the crowd because there are many people who knew my name and my writings but didn't know
00:30:50.720 my face so you know that literally yeah it's like a big arrow direct to me once I have all that stuff
00:30:58.720 for me and then secondly it blinds you as well when it goes in your face and your eyes and you
00:31:02.780 can't even see so it's very insidious and I am concerned that there's like it should really you
00:31:13.140 know in developed liberal democracies like political violence should be something that's
00:31:17.420 universally condemned but now it's not it's kind of like you hear a lot of i don't support violence
00:31:23.820 but these people are x y and z right yeah oh it's it's despicable and we talked about at the time
00:31:31.660 with many people i mean the idea that you can go around throwing stuff at people because you don't
00:31:37.060 agree with them is not what a democracy is and it just it should be condemned by everybody irrespective
00:31:42.780 whether you agree with the people or not.
00:31:44.900 And the fact that a lot of people
00:31:46.980 felt very comfortable with that
00:31:49.440 was deeply troubling to me.
00:31:51.520 Just the milkshaking alone,
00:31:52.660 what happened to you is obviously incredibly serious
00:31:56.020 and much more clearly defined.
00:31:58.840 But I've always said that, you know,
00:32:00.240 attacking someone by throwing a milkshake at them,
00:32:03.120 they don't know what's in that cup.
00:32:05.180 They don't know.
00:32:05.820 And so the whole point of it is you're scaring the person
00:32:08.440 and they don't know what that liquid is.
00:32:10.880 It could be acid.
00:32:11.620 It could be anything.
00:32:12.780 And, of course, it's intimidation.
00:32:14.380 It's designed specifically to prevent people from speaking.
00:32:17.780 It's political violence designed to shut down discussion.
00:32:21.040 That's what it is.
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00:34:33.120 without any of the drama let's let's talk about some of the stuff that's happened more recently
00:34:41.120 because one of the things uh that we we know now is that um there was some criticism of you
00:34:50.180 and an attempt to present you in a particular light and i wanted to speak to you about that
00:34:54.840 and see what you had to say about it because there was this video release that's an 18 minute video
00:34:58.820 So I find it quite boring and difficult to watch.
00:35:01.400 But basically, if I can represent what is being said about it, and then you can say what you think about it.
00:35:07.640 And correct me if any of my thing is not accurate to what people are saying, right?
00:35:11.680 What I think people are saying is you were walking together with a right-wing group of, is it Patriot Prayer, right, who were planning to attack a bar in which these Antifa people hang out.
00:35:29.440 And you were participating or at least observing a conversation in which they were planning this violent attack.
00:35:35.700 And people have used that to essentially say Andy Ngo is not an objective journalist.
00:35:40.780 what he is is someone who hates Antifa so he records all their violent crimes but when it
00:35:45.680 comes to right-wing violence which also does exist he doesn't record that he doesn't present
00:35:50.120 that and therefore he presents a skewed picture and they've then gone on to say that that's why
00:35:56.620 you left Quillette. So tell us about that. Yes so I left Quillette a week before this latest
00:36:06.980 This controversy broke out.
00:36:09.920 It was a mutual decision.
00:36:11.960 I'm moving on to other projects.
00:36:13.400 I'm going to be working on a book.
00:36:15.400 I just don't have time to continue to be working with Colette.
00:36:19.160 And it's been a great experience.
00:36:20.500 I'm very thankful for the time that I've had there.
00:36:24.340 Those who dislike me use that as we're trying to link it with the latest outrage.
00:36:33.860 This video that's come out that some headlines describe as damning and has field very serious accusations against me.
00:36:43.560 Actually, I think criminal accusations of criminality in that I was party to a violent criminal conspiracy or had knowledge of it that withheld it from the authorities.
00:36:56.440 It's absolutely all and true. It's rubbish.
00:36:58.660 This video, I actually encourage everybody to watch it.
00:37:02.060 It's kind of like washing paint dry. It's 18 minutes.
00:37:04.520 So that was recorded on the 1st of May, 2019, May Day.
00:37:09.620 There were a series of demonstrations throughout the day.
00:37:12.540 I had been documenting it.
00:37:15.040 It was early in the day that I had been punched in the abdomen and sprayed with silly string.
00:37:21.860 And so that happened all before this video started.
00:37:26.180 There was a right-wing demonstration where they were holding flags over a bridge.
00:37:30.080 and after that was over they were milling around the street and walking around I was just following
00:37:35.340 them it was really uneventful it's actually quite boring I was thinking I was looking at my phone
00:37:40.120 which you can actually see in the video one to see how the other journalists had covered the
00:37:44.560 protests from earlier in the day see if there's anything else that I missed because it was
00:37:47.640 happening at different parts of the city and I was trying to see if anybody had caught video of me
00:37:52.820 getting assaulted so that's what I was looking at and concentrated on I only heard snippets of
00:37:59.540 what these people are talking about and none of it to me was interesting it was
00:38:05.840 like where are we going to go is anybody else joining us what's going on like so
00:38:14.480 I didn't record that it wasn't and I mind you I need to point out I wasn't
00:38:19.280 the only photojournalist that was there there are three other people including a
00:38:23.360 local left-wing journalist by the way so none of us found any of this interesting
00:38:29.420 um there was at one point where people have said uh some of the headlines have been
00:38:36.420 completely false demonstrably false if you watch the video saying that i laughed
00:38:41.720 while people were planning a an attack i never laughed in the video there's a one point where i
00:38:48.100 did give a faint smile i recall them saying something about how they were really outnumbered
00:38:53.920 and i was just at that time thinking about like this is what you know they're always outnumbered
00:38:59.240 10 to 1 if they're lucky like this is the futility of their demonstrations in progressive portland
00:39:04.000 and that was spun as me being approving or supportive of whatever happened next and i don't
00:39:11.800 think it was apparent to any of us there uh what was going to happen next because even this this
00:39:17.340 video who is recorded by an undercover anti-fight activist someone who had been undercover for two
00:39:24.100 years and this is like the climax of his work right it one it was selectively released in that
00:39:30.120 he doesn't show any any of what happened actually at the antifa pub that was hosting the antifa
00:39:36.400 party doesn't show any of that and that that was where i was seriously assaulted there as well
00:39:41.660 and so um he levied accusations against me anonymously um it's an unverified well one is
00:39:50.820 anonymous person so it's unverified source and that it the fact is this uh he was interviewed
00:39:56.380 and it went on a uh on a left-wing blog called the portland mercury which is also a paper
00:40:02.220 and you know it's like this whole like watching myself being smeared in real time and
00:40:08.860 made into somebody i'm not has been really fascinating kind of surreal it's like
00:40:13.940 seeing how
00:40:15.740 it's a game of
00:40:18.160 telephone almost. And all the
00:40:20.220 players are, you know, the writers
00:40:22.200 that are HuffPo,
00:40:24.520 Vox, or Vice,
00:40:26.820 and then all the Twitter
00:40:28.040 checkmarks people who are kind of part of the same
00:40:30.280 left-wing, scorcher,
00:40:32.600 partisan,
00:40:34.800 ideological
00:40:35.400 writers. And it's just like,
00:40:39.020 oh, somebody said Andy
00:40:40.060 was laughing when he,
00:40:41.560 Andy is laughing in a damning video
00:40:44.160 let's repeat that in the headlines
00:40:45.380 and over and over and over
00:40:46.980 and they really depend on people not watching it
00:40:50.100 what happened next in that video
00:40:54.160 is that I went to the bar
00:40:55.780 and actually in the interview
00:40:57.640 with this anonymous Antifa activist
00:41:00.480 he stopped recording at one point
00:41:02.520 not to call the police
00:41:04.400 but to call the people at the Antifa party
00:41:08.420 so if this was
00:41:10.380 Because if he was really witnessing a violent criminal conspiracy, I wonder why he didn't call police.
00:41:18.500 And this video footage, even at the very end of the interview, he said he didn't realize what he had caught until some time later before releasing it.
00:41:27.220 So it wasn't apparent to him.
00:41:29.120 And he was right there talking to the people.
00:41:31.160 And I was walking around the area, sometimes close, mostly far away, as well as being concentrated with things on my phone.
00:41:38.080 okay so just to be clear what you're saying is at no point did you feel that these people were
00:41:43.680 about to go and attack someone in a bar i didn't have a full picture that would have led me to that
00:41:48.820 conclusion correct and andy do you think we're entering this really dangerous period now for
00:41:55.100 journalism where every journalist and every journalistic publication seems to be advocacy
00:41:59.680 journalism and that people just want to push their narrative and they will twist the facts in order to
00:42:04.940 suit their own narrative. And actually, what happened, the facts, nobody seems to care about
00:42:10.260 anymore. Yes, you know, and I need to, you know, self introspection is very important to me and
00:42:17.940 integrity and all that. So I need to point out that not everything that the critics say about me
00:42:23.520 are wrong. Some of it has merit, for example, just the nature of on the ground, breaking news
00:42:30.900 reporting with things that are many things happening at the same time sometimes in that
00:42:35.940 very moment you may get a detail wrong you don't have the advantage of the multiple angles that
00:42:42.600 come out in the hours later and of course you know the basically the crowd sourcing of fact
00:42:48.300 checking of something the hammer thing would be a good example where the hammer was on the bus
00:42:52.780 but you may initially mentioned it being i actually never described where it came from
00:42:57.700 But in the video, you do see that at one point,
00:43:01.400 one of the people from the Antifa side did have the hammer.
00:43:05.440 I didn't know that it originally came from inside.
00:43:09.240 I came out and corrected the record for that.
00:43:12.940 And then I released a video a few days later
00:43:18.440 that I didn't have access to initially
00:43:20.080 that was like the full uncuts that showed
00:43:22.220 the group of people descending on that bus.
00:43:25.460 kind of like the whole like there's context to that hammer being taken out you know like you
00:43:30.060 can make an argument of potentially with self-defense and if you watch the unedited video
00:43:34.160 uh it was people from outside who charged towards the door by the way so
00:43:38.800 yes there's that i had to correct that there was some other small details so this is stuff that
00:43:44.220 it's like I mean relatively small mistakes that I correct but then they use to sort of
00:43:56.120 say that everything I say is a lie and I you know it's like I'm just one individual working as a
00:44:04.740 as an independent journalist a freelance writer you know you see huge mistakes being done by people
00:44:11.360 like on MSNBC are seen and they have an entire department of fact checkers and editors behind
00:44:19.240 them and they still get some mistakes they still you know it's just so like taking cheap shots at
00:44:25.940 me like that I think is disingenuous particularly when these writers are either in DC or New York
00:44:32.220 City and not on the ground in Portland and seeing and witnessing what happens I mean you know
00:44:37.200 it's just
00:44:39.580 it doesn't seem like good faith argument
00:44:41.880 but
00:44:43.580 you know there is some merit to it
00:44:46.300 in that I have gotten things wrong that I correct
00:44:48.360 but the other smears that are coming
00:44:52.260 out now that I
00:44:53.300 coordinate with
00:44:58.180 far right people
00:44:59.200 it's outrageous
00:45:00.780 there was another news story that came out
00:45:04.140 in the Willamette week
00:45:06.200 which is a local paper in Portland.
00:45:09.620 And they had obtained a secret recording of, I guess, men that were inside that bus.
00:45:15.620 I don't know if it was before or after that hammer thing.
00:45:18.000 I think it was after.
00:45:19.340 So they released that.
00:45:20.640 And at one point, one of the men was talking about how Andy Ngo got beat up
00:45:25.460 because he turned down the Proud Boys' offer of security.
00:45:30.540 And then the commentary in a news story, not an opinion piece, by the way,
00:45:35.340 news story was that this was evidence of me colluding with the proud boys and i don't know
00:45:41.800 if i'm it's it's like i it's like we're reading and listening to different things because um you
00:45:49.180 know there was an outpouring of support to me after the mayday attack where i was sprayed with
00:45:54.660 bear mace in the face and was blinded and i had so i had a whole bunch of people that i didn't know
00:45:59.640 offer to be volunteer security if i go out and cover more protests
00:46:04.540 i turned down those offers because i wanted to maintain my independence and now that is used as
00:46:13.020 evidence of coordination so i don't you know like this whole thing seems like uh what through the
00:46:18.300 looking glass i you know i feel like i don't know if the world's going mad or if it's me but it's
00:46:24.500 like it's amazing that like for me the victim on multiple multiple assaults in in in having my
00:46:34.140 address stocks and part of the reason I'm in the UK is actually was because there continue violent
00:46:38.280 threats to myself that have been reported to police and I just need to get away far away from
00:46:43.140 the U.S. and like me being the victim of all that is now somehow spun around as I am like an extreme
00:46:51.680 violent person who is the aggressor who deserves all this or was brought it on myself it's
00:46:59.780 it's almost like a dream it just it doesn't seem like this is really reality to me it's scary to
00:47:06.840 me how many people are delighted about what's happened I mean I before our interview I watched
00:47:12.560 a clip of the young Turks and David Pakman both talking about this and particularly the young
00:47:20.180 turks i mean the way that they try and present themselves as as objective journalists and then
00:47:25.320 he goes yeah well conservatives don't feel any empathy that and and it's just like how can you
00:47:30.680 even pretend to be in any way objective when you when you talk in that way and neither of us is
00:47:34.680 conservative we just try and talk to people who who may we may disagree with or who might but you
00:47:40.060 can't you can't talk about people in that way and then present yourselves as objective but they they
00:47:45.140 they used exactly the phraseology that you talked about something along the lines of
00:47:48.920 well of course violence shouldn't be used but and and that happened in that video a couple of times
00:47:54.900 and i was like do you understand what you're saying anything you said before the word bud
00:47:58.040 doesn't count you know um so obviously there is there is a large group of people who are very
00:48:04.140 happy about you being treated in this way yes um why do you why do they see you as such a threat
00:48:11.140 do you think? Because I'm a decent professional person who has quite reach
00:48:17.740 in my writings. Like many people who have been very critical of Antifa have been
00:48:22.240 confined to other blogs or YouTube videos, whereas my writings have been
00:48:28.420 published in the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, the New York Post,
00:48:31.480 and I was with Quillette. And so it's just like, and what, with what happened to
00:48:38.860 To me, on the 29th of June, it kind of woke up some of the politicians to start speaking
00:48:44.440 about anti-fast extremism, which hadn't been done before.
00:48:47.820 So I am perceived as a threat, understandably, to them because for so long they've just been
00:48:55.160 receiving pretty much only favorable coverage.
00:49:00.300 And the fact that now there's somebody who can't be relied on to provide favorable coverage
00:49:07.580 consistently, who calls them out in their actions, and who has a reach that, you
00:49:12.700 know, I have quite a large reach on Twitter, and the places that publish me
00:49:16.400 have large amounts of people reading it. They see that their
00:49:21.620 control over the narrative is slipping a bit, and actually they really depend on
00:49:26.120 that control over how they are perceived, because their actions and
00:49:32.540 An ideology is so extreme that they really do have to rely on those who are willing to whitewash and rationalize the things they do.
00:49:43.260 And once that gets challenged, whoever's doing the challenging needs to be taken out by any means necessary.
00:49:50.560 Andy, you strike me as being a very brave person in the truest sense of the word.
00:49:56.160 Your life could be a hell of a lot easier if you didn't do this.
00:50:00.000 why do you feel the need as a journalist to put yourself in the firing line and to put your body
00:50:05.640 on the line as well i have a lot of journalist friends who told me and you just move on to write
00:50:11.240 other things like the pile on that happens every time you do one of these things the
00:50:17.060 uh the scrutiny on every single detail every single word you say um like it's just not worth
00:50:25.000 it that living that type under that type of pressure and on top of you know the threats of
00:50:29.120 violence and I think I've refused to be cowed because the things that Antifa has been doing
00:50:37.100 to me for months is to terrorize me into silence and I think with the the crowd beating on the
00:50:44.620 29th of June that was meant to like attempt to permanently silence me and they failed
00:50:52.480 and I just I refuse to give them that type of victory you know of course moving forward
00:50:57.320 But I'm much more wise about how I cover events in that I no longer, unfortunately, no longer believe that the Portman police are willing to uphold the law, for example.
00:51:08.820 So even if I'm covering anti-FUD right in front of the police, I was naive to think that the police would actually protect a citizen just in a public space.
00:51:21.360 So there's things that have changed, but I'm sticking on this.
00:51:24.820 There's other things I write about that makes people on the far left and the left hate me.
00:51:30.420 You know, I write about hate crime hoaxes quite a bit.
00:51:32.460 That was originally how I kind of started receiving some notoriety earlier this year.
00:51:38.400 And that challenges and weakens the Antifa narrative,
00:51:42.500 which is that we are living in such an oppressive, dangerous time that violence is justified against the oppressors.
00:51:52.700 And the pressers can be anything from regular Trump supporters to those truly on the far right.
00:51:58.280 But that's, I mean, that's a huge spectrum of people that they all oppose with the same hatred and violence.
00:52:04.680 So I'm going to continue to speak out.
00:52:07.840 I recognize, and, you know, I want to be a better journalist too.
00:52:11.100 The mistakes that I've made that I've had to correct, I mean, it's embarrassing every time that happens.
00:52:15.020 But, you know, any journalist with integrity recognizes that and works to improve on it.
00:52:20.140 And so, you know, I have goals that I have to work on for myself moving forward.
00:52:26.120 At the same time, you know, when something's an outright lie against me, as some of these headlines are right now, they're outright lies.
00:52:33.360 And, you know, I'd just like to say my legal team is aware of it because I think some of the claims against me rises to the level of libel and defamation.
00:52:43.920 Well, I was going to ask you, you're here in London, in England.
00:52:46.820 We had something not similar, but we had some protests recently.
00:52:51.820 Do you think we're going to see more of this across the world?
00:52:54.820 These running battles between people on the two extremes?
00:52:59.820 The issues that we're seeing with Antifa more recently is really kind of confined to the Anglosphere.
00:53:07.820 I mean, Antifa activism in Germany is a kind of entirely different thing
00:53:11.820 because they actually do have a history that goes back decades of this group.
00:53:15.820 And some of the ideas that are from America, I noticed, are bouncing off to far less militants in Britain.
00:53:26.680 What I was encouraged to see was that the London Metropolitan Police,
00:53:33.840 even without having any of the heavily militarized gear that you see American police have,
00:53:39.260 they were able to contain law and order.
00:53:42.220 For example, last weekend when there was an Antifa demonstration against Tommy Robinson's supporters, they were marching on the street so they had disrupted traffic.
00:53:53.900 And before they could really do that for much longer, the police just surrounded them in such large numbers that they couldn't do anything and the police pushed them to the pavement.
00:54:04.980 So, one, they could no longer disrupt traffic.
00:54:08.020 Some of them were carrying some small sticks that had sharpened ends that was taken.
00:54:14.720 And it seemed like because the police are quick to act, they're not emboldened to see how much they can push.
00:54:23.520 Because in Portland, it wasn't like right away that, you know, they were attacking people in the street.
00:54:27.560 It was like, OK, first, we're going to take over the streets and we can do it.
00:54:32.420 Secondly, some of us are going to bring in bats or brass knuckles or small knives and bear mace,
00:54:37.600 and we get away with it.
00:54:40.400 And the next thing is we're going to start using it.
00:54:43.200 So, you know, like the incidents of political violence in Britain that I've seen
00:54:47.000 have been much more isolated and small.
00:54:48.980 I mean, I know that some of the controversial political people who ran as MEPs not too long ago were targeted,
00:54:57.700 But the violence that I saw there wasn't anything like what we continue to see in Portland.
00:55:04.980 So I think that as more attention is brought to the dangers of normalizing political violence in liberal democracies,
00:55:18.120 I think police will naturally face more pressure to do more.
00:55:22.760 Unfortunately, in Portland, our police commissioner is also our mayor, so that may be the one exception.
00:55:27.700 But what I'm really concerned about is just that the wider public will accept and encourage those types of violent actions because they believe that it's for a better cause or a good cause.
00:55:42.460 I think that's extremely damaging to how citizens relate to one another.
00:55:48.620 It's like if you erase the line between thoughts, ideas, and actions, like that, I mean, there are many parts of the world, actually, where depending on just the idea that you hold, you can be put to death for it, either by the state or through a mob lynching.
00:56:12.480 And so it worries me that many influential people here who have benefited from the rights that come in, the civil rights that come in liberal democracy, that they are in a way working to weaken those sort of like those rules that are codified into law, but as well as expected between one another.
00:56:40.460 That's what I'm concerned about.
00:56:42.480 And do you think we're going to be able to, because at the moment, I mean, maybe it's just, you know, the effect of the internet, you look at the internet, everybody seems to be more polarised than ever, you know, we seem to be bracketing ourselves into certain camps. Do you think that we're going to be able to heal this division? Or do you see it just becoming worse and worse?
00:57:02.840 Well, in your country, you're dealing with Brexit now. And it does seem like it's getting worse and worse.
00:57:07.680 Thanks for that, Andy, mate. Nice one.
00:57:12.480 But you have, I mean, your prime minister, as hated as he is by some people,
00:57:18.800 I also see him doing good effort to be a unifier.
00:57:23.900 In America, it's a bit harder in that the president, you know, that's Trump is Trump,
00:57:30.060 that he hasn't changed a bit from the campaign days in 2015.
00:57:33.760 And so there are going to be people who will try everything they can
00:57:43.460 to exploit this polarization because it benefits them politically.
00:57:47.880 And so I'm a bit more hopeful about Britain than I am about America in this regard.
00:57:53.380 Well, I don't normally do this before we ask our last question.
00:57:55.560 Do you think Trump is getting re-elected?
00:58:00.900 Yes.
00:58:01.940 So do I. It's interesting.
00:58:03.760 All right, well, let's do our last question on that happy note.
00:58:06.140 On that happy note, so the question that we always ask, Andy,
00:58:10.260 is what is a one thing people aren't talking about
00:58:13.460 but actually really should be talking about?
00:58:22.660 Sorry, I should have prepared this.
00:58:25.040 No, it's absolutely fine.
00:58:33.760 well this is sort of the paradox there's a lot of people talking about social justice extremism
00:58:44.320 and craziness in the universities in the american universities example but also with some campuses
00:58:49.700 in uk i mean your student union is particularly outrageous and i think what's not being
00:58:59.780 looked at in this particular instance is that this idea those ideas that were formerly confined
00:59:07.660 to certain disciplines in university they now have outlets to be mainstreamed across the rest
00:59:14.280 of society yeah we read the guardian yeah well that's it and this is why we talked about the
00:59:21.900 contract that i turned and that's why i turned it down because i'm going it's going to bleed into
00:59:25.540 real life all the social justice stuff is going to bleed into real things it's not just going to
00:59:30.060 stay at the university because these people are going to grow up and they're going to become
00:59:33.180 politicians judges journalists and they're going to spread all this crap and that's why i think
00:59:38.400 people who are sane need to need to stop it and say something which is what you're doing so
00:59:43.260 all the best of luck to you with it uh we wish you uh well uh take care of yourself thank you
00:59:49.380 wear a helmet or something at least,
00:59:52.000 if you do go into these places.
00:59:54.740 Joe Rogan said you should bring some big guys with you,
00:59:57.560 but you're clearly not planning to do that, are you?
00:59:59.960 No.
01:00:01.680 You know, I can't reveal my reporting tactics,
01:00:04.240 but there are many ways when you get creative
01:00:06.500 of how you can cover a demonstration
01:00:07.940 without necessarily putting yourself there.
01:00:10.060 Okay.
01:00:10.500 Okay.
01:00:11.040 He's going to use drones.
01:00:12.040 All right.
01:00:13.220 That's a good idea, actually.
01:00:14.400 Yeah, it is.
01:00:14.940 It's a good idea.
01:00:15.940 You know, in Russia,
01:00:16.860 this is completely irrelevant to what we're talking about,
01:00:18.800 But in Russia, they use drones to fly over all the politicians and oligarchs' mansions to show how these people are living.
01:00:27.100 So they infiltrate the whole thing with the drone, and then they do a whole report about how it's all built using stolen money.
01:00:33.180 Ah, well, there you go.
01:00:34.460 So there's an idea for you, Andy.
01:00:35.920 Anyway, thank you so much for coming on, Andy.
01:00:37.800 We really appreciate your time.
01:00:39.460 As always, follow Andy.
01:00:40.480 We'll put the thing in the bottom of the video on Twitter.
01:00:42.920 He puts his reporting there.
01:00:45.000 follow us at triggerpod on other social media and we will see you in a week from now and also as
01:00:50.300 well uh please leave us a nice review on itunes if you're enjoying uh the podcast uh or the show
01:00:56.520 tell another person if you're worried about it just tell them quietly uh and we will see you
01:01:03.200 next week thank you so much
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