Ep. 2165 - National Security Bombshell & The Case For Derek Chauvin Ep.3 | The Autopsy
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Folks, tons of news today. Obviously, a huge blow up when pretty much all the members of the national security team of Team Trump end up in a signal chat with a journalist accidentally. We'll get to that momentarily. First, your reminder, episode three of The Case for Derek Chauvin is on today's episode. So make sure you stay tuned for that in the middle.

of the show. We'll also get to the economy and everything else. Also, we've recently received several tips related to Derek Chauvin's case. We're actively tracking down all of those leads. Stay tuned. We may have some breaking news on the Chauvin case very soon. If you do have a tip, send it our way. Include my name along with Derek Chauvin in the subject line and ensure it reaches my team immediately. You'll find the submission link

in this episode's description. Okay, so big bombshell story yesterday dropped by Jeffrey Goldberg, the ex-Scribble editor of The Atlantic. Jeffrey Goldberg is basically a stand-in for Barack Obama's foreign policy team. And he breaks this story that he was accidentally included in a signal chat that basically included everybody who was a top member of Team Trump in the national security sphere, ranging from the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to the National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to the Vice President of the United States,

J.D. Vance to Stephen Miller, a top advisor to President Trump. All of them were on a signal chat and they were talking about the upcoming military strike on the Houthis. And somebody, it appears to have been Mike Walz, accidentally included

Jeffrey Goldberg in this Signal chat. Now, what exactly happened here? The answer is almost certainly that he meant to include the U.S. trade representative, Jamie Singh Greer. If you've ever used Signal, Signal is an encrypted messaging service that is supposed to be basically uncrackable by outside sources.

and one of the things that happens when you use SignalChat, and I'm on Signal, I have a bunch of SignalChats, when you are on Signal, you can choose how your name appears in its sort of identity line. You can either pick your full name, or you can pick the initials. So my assumption is that Jameson Greer had JG as his initials on Signal, and that Waltz or whomever else put together the chat, one of his aides, whoever did it,

hit instead Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic. This does not mean, as per so many folks who do not like Mike Walsh, that he was regularly chatting with Jeffrey Goldberg. It just means that Jeffrey Goldberg was in sort of a list of contacts that included Jameson Greer, and both of them had the initials JG, and he hit the wrong one. Okay, so in any case, what ends up happening is that there is a very detailed discussion that's quite fascinating about the strike against the Houthis that happened March 15th.

Jeffrey Goldberg has a long piece in The Atlantic about this, and here's what he says. This is the world found out shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern time on March 15th. The United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, had texted me the war plan at 11 at 44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining.

So he says the story technically begins shortly after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel in October of 2023. The Houthis, an Iran-backed terrorist organization whose motto is God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam, which, as I've said before, is a very wordy slogan.

They were they had launched attacks on Israel on international shipping, created havoc for global trade throughout 2024. The Biden administration was ineffective in countering those who the attacks. The incoming administration promised a tougher response. This is where Pete Hegseth and I come in. On Tuesday, March 11th, writes Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic. I received a connection request on signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. First of all, a connection request means connection.

that Waltz was not actively in contact with Goldberg before. Just for those who are not conversant in how Signal works, if I want to connect with you on Signal, I have to make a connection request. So the idea that they were regularly using Signal to chat with one another is not true. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text messaging services are capable of delivering.

I assumed the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump's national security advisor. I did not assume, however, the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I've met him in the past, and though I didn't find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual given the Trump administration's contentious relationship with journalists and Trump's periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them. This is Jeffrey Goldberg writing for The Atlantic.

I accepted the connection request, hoping this was the actual national security advisor, and then he wanted to chat about Ukraine or Iran or some other important matter. Two days later, Thursday, 4.28 p.m.,

I received a notice I was to be included in a signal chat group. It was called the Houthi PC Small Group. A message to the group from Michael Walsh read as follows, quote, team, establishing a principals group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy, Alex Wong, is pulling together a tiger team at deputy agency chief of staff level, following up from the meeting in the sit room this morning for action items, and we'll be sending that out later this evening. The message continued, please provide the best staff POC point of contact from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thanks.

So as Goldberg points out, a principals committee generally refers to a group of senior most national security officials, and that includes secretaries of defense, state, treasury, the director of the CIA. He said he obviously was not meant to be on this group, certainly not on a commercial messaging app.

One minute later, a person identified only as MAR, which presumably is Marco Rubio, wrote Mike Needham for state, apparently designating the current counselor of the State Department as his representative. At that same moment, a Signal user identified as J.D. Vance wrote Andy Baker for VP. One minute after that, Tulsi Gabbard wrote Joe Kent for DNI. Nine minutes later, Scott B., apparently the Treasury Secretary Scott Besant or someone spoofing his identity, wrote Dan Katz for Treasury. And at 4.53 p.m., a user called Pete Hegseth wrote Dan Caldwell for DOD.

Brian McCormick for NSC and John Ratcliffe included the name of a CIA official and Jeffrey Goldberg doesn't name that CIA official because that would be classified.

The principals had apparently assembled, and all 18 individuals were listed as members of the group, including various National Security Council officials, including Steve Witkoff, Susie Wiles, and Stephen Miller, presumably. That was the end of the Thursday text chain. After receiving the Wall's text related to the Houthi PC small group, I consulted a number of colleagues, said Goldberg. We discussed the possibility these texts were part of a disinformation campaign initiated by either a foreign intelligence service or, more likely, a media gadfly organization, the sort of group that attempts to place journalists in embarrassing positions and sometimes succeeds.

I had very strong doubts the text group was real because I couldn't believe the national security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe the national security advisor to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials up to and including the vice president. The next day, says Jeffrey Goldberg, things got even stranger. At 8.05 a.m., Friday, March 14th,

Waltz texted the group, quote, team, you should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the president's guidance this morning in your high side inboxes. Now, again, this is important because a high side inbox, high side means classified. So what he's saying is the stuff that we're talking about right here,

is not considered the sort of classified protected material that would be legally actionable if it were to disappear. High side is typically the sort of inbox that is used for that classified material. It's important for legal reasons. State and DOD said, Waltz, we developed suggested notification list for regional allies and partners. Joint staff is sending this AM a more specific sequence of events in the coming days. We will work with DOD to ensure chief of staff, office of the VP and POTUS are briefed.

At this point, a fascinating policy discussion commenced. The account labeled J.D. Vance responded at 816. Team, I'm out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan, but I think we are making a mistake. Vance was, in fact, in Michigan that day. The Vance account went on, quote, 3% of U.S. trade runs through the Suez. 40% of European trade does. There is a real risk the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary. The strongest reason to do this, as POTUS said, is to send a message.

Then Vance continued, quote, I'm not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There's a further risk. We see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc. Then Joe Kent, who's Trump's nominee to run the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote there's nothing time sensitive driving the timeline. We'll have the exact same options in a month.

Then John Ratcliffe replied and contained information that might actually be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations. So credit where it's due. I think Jeffrey Goldberg is just awful in every possible way, but he did refrain from actually including the classified information or information he thought might be classified in

He refrained from putting that in the article itself. At 827, a message from Pete Hegseth said, quote,

Hegseth then continued, quote, waiting a few weeks or a month does not fundamentally change the calculus. Two immediate risks on waiting. One, this leaks when we look indecisive. Two, Israel takes an action first or Gaza ceasefire falls apart and we don't get to start this on our own terms. We can manage both. We're prepared to execute. And if I had a final go or no go vote, I believe we should. This is not about the who.

I see it as two things. One, restoring freedom of navigation, a core national interest. And two, reestablished deterrence, which Biden cratered. But we can easily pause. And if we do, I will do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC. That's Operation Security. I welcome other thoughts.

A few minutes later, Michael Waltz posted, quote, whether it's now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes. Per the president's request, we are working with DOD and state to determine how to compile the costs associated and levy them on the Europeans. J.D. Vance then replied, quote, if you think we should do it, let's go. I just hate bailing out Europe again.

The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later,

At this point, Stephen Miller joined the conversation and he said, quote, As I heard it, the president was clear. Green light will be make soon clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. For example, if Europe does not remunerate, then what? If the U.S. successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost, there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return. Pete Hegseth then replied, agree. And so Goldberg waited. And then at 1144 a.m.,

On Saturday, March 15th, Hegseth posted and signaled a team update, which contained apparently information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing. Vance then wrote, I will say a prayer for victory. And two other users subsequently added prayer emojis. And Goldberg then waited around to see what happened. And sure enough, at 1.55 Eastern time, explosions were being heard in Sana'a, which is the capital city of Yemen. And Michael Waltz then replied, saying, amazing job. And John Ratcliffe wrote, a good start.

And then Waltz responded with three emojis, a fist, an American flag, and fire.

And then Secretary of State Rubio presumably wrote, good job, Pete and your team. And Susie Wiles texted, kudos to all of them, most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM. Really great. God bless. Well, this is obviously a negative story for the administration, but there's plenty of positive for the administration, including Doge continuing to surgically cut the fat from decades of bloated government spending and corruption. Pure Talk, the cell phone company I use for business every day, is cutting the fat from the wireless industry. That is correct. Pure Talk says, I don't think so, to $100 a month cell phone plans. That's just

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The conversation itself is really fascinating. So there is a bunch of issues to talk about here. Obviously, the biggest issue is the leak itself. How did this happen? And the answer is you have all these officials. They're using Signal. This is obviously a mistake. It's obviously a mistake. President Trump was asked about this yesterday. He did not have any knowledge of what was going on. He presumably didn't have any knowledge of what was going on. Here he was yesterday.

I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of the Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what? They were using Signal to coordinate on sensitive materials. Having to do with what? Having to do with what? What were they talking about? With the Houthis. The Houthis? You mean the attack on the Houthis? Yes.

Well, it couldn't have been very effective because the attack was very effective. I can tell you that. I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time. So Trump denies knowledge. And of course, he probably had no knowledge of this because it was literally everybody else in the administration who was on this particular chat. The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, was asked about this and he tore into the Atlantic as well. So you're talking about a.

So.

Again, you know, Hegseth attacking The Atlantic. I'm all on board with it. I think The Atlantic's editor, particularly Jeffrey Goldberg specifically, is not a good representative of the journalistic institution. He was basically a stenographer for Barack Obama. But it was confirmed that the Signal Chat was involving all these players and it is real. So that raises a couple of questions. One is legal.

So there are people today who are attempting to claim that this was somehow violative of criminal law, that this is a breach of official records acts because signal chats have an auto-delete function that you can activate. As I mentioned when we went through the story, the use of terms, for example, in the piece, such as high side, suggests that there was an entire other thread that was going on inside these sort of classified government rooms that was preserved. So there's that.

Two, the president of the United States has the signal ability to simply declassify whatever he wants. So the idea that this is sort of a violation of law, I think, is overstated. Is it a scandal? Sure, it's a scandal when there's a screw up this big. If you accidentally include a journalist in a high ranking discussion about precisely where you're bombing, that is a major problem, of course. It is a breach of security. I'm not willing to hear that from people on the Democratic side of the aisle who are perfectly fine with the Hillary Clinton email stuff.

I'm not. And this is one of the lines that the left is taking about all of this today, which is, you know, you guys, you fussed all about Hillary Clinton and her emails and keeping those on her own private server. So, number one, we should recognize that what Hillary Clinton did was very bad. And this right here is also quite bad. Inviting a journalist into a group chat, obviously, is bad.

That involves high ranking discussions of national security matters that are classified. That is a giant boo-boo. That is a huge boo-boo. It is a mistake. And again, as much as I despise Jeffrey Goldberg as a human being, I think that Jeffrey Goldberg actually did the responsible thing in not printing, for example, operational details or blowing the operation beforehand, which he certainly could have done.

With all of that said, the reason that everyone is so casual about the use of classified material these days, the reason all this is happening is because of the original sin of James Comey not prosecuting Hillary Clinton over her emails. That is the reality. That set up an entire permission structure for people to mishandle classified materials, unless apparently you're a Republican. That is the way this works. If Hillary Clinton...

uses classified materials and she puts them on a private server, which James Comey of the FBI openly acknowledged was likely accessed by foreign sources. And then there's no prosecution that attends. Then how can that rule apply to anybody else? This is why it was so ridiculous when they tried to go after Trump for the classified documents mishandling at Mar-a-Lago at the same exact time that Joe Biden had a bunch of classified documents in his garage.

This issue is largely played out in the sense that while something can be a giant screw up, nobody takes it as a criminal level screw up at this point. That was killed dead by the operation to let Hillary Clinton off the hook back in 2015, 2016 for her email scandal. And so when the left says, we've now heard the end of but her emails, the reality is but her emails was the inciting event for an entire string of mishandling of classified materials on both sides of the aisle.

Then there are the Democrats who are saying this could have cost lives. It really could have cost lives. So, I mean, if it had not included Jeffrey Goldberg, sure. But that is also a hypothetical that did not happen in reality. Again, a giant screw up is not quite the same thing as an intentional move to endanger human life on the American side of the aisle. Leon Panetta, former secretary of defense, was on CNN going off about all of this. And again, this is this is exaggeration.

To have had somebody from the Atlantic on that chain without question was a serious mistake. And I hope the White House takes this seriously because the last thing you want to do when you're talking about war plans is to have a serious leak like this that could undermine the war plans, but also jeopardize lives. So I hope they take this seriously.

Now, again, I agree that it should be taken seriously. The idea that this was like jeopardizing massive amounts of life because Jeffrey Goldberg was included, that's an exaggeration. It's also worth noting that many of the same people who are very upset with this particular situation would have been perfectly happy if the war plans had been leaked by an insider at the Trump administration to the front page of the New York Times. That sort of stuff happened all the time in the first Trump administration. Democrats are going on offense.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday, this is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York called Hegseth, quote, the most unqualified person to ever lead the Pentagon in American history. Now, do we think that any of this is going to pay off in a major way? One of the things that is fascinating is not the Democratic attacks on Republicans, on Waltz, on Rubio, on Hegseth, on any of the rest of us.

The part that's really fascinating is the mobilization on one side of the Republican aisle against Waltz in particular, because there are really two issues that are of note with regard to this leak. One is the leak itself, which obviously is deeply noteworthy. And the administration should make sure obviously nothing like this ever happens again.

And then there is the second issue, which is what was actually said in the leak. And one of the things that I'm noticing is that partisans of J.D. Vance are coming out saying that the real story here is the leak. And partisans of Mike Waltz are coming out and saying that the real story here is what was said in the chat. And the answer is both. Both of these things are actual real stories and neither should be obscured. Politico is reporting that Waltz could theoretically be on the chopping block, that President Trump is upset because he doesn't like bad headlines. That, of course, makes sense. The president has a right to be upset.

A senior administration official told Politico on Monday afternoon they're involved in multiple text threads with other administration staffers on what to do with Waltz following that bombshell report. One official said, quote, half of them saying he's never going to survive or he shouldn't survive. It was reckless not to check who's on the thread. It was reckless to be having that conversation on Signal. You can't have recklessness as the national security advisor. Now, let's be fair about this. If you're saying it was reckless to...

include Jeffrey Goldberg, obviously true. If the idea is that it was reckless to have the conversation on Signal, half of the conversations on planet Earth about national security are being had on Signal because it is encrypted. That is specifically the reason why, that's why I downloaded Signal. That's why when I have sensitive conversations, those happen on Signal. And if you're talking about recklessness to be involved, now you have to fire the entire team because literally everyone on the team was on that Signal chat.

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One issue obviously is Walt and what are the consequences for the screw up. But the other issue, and this is the one that, again, I'm seeing a lot of misdirection by people who are who are fans of the vice president away from the thing that J.D. Vance actually was saying in the chat, which to me is another fascinating aspect of this. Right. You now have a window into the sort of open foreign policy debates that are happening inside the Trump administration.

So you have the president. He says, listen, we are going to reopen freedom of trade and freedom of the seas. We're going to strike the Houthis. We're not going to be cowards like the Biden administration was about the Houthis. And then a consequential discussion ensues in which part of the administration says that means we need to go punch them in the mouth. And Vice President Vance takes the position we should not punch the Houthis in the mouth and then puts forward what is a pretty milquetoast delay tactic. Because what Vance says in there is an open disagreement with President Trump.

An open disagreement with President Trump. Quote, I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. Well, actually, it isn't. Striking the Houthis is not inconsistent with messaging on Europe. By the way, the argument that 3% of U.S. trades runs through the Suez, but 40% of European trade does, and thus it doesn't matter for the United States if trade moves through the Suez Canal.

That's incredibly silly because trade is intertwined. If you raise the price of goods massively in Europe, that is going to raise the price of goods in the United States because we trade with Europe. That is a thing that we do. So to me, what that bespeaks is an entirely different geopolitical strategy that Vice President Vance is suggesting here than what the Trump administration as a whole has been promoting. When you look past the actual leak issue to the actual content here, Walt, Hegseth, Miller are all reflecting the priorities of the president of the United States

And Vice President Vance, not so much. When he says, well, this is really about cramming it down on the Europeans. Why don't the Europeans do it? He knows full well that the Europeans are not capable of taking on the Houthis. He knows that full well. And he also understands how global trade works. What that really suggests is that the Vice President has a very different view of foreign policy, a view that he expressed pretty clearly before he was Vice President. When he said he didn't care whether Russia took Ukraine, for example, that is certainly a view.

That is a view that bespeaks a foreign policy of spheres of influence, essentially. Russia should have its own sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, stretching all the way down into the Middle East. That the United States should essentially remove itself from the world, which may or may not mean a broader sphere of influence for the Chinese. Vice President Vance, again, he has a very different foreign policy than the Trump foreign policy. That is just a reality. And you can see it in these messages.

When he says there's a strong argument for delaying this month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc. The reality is the chance of a serious oil price spike from hitting the Houthis actually was incredibly low because the Saudis don't like the Houthis either. And what is going to shut down traffic in the Red Sea? The traffic's already shut down in the Red Sea. None of that makes any sense. So I think that the vice president, when he says that this is really just about bailing out Europe, it's bad to bail out Europe.

The United States has an interest in freedom of the seas. Our shipping does go through the Suez Canal. Global shipping goes through the Suez Canal. We trade with all of the countries that have shipping going through the Suez Canal.

Beyond which the United States does have an interest in backing our Saudi and Israeli allies in striking the Houthis, who have already been responsible, by the way, for the death of Americans. So when the vice president says the sort of stuff that openly conflicts with what the president of the United States is saying, that is another story. So there are two sort of dueling narratives. And it'll be interesting to see how it shakes down inside the administration.

As The Wall Street Journal points out, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was a voice for U.S. leadership and for carrying out the president's policy. Vice President J.D. Vance was a voice for U.S. retreat, even when Mr. Trump directed otherwise. And again, it'll be interesting. There are a lot of competing voices inside the Trump administration. It'll be fascinating to see which voices end up taking the floor and what President Trump actually does. What should be the consequences for this sort of breach of security? I think this all blows over within 48 hours, frankly.

I think that it's a serious mistake. I think it's a problem. I think, unfortunately, leaks happen all the time. A kind of self-goal and own goal like this, where you create the leak, is obviously a massive problem. I'm sure Mike Walz will be called on the carpet by the President of the United States, as will other members of the administration, who apparently never checked to see who else was in chat before they started having these high-level discussions.

To me, the much more consequential matter is not this. The much more consequential matter is what does the foreign policy of the Trump administration look like and who gets to shape it?

Because that is an ongoing battle inside the Trump administration pretty much every day on every issue, ranging from what we do in Ukraine to what happens in the Middle East. And that, to me, is a fascinating discussion that's going to continue on into the future, no matter what happens with this particular issue. All righty, now, as you know, we've been calling for the pardon of Derek Chauvin. We have an ongoing series here, the case for Derek Chauvin. It is time for part three of that case. We're going to examine the autopsy report of George Floyd.

Just last week, in an interview with David Weigel of Semaphore, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, while campaigning across state lines in Wisconsin for a Supreme Court candidate, decided to call those of us advocating for justice in the Derek Chauvin case racist.

Governor Walz's response is exactly what we've come to expect from the left. When confronted with evidence, they simply yell racism and hope nobody notices the complete absence of substantive rebuttal. The facts are clear and well-documented. Let's address Walz's legal confusion. This is the same governor who apparently doesn't realize Minnesota inmates like Chauvin typically serve just two-thirds of their sentences under his state's own laws.

much like he was caught unaware that the state pension fund he oversees holds Tesla stock while he publicly celebrated the company's stock decline. The irony of Tim Walls claiming that Chauvin's pardon would undermine faith in the system while simultaneously defending a prosecution marred by coerced medical testimony, politically motivated prosecutorial takeovers, his city and the entire country burning during deliberation, and careers threatened for those who dared question the predetermined narrative

is apparently lost on him. If we're serious about justice, we should care more about whether the conviction was based on actual evidence than mob rule. But that would require intellectual honesty rather than just cheap political point scoring or willful ignorance. Governor Walz should leave the serious discussions about justice to the adults in the room. He should probably return to his true calling as an inflatable waving tube van outside a Chevron gas station. If you'd like to discuss this issue further, he's always welcome on the show. Now, on to the evidence.

In the aftermath of George Floyd's death, there were two separate autopsies conducted. The official one, performed by Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office, conducted by Dr. Andrew Baker, and a second, hired autopsy commissioned by the Floyd family, performed by Dr. Michael Bodden and Dr. Alicia Wilson. These two autopsies reached notably different conclusions, and the distinctions between them are absolutely critical for understanding the miscarriage of justice in Chauvin's case.

Let's begin with the official autopsy performed by Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker on May 26, 2020, the day after Floyd's death. Baker had been the county's chief medical examiner since 2004. He's a board-certified forensic pathologist. His findings were released in a 20-page report on June 1, 2020.

The official autopsy listed the cause of death as cardiopulmonary arrest, complicating law enforcement's dual restraint and neck compression. The manner of death was classified as homicide. Now, this is really important. In medical examiner terminology, homicide simply means death at the hands of another person. It is not a legal determination of murder, which would include various additional elements depending on the degree.

But here's where things get really interesting. The autopsy report explicitly states, this is a direct quote, no life-threatening injuries identified. Let me repeat that. No life-threatening injuries identified. The report documented various minor injuries, including cutaneous injuries to the forehead, face, upper lip, shoulders, hands, elbows, and legs. It noted mucosal injuries to the lips and pattern contusions of the wrist consistent with handcuffs. But the report further clarifies that there were no facial, oral, mucosal, or conjunctival parakea.

which are the small spots of bleeding in the eyes that would typically be present in a case of asphyxiation. The report also found no injuries of anterior muscles of neck or laryngeal structures, meaning no damage to the throat, hyoid bone, trachea, or voice box.

Notably, the report did not find any damage to Floyd's neck or cervical spine. Dr. Baker wrote that Floyd's neck was palpably stable and free of hemorrhage. There was not even visible bruising on Floyd's neck. In other words, despite the popular narrative that Chauvin choked Floyd's death, the actual autopsy found zero evidence of damage to Floyd's airway or throat structures. This critical fact has been

has been almost entirely ignored in public discussion of the case. What the autopsy did find, however, was substantial evidence of severe pre-existing heart disease. The report describes arteriosclerotic heart disease, multifocal, severe, and hypertensive heart disease with cardiomegaly, which means Floyd had an enlarged heart, riddled with plaque, and blocked arteries. The normal weight of a human heart varies based on factors like age, sex, and body size, but the typical average for men is between 280 and 340 grams.

Floyd's heart weighed 540 grams. That is significantly above the normal range. His coronary arteries were 90% blocked. Two other arteries were 75% narrowed, an extremely dangerous condition that put him at high risk for sudden cardiac death. Dr. Baker explained that when someone with heart disease is physically restrained, quote, those events are going to cause stress hormones to pour out into your body and ask your heart to beat faster. Ask your body for more oxygen. Floyd's enlarged heart needed more oxygen than a normal heart and was therefore limited in its ability to provide that oxygen under stress.

The most explosive part of the autopsy and the part that has been most aggressively downplayed by the media is the toxicology report. The official autopsy found multiple drugs in Floyd's system at the time of his death. Fentanyl at 11 nanograms per milliliter. Norfentanyl at 5.6 nanograms per milliliter, a form of fentanyl that had already been partially metabolized by Floyd's system. 4-ANPP at 0.65 nanograms per milliliter, another fentanyl-related compound. Methamphetamine at 19 nanograms per milliliter, various cannabis compounds like THC.

Let's focus on the fentanyl levels for a moment, 11 nanograms per milliliter. Dr. Baker disclosed on his witness statement for the trial that, quote, if Floyd were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD overdose. Baker also noted that deaths have been certified as fentanyl overdoses with levels as low as three nanograms per milliliter. Floyd's level was nearly four times that amount.

Also central to the report is the shocking condition of George Floyd's swollen lungs, which weighed two to three times their normal weight due to fluid accumulation caused by the fentanyl toxicity. According to CDC guidelines, fentanyl routinely triggers pulmonary edema, quote, significantly reducing respiratory function and leading to hypoxia. Baker testified that Floyd's lungs contained cirrus fluid, which is consistent with drug-induced pulmonary failure, not physical trauma.

Floyd's potentially lethal level of fentanyl in his system, along with methamphetamine, created an extremely dangerous combination that can cause respiratory depression, cardiac arrhythmia, and sudden death. In stark contrast to the official findings, the autopsy commissioned by the Floyd family reached very different conclusions. This examination was performed by Dr. Michael Bodden, a former New York City chief medical examiner, and Dr. Alicia Wilson, a pathologist from the University of Michigan.

We should pause here to talk about Dr. Michael Bodden, the so-called celebrity pathologist who performed the independent autopsy for the Floyd family. Bodden has made an entire career out of contradicting official autopsy findings in politically charged cases. It's

It's essentially his brand at this point. Let's look at his track record. In 1978, he served as chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations Forensic Pathology Panel investigating JFK's assassination, where he contradicted key aspects of the original Warren Commission findings. He was involved in reviewing evidence in the MLK Jr. assassination. He testified for the defense

in the O.J. Simpson trial, disagreeing with the prosecution's timeline. In the Michael Brown case, he claimed shots were fired from further away than the official autopsy indicated. And the cherry on top, Dr. Michael Bodden was also hired by the Epstein family to conclude that Jeffrey Epstein did not die by suicide, but homicidal strangulation. Bodden has literally been fired twice from medical examiner positions, one as chief medical examiner of New York City after complaints about sloppy record-keeping, poor judgment, and lack of cooperation, and then again from running Suffolk County's medical examiner's office.

New York Magazine skewered Bodden for his disconnect between his fame, which he loved to discuss, and his accomplishments, which paled in comparison to his fame-chasing.

Dr. Bodden and Dr. Wilson determined that Floyd died from asphyxia due to neck and back compression. They claimed that pressure on Floyd's neck impaired blood flow to the brain, while weight on his back impeded his ability to breathe. Most controversially, they stated that Floyd had no underlying medical problems that caused or contributed to his death. They came to that conclusion without access to the toxicology reports, tissue samples, Floyd's medical records, or the body cam footage. So when their findings completely contradicted the official autopsy, should we really be surprised?

Moreover, Dr. Bodden's report ignores the heart disease documented in the official Hennepin County autopsy. Dr. Bodden went so far as to say, quote, I wish I had the same coronary arteries that Mr. Floyd had that we saw at the autopsy. That is an astonishing claim, given that the official autopsy found Floyd's coronary arteries 90% blocked and two others 75% narrowed. Excited delirium syndrome, recognized by the American College of Emergency Physicians in a 2009 report, is characterized by a combination of delirium,

agitation, and hyperadrenergic autonomic dysfunction, also known as the flight or fight response, which typically occurs in the context of drug use or serious mental illness. During Chauvin's trial, defense attorney Robert Paul questioned Dr. Baker extensively about his experience with excited delirium. Baker acknowledged he had listed this condition as a cause of death on some death certificates during his career, but he didn't include it in his report on Floyd. Floyd exhibited several signs consistent with excited delirium during his encounter with police, agitation,

agitation, paranoia, strength that required multiple officers to restrain him, sweating, and statements indicating perceptual disturbances. Combined with the known presence of methamphetamine and fentanyl in his system, these behaviors raised serious questions about whether excited delirium played a role in his death. In the months following Floyd's death, one of the Minneapolis Police Department's grand gestures indicating their commitment to police reform included the removal of excited delirium from its training documents altogether. The

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the term excited delirium was crossed out in Minneapolis Police Department training PowerPoint slides, replaced with severe agitation with confusion, and in parentheses, delirium, a clear political revision of a medical condition that had been recognized for decades. Another finding from the autopsy that has received almost no attention is that Floyd tested positive for COVID-19. A post-mortem nasal swab confirmed Floyd had COVID-19 at the time of his death. Floyd had previously tested positive on April 3rd, 2020, approximately seven weeks before his death.

While the autopsy notes that this most likely reflects asymptomatic but persistent positivity from previous infection, the potential impact of COVID-19 on Floyd's cardiac and respiratory function, especially given severe underlying heart disease, can't be dismissed.

It's also important to note the Department of Justice had the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's official autopsy results reviewed by the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, who agreed with Dr. Baker's official findings. However, they added that the police's, quote, subdual and restraint had elements of positional and mechanical asphyxiation. This additional comment introduces yet another potential mechanism of death, positional asphyxia. In other words, the position of the body prevents adequate breathing. The concept

of positional asphyxia is complex and controversial in forensic medicine. It's typically diagnosed by excluding other causes of death rather than by identifying specific physical findings. In Floyd's case, given his severe heart disease, drug intoxication, and the stress of the encounter, attributing his death primarily to positional asphyxia requires making assumptions that are not supported by the physical evidence.

Let's go back to those fentanyl findings, which deserve more detailed examination. Fentanyl is an extremely potent synthetic opioid, estimated to be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. It is a central nervous system depressant that can cause respiratory depression, hypoxia, and death.

The concentration of fentanyl in Floyd's blood was 11 nanograms per milliliter. Studies in fentanyl-related deaths have found that post-mortem blood concentrations can range widely. Levels above three nanograms per milliliter are potentially lethal. Dr. Baker's comment to federal investigators that Floyd's fentanyl level could constitute an overdose, quote, if you were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes,

is extremely significant. While Baker qualified this by saying, quote, I am not saying this killed him, the statement acknowledges that the fentanyl concentration in Floyd's blood was, in isolation, potentially lethal. The combination of fentanyl with methamphetamine creates what's known as a speedball effect.

The stimulant, methamphetamine, masking some of the depressant effects of the opioid, fentanyl, until the stimulant begins to wear off. At that point, the respiratory depression from the opioid can suddenly become overwhelming. This dangerous combination increases the risk of cardiac arrhythmia and sudden death. Given all these medical factors, let's consider the legal standard that should have been applied in Chauvin's trial, proof beyond a reasonable doubt. For a conviction on second-degree murder, the prosecution needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chauvin's actions were a malicious causal factor in Floyd's death.

As Coleman Hughes has pointed out in his analysis of this case, there were two different theories of what caused Floyd's death, the positional asphyxia theory and the adrenaline surge theory. As a juror, if you have two reasonable explanations for cause of death, one of which implicates the defendant and one of which does not, you are supposed to acquit. It is impossible to discuss this case without acknowledging the enormous political pressure surrounding it. The death of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests and riots. Politicians, including President Biden and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, made public statements suggesting Chauvin's guilt before the trial even began.

Dr. Baker testified that he and his staff received hundreds of harassing and threatening phone calls after Floyd's death. This intense pressure creates a context in which maintaining scientific objectivity can certainly become challenging.

I was recently sent an American Spectator article by Jack Cashel that reveals how former D.C. Chief Medical Examiner Roger Mitchell, a politically connected activist and former D.C. Deputy Mayor, influenced the medical findings in the Floyd case. According to a memorandum of the Minnesota Attorney General's Office in November 2020, Mitchell appears to have pressured Dr. Andrew Baker to alter his initial diagnosis. A document so significant it should have immediately resulted in a new trial for Chauvin and the release of the other officers.

The facts are straightforward. Baker's initial autopsy was conducted May 26th, 2020. His subsequent draft autopsy report found, quote, no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation and no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation.

In an unrelated Hennepin County deposition, Dr. Baker confided to Hennepin prosecutor Amy Sweezy, quote, what happens when the actual evidence doesn't match up with the public narrative that everyone's already decided on? This is the kind of case that ends careers. Then Roger Mitchell enters the picture. According to the memorandum, Mitchell called Baker twice, ultimately threatening to publish a Washington Post op-ed critical of Baker's findings, telling him, quote, you don't want to be a medical examiner who tells everyone that they didn't see what they saw. Mitchell concluded with a chilling ultimatum, quote, you don't want to be the smartest person in the room and be wrong.

By the time Floyd's official autopsy report was released less than a week later on June 1st, 2020, Dr. Baker had now added neck compression to his diagnosis, effectively transforming four police officers into murderers with the stroke of a pen. Worse yet, the Hennepin County prosecutors met with Dr. Baker to review his draft autopsy report without detectives or special agents present, violating protocol, and after being assigned to Chauvin's case by Governor Tim Walz one day prior, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison utilized the revised autopsy report to bring an additional second-degree murder charge against Chauvin.

All of these revelations, despite qualifying as Brady material, were buried at trial and were never properly disclosed to Chauvin's defense. This is yet another reason why a presidential pardon and a new trial for Derek Chauvin is warranted on the state level.

Chauvin was convicted in an atmosphere of intense political pressure with limited ability to present the full medical context of Floyd's death. The complex medical reality documented in the autopsy report was simplified and distorted to fit a predetermined narrative. Justice requires we consider all the evidence, not just the parts that support a particular political agenda. The detailed autopsy findings provide significant reasons to determine that Derek Chauvin did not receive a fair trial and his conviction for murder was not supported by the medical evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

In our next episode, we'll examine the political and social context surrounding Chauvin's trial, including the $27 million settlement with Floyd's family announced during jury selection, the statements by public officials prejudging the case, and the threats of further unrest that created an atmosphere in which a fair trial was impossible.

Before we wrap up today's episode, let me remind you to visit pardonederek.com and sign our petition asking President Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin for his federal convictions. We'll also put up a website to donate to Derek Chauvin's legal defense fund in the description. This is about ensuring that justice is applied fairly and consistently without being swayed by political pressure or mob mentality. Okay, meanwhile, the economic news continues to be sort of mixed. Apparently an elevated chance of recession, some of that is being driven by tariff fears.

President Trump continues to push forward with his tariff agenda, but there are some signs that maybe he's going to walk some of that back. According to The Wall Street Journal, President Trump said he might soften reciprocal tariffs he plans to impose on U.S. trading partners next month and that some nations might be completely exempt. He said, quote, I may give a lot of countries breaks. He said reciprocal tariffs could stop short of his pledge to equalize U.S. duties with rates other nations charge. He said, I'm embarrassed to charge them what they have charged us.

Markets then rallied on expectations that Trump is going to dial all of this back. That came hours after President Trump said the United States would impose a 25% tariff on any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela. Now, again, that is driven by his concerns over illegal immigration and by the fact that Venezuela is run by a communist dictator. Are you looking for a better quality meat? Good Ranchers delivers 100% American beef, chicken, and wild-caught seafood straight to your door. Every cut is steakhouse grade with no antibiotics or hormones.

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As I've said before, I have faith that President Trump has a good handle on the headlines and he doesn't want a recession. And so that means that he might try a policy. And if the policy does not work the way he wants it to, he may back off of the policy. At the same time, President Trump is touting the benefits of tariffs. Here he was yesterday saying that $4 trillion in investment is going to come back thanks to tariffs.

First of all, many companies are now moving into the United States. They're coming back. Some of them left us from many years ago, decades ago, and they're all, seems they're all coming back. We have probably identified maybe $4 trillion worth of companies moving back or going to move back. Many of them have announced it's going to be tremendous jobs, high-paying jobs, too.

And so, again, if the basic idea here is that high paying jobs will come back thanks to the tariffs, the reason high paying jobs are coming back to the United States is actually because of the deregulatory environment that is being pushed by the Trump administration far bigger than the tariffs is the stuff that's happening under the hood.

The sort of deregulation that's happening at, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency. Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, he says the EPA has already canceled over $22 billion worth of contracts. And listen, that's great. Cutting the waste, fraud, and abuse is huge. Cutting the regulatory infrastructure that prevents people from building and innovating is the biggest thing that the Trump administration is doing here with Secretary Zeldin.

EPA has now canceled over $22 billion worth of contracts. $2 billion going to this NGO that Stacey Abrams was tied to. They received only $100 in 2023. And then the Biden administration gave them $2 billion. The director of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund saw his former employer get $5 billion. So $20 billion went to just eight NGOs, and they're all pass-throughs.

Okay, so again, the cuts are great. It's the regulatory cuts that are going to make a really, really big difference here. And you can see the beast is crying, right? It's scared. You can see the fear in its eyes, the sort of governmental overweening relationship with various public sector unions, for example. Yesterday, the head of the National Education Association, President Becky Pringle, she was complaining that the Department of Education is going to be wildly downgraded, possibly dismantled by Congress.

Again, the bureaucracy, the bureaucratic state, the administrative state that has a corrupt relationship with all of these public sector unions and public sector employees, that is the great beast that does need to be brought down to size. Here's the NEA president lamenting all of this.

And then, of course, we have seen them saying that they are going to actually dismantle it. Now, we know that that is something that only Congress can do. So we know that this administration is overstepping its authority. And that is what our suit is about, that that authority rests in Congress. So.

Yeah, again, this sort of last gasp attempt to save themselves. I do not think that it is going to work.

And because of that regulatory infrastructure that is being undercut, because of the subsidization schemes, the Biden administration signed into law that are now going to be undercut, all that makes for a much more sanguine business environment. If you're wondering why the stock market continues to sort of hang around despite the tariffs, the answer is most business people have more faith that Trump is not going to do the dumb thing than they did under Joe Biden. And certainly they would have under Kamala Harris. Yesterday, President Trump got to tout an investment by Hyundai, which is reshoring a factory in the United States.

Today, we're delighted to report that Hyundai is announcing a major $5.8 billion investment in American manufacturing. In particular, Hyundai will be building a brand new steel plant in Louisiana, which will produce more than 2.7 million metric tons of steel a year, creating more than 1,400 jobs for American steelworkers. And then there'll be major expansion after that.

This will be Hyundai's first ever steel mill in the United States, one of the largest companies in the world, by the way, supplying steel for its auto parts and auto plants in Alabama and Georgia, which will soon produce more than one million American-made cars every single year.

Meanwhile, the president of the United States continues to charge forward on illegal immigration as well. The unified message from the administration is having an effect because we have the lowest levels of illegal immigration that we have had in recorded American history. Tom Holman, who, again, straight from central casting borders are, he says, we're just going to keep doing these deportations. We're going to keep arresting TDA members. We're going to keep arresting MS-13 members. We're going to keep arresting public safety threats to all this nation.

Now, when it comes to the Alien Enemies Act, if we're going to remove them through that act, we're going to have to wait for litigation, or simply detain them. But we're going to take them off the streets, and anybody who can be removed through Title VIII will be removed through Title VIII, which is the order of an immigration judge. But we'll obey the court's order, but I think DOJ, I think eventually we'll win that order, then it's game on. But until then, we're going to keep doing what we're doing, taking these public safety threats, especially TDA and MS-13 members, off the street.

And so, again, they're going to continue charging for it and all this. Kristi Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, she is openly saying, do not come here illegally. If you're trying to get in, do not do it.

So we are in several other countries around the world with a message right now that's saying, if you are thinking about coming to America illegally and coming here, don't do it. You are not welcome. We have a legal process to becoming a United States citizen. And there are consequences if you come here illegally. And America has changed because we're putting Americans first. Yeah, all this is, in fact, having a massive impact. The successes of the Trump administration continue to stack up.

All righty, guys, coming up, Democrats continue to root for the failure of Tesla. We'll see how that works out for them. First, your reminder, we have tons of great stuff that's still on today's show. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Bernie Sanders and AOC. We're going to take a couple of questions in the mailbag. To get all of that sort of stuff, you have to join Daily Wire Plus. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.