Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 3: Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have, Grissel.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do many big things that are happening this week.
Speaker 4: So we had big Scotus.
Speaker 1: Oral arguments yesterday about a case that is absolutely vital
Speaker 1: to free speech and bad news did not appear to
Speaker 1: go well for team free speech. Also, the Don Lemon
Speaker 1: versus Elon Musk interview also did not go that well
Speaker 1: for free speech. So we'll show you some of the
Speaker 1: low light highlights, whatever you want to call it, from
Speaker 1: that interesting moments. RFK Junior has apparently chosen his vice
Speaker 1: presidential pick. There are reported out rumors about who that
Speaker 1: may be. That announcement is set for next week in Oakland.
Speaker 1: So we tell you what we know there. We also
Speaker 1: want to break down this is actually incredibly consequential, huge
Speaker 1: landmark shift in the housing market that could completely upend
Speaker 1: the entire real estate industry. Not a lie, not a joke,
Speaker 1: as Joe Biden would say, not a joke. So we'll
Speaker 1: get into that and what that could mean for you.
Speaker 1: We also have some more disturbing details about the death
Speaker 1: of that Boeing whistleblower. You just cannot believe the latest
Speaker 1: things that have come out. Or also taking a look
Speaker 1: at the latest out of Israel. They have once again
Speaker 1: rated Al Shifa Hospital. Will break that down for a
Speaker 1: new report about the extent of the famine and starvation
Speaker 1: that is being caused by Israel in the Gaza Strip,
Speaker 1: and the Biden administration making some very noteworthy comments calling
Speaker 1: out bb directly as they escalate their rhetorical concern for
Speaker 1: civilians in the Gaza Strip. I'm also going to do
Speaker 1: this is going to be whatever. I'm going to break
Speaker 1: down that big debate from Lex Friedman. It was Destiny,
Speaker 1: Norman Finkelstein, Marien Rabani and Benny Morris, season Israeli historian.
Speaker 4: It was very interesting. I'm taking a.
Speaker 1: Look at some of the building blocks of Israeli propaganda
Speaker 1: as on display during this debate.
Speaker 3: So excellent, excited for that. It's going to be long.
Speaker 3: Just the heads up for everybody.
Speaker 4: It took me a lot, going to be kind of together.
Speaker 1: The freaking debate was five hours long, so I promise
Speaker 1: my monologue will be a lot shorter than the debate.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I think personally, yeah, first, it was like
Speaker 2: the meme whenever I saw the run length, where it's like,
Speaker 2: I'm happy for you, I'm sorry for you. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what happened, but I ain't reading all that Personally,
Speaker 2: Kyle and I.
Speaker 4: Had a long drive. I'm very Carolina, so we just.
Speaker 2: Cooked it down well, and I'm very happy that you
Speaker 2: are taking the time as a synthesizer for everybody. Before
Speaker 2: we get to that, thank you to everybody. Couple of things.
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Speaker 3: Indeed, let's start with the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: As Crystal said, team free Speech didn't do so well
Speaker 2: before the Supreme Court. We've put together some elements from
Speaker 2: the audio of the actual hearings where the case that
Speaker 2: was brought forward was won by two Republican Attorney generals
Speaker 2: against the Biden administration stemming from twenty twenty one. That
Speaker 2: case revolves if people are familiar, for example, White House
Speaker 2: officials contacting social media companies and pressuring them to censor
Speaker 2: and take down what they alleged was COVID nineteen misinformation.
Speaker 2: So we have two kind of sides of the different
Speaker 2: arguments to see how they were received before the court,
Speaker 2: and then we'll break down even more of it afterwards. First,
Speaker 2: let's start with Justice Samuel Alito kind of coming down
Speaker 2: on the free speed side.
Speaker 3: Let's take a.
Speaker 5: Listen exchanged between the White House and other federal officials
Speaker 5: and Facebook in particular, but also some of the other platforms.
Speaker 5: And I see that the White House and federal officials
Speaker 5: are repeatedly saying that Facebook and the federal government should
Speaker 5: be partners. We are on the same team. Officials are
Speaker 5: demanding answers. I want an answer, I want it right away.
Speaker 5: When they're unhappy, they curse them out their regular meetings.
Speaker 5: There is constant pestering of Facebook and some of the
Speaker 5: other platforms, and they want to have regular meetings, and
Speaker 5: they suggest why don't you They suggest rules that should
Speaker 5: be applied, and why don't you tell us everything that
Speaker 5: you're going to do so we can help you and
Speaker 5: we can look it over. And I thought, wow, I
Speaker 5: cannot imagine federal officials taking that approach to the the
Speaker 5: print media, our representatives over there. If you did that
Speaker 5: to them, what do you think the reaction would be?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, he's actually making a pretty good point there, Crystal.
Speaker 2: Imagine if a government official ever came to us and
Speaker 2: was like, hey, how about you change some of your
Speaker 2: talking points?
Speaker 3: And the way they think.
Speaker 2: I mean they maybe they would do it to us
Speaker 2: because we're not as established in their eyes, but I
Speaker 2: mean they could try and do it to the New
Speaker 2: York Times. The New York Times will probably just published
Speaker 2: the entire thing. It would never be treated that way.
Speaker 2: I thought it was an important point from Samuel Alito
Speaker 2: because what he is ascribing there is he is saying
Speaker 2: and noting both the Facebook role as a publisher, and
Speaker 2: then noting also the Biden administrations the way that the
Speaker 2: norms have evolved such that they have different ways they
Speaker 2: might deal with the New York Times, for example, as
Speaker 2: opposed to a mass platform of communication for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean the reality is the government does
Speaker 1: communicate with the New York Times, you know, especially when
Speaker 1: they're reporting out something that contains potentially classified information and
Speaker 1: there's a question of whether it could harm national skin.
Speaker 4: There is a given take there.
Speaker 1: But I think what he's getting to is that the
Speaker 1: extent and nature of the communications here, the amount of
Speaker 1: basically badgering from the government when it came to these platforms,
Speaker 1: is way beyond what you would think was appropriate when
Speaker 1: it comes to other more traditional media, and we would
Speaker 1: understand it more clearly as wildly inappropriate if these types
Speaker 1: of communications, swearing, badgering, constant meetings, not just okay, visavi
Speaker 1: this one particular story, let's make sure that we're not
Speaker 1: harming national security, but on a variety of topics and
Speaker 1: consistently over time, we would easily see that as inappropriate
Speaker 1: when it comes to The New York Times the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: Yet because of social media and we get sort of
Speaker 1: like fuzzy in our head about what these platforms are
Speaker 1: and what they mean to society, then it becomes entirely
Speaker 1: less clear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And so then to show everybody the counter side of
Speaker 2: how it looks is got Katanji Brown Jackson, Justice Jackson
Speaker 2: talking and raising about how the First Amendment may actually
Speaker 2: be an obstacle then to important function of the government.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to what she had to say.
Speaker 6: So, my biggest concern is that your view has the
Speaker 6: First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the
Speaker 6: most important time periods. I mean, what would you have
Speaker 6: the government do. I've heard you say a couple of
Speaker 6: times that the government can post its own speech, But
Speaker 6: in my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe.
Speaker 6: Don't do it, is not going to get it done.
Speaker 6: And so I guess some might say that the government
Speaker 6: actually has a duty to take steps to protect the
Speaker 6: citizens of this country, and you seem to be suggesting
Speaker 6: that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging
Speaker 6: or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information.
Speaker 3: So can you help me, because.
Speaker 6: I'm really worried about that, because you've got the First
Speaker 6: Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the
Speaker 6: government's perspective, and you're saying that the government can't interact
Speaker 6: with the source of those problems.
Speaker 2: So, as you can see, using and kind of worried
Speaker 2: that the First Amendment is going in front of the
Speaker 2: government's ability to at least coerce agencies, social media companies
Speaker 2: and others to censor information that they don't like.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Justice Jackson's line of questioning and the skepticism of
Speaker 2: it seemed to really.
Speaker 3: Carry the day.
Speaker 2: From all of the rite ups of the correspondence that
Speaker 2: were present for the multi hour arguments, what they really
Speaker 2: note is that the vast majority appeared to believe that
Speaker 2: with the way that there's ruling and the merits of
Speaker 2: the case were brought forward, that the solicitors of these
Speaker 2: Republican states were not able to demonstrate what a clear
Speaker 2: and extended harm would be like, and that furthermore, what
Speaker 2: they were really worried about was quote, hamstringing the government power.
Speaker 2: It's very likely that a conservative justice, there at least
Speaker 2: a majority of conservative justice will rule with the liberal
Speaker 2: justices and that this will come out in favor of
Speaker 2: the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: Crystal, Yeah, I frankly find the type of language that
Speaker 1: she was using, they're terrifying.
Speaker 3: Yes, great, find is terrifying.
Speaker 1: I mean what she said is my biggest concern is
Speaker 1: that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government
Speaker 1: in significant ways. That is part of what the First
Speaker 1: Amendment is about when it comes to ensuring First Amendment
Speaker 1: rights for the citizens of this country. And nothing about
Speaker 1: this case says that the government can't put out there.
Speaker 1: You know, part of this had to do with COVID
Speaker 1: and the COVID vaccine, right, Nothing says the government can't
Speaker 1: put out their view of of the vaccine, their recommendations
Speaker 1: with regard to the vaccine, whatever information that they want
Speaker 1: that is not being constrained whatsoever. But by what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here, what we're talking about is them pressuring
Speaker 1: and badgering and in some ways implicitly threatening the social
Speaker 1: media company to tow their line and quash the speech
Speaker 1: of individual citizens who have a different view that they
Speaker 1: want to express. That's what that comes down to. So
Speaker 1: the view that seemed to rule the day or win
Speaker 1: the day on this court, and not just from Katanji
Speaker 1: bron Jackson, although I thought her reasoning year was particularly terrifying,
Speaker 1: was that no, the government's rights to censor and control
Speaker 1: information that they deem as bad as if they have
Speaker 1: a monopoly on truth, that is the thing that we're
Speaker 1: going to prioritize. And I find that wrong. I find
Speaker 1: it horrifying. I think that it is a slippery slope.
Speaker 1: And I think it also Soccer really ignores something that
Speaker 1: liberals like Katanji bron Jackson would clearly see in a
Speaker 1: different setting, which even if the government is not directly
Speaker 1: saying like we're going to pull your contracts, we're going
Speaker 1: to shut you down, we're going to break you up
Speaker 1: if you don't do what we say, because the government
Speaker 1: is so large and does have those powers in it.
Speaker 1: The very nature of those conversations contains a power dynamic
Speaker 1: that is explicit, that is implicitly threatening in and of itself.
Speaker 1: And I think that piece was also completely ignored here.
Speaker 1: And again I think, you know, usually liberals see those
Speaker 1: power dynamics and describe a lot of merit to them.
Speaker 1: Here that all seems to be completely invisible. One other
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to point out, which is just kind
Speaker 1: of an irony, and it was something that Fire the
Speaker 1: Free Speech Organization in their front of the court brief
Speaker 1: talked about, and they are, you know, they are very
Speaker 1: much on the side of free speech. I think they're
Speaker 1: a very solid and consistent and principled organization. They pointed
Speaker 1: out that, you know, they take the side of free speech,
Speaker 1: even though some of the Republicans who are behind this
Speaker 1: suit and what constrained the Biden administration's stability are sort
Speaker 1: of on the other side. And these other free speech
Speaker 1: cases that we talked about where they want to give
Speaker 1: states the power to censor control speech. So there is
Speaker 1: an irony here, you know, implicit in the Republican position.
Speaker 1: But to me, this isn't a right left Republican Democrat.
Speaker 1: This really does come down to the First Amendment, and
Speaker 1: you can see by the unanimity in the court here
Speaker 1: that it's not a left right Republican Democrat thing, and
Speaker 1: it appears that they're very likely to come down on
Speaker 1: the wrong side of this.
Speaker 2: It's particularly Justices Cavanaugh and Kagan, both of whom who worked. Kagan,
Speaker 2: for example, was the Solicitor General under Barack Obama. Cavanaugh
Speaker 2: worked as a political operative in the Bush White House.
Speaker 2: Both of them were taking a line of question which
Speaker 2: was very, very heavily slanted towards executive power. We can
Speaker 2: put this next one please up on the screen because
Speaker 2: I found one ride up actually very illuminating from Justice
Speaker 2: Amy Cony Barrett, where she asks in a hypothetical where
Speaker 2: if any Louisiana government officials were, say, docks followed by
Speaker 2: social media posts about how people should rally and do
Speaker 2: something about this, could the FBI, she queried, quote, really
Speaker 2: encourage social media platforms to take down these posts?
Speaker 3: Now the Solicitor gen role of.
Speaker 2: The state said well no, because if what the FBI
Speaker 2: is trying to do is trying to persuade a speech
Speaker 2: intermediary to take down a private third party speech. That
Speaker 2: would be an abridgment of speech to which Justice Barrett
Speaker 2: did not agree with that line of questioning. And I
Speaker 2: mean that's ridiculous for a number of reasons. Number One,
Speaker 2: doxing is already against the is a violation of the
Speaker 2: terms of service of all of these platforms. Why would
Speaker 2: the FBI quote need to encourage it. And this is
Speaker 2: the whole point. If you just have a consistent set
Speaker 2: of rules, then the government has to operate under the
Speaker 2: same rules.
Speaker 3: As everybody else.
Speaker 2: But when you have this hodgepodge system, and this really
Speaker 2: gets to both the failure of social media regulation as
Speaker 2: well as government action. Well, then the government, with its
Speaker 2: immense leverage and its power. I mean, look, any of us,
Speaker 2: if any of us who've ever been on the receiving
Speaker 2: end of a phone call from the White House with
Speaker 2: that infamous no caller ID or from the EOP address,
Speaker 2: is like whoa every time time anyone that comes out,
Speaker 2: I don't care if you're in the media, I don't
Speaker 2: care if you see it regularly. Every time you see it,
Speaker 2: you pay attention. You have to pay attention whenever your Twitter,
Speaker 2: whenever your Facebook or any of these other organizations that
Speaker 2: we saw so many of this crystal during the Twitter.
Speaker 3: Files, remember the FBI flagging all of those.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous posts, and I mean, yeah, they'd be finding one
Speaker 2: guy with six followers who'd be like, hey, guys, the
Speaker 2: elections on Wednesday, and they're like, hey, you got to
Speaker 2: take this shut the thing down. And guess what they
Speaker 2: actually did it though they really did do it, And
Speaker 2: if anything, you know, it's very concerning that these justices
Speaker 2: are not taking into account that the vast majority of
Speaker 2: the time they do comply with what the government wants
Speaker 2: them to do, and especially here in the COVID case,
Speaker 2: because this is even a heightened environment. I think we
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about this yesterday. For example, in
Speaker 2: the Constituents being Blocked case, where in the middle of
Speaker 2: a lockdown you had a guy who was a critical
Speaker 2: of his local like I forget who it was, it
Speaker 2: was like the city manager or something like that their
Speaker 2: lockdown policy, and the guy blocked him. And it's like, well,
Speaker 2: if you're in the middle of lockdown, you only have
Speaker 2: the ability to communicate and to articulate some of these
Speaker 2: things online, as some of these cases were happening, then
Speaker 2: your ability to express yourself freely online without government censorship
Speaker 2: becomes even more important. So really imagine this in a
Speaker 2: heightened like a wartime scenario, pandemic scenario, where government power
Speaker 2: is even more expanded than normal and they're really coming
Speaker 2: down on.
Speaker 3: The ability of the executive to just do what they want.
Speaker 3: I think it's a real travesy.
Speaker 4: They absolutely are.
Speaker 1: It sort of reminds me of the way that they
Speaker 1: have so narrowly defined corruption, oh good point where it
Speaker 1: literally has to be like Sager, here is some money
Speaker 1: in exchange for doing this thing for me, and then
Speaker 1: you do the thing, and it's like in writing and
Speaker 1: on video, and it has to be that direct. It
Speaker 1: seems like if you did have some direct government threat
Speaker 1: or corrosion.
Speaker 4: Of like you know, Facebook, we're going.
Speaker 1: To break you up if you don't take down that
Speaker 1: post saying election day is on Wednesday instead of being
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, maybe they would say, okay, that's inappropriate. But
Speaker 1: if they're just you know, having some friendly meanings some
Speaker 1: coffees where they're yelling at them every day and swearing
Speaker 1: at them and pressuring them, but there's no direct coercion,
Speaker 1: then that's okay.
Speaker 4: It's this sort of very.
Speaker 1: Narrow defining of what would be inappropriate here. That does
Speaker 1: remind me of the way that they have ruled with
Speaker 1: regard to corruption. Just to break down a little bit
Speaker 1: more of sort of the technical legal pieces of this case,
Speaker 1: and this was reflected that scotus Blog piece. There's basically
Speaker 1: three potential you know, decision points in terms of how
Speaker 1: they will rule. One is always this question of standing
Speaker 1: whether the parties who sued even have grounds to sue,
Speaker 1: whether they were actually injured. There's some question about that
Speaker 1: because these are you know, states that brought this suit.
Speaker 4: States don't technically have first.
Speaker 1: A memorts it applies to citizens, so there's some question
Speaker 1: about that. Then there's the merits themselves. And then there's
Speaker 1: the idea that the the original the original ruling that
Speaker 1: came from an appeals court was too broad because it
Speaker 1: applied to all social media platforms when the individuals in
Speaker 1: question we're not using all social media platforms. So the
Speaker 1: government is saying, okay, even if you find with them,
Speaker 1: the judgment should be very limited to just the social
Speaker 1: media platforms that we're involved here. So those are sort
Speaker 1: of the three main pieces that Scotus Blog breaks that down.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to make decisions on and they
Speaker 1: appear to even be skeptical of this question of standing Sager.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's where look the danger of it
Speaker 2: from the ruling, and it does seem very very likely
Speaker 2: that this is going down as a pretty big margin
Speaker 2: is that the government, both the Biden administration possibly a
Speaker 2: future Trump administration can call up Facebook and call up
Speaker 2: any of these people and tell them to take stuff down. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously they can't force them, but you know, Glenn Greenwald
Speaker 2: made a really good point about how Mark Zuckerberg, you know,
Speaker 2: publicly had talked both i think on the Lex Rieman
Speaker 2: podcast on the Joe Rogan podcast as well about how
Speaker 2: the FB is coming to them all the time with
Speaker 2: all of this fakery, and that's what led to the
Speaker 2: censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was a
Speaker 2: one hundred percent true story. It was preempted by government action.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just the private bureaucrats at Twitter.
Speaker 1: So one last point, just to drive it home, well,
Speaker 1: leave the TikTok debate for another day, but you agree
Speaker 1: with me that the reason that the TikTok thing has
Speaker 1: legs right now is because they're upset about the pro
Speaker 1: Palestine view no question, Yeah, that rules the day on TikTok.
Speaker 1: You don't think they will use these powers or may
Speaker 1: even right now be using these powers to quash pro
Speaker 1: Palestinian debate and viewpoints on a wide variety of social
Speaker 1: media platforms. That is absolutely possible that that's happening right now,
Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court could be siding with the government
Speaker 1: to say, yes, that's appropriate, Yes, you have an interest
Speaker 1: in doing that, et cetera.
Speaker 4: If Trump gets back in the White House.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't like Donald maybe you love
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, your come with him having these powers. Put
Speaker 1: the shoe on the other foot and think about the
Speaker 1: way that Donald Trump and his administration could use these
Speaker 1: powers to quash any sort of debate and dissent that
Speaker 1: they find uncomfortable and they don't like. You do not
Speaker 1: want to hand the guy. This is like, you know
Speaker 1: what we learned with.
Speaker 4: The Patriot Act.
Speaker 1: You don't want to hand the government these types of
Speaker 1: powers when it comes to core key liberties that are
Speaker 1: supposed to be enshrined in the Constitution visa vi are citizens.
Speaker 1: So this looks like very very dire and distressing direction.
Speaker 2: One going, yeah, that's well said. You're right, so you
Speaker 2: can apply it to everything. Ukraine bounced on any and
Speaker 2: pick your issue.
Speaker 3: That's something.
Speaker 2: If it's controversially, you can guarantee that the government is involved.
Speaker 2: Don Lemon finally dropped his interview with Elon Musk will
Speaker 2: brush over some of the ketamine parts of which we've
Speaker 2: already discussed. Frankly, not that all that controversial. And let's
Speaker 2: get to the debate around censorship, the First Amendment and moderation,
Speaker 2: which Don really is incapable of rap his head around.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 7: Do you think if there, if if you moderated yourself more,
Speaker 7: if there was better content moderation on the platform, that
Speaker 7: you wouldn't have to answer these questions from reporters about
Speaker 7: the great great Replacement theory as a really I don't
Speaker 7: have to answer great Replacement theory as it relates to
Speaker 7: Jewish people.
Speaker 8: Do you think that I don't have to answer questions
Speaker 8: from requarters And the only reason I've been this interview
Speaker 8: is because you're on the X platform and you ask
Speaker 8: for it. Otherwise there would not do interview with this interview, So.
Speaker 7: You don't think do you think that you wouldn't get
Speaker 7: in trouble, or you wouldn't be criticized for these things.
Speaker 8: Possibly I could care less.
Speaker 9: You don't care.
Speaker 10: No, I don't like.
Speaker 8: I don't think people should care what the media thinks
Speaker 8: about them.
Speaker 7: They're terrible judges of character, even someone who has one
Speaker 7: of the biggest social media and biggest information platforms in
Speaker 7: the world.
Speaker 8: You don't think.
Speaker 4: You don't care.
Speaker 7: You don't think that there's you have any X dot
Speaker 7: Com or you have any responsibility to the truth. Are
Speaker 7: moderating the platform, You're.
Speaker 8: Conflating the truth with the media, and I think the
Speaker 8: media is not truthful.
Speaker 7: You recently call content moderation though a digital chastity belt.
Speaker 7: Do you think that Do you believe that X and
Speaker 7: you have some responsibility to moderate hate speech on the platform?
Speaker 8: I think we have a responsibility to adhere to the law,
Speaker 8: and we have a responsibility to be transparent about when
Speaker 8: things are shown, why they're shown. So that's why we've
Speaker 8: open source are algorithm. The I think once you start
Speaker 8: getting going beyond the law, now you're putting it thumb
Speaker 8: on the scale, and we don't want to put out
Speaker 8: that on the scale.
Speaker 7: It doesn't concern you that hate spece has gone. Research
Speaker 7: shows that it's gone up on the platform since you
Speaker 7: took over. That's not concerning to you.
Speaker 8: I believe that is false. In fact, the research that
Speaker 8: I've seen says it went down. So what they will
Speaker 8: typically do is they will count the number of posts,
Speaker 8: but not count the number of views. So what matters
Speaker 8: is was that a post given high visibility or what
Speaker 8: did like one person see it? Uh? And if you
Speaker 8: look at the number of views of how many how
Speaker 8: many times was Hayese content viewed on our platform? It
Speaker 8: is down substantially.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well that's not what the study shows. And you
Speaker 7: said you like transparency, I'm going to show you this
Speaker 7: and you can get a.
Speaker 8: Study that to We'll tell you whatever you want.
Speaker 7: But the studies this is, these are just a handful
Speaker 7: of extremely. You look at those anti semitic and racist
Speaker 7: tropes and tweets and as of this morning, they're still
Speaker 7: on x And from your own content policy, these posts
Speaker 7: should have been deleted. So why haven't they been deleted?
Speaker 7: Why are they still there?
Speaker 4: Do you?
Speaker 8: Uh, we believe things if there are illegal, but these
Speaker 8: have been up there for a while. Are they illegal?
Speaker 7: They're not illegal, but they're hateful and they can. They
Speaker 7: can lead to violence, as I just read to you.
Speaker 7: The shooters you know, and all of these mass shootings
Speaker 7: attributed social media to radicalizing.
Speaker 8: So don your love satoship is what you're saying.
Speaker 7: No, I don't love sense. Then why I believe in
Speaker 7: moderation but I don't believe in censorship?
Speaker 8: Is moderation is a propaganda word for censorship. You can
Speaker 8: find like you can sign up right now and and
Speaker 8: do a hundred things that are hateful, but if nobody
Speaker 8: reads it, it doesn't matter. So you can think of
Speaker 8: X as being it's much like the Internet. It's not
Speaker 8: some tiny publication with like twenty articles day, it's five million.
Speaker 7: But everyone has the opportunity to read.
Speaker 2: A d loon.
Speaker 8: I think the opportunity to read the Internet. Are you
Speaker 8: said suggesting we should shut down the Internet?
Speaker 2: Okay, we're all much dumber for every That was hard
Speaker 2: to entire entire conversation, but okay, let's try and extrapolate
Speaker 2: anything important from it. Number One, Elon is correct when
Speaker 2: he's like, you can find a fake study to say anything.
Speaker 3: But by and large, I actually find.
Speaker 2: His counter even more annoying because he's embracing this idea
Speaker 2: of like algorithmic d ranking.
Speaker 3: I don't believe in any of that.
Speaker 2: Actually I believe it Hay speech is freeze each and
Speaker 2: that he should be allowed to put it up. I mean, look,
Speaker 2: you know you can have an offensive meme or all
Speaker 2: of that, and Don loves like, why is that still up?
Speaker 2: And then he confuses it being illegal with it. Well,
Speaker 2: maybe not illegal, but you know, why should it be
Speaker 2: up there.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you know it's not. It's not illegal.
Speaker 3: That's why it should stay up there.
Speaker 2: So there's both of them are kind of talking in fakery,
Speaker 2: which much of this is an advertising problem, which belies
Speaker 2: Elon's entire business model itself.
Speaker 3: That's kind of secondary.
Speaker 2: But I think the bigger problem is that Don cannot
Speaker 2: like literally wrap his head around that correct counter where
Speaker 2: he's like, well, people could read this, it could lead
Speaker 2: to X, Y or Z with the idea that it
Speaker 2: could be extended. This links very much with our Supreme
Speaker 2: Court case that we just talked about, and that overall
Speaker 2: it's a complete lack of understanding of First Amendment. It's
Speaker 2: like truly wrapped in a censorious mindset. So I thought
Speaker 2: it was just idiocy really all the way around.
Speaker 1: Don Lemon clearly has a very bad case of CNN
Speaker 1: brain and it is not letting go his firing, and
Speaker 1: you know, being out and now being independent or whatever
Speaker 1: has not changed the way he views the world one inch.
Speaker 1: Because so clearly the area that I think would be
Speaker 1: more difficult for Elan to respond to is you claim
Speaker 1: to be this avatar of free speech, but you're not.
Speaker 1: I mean even his view and we've discussed this on
Speaker 1: the show before that he articulates of like, I follow
Speaker 1: the law. Well, okay, in this country where we have
Speaker 1: a first Amendment, that may work out fine. And by
Speaker 1: the way, he hasn't followed, you know, strictly just what
Speaker 1: the law requires in this country when they get to
Speaker 1: that at a moment, but when you think about a
Speaker 1: repressive regime that doesn't have free speech, his policies is
Speaker 1: still not a free speech commitment. But I will follow
Speaker 1: the law, and so you have him.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: For example, in India, Twitter censored this documentary that was
Speaker 1: critical of Mody. They took that down. This is something
Speaker 1: that the interceptor Ryan Grim reported on.
Speaker 4: So if it is a and.
Speaker 1: Jack Dorsey brought this up as well when we spoke
Speaker 1: with him, that actually they were much more willing under
Speaker 1: Jack rebuff repressive countries that were demanding censorship in that
Speaker 1: may be consistent with their own repressive laws in their
Speaker 1: country than Elon has been. So a commitment to I
Speaker 1: will strictly follow the law no matter what the law
Speaker 1: says is not actually a free speech commitment. So that's
Speaker 1: number one. Number two. You know, I just mentioned the
Speaker 1: Modi thing. We also have had the example right now
Speaker 1: post October seventh of Elon saying that he's going to
Speaker 1: ban the terms from the river to the sea and
Speaker 1: decolonization with regards to Israel and Palestine. How is that
Speaker 1: a commitment to free speech? So those are the areas
Speaker 1: where I would like to see him respond. I would
Speaker 1: like to see him attempt to answer, because there's a
Speaker 1: significant distance between how he has held himself out and
Speaker 1: the way he has actually run this platform. But because
Speaker 1: Don has such CNN brain, the problem has to be
Speaker 1: on the other side that he's not censoring enough, he's
Speaker 1: not being censorious enough, he's not doing enough quote unquote
Speaker 1: modern and so you end up with this, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of crazy making quote unquote debate, and then the
Speaker 1: other pieces you point out Sager is Elon is also
Speaker 1: saying something here that is I would say, also inconsistent
Speaker 1: with free speech. That he's like, well, yeah, technically we
Speaker 1: leave the stuff up on the platform, but we basically
Speaker 1: bury it so no one can see it. And Don
Speaker 1: can't really wrap his head around what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking here about shadow banning. He's talking
Speaker 1: about using the algorithm to suppress this type of content
Speaker 1: so absolutely no one can see it. And that's another
Speaker 1: area that would be interesting to dig into. But it
Speaker 1: seems to me like he's not really even grasping what
Speaker 1: Elon is saying. I mean, in fairness, Elon doesn't want
Speaker 1: to use terms like shadow band because that sounds bad,
Speaker 1: So he's not being really straightforward about what he's trying
Speaker 1: to articulate. He's like a little cagey about it, but
Speaker 1: that's clearly what he's laying out, and I think that
Speaker 1: that is worth exploration as well.
Speaker 4: But that none of that happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a moment that we didn't include in this
Speaker 1: clobe because it was already very long. But where Don
Speaker 1: gets in this fight with it, Well, mainstream media would
Speaker 1: never post this type of hateful content. He's still standing
Speaker 1: for CNN even after all of this. So anyway, there
Speaker 1: you go, there's been no evolution.
Speaker 2: I guess is that the accident that immediately after he's fired,
Speaker 2: the first place he goes.
Speaker 4: Back to is CNN.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly kind of you know, he can't teach
Speaker 2: an old dog new tricks. His overall mindset is just
Speaker 2: completely devoid of any like grasp of the first men,
Speaker 2: which is genuinely concerning for somebody who's allegedly been in
Speaker 2: broadcasts for like what twenty something a year, maybe thirty
Speaker 2: years now, yeah, at this point, and who made his
Speaker 2: whole career.
Speaker 3: And then you know, it's also so it's it's.
Speaker 2: Very counter because the moment then he that Elon fires
Speaker 2: him or doesn't sign his contract or whatever, he's like, well,
Speaker 2: I thought you believed in free speech.
Speaker 3: I'm like, dude, you don't believe in free speech? So
Speaker 3: which one is it?
Speaker 10: Bro?
Speaker 3: Like, what are we actually doing here?
Speaker 2: And then you know, I just find it so egregious
Speaker 2: every time they do this, as Zuckerberg, they did it
Speaker 2: to Jack, now they're doing to any of these people
Speaker 2: they find like the worst content, Like why isness still
Speaker 2: up there? It's like, guys, they're not defending the content.
Speaker 2: It's about the principle. I mean, for example, I'll talk
Speaker 2: to the third rail. I don't think Kanye should have
Speaker 2: been banned for tweeting a SAP swastika. Swatska's a hateful symbol.
Speaker 2: I abhor it, that said, well, and he even posted
Speaker 2: it genuinely in a pro Nazi way.
Speaker 3: Not illegal.
Speaker 2: Sorry, he should be allowed to do it. And guess
Speaker 2: what he suffered private consequences. It's not like it worked
Speaker 2: out for him all that. Well, you don't need to
Speaker 2: take it down for no reason. I'll give another one.
Speaker 2: He'd banned the elon jet account for no reason except
Speaker 2: for the fact that he alleged that it was doxing.
Speaker 2: It's bullshit. It's completely wrong. It's like, sorry, yeah, I
Speaker 2: get it's probably annoying. That said, you can do it
Speaker 2: for any celebrity, including Taylor Swift or any of these
Speaker 2: other folks. So sorry, that's I guess the price that
Speaker 2: it is to be like ultra wealthy. Good for you.
Speaker 2: You can afford, you can afford like hyper around the
Speaker 2: clock security. So that's just what comes with the territory.
Speaker 2: He still always like reaches for it in a shadow
Speaker 2: banning Sense and others. I still believe that the greatest
Speaker 2: golden age of the Internet was like twenty eleven or so,
Speaker 2: right when Twitter was still calling themselves a free speech
Speaker 2: swing of the free speech Party. Everything let fly, everything
Speaker 2: was equal in an algorithm, And yeah, it led to
Speaker 2: some uncomfortable things, but you know, that's part of what
Speaker 2: it means to live in a free in an open society.
Speaker 2: And that's when the Internet was a tool of dissonance
Speaker 2: and it was a tool of people being able to
Speaker 2: speak out. And unfortunately what we've seen is instead like
Speaker 2: a mainstream capture of the Internet. As part of why
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court case and this Don Lemon thing really
Speaker 2: go together is because that elite mindset about the ability
Speaker 2: to police what and how and the rules around these
Speaker 2: things is their most treasured power, especially as they continue
Speaker 2: to lose it in the number of viewers.
Speaker 3: That they have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's just a whole lack of confidence
Speaker 1: in the sort of baseline concepts of you know, there's
Speaker 1: supposed to be bedrock to America, including free speech and
Speaker 1: including a commitment to democracy. They're so terrified of if
Speaker 1: you actually allowed people to self govern what that would
Speaker 1: look like and so you know, it's an anti democratic backlash,
Speaker 1: and you see it with liberals, you see it with
Speaker 1: conservatives when it comes to speech that they don't like
Speaker 1: as well. It really is an elite led phenomenon. And
Speaker 1: you know, none of that was really grappled with in
Speaker 1: this particular debate. I guess I would say bottom line,
Speaker 1: you know, it made me a little more sympathetic to
Speaker 1: Elon pulling the plag afterwards, because he was just like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that was bad and ridiculous, and I don't think that
Speaker 1: I really want to lend my dollars. But it also
Speaker 1: made me question the original like why did you think
Speaker 1: that this was going to go well to start with?
Speaker 1: What was it in the Don Lemon lexicon? A body
Speaker 1: of work that you thought was really worth like supporting
Speaker 1: and lifting up.
Speaker 4: So I guess that's what.
Speaker 2: That's my counter is. I'm like, dude, why did you
Speaker 2: think that he had changed at all? Like anyone could
Speaker 2: have told you that anybody who's ever worked with Don Lemon,
Speaker 2: read any of his stories about Don Lemon, had watched.
Speaker 3: Him in that thing.
Speaker 2: He's an ego maniac who is dedicated to a very
Speaker 2: specific worldview. And when you hired him. There was no
Speaker 2: evidence that he had changed whatsoever. So you know, if anything,
Speaker 2: I don't have any particular sympathy for you on.
Speaker 4: No, I mean I don't either. I don't either.
Speaker 1: I say, listen, if if Don Lemon had started his
Speaker 1: show and he was doing things that were interesting and
Speaker 1: he learned something from his like, these things happen. You know,
Speaker 1: when you get let go from a job, it could
Speaker 1: be a like, you know, a real shake up moment
Speaker 1: for you, and your perspective can change. It did for
Speaker 1: me when I got fired from VISEMEBC. So I can
Speaker 1: speak to that.
Speaker 4: But clearly none of that has yet occurred.
Speaker 1: So he'll continue to see this is pretty consequential news.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up on the screen. So
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in a new court filing his team saying
Speaker 1: that he cannot secure a bond to cover that four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty four million judgment. He was spurned, apparently
Speaker 1: by thirty different companies as he saw that bond.
Speaker 4: Let me read you a little bit of this.
Speaker 1: They disclosed on Monday it failed to secure roughly half
Speaker 1: billion dollar bond in that civil fraud case in New York,
Speaker 1: raising the prospect that the state could seek to freeze
Speaker 1: some of his bank accounts and seize some of his
Speaker 1: marquee properties. That is now seriously on the table. The
Speaker 1: court filing, coming one week before the bond is do
Speaker 1: suggest the former president might soon face a financial crisis
Speaker 1: unless an appeals court comes to his rescue. He is
Speaker 1: asking the appeals to court to pause that four hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty four million dollar judgment. Again, remember this is
Speaker 1: from the civil fraud case about him inflating asset values
Speaker 1: to secure loans and things of that nature. Otherwise, the
Speaker 1: New York Attorney General's office, which brought the case, might
Speaker 1: soon move to collect from mister Trump. They go on
Speaker 1: to say, although the former president both of his billions,
Speaker 1: his net worth is derived largely from the value of
Speaker 1: his real estate, which bond companies rarely accept as collateral. Apparently,
Speaker 1: he has more than three hundred and fifty million in cash,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of money, but it is short
Speaker 1: of the nearly half a billion dollars that he would
Speaker 1: need in order to secure this bond. Still, even if
Speaker 1: the higher court rejects his appeal, he's not entirely out
Speaker 1: of options. He might appeal to the state's highest court
Speaker 1: quickly sell an asset or seek help from a wealthy supporter.
Speaker 1: So he was saga able to secure a nearly one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar bond with regard to the Egene Carol case.
Speaker 1: But there are two problems here. I mean, number one,
Speaker 1: these insurance companies just normally don't do bonds of this
Speaker 1: size half a billion dollars. And number two, as they
Speaker 1: point out, you know, since most of his collateral would
Speaker 1: be in real estate, they usually don't use that as collateral.
Speaker 1: And so none of these companies, the thirty that they
Speaker 1: reportedly went to, were willing to take it. The Letitia James,
Speaker 1: the Attorney General who was you know, pushing this case.
Speaker 1: She has not commented yet about what she is going
Speaker 1: to do. But you know, this is this is real.
Speaker 1: This is we're at the point now where she could
Speaker 1: actually you know, put leans on his accounts, where she
Speaker 1: could see some of his iconic properties in New York
Speaker 1: in order to obtain this amount of money while this
Speaker 1: appeals process plays out. So it is truly a wild
Speaker 1: scenario here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what they said is that he has not ruled
Speaker 2: out his corporate entities declaring bankruptcy, which would halt that judgment.
Speaker 2: But apparently in the nineteen nineties, Trump did go bankrupt, right,
Speaker 2: He's very weary of that entire experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, you can see, his whole political
Speaker 1: brand is the billionaire, you know, wealthy, successful, always wins,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So having to declare bankruptcy doesn't really jive
Speaker 1: with that image that he has created over decades.
Speaker 2: The other question is is I mean, he's probably just
Speaker 2: gonna have to sell something. He's gonna have to do
Speaker 2: a fire sale, or you know, he's going to have
Speaker 2: to come up with some way in order to meet
Speaker 2: this just because it's such a colossal amount of money,
Speaker 2: or to take out some incredibly onerous, high interest loan.
Speaker 2: But this is the reason we're covering everyone, is because
Speaker 2: this is personally a major, major threat. It also leads
Speaker 2: to the possibility that he would have to be able
Speaker 2: to tap campaign cash or raise some sort of fund
Speaker 2: from supporters and others in order to help bail him
Speaker 2: out of something like this. But even then, I mean
Speaker 2: a colossal half a billion dollar bond.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's more.
Speaker 2: Than I think Bill Clinton spent in the entire nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two campaign, let alone for the billion or so
Speaker 2: that the Trump campaign and the associated people are going
Speaker 2: to have to drop in the general election that's going
Speaker 2: on right now.
Speaker 3: So this is a serious problem for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are definitely legal limits on how much
Speaker 1: you know, political cash can be used. I don't believe
Speaker 1: it can be used at all to pay this you know,
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty four million dollar judgment. But he
Speaker 1: just did that big R and C shake up, cleaned house,
Speaker 1: making sure he's got you know.
Speaker 4: Full of loyalists.
Speaker 1: There a lot of fundraising consultants, I think, to make
Speaker 1: sure that they are able to pay whatever legal bills
Speaker 1: they are legally allowed to pay. And then we've also
Speaker 1: seen the way that the party apparatus has been used
Speaker 1: to funnel cash through his businesses, you know, the whole
Speaker 1: events at his hotel, et cetera, et cetera. So I
Speaker 1: do think part of that house cleaning at the RNC
Speaker 1: is to make sure that in whatever ways they can
Speaker 1: possibly you know, color the law to help bolster his
Speaker 1: personal finances, they will be in position to do that.
Speaker 1: But it is an extraordinary moment. I mean, we'll have
Speaker 1: to see what direction the court takes. We'll have to
Speaker 1: see how aggressive Letitia James is in terms of going
Speaker 1: ahead and fire sailing assets, you know, seizing assets, putting
Speaker 1: leans on his accounts. But there's no doubt that, listen,
Speaker 1: he's a very wealthy man. Half a billion dollars that
Speaker 1: was still a lot of money for literally anyone on
Speaker 1: the planet, anyone.
Speaker 3: Multi billionaires don't have access that much.
Speaker 4: We've got a half billion dollars just sitting around in cash, I.
Speaker 1: Mean literally about no one, right, maybe some like drug
Speaker 1: lord or something like that.
Speaker 4: It has to keep it in cash.
Speaker 1: But so this is this is I know there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of in the past. You know, liberal is
Speaker 1: always not as rich as he says, etcetera. As that
Speaker 1: which it probably isn't as rich as he says. But
Speaker 1: he is a very wealthy man. This is enough money
Speaker 1: that is a genuine threat to his personal cash financial position.
Speaker 1: There were some other news that I can't even believe
Speaker 1: that this name has resurfaced, but put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. Apparently Trump may enlist ready for this. Paul
Speaker 1: manifort back into his campaign. But in the way the
Speaker 1: watch the post frames this is, you know, just gives
Speaker 1: me like PTSD. He was criticized for Russia ties. Former
Speaker 1: campaign manager was pardoned by Trump for bank and tax
Speaker 1: fraud convictions and accusations he had hid millions that he
Speaker 1: made consulting for pro Russian Ukrainian politicians, including Yanikovich. You'll
Speaker 1: recall that whole Constantine Kolimnik situation to bring up some
Speaker 1: more blast from the past in terms of the Russia
Speaker 1: Gate narrative. You know, Manifort passed some polling to Kolimnik,
Speaker 1: who was tied in with Russian intelligence, and he legitimately,
Speaker 1: I think this part of the case against Manifort was legitimate.
Speaker 1: He made millions, he hit it in these offshore bank
Speaker 1: accounts so we wouldn't have to pay taxes on it.
Speaker 1: Led this incredibly luxurious lifestyle that he really didn't have
Speaker 1: the cash to completely afford, especially not if he was
Speaker 1: actually paying taxes.
Speaker 4: So that was what ended up bringing him down.
Speaker 1: But Sager, apparently Trump wants to bring him in particular,
Speaker 1: they say with regard to organizing the RNC.
Speaker 2: So what he did last time, Yeah, oh, that's true.
Speaker 4: That is what he did last time.
Speaker 1: He's a long time figure in Republican politics, going back
Speaker 1: to I mean, who was his first that he worked.
Speaker 2: For, Richard Nixon, so yeah, Paul Manifort and Stone, Roger Stone.
Speaker 3: That's right, geez, that's they.
Speaker 2: They had their own firm, and then Roger eventually went
Speaker 2: his own way. Maniffort kind of made his big name
Speaker 2: in washing, made tens of millions of dollars, representing like
Speaker 2: any regime in the world that wanted to hire him.
Speaker 2: This is always what annoyed me to They're calling me
Speaker 2: a Russian stooge, and like he's not a Russian stoo
Speaker 2: Jesus is a paid stood. She's like it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: have a grifter, oh o Bajan cool.
Speaker 3: You know, any regime.
Speaker 2: Out there, no matter who you are, whatever you're doing,
Speaker 2: what you're.
Speaker 3: Asking for, he would rep you. He would take your money.
Speaker 2: He didn't file for Farah, which is what the Mueller
Speaker 2: team got him.
Speaker 3: Onto Foreign Agent Registration Act. Here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, every lobbyist in town who's lobbying for these
Speaker 2: governments is.
Speaker 4: Well, I got him on taxing bank fraud.
Speaker 1: That far was was actually I mean he was stashing
Speaker 1: his money overseas and the's like Caribbean bank accounts and
Speaker 1: whatever to avoid paying taxes.
Speaker 3: Not defending the man.
Speaker 1: He is a very typical DC character, I guess is
Speaker 1: what I would say. He is far from the only
Speaker 1: one who will take whatever skeezee client from a you know, horrific, repressive,
Speaker 1: corrupt regime or whatever. Whoever has cash to pay there
Speaker 1: will to get in bed with.
Speaker 4: That's who Paul Maniford is.
Speaker 1: Trump apparently likes the fact that he you know, that
Speaker 1: he did time on his behalf and he stayed loyal.
Speaker 1: He wrote some book about you know, the Dutch state
Speaker 1: and how he's relically persecuted, et cetera, et cetera, And
Speaker 1: so Trump wants to get him back in the fold
Speaker 1: because he appreciated that loyalty. It's not a done deal yet,
Speaker 1: but at least according to this report, Trump is very
Speaker 1: inclined towards this because he appreciates the way Paul stood.
Speaker 4: Tall for him.
Speaker 3: He didn't take its plea deal right. Who is his dad?
Speaker 2: Forget his deep This is the thing. I've blacked all
Speaker 2: this moment stuff out of there because it was so useful.
Speaker 4: Paul Maniford even existed to be al Anatolia.
Speaker 3: Look Manafford, He's not.
Speaker 2: A terrible political operative serial old school. He almost certainly
Speaker 2: would do a fine job at the R and C.
Speaker 2: He was pardoned right by Trump, so it'd be one
Speaker 2: of that. He's not technically a fellon I guess, or.
Speaker 3: Maybe he was, I'm not maybe he was commuted or something.
Speaker 3: I'm not one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 2: But my point is is just that look for the
Speaker 2: job that they're asking him to do, he'd probably be fine.
Speaker 2: He did a fine enough job last time around. The
Speaker 2: Muller investigation never found any you know, trying to influence
Speaker 2: the RNC or any of these other shenanigans that were
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 3: So whatever, who cares.
Speaker 2: He probably is more competent than some of the other
Speaker 2: idiots that Trump has around him from time to time.
Speaker 2: The other thing we wanted to highlight around Trump is
Speaker 2: that he is pressing hard for a debate with Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: He made it a truth social post about this yesterday,
Speaker 2: also raise it in a recent Fox News interview. Let's
Speaker 2: take a listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 11: And you want to debate Joe Biden an take him
Speaker 11: any place an I'll leave in debate him on your show. Well,
Speaker 11: I'll be happy to ho I'll do it anytime, any place.
Speaker 3: But any time any plays Crystal.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, though, Biden seems to be pressing back a little
Speaker 2: bit against this, if we could put this up there.
Speaker 2: He recently was asked about it and said, quote, I
Speaker 2: don't know if he's serious. I don't know if he's
Speaker 2: serious when he's asked whether he was going to debate
Speaker 2: Trump ahead of the twenty twenty four election. The reason
Speaker 2: that's noteworthy to me, Crystal, is that that is not
Speaker 2: about will you debate him?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 2: That's if you will debate him ever, and I mean increasingly,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Increasingly, it does look likely that Biden
Speaker 2: may back out. That said, because Trump has committed to
Speaker 2: any time, any place, he even said he would participate
Speaker 2: in a DNC debate anything that's either with the Commission
Speaker 2: on Presidential Debates or elsewhere, it does seem like the
Speaker 2: onus is on Biden to then try and work within
Speaker 2: that framework.
Speaker 3: I'm curious.
Speaker 2: I mean, if I were him, I also wouldn't want
Speaker 2: a debate, right, you know, you don't necessarily want that
Speaker 2: on display for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if he could do an even serviceable job,
Speaker 1: he should do it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, because as we saw with I mean from
Speaker 4: a democracy standpoint.
Speaker 1: Obviously he should do it. Okay, let's just talk about
Speaker 1: political tactics. If we saw with the State of the Union,
Speaker 1: how low the bar is for Joe Biden for the
Speaker 1: media to declare him a victor. I mean, if he
Speaker 1: can come out in a debate against Trump and even
Speaker 1: do okay, then I think this would benefit him tremendously
Speaker 1: because this is the big questionesson that people have in
Speaker 1: their minds. It is certainly one of the biggest questions
Speaker 1: people have in their minds about Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: Just is he up to the desk.
Speaker 1: So if you get him on the you know, whatever
Speaker 1: the right drug cocktail is that they've put him on
Speaker 1: before that worked out for the Stay of the Union,
Speaker 1: worked out for him several years ago, and that debate
Speaker 1: against Bernie Sanders. If they could have a confidence that
Speaker 1: he could even perform adequately, adequately, then I think this
Speaker 1: would be a win for him, because, you know, the
Speaker 1: expectations for Trump are high. He is seen as a performer.
Speaker 1: He's seen as, you know, this sort of political animal
Speaker 1: who can get up in front of a crowd and
Speaker 1: really do his thing. His debates against Hillary Clinton and
Speaker 1: the Republican GOP cast of characters back in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: are still legendary. That's still the expectation people have for him.
Speaker 1: The expectations for Joe Biden are literally on the floor, So.
Speaker 4: You know that's but that's the question.
Speaker 1: Does his staff even think that he can perform he
Speaker 1: can meet those incredibly, incredibly low expectations. And I think
Speaker 1: that's probably what being is debated behind the scenes right now.
Speaker 2: So obviously, I mean, I think a position is clear. Democratically,
Speaker 2: they should all debate. In fact, they should have way
Speaker 2: more than three debates. The current CPD structure is completely stupid.
Speaker 2: There were many times in the past we had a
Speaker 2: lot more debates, or we could have one big debate
Speaker 2: and it could be several hours long. There's no reason
Speaker 2: that foreign policy should be the last, like the ugly
Speaker 2: stepchild debate.
Speaker 4: They're always actually right now.
Speaker 2: The economy debate the foreign policy but it's like, well,
Speaker 2: hold on, who asked for that? Also, the current format
Speaker 2: is totally rigged by the CPD and all that. I've
Speaker 2: done some monologues on this. The town hall format as well,
Speaker 2: which I do like, but as long as it needs
Speaker 2: to be more raucous, it needs to be less pre screened.
Speaker 2: So there are a lot of ways that we could
Speaker 2: get to that. But if I were the Biden team,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking purely selfishly, even though I do believe
Speaker 2: that he should debate, I probably wouldn't do it because
Speaker 2: the vast majority of evidence that we have says that
Speaker 2: the debates don't matter at all whenever it comes to
Speaker 2: the polls, unless there is an insane moment, and even
Speaker 2: then it has to have been in.
Speaker 3: The media monoculture era.
Speaker 2: These days, most people know who they're voting for. They
Speaker 2: may or they make up their minds close to election day,
Speaker 2: and their minds are not swayed by a debate clip.
Speaker 3: It's usually like, hey, what's the price of gas today?
Speaker 2: Are like, oh, well, yeah, I guess my bank account
Speaker 2: is doing when people vote for all kinds of reasons,
Speaker 2: my only point being that there's enough political science debate
Speaker 2: that if you think that the risk is high enough
Speaker 2: of him having a complete brain short, I wouldn't do
Speaker 2: it if I were him, which is tragic because I
Speaker 2: think that's probably where he'll end up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I need more information about what his actual
Speaker 1: condition is fair enough to make that judgment, because I
Speaker 1: agree with you. Typically debates don't matter, even though our
Speaker 1: perception is that they do, and they can temporarily have
Speaker 1: an impact in the polls, but by and large, geopolitical
Speaker 1: science says they don't have a huge impact. I think
Speaker 1: if they were ever going to matter, though, it would
Speaker 1: be right now. And that's because that question of his
Speaker 1: age and his capabilities is so central to people's concerns.
Speaker 1: So if he was able to turn in a you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, an adequate I don't even want to
Speaker 1: go to the level of solid right, an adequate, non
Speaker 1: embarrassed saying no, remember that time, as I like exploded
Speaker 1: on stage, Like, nothing like that can happen.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay?
Speaker 1: If he remember the first debate he had with Trump
Speaker 1: last time around, he actually won, not because he did
Speaker 1: such a great job, but because Trump was so fricking obnoxious.
Speaker 1: If you could guarantee you could turn in that level
Speaker 1: of performance again, I think it would be well worth it,
Speaker 1: and I think it could actually have a lasting impact,
Speaker 1: because you know, the one off of him doing all
Speaker 1: right at the State of the Union reading from a
Speaker 1: teleprompter that is going to fade. People need more proof
Speaker 1: of life from him before they're going to be comfortable
Speaker 1: showing up again and handing him another four years. So
Speaker 1: for that reason, I do think it could potentially be
Speaker 1: more consequential than debates typically are. So listen, Obviously I'm
Speaker 1: cheering for them to get in the ring, and I
Speaker 1: do want to reflect on the fact that already we
Speaker 1: have sort of accepted and normalized the idea that these
Speaker 1: people don't have Even people seeking the highest office in
Speaker 1: the land don't have to debate. Joe Biden didn't debate
Speaker 1: his primary opponents. Donald Trump didn't debate his primary opponents.
Speaker 1: So it's not like Trump would be able to use
Speaker 1: against Joe Biden like, oh, you won't even debate, you
Speaker 1: don't want a debate. I mean, I'm sure people tried
Speaker 1: to do that, but you can turn right around, Okay,
Speaker 1: well you wouldn't debate Nikki Haley, you wouldn't debate Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 1: So we've sort of already broken that norm of expecting
Speaker 1: these people to have to subject themselves to that process.
Speaker 4: I think that's a tremendous loss for the country.
Speaker 3: I genuinely do totally agree. I mean, think about this.
Speaker 2: The last time that the two of these men debated
Speaker 2: was the twenty twenty election back during COVID Right it's
Speaker 2: the last time that we saw either of these men
Speaker 2: who want to represent us for another four years that
Speaker 2: were on the stage, and the likelihood that we will
Speaker 2: see them again on the stage appears to be less
Speaker 2: and less, which is genuinely.
Speaker 3: Look, here's the other reason.
Speaker 2: Why debates matter, because sometimes when they become president, you're like, hey,
Speaker 2: during the debate, you set that out to do this,
Speaker 2: and then you didn't do it, So why did you
Speaker 2: change your mind?
Speaker 3: That happened. That happens a lot.
Speaker 2: That's why getting people on the record is so important,
Speaker 2: not for media purposes, for your purposes.
Speaker 3: The league can actually hold people accountable.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of reasons why this is really
Speaker 2: really bad, but unfortunately does look like that's where things
Speaker 2: are headed.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, we are expected to get an RFK junior
Speaker 1: vice presidential announcement next.
Speaker 4: Week's right next Tuesday.
Speaker 1: And there was a leak some potentially accurate, I don't
Speaker 1: know reporting from media. They seem to have an inn
Speaker 1: in the RFK Junior campaign.
Speaker 4: Mediaite.
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll see, Yeah, we'll see just plans cans out
Speaker 2: some of this, we'll talk, Okay.
Speaker 1: So here's who they are saying is going to be
Speaker 1: rfk's pick, woman named Nicole Shanahan, who they describe as
Speaker 1: a California based attorney and entrepreneur once married to Google
Speaker 1: co founder Sergey Brinn. That is who Mediaite is claiming
Speaker 1: that RFK Junior is going to pick. Shanahan has apparently
Speaker 1: already been involved with the campaign, at least from an
Speaker 1: arms length distance. She was the one who funded and
Speaker 1: put together that That's Kennedy super Bowl commercial that we
Speaker 1: showed you that was like heavy on the Kennedian nostalgia
Speaker 1: that we both thought was very effective.
Speaker 4: And very smart.
Speaker 1: And so she obviously, having divorced Sergey Brin, has a
Speaker 1: good amount of money to lend to the effort, and
Speaker 1: according to their source at Mediaite, that is a key
Speaker 1: part of.
Speaker 4: His interest in her.
Speaker 1: They said, quote, she might be infusing millions of dollars
Speaker 1: in the campaign to help fund the ballot initiative. That's
Speaker 1: the effort to get his name on the ballots, which
Speaker 1: makes her attractive financially. However, this source and I guess
Speaker 1: this is why they're leaking it to Mediaite, lacks. They
Speaker 1: say she lacks the qualifications to actually do the job.
Speaker 1: They also say that she aligns with him on numerous issues.
Speaker 1: The campaign is also looking for a canon and who
Speaker 1: can help finance the ballot access initiative that will be
Speaker 1: crucial if Kennedy stands a chance of competing in the election.
Speaker 4: So, to be.
Speaker 1: Honest with you, this is the first I'd heard of her.
Speaker 1: Apparently there was some dust up with the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal where they had reported that while she was separated
Speaker 1: from Sir Gaybrin but still married to him not yet divorced,
Speaker 1: that she and Elon Musk had an affair. Musk vociferously
Speaker 1: denied this. It was also reported this was like, you know,
Speaker 1: real rupturous one could understand, and his relationship with Sir Gaybriyn.
Speaker 4: So there was that whole situation.
Speaker 1: Everyone involved, I think, basically denies this happen, but the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal stands by it.
Speaker 4: So make of that what you love, Listen.
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Yes, when I heard he know, boy scout himself, mister Bryann,
Speaker 2: I'll just leave it at that. But from what we understand,
Speaker 2: at least with some of the reporting, the only reason
Speaker 2: I knew who she was is because she was married
Speaker 2: to Sarah gay Brand, but also because I knew that
Speaker 2: she had donated quite a bit of money to the
Speaker 2: RFK Junior super Pac previously. Yeah, which does raise some
Speaker 2: questions here about pay to play. If she does get
Speaker 2: the eventual tap for vice president, don't forget this is
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent done. RFK Junior was asked about
Speaker 2: this last night on Chris by Chris Kuoma.
Speaker 3: He said he was considering her.
Speaker 2: He was, yeah, he did not say that he you know,
Speaker 2: she was officially the picker any of that. We still
Speaker 2: have Aaron Rodgers who was in the running, Mike Rowe,
Speaker 2: some of these other individuals, Tulsi Gabbard as well, Andrew Yang.
Speaker 2: Apparently these are all people that the domain names at
Speaker 2: least for all these people had been registered. They've been approached.
Speaker 2: We don't know, you know who is in the running
Speaker 2: or not. Tulsi was asked I would know about running
Speaker 2: as Trump's vice president. She did seem to answer affirmatively
Speaker 2: as if she would be willing to do something like that.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen. In terms
Speaker 2: of the reporting, this is from a guy I really trust,
Speaker 2: Teddy Schleipper. We've had him on the show previously. He
Speaker 2: does a really good job covering Silicon Valley specifically, and
Speaker 2: he says, forget Aaron Rodgers, what if the next vice
Speaker 2: president is Nicole Shanahan. There's a lot of buzz in
Speaker 2: the RFK Junior circle that Shanahan, who's that philanthropist in
Speaker 2: the native of Oakland where Kennedy VP is soon to
Speaker 2: take place, could be the choice. Of course, nor decision
Speaker 2: is final. This is from the RFK Junior campaign itself.
Speaker 2: They say, oh boy, this media. They were sure that
Speaker 2: about Aaron, Now they're sure about Nicole. Tomorrow they'll be
Speaker 2: sure about somebody else. The truth is they're just going
Speaker 2: to have to wait until we all get to celebrate
Speaker 2: Bobby's brilliant running met together in ten days. Well, I
Speaker 2: can't share a name. I will say I could not
Speaker 2: be more thrilled with this decision. He ran a thorough
Speaker 2: process and he's chosen a vice president who is truly
Speaker 2: worthy of the American people. So I guess that will
Speaker 2: be the big the big question Crystal as to who
Speaker 2: exactly he does pick. I am not as sure maybe
Speaker 2: as she is, that the pick is actually certain, because
Speaker 2: this is what people do all the time. They float
Speaker 2: them and then see what the reception is. Yeah, Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 2: Maybe how the sports world freak, you know, how can
Speaker 2: he handle the attention? What about Mike row Mike Rowe
Speaker 2: seems to have micro you know, posted positively about it.
Speaker 3: What about Jesse Ventura? Ryan and I talked about that.
Speaker 3: I actually think just would be a cool pick. I
Speaker 3: like Jesse. Jesse. He's a while man. That's why I
Speaker 3: love him. Listen, we control that, man.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you he's going to do.
Speaker 3: What is going for it. Let's go for it. Okay,
Speaker 3: Let's not pick some Google arress or whatever.
Speaker 2: Let's pick somebody who's really gonna shake things up, because
Speaker 2: that's what he's claiming.
Speaker 3: So anyways, I have no idea.
Speaker 2: That said, though, the recent actions by the White House
Speaker 2: show that there's still not one hundred percent writing off
Speaker 2: the RFK Junior campaign. They are definitely still looking at
Speaker 2: him as a little bit of a threat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let man get to that in one minute.
Speaker 1: I just want to say a couple more things about
Speaker 1: Nicole Shanahan. First of all, if it is her, it
Speaker 1: does say something about the way they're thinking about the
Speaker 1: biggest challenges in the campaign. It reveals that having the
Speaker 1: money to get on the ballot is the number one.
Speaker 3: So then maybe it's a good strategy if you if.
Speaker 1: You were primarily concerned about electoral appeal. I mean, no
Speaker 1: offense to Nicole Shanner. This is the first I've heard
Speaker 1: of her. I have a zero opinion of her, positive, negative,
Speaker 1: or otherwise. Although it does say that she was a
Speaker 1: bundler for Pete bootaegidch so I do hold that against her.
Speaker 1: But and I'll tell you a little bit more about
Speaker 1: what we know about her politics in a minute. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you were really looking for an electoral pop,
Speaker 1: I think you would go for more of a celebrity
Speaker 1: household name Rogers to add to the Kennedy name. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that probably would make more sense elector I
Speaker 1: don't know necess I mean maybe people freaking love these
Speaker 1: you know athletics.
Speaker 2: I said last time, we should think it's just it's
Speaker 2: a headline. It's everybody in America.
Speaker 4: Everyone talk about it. You couldn't help but talk about it.
Speaker 8: This.
Speaker 1: You know, Nicole Shanahan, no one knows who she Very
Speaker 1: few people know who she is, So it doesn't really
Speaker 1: impact the ticket one way or another. I mean, and
Speaker 1: perhaps that is part of the calculus too, that RFK
Speaker 1: Junior wants to be the guy on the ticket. Right,
Speaker 1: If you're r K Junior and Jesse Ventura, Jesse Ventura
Speaker 1: is a gigantic personality.
Speaker 4: You are not going to outshine jesse Ventura.
Speaker 1: No, I don't care who you are in this great nation,
Speaker 1: you are not going to outshine Jesse Ventura. So perhaps
Speaker 1: that's part of the calculus as well. Her politics up
Speaker 1: to this point, she's been very focused on, you know,
Speaker 1: what would read as sort of traditionally liberal positions. She's
Speaker 1: been very focused on reproductive health and just as she
Speaker 1: talked in this interview that she gave to Teddy Schleie
Speaker 1: for a while ago, non connection to this RFK Junior chat,
Speaker 1: but she talked about how that was really important to her.
Speaker 1: She talks a lot about the invite being very important
Speaker 1: to her. Of course, that has been you know, part
Speaker 1: of Bobby Kennedy's career as a lawyer as well. So
Speaker 1: you can see how they may they may be simpatico there.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen anything about like you know, vaccines or
Speaker 1: COVID or any of those pieces. There were more sort
Speaker 1: of traditional standard liberal positions that were at least identified
Speaker 1: in this interview which also meshes with the fact that
Speaker 1: she was apparently behind Pete Bootage right the last time around.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's the little bit that we know about her.
Speaker 1: But yes, Soccer, you are correct that there is apparently
Speaker 1: this is a great display of pettiness, I think coming
Speaker 1: from the White House. So on Saint Patrick's Day they
Speaker 1: hosted at the White House with Joe Biden. Like the
Speaker 1: entire Kennedy clan minus RFK Junior.
Speaker 4: Let's go and put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Kennedy family sons RFK Junior poses with Biden at the
Speaker 1: White House. I mean, if you look at the picture,
Speaker 1: I don't think we have the picture. We should have
Speaker 1: grabbed that. But if you look at the picture, there's
Speaker 1: dozens of Kennedy's there and very conspicuously absent RFK Junior.
Speaker 1: In addition, Carrie Kennedy, one of mister Kennedy's sisters, posted
Speaker 1: that picture of the family on Twitter at the White
Speaker 1: House with mister Biden and said President Biden, you make
Speaker 1: the world better, little lie. Mister Biden responded to the
Speaker 1: post sager from one proud Irish family to another, it
Speaker 1: was good.
Speaker 4: To have you all back at the White House.
Speaker 1: So definitely appointed job there at RFK Junior, and they've
Speaker 1: also enlisted Liz Smith and others to directly try to
Speaker 1: combat the third party efforts, not only from r K Junior,
Speaker 1: but Cornell West, Jill Stein and potentially others.
Speaker 2: So yes, look, I think they're taking it seriously, which
Speaker 2: they need to. They should take it seriously. Well, and
Speaker 2: that's look, you maybe change my mind a little bit.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons why I.
Speaker 2: Said Aaron Rodgers because everybody knows Aaron Rodgers is super famous,
Speaker 2: and that would possibly lead to a groundswell of campaign donations,
Speaker 2: and then you can get on the ballot. The other ways,
Speaker 2: you pick a rich lady and she pays for your
Speaker 2: back access. Right, not a bad strategy. So if anything,
Speaker 2: let's just give people the option. Everything is about options,
Speaker 2: But putting your name on that ballot, if it's going
Speaker 2: to cost twenty five thirty fifty million dollars or something
Speaker 2: like that, it's probably just more efficient to pick somebody
Speaker 2: who has that on tap, or who knows a bunch
Speaker 2: of other rich people who are bundlers. So it could
Speaker 2: be that that is the correct strategy, And especially if
Speaker 2: this is an inoffensive pick, you know, in some ways,
Speaker 2: you know, RFK Junior, just because he is such a
Speaker 2: lightning rod in so many ways. You pick somebody who's
Speaker 2: a blank slate and people don't know very much about.
Speaker 2: That's also not terrible. You know, Aaron himself, him and
Speaker 2: Bobby are very aligned on certain policies, just specifically whenever
Speaker 2: it comes to COVID that could lead to more of
Speaker 2: a valance on the campaign that he doesn't want. He
Speaker 2: wants it to just be blank, blank slate, such as
Speaker 2: you could project anything that you want on top of it,
Speaker 2: and that's probably his best bet to eat into any
Speaker 2: of the margins.
Speaker 3: Whenever it comes to the general election.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, we'll see. I mean, number one
Speaker 1: hurdle is getting on the ballot. So if this is
Speaker 1: going to help you achieve that aim, it probably is
Speaker 1: right goal. Again with all the caveats that we don't
Speaker 1: even really know if this Nicole Shanahan is going to
Speaker 1: be the pick or not. Although listen, in addition it
Speaker 1: to being in Oakland, which she is, size you whatever,
Speaker 1: she is from Oakland, they also did register Kennedy Shanahan,
Speaker 1: and you know that, but they also registered another of
Speaker 1: a number of different ones. So signs are pointing that
Speaker 1: she's at least in the running. That's confirmed by amyryalist
Speaker 1: Fox that she was certainly considered, although obviously they're not
Speaker 1: saying whether she is the pick yet or not. We
Speaker 1: will all wait and find out next week. Last Vcar,
Speaker 1: I just had to get this in because I love
Speaker 1: this article with the Saint Patrick's Day. Irish American tie
Speaker 1: in Al Jazeera did a great write up about how
Speaker 1: Ireland is disowning Joe Biden as one of their native sons.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Ireland, they say, has long been one of Palestine's foremost
Speaker 1: Western supporters. Country was the first EU member to endorse
Speaker 1: Palestine in state, and after October seven, Irish lawmakers were
Speaker 1: among the first in.
Speaker 4: The West to call for a ceasefire.
Speaker 1: The Irish public support is even more bust then they're politicians.
Speaker 1: About eighty percent of Irish people believe Israel is committing
Speaker 1: genocide in Gaza. Many have called for a boycott of
Speaker 1: a White House meeting that just occurred in light of
Speaker 1: this fear support, and Israeli minister recently told Palestinians to
Speaker 1: go to Ireland or the desert, and so the Irish
Speaker 1: public has largely turned on Joe Biden. In November, mural
Speaker 1: of Biden his ancestors hometown was spattered over with red
Speaker 1: paint along with the words genocide Joe. But they go
Speaker 1: on to interview also a bunch of Irish Americans who
Speaker 1: are similarly disgusted with the Israel, the unconditional support of
Speaker 1: Israel and the aiding and betting of what they and
Speaker 1: I see in icj says as plausibly a genocide, and
Speaker 1: so lots of great quotes here about just how disgusted
Speaker 1: they are with Joe Biden. You know, how seriously he
Speaker 1: takes his irishists, and how much he loves being part
Speaker 1: of this tribe.
Speaker 3: That's said Crystal.
Speaker 2: The Irish PM was here in Washington like yesterday, and
Speaker 2: I think talked to Biden at the grid Iron dinner.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, maybe it's not.
Speaker 1: He's sech some pretty pointed things though about Palestinian the civilians.
Speaker 2: His name Vard car something Leo Verodkar, I forget. I
Speaker 2: also they refer to him as something different like that.
Speaker 2: I'm not even gonna try and pronounce it starts with
Speaker 2: a T.
Speaker 10: Whatever.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Irish people, I'm married.
Speaker 2: I guess I should know this, but where anyway, as
Speaker 2: I understand it, he's still here, mister Verrod Carr was
Speaker 2: here in Washington. I know for sure at this very
Speaker 2: fancy party because there were images that came out of
Speaker 2: him and Biden. But you are right that Biden takes
Speaker 2: his Irishness very very seriously, to the point where.
Speaker 3: He was like, didn't want to meet.
Speaker 2: He didn't want to what was it appear too obsequious
Speaker 2: to the royal family because of his Irish American heritage,
Speaker 2: which is a whole other thing that I won't get
Speaker 2: it too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so apparently the Prime Minister made some very pointed
Speaker 1: comments about why the Irish have such historic empathy with
Speaker 1: the Palestinians, with Biden having to stand there.
Speaker 3: Oh, that makes sense, that did occur, Okay.
Speaker 2: At the same time, there has been a titanic development
Speaker 2: in the real estate market brought everybody that details previously
Speaker 2: of a lawsuit filed against the National Association of Realtors
Speaker 2: by a group of sellers who are saying that they're
Speaker 2: buying and selling commission prices were artificially high, thus seeking
Speaker 2: and taking money away from them. So let's go ahe
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. As a
Speaker 2: result of that successful lawsuit, there has now been an
Speaker 2: agreement by the National Association of Realtors that will do
Speaker 2: away with the automatic six percent commission in which the
Speaker 2: buyer's agent splits the commission with the seller. So I
Speaker 2: know that this is a little bit complicated, but effectively
Speaker 2: what it boils down to is that the taking away
Speaker 2: of this automatic commission free structure commission structure which has
Speaker 2: been in place crystal for now the last thirty years,
Speaker 2: it will open up and reduce the amount of commission
Speaker 2: that both sellers and by buyers will sell overall. Currently,
Speaker 2: as I said, the national average of real estate commission
Speaker 2: is five point five to seven percent roughly six especially
Speaker 2: in a higher end market. It is now being projected
Speaker 2: that that will drop to some one to one point
Speaker 2: five percent, meaning that the sellers will be able to
Speaker 2: hold onto a significant chunk more of their money, and
Speaker 2: that the automatic nature in which the buyer's agent does
Speaker 2: not take a fee from the buyer and then splits
Speaker 2: the commission with the seller, takes away any potential conflict
Speaker 2: of interests where the buyer technically is working for the
Speaker 2: seller has a direct financial incentive to possibly work and
Speaker 2: to collude and to keep prices artificially high. This means
Speaker 2: that the lack of upfront fee gives consumers a lot
Speaker 2: more optionality. They could then opt into entering a negotiation
Speaker 2: with that buyer's agent in the beginning and be like, look, okay,
Speaker 2: we will pay you three percent fee, but I need
Speaker 2: a ton of concierge service. No, I'm actually only going
Speaker 2: to pay you ten grand. I'm just going to pay
Speaker 2: you cash upfront. So it's going to open up all
Speaker 2: kinds of interesting possibilities. And most importantly, this is a huge,
Speaker 2: huge blow to anybody who is in the real estate
Speaker 2: game right now and who has been frankly making a
Speaker 2: killing from what I really perceive here as like a
Speaker 2: cartel red seeking behavior.
Speaker 3: The more and more that I researched the entire thing so.
Speaker 1: The way it currently works, just to try to break
Speaker 1: this down, because to be honest with you, though I've
Speaker 1: purchased a home, I didn't really know the ins and
Speaker 1: outs of how this all worked, which is partly by
Speaker 1: design that you don't even really understand the fee structures
Speaker 1: and what you're signing up for here. So the seller
Speaker 1: side pays both agents both the agent representing the seller
Speaker 1: and the agent representing the buyer. Right, Okay, if you
Speaker 1: are the buyer's agent, you know from the MLS listings,
Speaker 1: what the commission is going to be on each of
Speaker 1: the houses that you're showing. Your client doesn't know that.
Speaker 1: So you have an incentive to show and prioritize and
Speaker 1: hype for your client the listings that are going to
Speaker 1: secure the highest commission for you, not necessarily the listings
Speaker 1: that are most ideal for your client. Now, of course
Speaker 1: they would claim, and I'm sure there's just through many
Speaker 1: cases that listen. If you don't do a good job
Speaker 1: and you don't sell any house, then you don't get
Speaker 1: any commission. And so you have every incentive to, you know,
Speaker 1: actually show the listings that will be most specifically you know, tailor.
Speaker 4: Made for your client.
Speaker 1: But you do have this, you know, financial incentive to
Speaker 1: show the ones with the highest commissions, which again your
Speaker 1: client has no access to and no way of really
Speaker 1: knowing in advance what the commission.
Speaker 4: Is going to be in any given house.
Speaker 1: In addition, because of the way this market works right now,
Speaker 1: and we should say this works this way in the US,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work this way most of the world because
Speaker 1: of the way this works and the feebing paid in
Speaker 1: fronted all on the seller's side that has also that
Speaker 1: basically gets put into the price of the house, and
Speaker 1: so it artificially elevates house prices by a certain amount
Speaker 1: as well. So one of the expectations here is that
Speaker 1: this change in the fee structure and making this all
Speaker 1: transparent is going to potentially lower the actual listing prices
Speaker 1: of houses overall. Not that I'd expect like a huge shift,
Speaker 1: but this could be reflected in housing prices. Now, if
Speaker 1: you are the seller of a home, this is going
Speaker 1: to impact you because you're no longer on the hook
Speaker 1: for both sides of the transaction. If you are a buyer,
Speaker 1: now ultimately you were going to be paying this in
Speaker 1: terms of a higher housing price instead of paying it
Speaker 1: through your mortgage. Your higher housing price, you're now likely
Speaker 1: to have to pay something upfront. So I do think
Speaker 1: for a lot of buyers they will experience this as
Speaker 1: inferior because now you're gonna have to pony up some
Speaker 1: cash to your agent upfront, and you know, previously you
Speaker 1: were able to this was reflected in your mortgage, So
Speaker 1: this is rolled into you know, your expectation of everything
Speaker 1: in your agreement with the bank, et cetera. Now you
Speaker 1: may actually need to have that cash upfront, which eats
Speaker 1: into what you can pay in terms of down payment.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to say that this is, like
Speaker 1: you know, all around, going to be perceived as advantageous
Speaker 1: for everyone, even though I agree when this shakes out
Speaker 1: in the long term, I do think it is going
Speaker 1: to lead to lower costs being paid by both the
Speaker 1: buyer and the seller, a much more transparent market, and
Speaker 1: incentives being much more aligned between the agents themselves and
Speaker 1: the clients they're representing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then to address that, because I think it's
Speaker 2: a fair concern, we can put this Axios piece up
Speaker 2: on the screen. The reason I love this is because
Speaker 2: it's just all about options now whenever you're buying and
Speaker 2: you're selling. So, for example, as you just said, how
Speaker 2: will the buyers get paid? There's multiple possibilities. You can
Speaker 2: have a flat fee out of the buyer's pocket, so
Speaker 2: if you have the cash, great, you can just pay
Speaker 2: a simple fee, or the buyer will agree to pay
Speaker 2: then a percentage of that sale price to the broker,
Speaker 2: or even pay possibly an hourly rate, even better, maybe
Speaker 2: skip having.
Speaker 3: A broker at all.
Speaker 2: And then third, the realayes state industry is saying that
Speaker 2: a seller can still cover the buyer's agent fee, it
Speaker 2: will just have to be negotiated in the deal process.
Speaker 3: So let's say you.
Speaker 2: Want to roll this solid into your mortgage and you
Speaker 2: want to make it a part of this consolidation.
Speaker 3: Fine, that's within your purview.
Speaker 2: This means then that you have to be a little
Speaker 2: bit more educated, but you have a lot more financial options.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm not going to look right now.
Speaker 2: The average sale price in this country four hundred and
Speaker 2: seventeen thousand dollars. This is according to the FED. Six
Speaker 2: percent of that is twenty five grand. That's a lot
Speaker 2: of money. That's a third of the average salary in
Speaker 2: an entire year. Sure, when you tast spread it out
Speaker 2: across a mortgage, you know, you may not notice it
Speaker 2: as much.
Speaker 3: But let's not ignore this, Okay.
Speaker 2: That's how people in real estate have been making a
Speaker 2: ton of money just flipping you know, buys and sells
Speaker 2: and representing that. So this makes it so that especially
Speaker 2: lower quality realtors, they're they're done. Because what it means
Speaker 2: is that when you drop that average price to one
Speaker 2: to one point five all of the chaff that is
Speaker 2: currently amongst the one point five million people in this country,
Speaker 2: you have a real estate license. The vast majority of
Speaker 2: there's people very rarely make a sale in the first place.
Speaker 2: And this explains you know, I tweeted this kind of
Speaker 2: as a joke, but I think I've said it previously.
Speaker 2: I always wondered, you know, you always meet people in
Speaker 2: your life who are just like going around and they're
Speaker 2: always like, I'm studying for my real estate license, and
Speaker 2: I was like, why, I really wonder are they really
Speaker 2: making all this money? And you know, reading the details
Speaker 2: of this, I'm like, oh, yeah, they're making a ton
Speaker 2: of money. It's like you don't have to do all
Speaker 2: that much, especially in a high cost of living area
Speaker 2: where I mean here in the DMV. The average sale
Speaker 2: price in some neighborhoods in the DMV is a million bucks.
Speaker 2: So six percent of that is sixty thousand dollars that
Speaker 2: you can make off of a single transaction. You just
Speaker 2: do two and you've made a pretty good nut for
Speaker 2: some part time work. All of that going away just
Speaker 2: means that there's more power and ultimately too for sellers.
Speaker 2: Because housing is such a holder of equity and is
Speaker 2: the number one way that people reach a positive net
Speaker 2: worth in this country. This is very advantageous because it
Speaker 2: means that you can hold on to a lot more
Speaker 2: of your home equity whenever you do come time to
Speaker 2: realize that game, if and ever that you need to
Speaker 2: again twenty five thousand bucks, maybe fifty up to seventy thousand,
Speaker 2: you know, depending on the price of your home in
Speaker 2: any area, that can mean quite a bit for retirement,
Speaker 2: for inheritance, for a lot of other purposes.
Speaker 1: Listen, it is truly a seismic shift, and the industry
Speaker 1: is reacting as such.
Speaker 4: It really is huge. I think they'll probably be a period.
Speaker 1: Where things haven't settled out, where there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: different arrangements and people are trying to figure it out,
Speaker 1: probably settle into some new model that is sort of
Speaker 1: the typical and the standard, the default, while you'll have
Speaker 1: more optionality, asagas pointing out, but I think it'll take
Speaker 1: a while for that to shake out exactly how this
Speaker 1: is going to look going forward. You know, I do
Speaker 1: think in terms of the number of people who are realtors,
Speaker 1: especially like you said, those who aren't super high performing.
Speaker 4: It is going to be a real blow to their livelihood.
Speaker 1: I support a just transition for them, but I think
Speaker 1: overall it will make the market better for you know,
Speaker 1: the people who are actually trying to buy and sell homes.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you know, we could put this
Speaker 1: next piece up on the screen about just where the
Speaker 1: housing market is. Home prices continued to hit new highs.
Speaker 1: We had a new all time high in December.
Speaker 4: We had a.
Speaker 1: Period where prices had basically flatlined. But in most markets
Speaker 1: they have either you know, stayed stable or continued to rise.
Speaker 1: And prices, especially with you know, mortgage rates being significantly
Speaker 1: higher than they used to be, prices and affordability, it
Speaker 1: really is a disaster for people who are trying to
Speaker 1: get their first foot on the rung of the home
Speaker 1: ownership ladder. And I'm sorry, guys, but they are not
Speaker 1: predicting that there's any relief insight in terms of in
Speaker 1: terms of prices, and the expectation is that potentially this
Speaker 1: shift could lead to even more you know, housing demand
Speaker 1: and more churn in the market. But you still have
Speaker 1: a problem of low inventory that is that is, you know,
Speaker 1: really hindering things and really keeping prices at that incredibly
Speaker 1: elevated level.
Speaker 2: They're likely hood actually is that the housing market is
Speaker 2: only going to heat up even more because interest rates
Speaker 2: are already dropping. I believe that they average mortgage somewhere
Speaker 2: around six percent right now. The FED is projected to
Speaker 2: cut rates sometime in the middle of the summer, will
Speaker 2: probably settle around like four percent, which is not all
Speaker 2: that much higher where that things work in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: that's enough where there'll be some normalization the stick. You know,
Speaker 2: sellers will then have been relatively comfortable with the fact
Speaker 2: that prices have not been moving as much previously, and
Speaker 2: they're willing to press the button. But the problem has
Speaker 2: been on new construction. We don't have a lot of
Speaker 2: new construction inventory that's coming online, and in general, especially
Speaker 2: here in the Northeast, we have a massive housing crisis.
Speaker 3: Same thing in the coast.
Speaker 2: So I did a whole monologue yesterday about Census about
Speaker 2: where people are moving. Unsurprisingly, I went and I actually
Speaker 2: sent this to our group.
Speaker 3: Thing.
Speaker 2: If you look at new housing inventory dramatically, it is
Speaker 2: all in these red states with very little housing regulation.
Speaker 2: It's Texas, it's Florida, it's Tennessee. It's a lot of
Speaker 2: places with decent enough weather. But more importantly, they just
Speaker 2: have a lot more inventory. Yeah, cheaper stuff that's coming online.
Speaker 4: Is we've got to build more. We got to build
Speaker 4: orm and that's that's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: And we got to help people too, because these prices
Speaker 1: have gotten so high, and this is something that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden floated like a small solution for but we got
Speaker 1: to help people with the down payments because as it
Speaker 1: stands right now, the number of people who are first
Speaker 1: time home buyers who rely on you know, mom and
Speaker 1: dad or something other wealthy for under relative in order
Speaker 1: to be able to front a sufficient down payment has
Speaker 1: gone to all time highs, putting it out of reach
Speaker 1: and locking in these you know, generational wealth trends where
Speaker 1: if you don't have the luxury have grown up with
Speaker 1: a mom and dad who confront you that down payment,
Speaker 1: you're likely to be locked out of the housing market
Speaker 1: for a very long time, if not forever.
Speaker 3: On inheritance too.
Speaker 2: So I've been learning a lot about tax law, and
Speaker 2: there I've learned about the step up basis.
Speaker 3: I know we've talked about this previously.
Speaker 2: What an insane law where if you like, And this
Speaker 2: is the way that people really transfer wealth in this country.
Speaker 2: It's not about handing over dollars. You put all your
Speaker 2: money into real estate. Let's say you buy a house
Speaker 2: thirty five years ago. Whenever you die, the value of
Speaker 2: the house gets quote unquote stepped up to your heirs,
Speaker 2: meaning that let's say you bought a house for one
Speaker 2: hundred grand and it's worth a million bucks well upon
Speaker 2: your death when it transfers for your heirs, if they
Speaker 2: sell it, they don't sell.
Speaker 3: They don't pay any capital gain.
Speaker 2: Over the value of where it was when you died,
Speaker 2: not the value of the one hundred to nine hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars capital gain, So you actually have less of
Speaker 2: an incentive to sell if you want to have a
Speaker 2: more tax efficient way of transferring things over to your airs.
Speaker 2: It's a total loophole, and obviously you can understand why
Speaker 2: that leads to all these real estate barons just passing
Speaker 2: stuff down because then you can take, you know, refinance
Speaker 2: or whatever to pull value out of a mortgage out
Speaker 2: of the mortgage and then never pay any tax on
Speaker 2: any of this. So anyway, the more I learn about this,
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, this tax code is so rigid. Is
Speaker 2: the most insane thing I've ever learned.
Speaker 4: Although to be ho, listen, this is a whole other conversation.
Speaker 4: But given what we're funding an Injuril right now, I've
Speaker 4: never been more anti time than I am right now.
Speaker 1: I feel more libertarian every day. Like, you know what,
Speaker 1: these people got a freaking point.
Speaker 2: Well, what would be good is some sort of like
Speaker 2: the taxpayer has to have a referendum on certain things
Speaker 2: that they think you have to pay for. I actually
Speaker 2: I kind of liked that idea because then you know,
Speaker 2: anytime they want to spend extra month like Ukraine or
Speaker 2: something like that, they wanted sixty billion, It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: well then you have to prove as to why. I
Speaker 2: don't know if anybody knows this, but the total amount
Speaker 2: of our tax revenue that came brought in last year
Speaker 2: is now only enough to pay the interest on the
Speaker 2: debt right now. So there's a lot that's going on.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to the next part about Boeing. This
Speaker 2: is something we wanted to make sure we got into
Speaker 2: the show and update on the story we did yesterday.
Speaker 2: The Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who allegedly died by suicide.
Speaker 2: His friend came forward in an interview and said that
Speaker 2: there was no way that he killed himself, that he
Speaker 2: had told her previously if he was ever found dead
Speaker 2: by suicide, that it was almost certainly a result of
Speaker 2: the murder. Well, we are learning even more about the
Speaker 2: circumstances of his death, which are very fishy. Let's put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen. It turns out mister
Speaker 2: Barnett was planning to drive home to Louisiana after his
Speaker 2: deposition on March eighth, before Boeing lawyers asked him to
Speaker 2: stay one more day to finish his testimony. His body
Speaker 2: was then found on the morning of March ninth, so
Speaker 2: he was planning on going home. He stayed an extra
Speaker 2: day last minute. As a result of that last minute's stay,
Speaker 2: he is then found dead the next morning. Again Charleston
Speaker 2: police claiming that this is an apparent suicide from the circumstances,
Speaker 2: but a lot of the details do not continue to
Speaker 2: add up.
Speaker 3: Let's go to the next one.
Speaker 2: As they show mister Barnett was planning to start that
Speaker 2: drive after completing that testimony and then something quote happened
Speaker 2: overnight at his hotel room, and he has found dead
Speaker 2: the next morning. This is direct testimony here from the
Speaker 2: people who were involved. They say John was really tired
Speaker 2: and he didn't want to testify anymore that day. He
Speaker 2: wanted to drive home to Louisiana starting that evening as
Speaker 2: he had planned, told his mom he'd be home on Sunday,
Speaker 2: and it took him two days to drive home. I
Speaker 2: suggested we break for a week or two. The Boeing
Speaker 2: lawyers took the position no more depositions could be taken
Speaker 2: until mister Barnett had completed his testimony. Let's go to
Speaker 2: the next part here. This is especially important. The previous
Speaker 2: day Barnett was on a roll. The video camera had
Speaker 2: recorded the event. He testified for four hours in questioning.
Speaker 2: This was following seven hours of cross examination by Boeing lawyers.
Speaker 2: He was really happy telling his side of the story,
Speaker 2: excited to field our questions, and he was doing a
Speaker 2: great job.
Speaker 3: Quote, it was explosive stuff.
Speaker 2: As I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, this is the BET's
Speaker 2: witness I've ever seen. At one point, says his lawyer.
Speaker 2: The Boeing lawyer protested that Barnett was reciting the details
Speaker 2: of incidents from a decade ago and specific dates without
Speaker 2: looking at documents. As his lawyer recalled, Barnett fired back,
Speaker 2: I know these dogs documents inside and out. I have
Speaker 2: had to live it, so Cristal, from the interviews, from
Speaker 2: all the testimony. Now, this man was an explosive witness
Speaker 2: with deep knowledge as to Boeing misconduct, and then by
Speaker 2: Boeing's own request, he ends up staying an extra day
Speaker 2: and he's found dead in the next morning.
Speaker 3: So you can riddle me that one.
Speaker 4: If we can judge for themsel, yeah, you can make
Speaker 4: up your own mind of events. And this lawsuit was
Speaker 4: with regards to you know, he was a long time
Speaker 4: Boeing employee. Obviously according to this account and also interviews
Speaker 4: he's given.
Speaker 1: I mean this has been put on display for the public.
Speaker 1: He was had extraordinarily detailed knowledge. He was an extraordinarily
Speaker 1: compelling witness. This particular lawsuit had to do with his
Speaker 1: allegations that he was basically bullying and retalied against him.
Speaker 1: Pushed down because of, you know, raising the concerns some
Speaker 1: of which were we heard him raise in interviews.
Speaker 4: And have been documented. He wants to go home.
Speaker 1: Testimony is pushed by the Bowie side to continue for
Speaker 1: another day, and then he is found dead and his
Speaker 1: friend says he told him her explicitly that if he
Speaker 1: was found dead, it was not a suicide.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Very As I said before, it is very convenient for
Speaker 1: Boeing that this man is out of the way. They
Speaker 1: have perhaps never been under as much scrutiny as they
Speaker 1: are right now. The number of incidents involving Boeing planes
Speaker 1: that are you know, happening on a near daily basis
Speaker 1: are insane.
Speaker 4: Course.
Speaker 1: The situation with the door plug coming out, you know,
Speaker 1: and endangering the lives of everyone on board has invited
Speaker 1: incredible scrutiny, including a potential criminal investigation. So there is
Speaker 1: a lot on the line for Boeing right now. And
Speaker 1: mister Barnett was right at the heart of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, I would be remiss if I
Speaker 2: didn't mention that one of the things that mister Barnett
Speaker 2: had alleged in his whistleblowing lawsuit is charging that Boeing
Speaker 2: violated the Department of Labor statutes that he said it
Speaker 2: was unlawful to retaliate against a whistleblower.
Speaker 3: He had alleged whistleblower.
Speaker 2: Retaliation, and he was actually seeking compensation from the company
Speaker 2: as part of this lawsuit, saying he was blackballed and
Speaker 2: didn't deserve what he was owed to him because his
Speaker 2: bosses failed to heed all of the warnings that he
Speaker 2: had given them, and he said that he was suffering
Speaker 2: from PTSD as a result of the way that he
Speaker 2: was treated. So look, I think Boeing is going to
Speaker 2: try and say, oh, he's a mentally disturbed individual and
Speaker 2: all of that, But from all of the testimony that
Speaker 2: they have right now, I mean, it's just one where.
Speaker 3: Look so much at it too is so it's so sketchy.
Speaker 2: For example, they say that all of his stuff was
Speaker 2: packed up, you know, whenever he was found dead. Why
Speaker 2: would you pack something up if you thought you were
Speaker 2: if you're a warning commitsuice. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of things you know, in the overall like mini by
Speaker 2: minute account of his death and of how his body
Speaker 2: was found and all of that, that still doesn't make
Speaker 2: a lot of sense. This all took place at a
Speaker 2: holiday inn. I'd love to see some camera footage about
Speaker 2: that room and all that. But potentially, even if he
Speaker 2: was blackmailed, we have no idea certainly possible that he
Speaker 2: was mentally disturbed and fell pressure to this. But the
Speaker 2: more that we learn about it, that's sketchier and sketchier.
Speaker 2: The circumstances get so to flag.
Speaker 4: That for everybody there was one other.
Speaker 1: Well, there were a number of pieces of information this
Speaker 1: report that were new as far as I know, I
Speaker 1: recommend you read it. This was Yahoo, I believe that
Speaker 1: put this all together. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: they said was that when he was found there was
Speaker 1: some sort of a note that was with him. We
Speaker 1: don't know the contents of that note. We don't know
Speaker 1: what you know it allegedly says or didn't say. So
Speaker 1: that's another thing to keep an eye on. But obviously massive,
Speaker 1: massive questions here about the circumstances surrounding his death. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, all right, let's move on to the very
Speaker 1: latest out of Israel, and especially with regards to our
Speaker 1: government's unconditional support for their assault and annihilation of the
Speaker 1: Gaza Strip. We have more rhetorical pushback from the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: especially vis a VI BB net and Yahoo. This is
Speaker 1: Jake Sullivan yesterday talking about how Biden rejects the straw
Speaker 1: man that Phebe has laid out that invading Rafa is
Speaker 1: necessary to beat Hamas.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to how he framed.
Speaker 12: That the Israeli government is now talking about launching a
Speaker 12: major military operation in Rafa. The President the Prime Minister
Speaker 12: spoke at length about Rafa today. The President explained why
Speaker 12: he is so deeply concerned about the prospect of Israel
Speaker 12: conducting major military operations in Rafa, of the kind of
Speaker 12: conduct it in Gaza City and Conunis. First, more than
Speaker 12: a million people have taken refuge in Rafa. They went
Speaker 12: from Gaza City to Knunis and then to Rafa. They
Speaker 12: have nowhere else to go. Gaza's other major cities have
Speaker 12: largely been destroyed, and Israel has not presented us or
Speaker 12: the world with a plan for how or where they
Speaker 12: would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house
Speaker 12: them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation. Second,
Speaker 12: Rafa is a primary entry point for humanitarian assistants into
Speaker 12: Gaza from Eba and from Israel. An invasion would shut
Speaker 12: that down or at least put it at grave risk,
Speaker 12: right at the moment when it is most sorely needed. Third,
Speaker 12: Rafa is on the border with Egypt, which has voiced
Speaker 12: its deep alarm over a major military operation there and
Speaker 12: has even raised questions about its future relationship with Israel
Speaker 12: as a result of any impending military operation. Now the
Speaker 12: President has rejected and did again today the straw man
Speaker 12: that raising questions about RAFA is the same as raising
Speaker 12: questions about defeating Hamas.
Speaker 3: That's just nonsense.
Speaker 12: Our position is that Hamash should not be allowed to
Speaker 12: save Haven and Rafa or anywhere else, but a major
Speaker 12: ground operation there.
Speaker 3: Would be a mistake.
Speaker 12: It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worse in
Speaker 12: the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza,
Speaker 12: and further isolate Israel internationally. More importantly, the key goals
Speaker 12: Israel wants to achieve and RAFA can be done by
Speaker 12: other means. On the call today, and Biden asked the
Speaker 12: Prime Minister to send a senior interagency team composed of military,
Speaker 12: intelligence and humanitarian officials to Washington in the coming days
Speaker 12: to hear US concerns about Israel's current RAFA planning and
Speaker 12: to lay out an alternative approach that would target key
Speaker 12: Hamas elements in RAFA and secure the egypt Gods of
Speaker 12: border without a major ground invasion.
Speaker 4: So there you go again, Sager.
Speaker 1: I'm curious your reaction by, you know, sort of upping
Speaker 1: the anti in terms of the level of rhetoric. What
Speaker 1: I'm not hearing is still any actual concrete policy change.
Speaker 2: Look, I think that they're trying. I mean, from their perspective,
Speaker 2: they have tried to delay this as long as they have.
Speaker 2: They believe that it was a they believe it's been successful,
Speaker 2: at least so far, because it hasn't happened. From what
Speaker 2: I understand, there is a new hostage negotiation temporary ceasefire
Speaker 2: thing happening right in Qatar.
Speaker 3: I don't know lived through this movie before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're supposed to get that done before Ramadan.
Speaker 2: We've lived through many of these movies before. That said,
Speaker 2: people are still talking. It's not necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 2: They're trying to forestall it at the very least. I
Speaker 2: think what the Biden administration's tried to do is hold
Speaker 2: off any sort of assault during the month of Ramadan,
Speaker 2: which he is really cleep saying that they won't do.
Speaker 2: But then they still haven't done it, at least so far.
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure. What I do know is that
Speaker 2: increasingly that from the White House's perspective, there's been spit
Speaker 2: in the face now so many times that they are
Speaker 2: beginning to look ridiculous, where they're like, well, we've asked
Speaker 2: he's realies to do this and it's not happening. Well,
Speaker 2: we've asked he's really to do this, and it's not happening.
Speaker 2: And they rely on obfuscations or just non acknowledgment. And
Speaker 2: in this particular case, if there is a rubicon cross
Speaker 2: with RAFA invasion, it would just be even more humiliating
Speaker 2: to them. But again, from the Israeli perspective, wiser why
Speaker 2: would they heed their warning?
Speaker 3: There's no reason to do it.
Speaker 2: Biden literally set himself on tape on camera that he
Speaker 2: will never condition AID to Israel.
Speaker 4: Says that will never leave Israel.
Speaker 3: That's it's like, okay, so you can have Jake.
Speaker 4: Sullivan on here pushing back on your straw man and
Speaker 4: all you want.
Speaker 1: You said you would ever leave Israel, You said you
Speaker 1: would never condition Aid, you know, specifically called out Iron Dome.
Speaker 1: But you know, in this same sentence where he's supposedly
Speaker 1: laying on a red line, he's immediately saying, well, there
Speaker 1: really is no red line. And again words are fine.
Speaker 1: BB does not care about words. That is very clear.
Speaker 1: So they had to escalate from like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: leaks that used to come with our having tough conversations
Speaker 1: to now come into the podium and doing some rhetorical
Speaker 1: pushback and you know, green lighting Schumer's speech calling for newgaver.
Speaker 1: These you know, these things are not where I'm going
Speaker 1: to show you a few more noteworthy comments from other
Speaker 1: Democratic politicians. As long as there is no change in policy,
Speaker 1: it literally doesn't matter. And I don't think that they
Speaker 1: have pushed back anything with regard to RAFA. Remember we
Speaker 1: were looking at those reports when bbe started talking about
Speaker 1: going into Rath and it became clear they had these plans, saying, well,
Speaker 1: they're not really ready to do this right now.
Speaker 4: We saw this.
Speaker 1: Haratz had a whole analysis of like, they're one hundred
Speaker 1: percent going to go in, but they're not prepared.
Speaker 4: They don't have the troops on the ground, they don't
Speaker 4: have the plan worked up, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: So it's no surprise that has taken a while for
Speaker 1: them to be able to execute on these plans.
Speaker 4: But make no mistake about it. Jake Sullivan calling them
Speaker 4: out for their straw.
Speaker 1: Man is not going to dissuade them from continuing the
Speaker 1: horrors that we have seen, as none of the rhetoric
Speaker 1: has dissuaded them from continuing, for example, starving this entire population.
Speaker 4: Put a pin in that.
Speaker 1: Because I've got more on that, I think part of
Speaker 1: the context. Let's put this next piece up on the
Speaker 1: screen for why you're seeing this different rhetoric from the
Speaker 1: Biden White House is because they have finally belatedly realized
Speaker 1: that his unconditional support for Israel is a disaster for
Speaker 1: his electoral aspirations. This NBC News report is so revealing
Speaker 1: on a number of levels, so headline here. Behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: Biden has grown angry and anxious about re election effort.
Speaker 1: In a private meeting at the White House in January,
Speaker 1: allies of the president just told him his poll numbers
Speaker 1: in Michigan and Georgia, kind of important states, had dropped
Speaker 1: over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas,
Speaker 1: both their battleground states he narrowly won four years ago.
Speaker 1: As we all know, he began to shout and swear.
Speaker 1: A lawmaker familiar with the meeting said he believed he
Speaker 1: had been doing what was right despite the political fallout,
Speaker 1: he told the group. So I think that part is
Speaker 1: in some ways the most revealing soccer because it's not
Speaker 1: like he's rethinking what he did. He still thinks he's right.
Speaker 1: He's just upset about the political fallout, which is why
Speaker 1: they're attempting this messaging shift from war behind Israel to
Speaker 1: we have problems with what Israel is doing, We're just
Speaker 1: too impotent in and effective to.
Speaker 4: Actually change course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: At the same time, you know this also very noteworthy.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is even now directly calling out Israel for
Speaker 1: their starvation policy.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to what she had to say.
Speaker 13: The issue of food in God is a very big one,
Speaker 13: and either the Prime Minister Naciello is unaware or ill informed,
Speaker 13: but the head of the world's Central Kitchen, Jose Andres,
Speaker 13: who's there as you mentioned Sindy McCain, the World's Food Program,
Speaker 13: and any other other of these entities that are there
Speaker 13: to feed the people, will tell you there is starvation,
Speaker 13: there is famine, there is dehydration because it has not
Speaker 13: Israel has not allowed the food and the humanitarian assistants
Speaker 13: to go right in So.
Speaker 1: This is significant SOGA because in order to be in
Speaker 1: accordance with American US law, you cannot ship weapons to
Speaker 1: a country that is blocking humanitarian aid. And so the
Speaker 1: fact that Nancy Pelosi is saying that outright is basically
Speaker 1: an admission.
Speaker 4: That we have been violating US law.
Speaker 1: Israel's just signed been compelled to sign this letter, you know,
Speaker 1: certifying that they're not blocking humanitarian assistance, which is just
Speaker 1: a complete lie.
Speaker 4: And we also had.
Speaker 1: Senator Van Holland similarly indicating they are not in compliance
Speaker 1: and saying it very directly.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to that as well.
Speaker 14: You said last week senators need to read the classified
Speaker 14: report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence about the
Speaker 14: NETNYA who government claims about that agency. You seem to
Speaker 14: be implying that the links to terror groups are unfounded.
Speaker 15: Oh, there's no doubt that the claim that Prime Minister
Speaker 15: net Yaho and others are making that somehow UNRA is
Speaker 15: a proxy for Hamas are just flat out lies.
Speaker 3: That's a flat out lie.
Speaker 15: If you look at the person who's in charge of
Speaker 15: operations on the ground in Gaza for UNRA, it's about
Speaker 15: a twenty year US Army veteran, You can be sure
Speaker 15: he is not in cahoots with Hamas. Net Yaho has
Speaker 15: wanted to get rid of UNRA since at least twenty seventeen.
Speaker 15: That's been his goal, not just in Gaza, but also
Speaker 15: in the other places you talked about. And if you
Speaker 15: get rid of un in Gaza today, it is the
Speaker 15: primary distribution system for food and aid. So if you
Speaker 15: cut off funding for UNRA in Gaza entirely, it means
Speaker 15: more people will starve, more people won't get the medical
Speaker 15: assistance they need, and so it would be a huge
Speaker 15: mistake to cut them off.
Speaker 14: Israel has until March twenty fourth to turn in a letter.
Speaker 14: They reportedly did so are they in compliance?
Speaker 15: No, they're not not as of today. And you're right,
Speaker 15: this is a very important tool that the Biden administrations
Speaker 15: put forward. Applies to Israel and any other country that
Speaker 15: receives US military assistance.
Speaker 14: Well, President Biden's administration say that they're not in compliance.
Speaker 4: Are you confident?
Speaker 15: I hope they will because President Biden himself has repeatedly
Speaker 15: said that the net Yahoo government is unnecessarily restricting desperately
Speaker 15: needed humanitarian assistance. I mean, the President has said it
Speaker 15: a number of times he said no excuses. So it
Speaker 15: may be that the Minister of Defense in Israel signed this,
Speaker 15: but I cannot imagine a scenario right now where Secretary
Speaker 15: Blincoln can find that that promise is credible and reliable
Speaker 15: when the day it was signed, clearly the net and
Speaker 15: Yahoo government is not compliance because we see that they're
Speaker 15: continuing to restrict humanitarian assistance.
Speaker 1: So then the I'm not criticizing here because I think
Speaker 1: that was a good exchange. But the follow up question,
Speaker 1: Soccer is Okay, well, are you going to vote for
Speaker 1: continued military aid given the fact that you're certifying that
Speaker 1: they are not in compliance? Because that's really the bottom
Speaker 1: line here, Like you can express your bleeding heart liberalism
Speaker 1: by saying, you know, Israel is starving cousins and they're
Speaker 1: blocking humanitarian aid.
Speaker 4: All of which is completely true.
Speaker 1: But if you're still going to vote for the for
Speaker 1: the weapons to ship, what difference does it make what
Speaker 1: you say, Well.
Speaker 2: The problem is they're not even voting right now because
Speaker 2: the Biden administration is going around their back doors to
Speaker 2: ship weapons to them with no congressional authorization. And this
Speaker 2: kind of calls back to what we were talking about
Speaker 2: previously they did this with Ukraine and they're doing it
Speaker 2: with Israel. Like the Imperial State basically just has the
Speaker 2: ability to ship weapons to whoever they want with no
Speaker 2: authority whatsoever. Remember eight months ago they were telling us
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians were going to run out of weapons. Then
Speaker 2: they just devalued the weapon stock of everything so that
Speaker 2: they could tap even more.
Speaker 3: It's self fakery. They do the same thing right now
Speaker 3: with Israel.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this with regards to this whole
Speaker 1: bullshit temporary peer situations, Like, if you wanted to build
Speaker 1: a peer for Americans, they're like infrastructure for Americans, there'll
Speaker 1: be a whole process. It wouldn't happen, it's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: And yet when it's you know, this temporary boondoggle port
Speaker 1: for some ass covering pr move for the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: pretend like they care about the fact that people are
Speaker 1: starving to death. Oh, that can happen right away. It's like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is this system that we're operating under.
Speaker 3: Literally no, they have total unilateral authority. It's totally wrong.
Speaker 2: I mean, for yeah, the temporary peer it's going to
Speaker 2: cost billions and billions of dollars nobody voted for it,
Speaker 2: nobody authorized it, nobody has to fund it. The president
Speaker 2: has the ability to deploy it, use all these forces,
Speaker 2: and not a single one of us can do a thing.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean look often it can be a meme,
Speaker 2: you know, and it can be low iq I think,
Speaker 2: be like, well, we've all this money for people over
Speaker 2: there and nothing for people over here, but here, like
Speaker 2: you are, right, Like, try building anything in the United
Speaker 2: States of America.
Speaker 1: Try building that same temporary peer to benefit you know,
Speaker 1: flin Michigan or whatever, or was that.
Speaker 2: What was that bridge that fell down, like Memphis or
Speaker 2: something like that, or Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, that's what it was.
Speaker 2: There was one Pennsylvania took the governor like you know,
Speaker 2: he did it fast, and it was still not even
Speaker 2: as fast as something like that.
Speaker 3: So it's a digression, but it does show you how we've.
Speaker 2: Got all the money in the world for Israel, Ukraine, Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: anywhere else, but whenever it comes to our own people,
Speaker 2: it's a lot more difficult, and that's because it's anti Democrats.
Speaker 4: We've also got health care for Havana syndrome, which.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is now officially officially fake but.
Speaker 1: Oh healthcare for let's say, you know the people in
Speaker 1: East Palestine who were poisoned.
Speaker 4: Oh, good luck, good luck.
Speaker 1: That's just to underscore how dire the situation is, and
Speaker 1: to rebut the lies that are being pushed now on
Speaker 1: the Israeli side that oh, there's no humanitarian crisis.
Speaker 4: Oh no, one's starving to deat These.
Speaker 1: Are all lives, et cetera, lies that are being pushed
Speaker 1: by the way, by APAK to our members of Congress,
Speaker 1: elected officials, by lobbyists right here in DC. Oxenham has
Speaker 1: a new report on the specifics of the many ways
Speaker 1: in which Israel is in fact blocking AID.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So they flagged seven different methods that Israel is using
Speaker 1: to block AID, resulting predictably in the starvation of the
Speaker 1: entire people.
Speaker 4: I mean, the level of.
Speaker 1: Starvation, hunger, famine in the Gaza strip has reached absolutely horrifying,
Speaker 1: unthinkable levels and it is I just have no words
Speaker 1: for the fact that we are standing by and allowing
Speaker 1: this to occur. So they say, number one, they only
Speaker 1: allow aid in via two crossings into Gaza. They are
Speaker 1: intentionally leading this dysfunctional and undersized inspection system so that
Speaker 1: even you know, what goes through those two crossings is
Speaker 1: minimal and wildly inadequate. They are routinely and arbitrarily rejecting
Speaker 1: items as of aid as having dual military use. We're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, things like fuel generators, including other
Speaker 1: items vital for a meaningful humanitarian response like protective gear
Speaker 1: and communications kit. I know one example, I saw sogers.
Speaker 1: They were walking tense from coming in after you've displaced
Speaker 1: basically this entire population. They've cracked down on humanitarian missions,
Speaker 1: basically seiling off northern Gaza. That's the area where the
Speaker 1: level of hunger is the most acute, and where the
Speaker 1: people that we have seen, the children and babies that
Speaker 1: we have seen literally starving to death, are predominantly in
Speaker 1: northern Gaza. Israel's assault has caught Gaza's own aid workers,
Speaker 1: they write and international agencies partners inside a practically uninhabitable
Speaker 1: environment of mass displacement and deprivation. So the aid workers
Speaker 1: themselves obviously subject to these same conditions. So how can
Speaker 1: they perform their duties to help the rest of the
Speaker 1: population when they themselves are struggling and starving and suffering
Speaker 1: under severe deprivation. Israel is rendered nowhere in Gaza safe.
Speaker 1: They write, amid the forcible and often multiple displacements of
Speaker 1: almost the entire population, You displace the entire population. That's
Speaker 1: going to make aid distribution pretty difficult and dramatically spike
Speaker 1: the need, which is why there needs to be dramatically
Speaker 1: more trucks of aid coming into Gaza after October seventh
Speaker 1: than there were before. And they're not even able to
Speaker 1: meet what was going in before, not even close. And
Speaker 1: they say their attacks are disproportionate and indiscriminate upon civilian
Speaker 1: and humanitarian assets, including people such as solar water power
Speaker 1: and sanitation plants, you and premises, hospitals, roads and aid
Speaker 1: convoys and warehouses, even when these assets are supposedly decon
Speaker 1: inflicted after their coordinates have been shared for protection. That's
Speaker 1: obviously something we have covered a number of times. But
Speaker 1: some of the numbers here. Seventy five percent of sewage
Speaker 1: of solid waste is now being dumped in random sites,
Speaker 1: ninety seven percent of groundwater has been made unfit for
Speaker 1: human use, and they write, the Israeli state is using
Speaker 1: starvation as a weapon of war, which is just thoroughly undeniable.
Speaker 4: At this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it also raises the question about this aid.
Speaker 2: Are they going to inspect the US military port whenever
Speaker 2: we build it or not, because I'm starting to suspect
Speaker 2: given all of this, that there is going to be.
Speaker 3: At least some clearance.
Speaker 2: And it's like talked to about it outrageous, right, that
Speaker 2: there will be flagging things that we're giving as potentially
Speaker 2: dual use or whatever, which you can claim about anything, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, it just doesn't make are any sense. What
Speaker 2: was it They were like rejected a pair of scissors,
Speaker 2: like medical scissors because they could have been used as
Speaker 2: a weapon.
Speaker 3: It's ridiculous. Yeah, I encourage people to go read this
Speaker 3: for themselves. You really should because you can actually see it.
Speaker 1: And rejecting things like anesthetics and so you have children
Speaker 1: getting amputations with no I mean.
Speaker 4: It's just beyond people.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And speaking of striking civilian assets, the Israeli military, for
Speaker 1: I believe the fourth time, has once again rated Alshifa
Speaker 1: Hospital can put this up on the screen. This is
Speaker 1: the writer's report written very much from a Western perspective.
Speaker 1: I'll just say they say Israeli forces killed twenty gunmen
Speaker 1: in rate at Gaza's Alshifa Hospital, according to the IDF.
Speaker 1: According to the IDF, in any case, they say the
Speaker 1: Palestinian health authorities claim this has caused multiple casualties, set
Speaker 1: off a fierce fire in one of the building's Special forces,
Speaker 1: supported by infantry and tanks, conducted a what they describe
Speaker 1: as a precise operation based on intelligence that the hospital
Speaker 1: was again being used by Hama's leaders were fired upon
Speaker 1: when they entered the compound.
Speaker 4: The military said, Al chief of the Gaza strip's.
Speaker 1: Biggest hospital before the war is now one of the
Speaker 1: only healthcare facilities that is even partially operational in the
Speaker 1: no of the territory. Is also housing hundreds of displaced civilians.
Speaker 1: They have a quote from a father of two who
Speaker 1: was nearby. He says, suddenly we started to hear sounds
Speaker 1: of explosion, several bombings, and soon tanks started to roll.
Speaker 1: They came from the western road and headed toward Al Shifa.
Speaker 1: Then sounds of gunfire and explosions increased. Footage circulated on
Speaker 1: social media appeared to show an Israeli tank blocking the
Speaker 1: main gate of Al Shifa while this operation was being conducted.
Speaker 1: They apparently detained at least one journalist for some twelve
Speaker 1: hours and beat him while they detained him. He was
Speaker 1: there at Al Shifa to cover whatever this quote unquote
Speaker 1: precise operation was going to be. Put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen and said they arrested and beat this journalist.
Speaker 1: It was their report on what happened, and Al Jazeera
Speaker 1: journalist it was there with his press, best on etc.
Speaker 1: Media watchdogs, they say, are decrying Ismail Algul's arrests from
Speaker 1: Alshifa Hospital where thousands of civilians are trapped. He was
Speaker 1: early on Monday with his crew and other reporters who
Speaker 1: cover the Israeli Army's fourth Rate into the hospital where
Speaker 1: thousands of civilians are trapped.
Speaker 4: Witnesses said Al.
Speaker 1: Jazeera reporter was dragged away by Israeli forces, who also
Speaker 1: destroyed the broadcasting vehicles of news crews at the medical facility.
Speaker 1: He has since been freed after twelve hours in Israeli custody.
Speaker 1: That reporter himself said that after his release that Israeli
Speaker 1: forces had.
Speaker 4: Destroyed media equipment.
Speaker 1: They had arrested other journalists as well, according to him,
Speaker 1: that had gathered in a room that was being used
Speaker 1: by media teams. He said the journalists were stripped of
Speaker 1: their clothes, forced to lie on their stomachs as they
Speaker 1: were blindfolded and.
Speaker 4: Their hands tied.
Speaker 1: This is no surprise, of course, because Sagar they have
Speaker 1: killed at least ninety five journalists and media workers, the
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of them Palestinians, since October seventh. This is
Speaker 1: the largest toll of journalists that we have ever seen
Speaker 1: killed in offensive like this. And of course, you know,
Speaker 1: Raises listen. Al Shifa was the place that they claimed
Speaker 1: the hamas command and control center underneath there was a
Speaker 1: whole big propaganda campaign around this. Even mainstream pro Israel
Speaker 1: outlets like The New York Times have said they never
Speaker 1: proffered evidence to match the extraordinary claims that were made
Speaker 1: not only by the Israelis but by our own government
Speaker 1: in the wake of that initial raid.
Speaker 4: And you see how these things just.
Speaker 1: Become normalized, where now they can raid Al Shifa in
Speaker 1: it you know, barely gets any attention, and by the way,
Speaker 1: can arrest and detained journalists, so they can't show what
Speaker 1: is actually happening on the ground.
Speaker 4: Gee, I wonder what they have to hie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we tried to look actually for footage because we
Speaker 2: wanted to be able to show it here on our show.
Speaker 3: Let's put this last part up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is also very important is that one of the
Speaker 2: men who was killed was a member of the Gazen
Speaker 2: civilian police force who there Biden administration had actually specifically
Speaker 2: asked Israel to stop targeting even though it is quote
Speaker 2: unquote Hamas run, because it is leading to a quote
Speaker 2: total breakdown of law and order and in significantly exacerbating
Speaker 2: the humanitarian crisis. And I know this may sound facetious,
Speaker 2: but I actually did some research into this and kind
Speaker 2: of the way that we can think about it is
Speaker 2: Amas runs a gaza strip, so if you were in
Speaker 2: a civilian capacity, you're technically part from us. So the
Speaker 2: way that we can think about that is why was
Speaker 2: debathification during the Iraq War such a bad idea? For
Speaker 2: those who are not familiar, what we said is that
Speaker 2: anybody who was part of the Bath Party, who was
Speaker 2: under Saddam could no longer be qualified to serve in government.
Speaker 2: The thing is is that just like them in a
Speaker 2: totalitarian state, Well, if you are part of the sewage company,
Speaker 2: then you're part of the Bath Party. If you're a teacher,
Speaker 2: you're part of the Bath party. If you are part
Speaker 2: of any civilian administration. That doesn't mean that you cared
Speaker 2: or you believed in Saddam. It just means that you
Speaker 2: wanted a job. And so this is very similar. Again,
Speaker 2: as I understand it from the US point of view
Speaker 2: as to why there is a significant difference between the
Speaker 2: militant arm and the civilian arm. A lot of these
Speaker 2: guys are quote unquote amas in name only. They never
Speaker 2: had anything to do with any militancy. It was just
Speaker 2: in terms of, you know, providing some civil administration. I've
Speaker 2: been a run in the damn place for seventeen years,
Speaker 2: so it wouldn't be crazy to think that these people
Speaker 2: don't exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've created conditions. Israel has created conditions of absolute desperation,
Speaker 1: chaos and anarchy in northern Gaza, in particular because they
Speaker 1: completely destroyed the area. I mean, we've seen the images
Speaker 1: of the level of devastation which is very near complete.
Speaker 1: You have hamas Is the government. So you know, even
Speaker 1: if you have a civilian police officers who are still
Speaker 1: wont to do the job, they're fearful of coming out
Speaker 1: because they'll get killed Like this dude, Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: So who is supposed to who is supposed to shepherd those.
Speaker 1: Aid convoys through and get them to you know, the
Speaker 1: intended desperate civilian population Israel, sure as hell isn't doing it.
Speaker 1: They're firing on people who are desperately trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: grab some flour off the truck. Multiple times, not just
Speaker 1: the flower masker that got attention of over a hundred
Speaker 1: Palestinians killed, We've now had multiple incidents of them firing
Speaker 1: on people who are desperately just seeking food. So this
Speaker 1: is the reason why the Biden administration has said, hey,
Speaker 1: stop killing police, because there is no other force of
Speaker 1: civil society that could create any sort of order. But
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point it's honestly too far gone.
Speaker 1: But I think it just illustrates once again the way
Speaker 1: that things have become normalized in this conflict. The you know,
Speaker 1: attacks on all sorts of civilian infrastructure institutions, they get
Speaker 1: sort of floated. You know, there's a pr campaign. They
Speaker 1: try to convince the media and Biden that we have
Speaker 1: to do this for Hamas, and then they do it
Speaker 1: four more times either. You know, it says something about
Speaker 1: how poorly you're executing this war. That this same infrastructure
Speaker 1: has been you know, reinhabited and your words.
Speaker 4: By hamas or more likely you have been lying this
Speaker 4: whole time.
Speaker 1: And I think the fact that they intentionally detained the
Speaker 1: journalists who were there to cover what was going on
Speaker 1: is quite indicative of what is actually.
Speaker 4: Happening there on the ground.
Speaker 3: Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 1: Podcaster Lex Friedman recently hosted a roughly five hour long
Speaker 1: debate on Israel Palestine that was frustrating, combative at times,
Speaker 1: but nevertheless extraordinarily revealing. The debate featured author and scholar
Speaker 1: Norman Finkelstein, analyst and researcher Mauen Robani arguing the Palestinian perspective.
Speaker 1: On the pro Zionis side, you had author and historian
Speaker 1: Betty Morris and YouTuber Stephen Binnell, also known as Destiny.
Speaker 4: Now, if your immediate reaction is that one of.
Speaker 1: These individuals doesn't quite fit in with the rest, you
Speaker 1: are correct, and it was painfully obvious the entire five
Speaker 1: hours that Destiny was wildly on side of his depth.
Speaker 1: In fact, although many of the viral clips from the
Speaker 1: debate involved Destiny's humiliation at the hands of Norman Finkelstein,
Speaker 1: the truth is that for most of the debate he
Speaker 1: was kind of irrelevant, sitting like a child at the
Speaker 1: grown ups table. His presence was nevertheless useful for helping
Speaker 1: to illustrate the commination of ignorance, wilful blindness, and debate
Speaker 1: bro tricks of the trade that are required to fully
Speaker 1: defend the Israeli position. At this point in time, Benny
Speaker 1: Morris and Destiny threw every propaganda device in the Hospara
Speaker 1: playbook up against the wall to see what would stick.
Speaker 1: So let's see how it went in the face of
Speaker 1: what at this point is an undeniable and indefensible reality.
Speaker 1: So first up, any good Haspara campaign has got to
Speaker 1: start with a fairytale view of history. Now, in this history,
Speaker 1: the only permitted victims are Jewish people, who no doubt
Speaker 1: were horribly victimized in the Holocaust. And in this history,
Speaker 1: the only just response to those atrocities is not for
Speaker 1: the US, the UK, or Germany and the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: to provide justice, peace and safety for the Jewish people,
Speaker 1: but rather to impose that burden entirely on a people
Speaker 1: who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and who
Speaker 1: had in fact been by and large living peaceably alongside
Speaker 1: indigenous Jews for centuries. In other words, the only solution
Speaker 1: to a European atrocity was to give lice to an
Speaker 1: additional atrocity, the ethnic cleansing of the native Arab Palestinian
Speaker 1: population from their own land, and the only acceptable response
Speaker 1: of that Palestinian population was then to meekly accept their dispossession.
Speaker 1: To do otherwise is to prove that Arabs from the
Speaker 1: beginning were violent, unreasonable, and anti Semitic. This was a
Speaker 1: matter of quite a lot of debate at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the podcast. Here, for example, is Destiny challenging the
Speaker 1: idea that expulsion or ethnic cleansing was a core and
Speaker 1: necessary element of Zionism from the onset.
Speaker 16: A claim that gets brought up a lot has to
Speaker 16: do with the inevitability of transfer in Zionism, or the
Speaker 16: idea that as soon as the Jews envisioned a state
Speaker 16: in Palestine, they knew that it would involve some mass
Speaker 16: transfer of population, perhaps a mass expulsion. I'm sure we'll
Speaker 16: talk about Plan Diwallador Plant d at some point. The
Speaker 16: issue that I run into is while you can find
Speaker 16: quotes from leaders, what you can find maybe desires expressed
Speaker 16: in diaries. I feel like it's hard to truly ever
Speaker 16: know if there would have been mass transfer in the
Speaker 16: face of Arab peace, because I feel like every time
Speaker 16: there was a huge deal on the table that would
Speaker 16: have had a sizable Jewish and Arab population living together,
Speaker 16: the Arabs would reject it out of hand. So, for instance,
Speaker 16: when we say that transfer was inevitable, when we say
Speaker 16: that Zionists would have never accepted a sizable Arab population,
Speaker 16: how do you explain the acceptance of the forty seven
Speaker 16: partition plan that would have had a huge Arab population
Speaker 16: living in the Jewish state. Is your contention that after
Speaker 16: the acceptance of that, after the establishment of that state,
Speaker 16: that Jews would have slowly started to expel all of
Speaker 16: these Arab citizens from their country, Or how do you
Speaker 16: explain that in Lusana a couple of years later, that
Speaker 16: Israel was willing to formally annex the Gaza strip and
Speaker 16: make two hundred thousand people those citizens. But I'm just curious,
Speaker 16: how do we get this idea of Zionism always means
Speaker 16: mass transfer when there were times, at least early on
Speaker 16: in the history of Israel and a little bit before it,
Speaker 16: where Israel would have accepted a state that would have
Speaker 16: had a massive Arab population in it. Yeah, it's your
Speaker 16: idea that they would have just slowly expelled them out.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: In fact, expulsion or apartheid is the only logical outcome
Speaker 1: of establishing a Jewish state in a land that was
Speaker 1: and is majority Muslim Arab. Zionis leaders at the time
Speaker 1: were pretty open about this and about the necessity of
Speaker 1: violence and conflict with that indigenous population. For example, Joseph
Speaker 1: White's head of the Jewish Agencies Colonization Department, set in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty quote, between ourselves, it must be clear that
Speaker 1: there is no room for both peoples together in this country.
Speaker 1: We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are
Speaker 1: in this small country. There is no other way than
Speaker 1: to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries, all
Speaker 1: of them, not one village, not one tribe, should be left.
Speaker 1: So pretty clear cut, and there are plenty of other
Speaker 1: historical quotes besides that that make it clear. Early Zionist
Speaker 1: leaders realized their ideology would inevitably result in conflict with Palestinians.
Speaker 1: Some acknowledged that Arab resistance was in fact logical and
Speaker 1: even just, and that they would also fervently resist displacement
Speaker 1: if the roles had been reversed. Now it is this
Speaker 1: point about the reasonable and in fact inevitable nature of
Speaker 1: Palestinian resistance to Zionism that Mauen Rabani picks up on.
Speaker 1: In doing so, he lays waste to the idea that Palestinians,
Speaker 1: in rejecting the original nineteen forty eight UN partition plan,
Speaker 1: were out of line, or even that it was inherently
Speaker 1: anti Semitic to reject a Jewish state being established on
Speaker 1: a portion of their land at all.
Speaker 17: I mean, one doesn't have to sympathize with the Palestinians
Speaker 17: to recognize that they have now been a stateless people
Speaker 17: for seventy five years. Can you name any country yours,
Speaker 17: for example, or yours that would be prepared to give
Speaker 17: fifty five percent, twenty five percent, ten percent of your
Speaker 17: country to the Palestinians.
Speaker 3: Of course not.
Speaker 17: And so the issue was not the existence of Jewstine.
Speaker 17: They had been there for centuries, and of course they
Speaker 17: had ties to Palestine and particularly to Jerusalem and other
Speaker 17: places going back centuries, if not millennia, but the idea
Speaker 17: of establishing an exclusively Jewish state at the expense of
Speaker 17: those who are already living there. I think it was
Speaker 17: right to reject that. And I don't think we can
Speaker 17: look back now seventy five years later and say, well,
Speaker 17: you should have accepted losing fifty five percent of your homeland,
Speaker 17: because you ended up losing seventy eight percent of it.
Speaker 17: In the addition, the remaining twenty two percent was occupied
Speaker 17: in nineteen sixty seven. That's not how things work. And
Speaker 17: I can imagine I can imagine an American rejecting giving
Speaker 17: ten percent of the United States to the Palestinians. And
Speaker 17: if that rejection leads to war and you lose half
Speaker 17: your country, that fifty years from now you're going to say, well,
Speaker 17: maybe I should have accepted that.
Speaker 1: So they didn't accept the establishment of an explicitly Jewish
Speaker 1: state because the inevitable outcome was some version of exactly
Speaker 1: the apartheid, ethnic cleansing and now out and out genocide
Speaker 1: that we are seeing play out. This was a point
Speaker 1: that Norman Finkelstein made quite eloquently talking about the version
Speaker 1: of nationalism Zionism represents.
Speaker 10: Most theorists of nationalism say there are two kinds of nationalism.
Speaker 10: One is a nationalism based on citizenship. You become a citizen,
Speaker 10: you're integral to the country. That's sometimes called political nationalism.
Speaker 10: And then there's another kind of nationalism, and that says
Speaker 10: the state should not belong to its citizens, it should
Speaker 10: belong to an ethnic group. Each ethnic group should have
Speaker 10: its own state. It's usually called the German romantic idea
Speaker 10: of nationalism. Zionism is squarely in the Jewish German romantic idea.
Speaker 10: That was the whole point of Zionism. We don't want
Speaker 10: to be Buddhists and be one more ethnic minority in Russia.
Speaker 10: We don't want to become citizens and just become a
Speaker 10: Jewish people in England or France. We want our own state.
Speaker 10: Like the no way, let's before we get to the Arabs,
Speaker 10: let's get let's stick to the Jews for a moment,
Speaker 10: or the Zionists. We want our own state. And in
Speaker 10: that concept of wanting your own state, the minority at
Speaker 10: best lives on sufferance and at worst get expelled. That's
Speaker 10: the logic of the German Romantic Zionist idea of a state.
Speaker 10: That's why there's Zionists.
Speaker 1: So the truth is the desires of the early Zionists,
Speaker 1: especially after the Holocaust, but even before, given the number
Speaker 1: of violent Pigrams in Europe, were completely understandable as the
Speaker 1: cause of black nationalism. A similar nationalist ideology given the
Speaker 1: horrors of slavery and Jim Crow and other discrimination, also
Speaker 1: so understandable. But it's also true that though their aspirations
Speaker 1: were understandable, in reality, Palestine was not a land without
Speaker 1: a people, and realization of those Zionist aspirations in Palestine
Speaker 1: required committing grave injustices against the people who were presently
Speaker 1: living in that land. Now, in order to accept the
Speaker 1: fairy tale version of history and to accept the current
Speaker 1: fairy tale version of Israel version Joe Biden seems to
Speaker 1: believe wholeheartedly in where the Israeli government would never intentionally
Speaker 1: target civilians, are engaged in apartheid, or have ethnic cleansing
Speaker 1: as a policy goal. In order to accept those disney
Speaker 1: versions of reality, you got to make a bedrock underlying
Speaker 1: assumption that Western powers in every instance have good intentions
Speaker 1: and Palestinians in every instance have bad intentions. Now, oftentimes
Speaker 1: these assumptions are based in racist world views in which
Speaker 1: Westerners are inherently civilized and Arabs are inherently barbarians.
Speaker 4: Net Nyahu hints at.
Speaker 1: This when he describes their genocidal assault on Gaza as
Speaker 1: being a conflict between the suns of light and the
Speaker 1: sense of darkness. Now, this unshakable belief in the goodness
Speaker 1: of Western powers was evident throughout the debate. In a
Speaker 1: jaw dropping moment, Destiny reveals himself to be fully captured
Speaker 1: by an almost religious devotion to that benevolent view of
Speaker 1: Western powers.
Speaker 4: Take a listen.
Speaker 16: It was correctly brought up that I believe that ben
Speaker 16: Gurion had I think Schlimo Benamine describes it as an
Speaker 16: obsession with getting validation or support from Western states, Great Britain.
Speaker 16: And then a couple decades later it complains us who was, yeah,
Speaker 16: exactly correct, that was one of the major motivators the
Speaker 16: idea to work with Britain and France on a military
Speaker 16: operationial stooge. But then the question again, I go back
Speaker 16: to if that is true, if Bengurion, if the early
Speaker 16: Israel saw themselves as a Western fashion nation, how could
Speaker 16: we possibly imagine that they would have engaged in the
Speaker 16: transfer of some four hundred thousand Arabs after accepting the
Speaker 16: partition plan. Would that not have completely and totally destroyed
Speaker 16: their legitimacy in the eyes of the entire Western world
Speaker 16: would not have been how not, if you thought.
Speaker 1: The US and the UK would object at any point
Speaker 1: to naked barbarism against Palestinians, then the past several months should.
Speaker 4: Have thoroughly disabused you of this notion. The idea that.
Speaker 1: Israel and his allies are always operating with good intentions
Speaker 1: is also incredibly imparent in how incredulous Benny Morris and
Speaker 1: Desny both are at the notion Israel would intentionally target civilians.
Speaker 1: Now you would be very familiar with the arguments that
Speaker 1: were proffered in that section of the debate. Essentially, both
Speaker 1: of them argued that if civilians are killed, then they
Speaker 1: must have been human shields, or at the very worst,
Speaker 1: they were regrettably killed due to the one off actions
Speaker 1: of a few rogue soldiers. Such atrocities could not possibly
Speaker 1: be the result of official Israeli government policy. Of course,
Speaker 1: a look at the evidence renders this view absurd. After
Speaker 1: October seventh, the Israeli Defense Minister announced to the world
Speaker 1: a top down policy of complete siege of the civilian population.
Speaker 1: That collective punishment has continued to a sufficient extent that
Speaker 1: children are now literally starving to death and Gaza is
Speaker 1: now the site of the worst levels of acute hunger
Speaker 1: in the entire world. This in and of itself disproves
Speaker 1: the fantasy the Israeli governments would never target civilians intentionally.
Speaker 1: That's to say nothing of the vast destruction and debthol,
Speaker 1: which is inconsistent with the view that the problem civilian
Speaker 1: casualties is simply the result of a few bad apples.
Speaker 1: The entire Gaza Strip population has clearly been targeted now
Speaker 1: in the Bait, Mouen Rabani does a phenomenal job of
Speaker 1: identifying this massive blind spot and hypocrisy when it comes
Speaker 1: to judgment of Israeli or Western actions versus Palestinian actions.
Speaker 1: This particular section has to do with documented Israeli atrocities
Speaker 1: committed against civilians in Lebanon.
Speaker 4: Take a listen.
Speaker 16: It sounds coold to say it, but war is tragic
Speaker 16: and civilians die. There is no war that this has
Speaker 16: not happened in in the history of all of humankind.
Speaker 16: The statement that Israel might take care not to target
Speaker 16: civilians is not incompatible with a diary entry from someone
Speaker 16: who said they saw civilians getting killed. I think that
Speaker 16: sometimes we do a lot of weird games when we
Speaker 16: talk about international umanitarian law or laws that govern conflict,
Speaker 16: where we say things like civilians dying is a war crime,
Speaker 16: or civilian homes or hospitals getting destroyed as necessarily a
Speaker 16: war crime, or as necessarily somebody intentionally targeting civilians without
Speaker 16: making distinctions between military targets or civilian ones. I think
Speaker 16: that when we analyze different attacks, when we talk about
Speaker 16: the conduct of a military I think it's important to understand,
Speaker 16: like prospectively, from the unit of analysis of the actual
Speaker 16: military committing the acts, what's happening and what are the
Speaker 16: decisions being made, rather than just saying retrospectively, oh, well,
Speaker 16: a lot of civilians died, not very many, you know,
Speaker 16: military people died comparatively speaking, so it must have been
Speaker 16: war crimes, especially when you've got another side all fastward
Speaker 16: to Hamas that intentionally attempts to induce those same civilian numbers,
Speaker 16: because Hamas is guilty of any war crime that you
Speaker 16: would potentially accuse. And this is according to the Amnesty
Speaker 16: International people that norm loves to cite. Hamas is guilty
Speaker 16: of all of these same war crimes of them, failing
Speaker 16: to take care of the civilian population, of them essentially
Speaker 16: utilizing human shields.
Speaker 3: To try to fire rockets free from attacks. Essentially.
Speaker 16: Yes, I'm just saying that essentially in terms of how
Speaker 16: international law defines them, not how Ambesty International defines them.
Speaker 16: But AMSCY International describes times of human shielding, but they
Speaker 16: don't actually apply the correct international legal standard.
Speaker 9: I know, absolutely, but I absolutely have I absolutely I think.
Speaker 9: But I'm just saying I'm just saying, I'm just saying,
Speaker 9: believe it or not normal. The entire Geneva convections is
Speaker 9: all on wikipedi.
Speaker 3: It's a wonderful lives, you know.
Speaker 16: But I'm just saying, I'm just saying that on the
Speaker 16: Hummas side, if there's an attempt to induce this type
Speaker 16: of military activity, attempt to induce civilian harm, that is
Speaker 16: not just enough to say, like, well, here's a diary
Speaker 16: entry where a guy talks about how tracktic.
Speaker 17: I think the problem. I think the problem with with
Speaker 17: your statement is that if you go back and listen
Speaker 17: to it, the first part of it is war as hell.
Speaker 17: Civilians die. It's it's a fact of life. And you
Speaker 17: state that in a very factual matter. Then when you
Speaker 17: start talking about Hamas, all of a sudden, you've discovered morality,
Speaker 17: and you've discovered condemnation, and you've discovered intent.
Speaker 1: Ween absolutely bodied him there. When it's a mass, the
Speaker 1: bad intent is assumed. Destiny has zero trouble calling their
Speaker 1: actions war crimes when it's Israel or as Hell, and
Speaker 1: the default assumption is that they were trying to achieve
Speaker 1: legitimate military objectives and the civilians just got in the way.
Speaker 1: But double standards and hipocricy are not the only way
Speaker 1: of denying Israel as committing war crimes. When left with
Speaker 1: no other options, one can simply deny basic reality. Here
Speaker 1: is Benny Morris resorting to this tactic when confronted with
Speaker 1: the starvation of Palestinians.
Speaker 10: As today one quarter of the population of Gaza is starving.
Speaker 10: That means five hundred thousand children are starving or on
Speaker 10: the verge of famine.
Speaker 18: It keeps saying, on the vergil, I have I've not seen.
Speaker 11: I have not seen one Palestinian die of starvation in
Speaker 11: these last four months.
Speaker 18: On the verge.
Speaker 17: They have been documented cases I haven't seen.
Speaker 16: Al Jazeera said six and the day before that they
Speaker 16: said too, So those are the two that.
Speaker 18: Number probably dies in Israel starvational.
Speaker 17: I don't think there's famine in Israel.
Speaker 18: There isn't. There isn't in the Gaza strip either. It's
Speaker 18: something which is produced for.
Speaker 17: The Western There are infants dying due to a engineered
Speaker 17: lack of access to food.
Speaker 18: And engineered I think the must stop shooting perhaps.
Speaker 17: Or as you say, I said engineered, I think.
Speaker 10: I mun standing excuse me, human Rights Watch code that
Speaker 10: using starvation as a weapon, that's called engineering.
Speaker 1: Benny Mar's claim there, I have not seen one Palestinian
Speaker 1: die of starvation. Maybe you need to spend some more
Speaker 1: time on TikTok where you might get actually information versus
Speaker 1: whatever propaganda networks you are currently being fed from. Yes,
Speaker 1: Palestinian children and infants are dying of starvation. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is because of an intentional series of Israeli policies. In fact, Oxfam,
Speaker 1: as we discussed before, just released a new report detailing
Speaker 1: the many methods that Israel's using to intentionally starve Palestinians.
Speaker 1: That includes blocking it entirely, using an arbitrarily bureaucratic and
Speaker 1: restrictive process to block the aid indiscriminately targeting civilians, including
Speaker 1: aid workers, rendering distribution impossible. In the face of these
Speaker 1: undeniable facts, which are too awful to defend without resorting
Speaker 1: to outright Nazi rhetoric, the only option left is just
Speaker 1: to flat out DENI reality. They're not o their choice
Speaker 1: if you're committed to painting Israel as a moral actor.
Speaker 1: For his part, Desty was inclined to pull from the
Speaker 1: debate bro playbook in order to distract an attempt to
Speaker 1: put Norm and Moeen both on the defensive. One of
Speaker 1: these tactics was on display as the debate participants argued
Speaker 1: over whether or not Israel is in fact committing genocide.
Speaker 1: Now in this section, Destney attempted to throw up a
Speaker 1: smoke screen of complexity to number one, try to make
Speaker 1: it appear as if Norm's correct interpretation of the ICJ
Speaker 1: finding was wrong, thereby dodging the actual implication of that
Speaker 1: International court's ruling that the South African case alleging genocide
Speaker 1: was in fact plausible. And two, in order to make
Speaker 1: the question of genocide seem so complex and technical that
Speaker 1: no layperson could possibly understand it, and you're a fool
Speaker 1: to even try. You also get to enjoy some of
Speaker 1: Norm's unbridled contempt for destiny in this exchange.
Speaker 4: Take a look to.
Speaker 10: Even make it to plausible.
Speaker 3: Out with it is absolutely not dead.
Speaker 10: Mister, Please don't teach me about the English language.
Speaker 9: So the declarations judge.
Speaker 10: In the present phase qualifying the Court is.
Speaker 16: Not asked at this present phase of the proceedings to
Speaker 16: determine whether South Africa's allegations of genocide are well founded.
Speaker 3: They're not well founded. They're not even well founded. You
Speaker 3: said that plausible was a high standard. It is absolutely not.
Speaker 16: It is a misrepresentation of the strength of the case
Speaker 16: against Israel, just like the majority of the quotes they
Speaker 16: have in this case are and also you said it
Speaker 16: was an extremely well founded case. They spend like one
Speaker 16: fourth of all of the quotations, some even pulled from
Speaker 16: the Goldstone Report that try to that actually deal with
Speaker 16: the intent part, which is by the way, I think
Speaker 16: you guys, I don't know if you use the phrase
Speaker 16: of the dolo specialist, that the intentional part of genocide,
Speaker 16: the I think it's I think it's called dolo specialist.
Speaker 16: It is the most important part of genocide, which is
Speaker 16: proving the special there's a highly special intent to commit genocide.
Speaker 3: It's possible in Israel.
Speaker 10: That's men's thralium.
Speaker 16: No, the men's yes. I understand the state of mind.
Speaker 16: But for genocide there is it's dulles specialist. It's a
Speaker 16: highly special intent.
Speaker 1: Did you read the case, Oh, it's a highly special intent.
Speaker 1: Dulus specialis. If you don't know this obscure legal term,
Speaker 1: then apparently you can't possibly understand the concept of genocide.
Speaker 1: It's a neat way for Destiny to dismiss the targeting
Speaker 1: of civilians, the collective punishment that direct quotes of high
Speaker 1: level Israeli officials admitting their genocidal intent, because only Destiny
Speaker 1: at the table possesses this super special knowledge, and so
Speaker 1: only he is qualified to judge whether Israel has in
Speaker 1: fact met the bar of this highly special intent. Now,
Speaker 1: as our friend Jegor details on Twitter, there is nothing
Speaker 1: magical about the Latin legal term dulus specialis. It just
Speaker 1: means specific intent. In other words, you can't accidentally do
Speaker 1: a genocide. You got to have specific intent, something that
Speaker 1: Norm and Ween clearly demonstrate in their comments that they
Speaker 1: fully understand. Furthermore, there is actually debate for what it's
Speaker 1: worth in the international law community about how such intent
Speaker 1: can be established, Since usually usually governments do not go
Speaker 1: around declaring they are doing a genocide. Many scholars argue
Speaker 1: that as a result, circumstantial evidence could suffice for proving
Speaker 1: this specific intent to genocide or Dolus specialists if we're
Speaker 1: being fancy. In the case of Israel, however, we don't
Speaker 1: really have this problem since everyone from bb to President
Speaker 1: Herzog to a defense minister, to a wide variety of
Speaker 1: war cabinet ministers and ruling party members have been happy
Speaker 1: to give quotes elucidating their genocidal intent as South Africa
Speaker 1: accurately detailed in their ICJ filing. This assertion of complexity
Speaker 1: is a go to tactic for Israel defenders, and it's
Speaker 1: quite effective. Frankly, many a liberal concerned about the humanitarian
Speaker 1: horror unfolding before their eyes can be shut down in
Speaker 1: an instant by a simple assertion that the situation's really
Speaker 1: complex and therefore outside of the understanding of those without
Speaker 1: encyclopedic knowledge of every twist and turn in the historical record. Now, ironically,
Speaker 1: Norm Mouween and Benny actually have that encyclopedic expert knowledge
Speaker 1: of the conflict, which Destiny is himself completely lacking, but
Speaker 1: the tactic is such a go to that Destiny attempts
Speaker 1: it anyway, even when confronted with actual legit experts, and
Speaker 1: of course the history of the technical legal minutia. All
Speaker 1: these things are of course complex, but the basics are
Speaker 1: not difficult to understand. Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their land,
Speaker 1: they live under occupation and blockade, both of which are illegal.
Speaker 1: They're currently being slaughtered and starved en mass. You don't
Speaker 1: need to know what Theodore Hertzel Wroten's diary in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety six in order to understand these things, although normal
Speaker 1: Ween and Benny actually do know such specific details. Relatively,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's inappropriate for non experts like Destiny
Speaker 1: or myself for that matter, to have opinions and to
Speaker 1: voice them and to defend them and to debate them
Speaker 1: even with experts. I might just recommend a little bit
Speaker 1: of humility awareness of the bounds of your technical knowledge
Speaker 1: as compared to legit historians who have spent their entire
Speaker 1: adult lives studying all of the details. Now, there is
Speaker 1: one final tactic consistently deployed by Destiny, and Benny in
Speaker 1: this debate, which is worth illuminating, and that is the
Speaker 1: inconsistent appeal to international law. Now, when it suits Israelis,
Speaker 1: such as when discussing the original UN partition.
Speaker 4: Plan, then international law is everything. It's binding.
Speaker 1: When it doesn't suit them, such as when being held
Speaker 1: accountable for illegal settlements and war crimes, it's irrelevant, it's useless.
Speaker 4: Who cares.
Speaker 1: This selective appeal to international law came out several times
Speaker 1: throughout the debate, but perhaps most notably in an exchange
Speaker 1: between Norm and Benny, in which Norm de cries the
Speaker 1: illegal blockade of Gaza and Benny replies that the judgment
Speaker 1: of these international bodies, it's irrelevant, no one cares, and
Speaker 1: that we should quote, forget the law, take a lesson.
Speaker 11: They were shooting rockets at Israel for twenty years. Why
Speaker 11: is that illegal? To blockade Gaza?
Speaker 18: Why? Why is it illegal?
Speaker 10: I'll tell you why.
Speaker 18: You don't draw it your calbury expect.
Speaker 10: I'll tell you why.
Speaker 18: Expect that works both.
Speaker 10: I'll tell you why because every human rights, humanitarian and
Speaker 10: un organization in the world has said, has said, nobody cares.
Speaker 10: This is a form of collective punish which is illegal
Speaker 10: under international you think, you think a block hate.
Speaker 18: You don't understand the way the world works, and you.
Speaker 10: Think, and you think confining, because that's the blockade, confining,
Speaker 10: confining a million children combining.
Speaker 18: That's the confining.
Speaker 10: That's a million children in what the Economist called a
Speaker 10: human rubbish sheep war and support, but International Committee Red
Speaker 10: Cross called a sinking ship, with the U n. High
Speaker 10: Commissioner for Human Rights a toxic slum. You think you
Speaker 10: think under international law, you think it's legitimate. Forget Hey,
Speaker 10: I know you want to forget the law. It's the
Speaker 10: thing that every it's what every Israeli fears the most,
Speaker 10: the law. And Sippy literally said, I studied international law.
Speaker 10: I oppose international law. Of course you don't want to
Speaker 10: hear about the law. Okay, So here's the thing. Then
Speaker 10: don't complain about October seventh if you don't want to.
Speaker 10: If you want to say, I forget about the law.
Speaker 10: There is no international humanitarian law. There's no distinction between
Speaker 10: civilians and combatants. And so now you're doing what Mouen said,
Speaker 10: You're becoming very selective about the law if you want
Speaker 10: to forget about the law.
Speaker 1: So Nor refers there to Mawen had said previously about
Speaker 1: the selective appeal to international law, and in fact Mawen
Speaker 1: did sum up this point quite brilliantly and succinctly.
Speaker 17: If you want to dismiss international law, that's fine, but
Speaker 17: then you have to do it consistently. You can't set
Speaker 17: standards for the Palestinians but reject applying those standards to Israel.
Speaker 17: If we're going to have the law of the jungle,
Speaker 17: then we can all be beasts, and not only some
Speaker 17: of us. And I think so it's either that or
Speaker 17: you have certain agreed standards that are intended to regulate
Speaker 17: our conduct, all of our conduct.
Speaker 10: Not just some of us.
Speaker 4: So does international law matter or do we all live
Speaker 4: by the law of the jungle? Makes right?
Speaker 1: It's a good place to wrap up, because that's really
Speaker 1: the core question being tested right now in the Kaza strip.
Speaker 1: Can any of the international rules that were set after
Speaker 1: the horrors of World War II withstand the genocide being
Speaker 1: committed in front of our eyes, with the direct aid
Speaker 1: of our country, the world's quote unquote superpower, well, distinctions
Speaker 1: between civilians and combatants, or prohibitions on war crimes or genocide,
Speaker 1: Will any of that survive this moment, or will we
Speaker 1: drop even the pretense of pretending to care about these
Speaker 1: concepts and leave it, as Mwen says, to the law
Speaker 1: of the jungle, where we can all be beast because
Speaker 1: even the propaganda smokescreen carefully erected over decades cannot block
Speaker 1: the world from seeing the echoes of those World War
Speaker 1: II atrocities. You cannot see the images of the wasted,
Speaker 1: starved bodies of Palestinian children without thinking about the Holocaust.
Speaker 1: You can't witness the utter destruction of Gaza and not
Speaker 1: think of Dresden or even Hiroshima. You cannot hear the
Speaker 1: casual public dehumanization of human beings as animals and vermin
Speaker 1: and not think of Nazi ideology. The wall of Hasbara
Speaker 1: has crumbled, and we are all left to wrestle with
Speaker 1: the grave crimes that our leaders are perfectly willing to commit.
Speaker 1: So Sager, even though, and if you.
Speaker 2: Want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a
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Speaker 2: see you guys later. I know it was a long one,
Speaker 2: but we'll get it to you as long as we can.