Episode Details

NY Mayor Mamdani just released 170,000 pages of 9/11 air quality records proving New York City officials knew by October 2001 that Ground Zero air was carcinogenic. And that the Mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, told nobody. First responders, firefighters, and police officers were left to breathe toxic air while Giuliani's administration publicly assured everyone it was safe. Thousands got cancer. Many are dead. And somehow nobody went to prison for it.

The 9/11 25th anniversary comes at a moment when Islamophobia in America has reached levels that Muslim Americans say surpass the post-2001 era. The smear campaign against Abdul El-Sayed for simply acknowledging that the War on Terror caused catastrophic harm overseas is a case study in how the media weaponizes 9/11 grief while refusing to reckon with what came after: a destabilized Middle East, roughly a million dead, the creation of ISIS, traumatic brain injuries among Marines, and a global war on terror apparatus that Spencer Ackerman has documented boomeranging back onto American soil through agencies like ICE.

Meanwhile, fuel prices are surging toward $6 a gallon for diesel thanks to the Iran conflict, Trump's tariff war with Canada is eroding long-term economic relationships that future presidents may never be able to repair, and immigration enforcement is threatening to gut industries like DC-area construction where Salvadorans with TPS make up 25% of the workforce. The damage being done now is just what we can feel today. The damage being set in motion may take a generation to fully understand.

Listen to the full conversation over on Luke's Substack: https://lthomas.substack.com/

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Chapters

00:00 Mamdani Releases 9/11 Air Quality Files

01:30 Giuliani Knew and Said Nothing

02:45 Islamophobia Worse Than 2001

04:00 Abdul El-Sayed Smeared by Media

05:30 War on Terror Created ISIS

07:15 Spencer Ackerman's GWOT Boomerang

08:45 Iran Conflict and Diesel Prices

10:00 Canada Tariffs and Economic Erosion

11:30 Immigration Policy Is Ruinous

13:00 TPS Salvadorans and DC Construction

14:15 International Trust Is Gone