In the first half, author and constitutional lawyer Jonathan Emord offered commentary on the legal implications of recent protests and the ongoing issues surrounding immigration in the United States. He elaborated on the responsibilities of federal and state governments in maintaining order, asserting, "The federal government has a superior right... to protect the enforcement of federal law," and the Constitution invests the president with the power to control the state militia. Emord criticized a district court ruling regarding President Trump's invocation of the National Guard during protests, remarking, "I believe that the district judge actually was quite wrong here," and that Trump's actions were legally justifiable.
On immigration, he said, "We've had illegal immigration forever, but the degree of it... reached its zenith during the Biden administration, when there really was an open border policy." Expressing concern over the influx of criminals, he emphasized the need for strict adherence to the rule of law: "If you start arbitrarily allowing some people in without conscious vetting... that's really just tyranny." Emord also suggested that external funding has an influence on protests. "A lot of these people are paid protesters and agitators," he said, calling for investigations into those funding unrest.
He addressed the difficulties in identifying and deporting individuals with criminal backgrounds, claiming that "the cartels were shuffling in all sorts of nefarious people," which has led to increased crime rates, including sex and drug trafficking across the U.S. When discussing protests, he made a clear distinction between peaceful protest and violent rioting: "You have a right to speak... but you don't have a right to spit at authorities or hit them." Emord called for stricter penalties for those engaging in violent protests, emphasizing that "we need to change the law, the criminal law here, and double the penalties when it's in the midst of a riot."
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In the latter half, Josh Gates, the host and executive producer of Discovery Channel's "Expedition Unknown," discussed the show's upcoming season and some of the many adventures and mysteries he and his team have explored over the last decade. He recounted how his childhood fascination with travel, fueled by his father's career as a deep-sea diver, led him to pursue archaeology and eventually hosting. The new season features 13 episodes, beginning with a compelling investigation into Hitler's long-range plane called the Amerikabomber, a Nazi aircraft that almost targeted American cities during World War II. "There's so much we're still learning about the war and so many underground tunnels and facilities that are still just buried away that nobody's seen in all these years," he cited.
Additionally, Gates visited Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, the oldest known monumental site, which challenges perceptions of prehistoric societies. At the 12,000-year-old location, "there are all sorts of strange glyphs and symbols," he said, and it's "one of those places that inspires theories and mysteries." The Greek island of Fourni, which has been called the Mediterranean Bermuda Triangle, has the largest concentration of ancient shipwrecks in the region. The island has strange weather phenomena that may have contributed to the shipwrecks, he noted, though in mythological terms, "It does seem like a kind of sea monster...eating these ships."
The new season of "Expedition Unknown" also delves into the infamous man-eating lions of Tsavo, Kenya, who, in the late 1800s, terrorized railway workers, killing up to 135 men. Gates described the chilling scene: "Every night, these lions would come in and just drag workers out of their tents." The lions were eventually hunted and killed, with their taxidermied bodies displayed at the Field Museum in Chicago.
News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Robert Zimmerman