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Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints Tuesday. Actually, we're just

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Speaker 1: cheer filling in for the Breaking Points crew and excited

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Speaker 1: to be here. We will also be back on Friday.

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Speaker 1: Soccer and Crystal we'll be back this week as well. Ryan,

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Speaker 1: We've got a big show today, lots to talk about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, it feels like these new cycles just never

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Speaker 1: slow down anymore, and it's always a sort of struggle

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Speaker 1: to figure out how to pack everything into one show,

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Speaker 1: especially with the new cycle moving as quickly as it is. Actually,

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Speaker 1: Soccer sent us this morning just more information that we

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Speaker 1: should stay away. Soccer can't stay away, actually out sadly

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Speaker 1: of Eastern Europe, and we will get to that in

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Speaker 1: just a moment. But there's big news on the midterm

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Speaker 1: front because a lot of new polling is coming in

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Speaker 1: and I want to put up this tear sheet from

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Speaker 1: the New York Times. This is a one the headline

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Speaker 1: in New York Times. Here we're exactly three weeks away

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Speaker 1: from election day. Keep that in mind. Republicans gain edge

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Speaker 1: as voters worry about economy, and that is from a

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Speaker 1: New New York Times Ciena poll. Now there was Alt's

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Speaker 1: if you break them down, are interesting, it shows that

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Speaker 1: forty nine percent of likely voters said they planned to

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Speaker 1: vote for a Republican to represent them in Congress on

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Speaker 1: November eighth. Again, that is exactly three weeks from today,

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Speaker 1: compared with forty five percent who planned to vote for

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Speaker 1: a Democrats. That is an improvement for Republicans since September now. Also,

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Speaker 1: the most important issues, according to the Pole, facing facing

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Speaker 1: Americans has leapt to forty four percent from thirty six

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Speaker 1: percent on economic concerns, and that's way higher than any

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Speaker 1: other issue. Plus, Republicans were favored overwhelmingly, that's a quote

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Speaker 1: from the New York Times, by more than a two

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Speaker 1: to one margin on people on the economy. So, Ryan,

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Speaker 1: that really does show what happens when money starts to

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Speaker 1: come into these races, and when sort of rubber meets

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Speaker 1: the road. After the summer you get into the fall,

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Speaker 1: things shift. Do you see this as sort of the

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Speaker 1: natural progression of the election cycle or do you think

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Speaker 1: there are things happening in the economy. For instance, gas

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Speaker 1: prices have ticked back up that that's really driving these

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Speaker 1: gains for Republicans. Yes, and even though only about fifty

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Speaker 1: percent of people something like that have money in the

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Speaker 1: stock market, and that includes four oh one ks. The

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Speaker 1: volatility in the stock market filters into our kind of

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Speaker 1: cultural perception of the stability of the economy, and you've

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Speaker 1: seen just these absolutely wild swings. People like predictability, if

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Speaker 1: you know. In fact, that's why as gas prices kind

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Speaker 1: of stabilized, Republicans were very frustrated, but because they're like,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, you guys, this is like a couple

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Speaker 1: months ago, Like, hey, voters, why aren't you freaking out

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Speaker 1: about gas prices? They're like a dollar fifty higher than

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Speaker 1: they used to be, and people are like, yeah, but

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Speaker 1: they're not going up anymore. Yes, I don't like it.

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Speaker 1: I'm spending more on gas. But it's it's the movement,

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Speaker 1: and it's the unpredictability that that creates economic anxiety, idiate anxiety,

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Speaker 1: and so I think the volatility, the swinging back and forth,

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Speaker 1: all I think all of that is contributing toward the

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Speaker 1: economy becoming and more central too in voters' minds. The

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Speaker 1: Kansas election was what August second, Yes, and there were

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Speaker 1: people who were saying that the interest around it may

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Speaker 1: have peaked just a little bit too early for Democrats.

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Speaker 1: Some of the criticism I think of Democrats for making

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Speaker 1: abortion rights a major issue I think is unfair because

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Speaker 1: it is not exactly Democrats who kind of brought it

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Speaker 1: into Democrats didn't overturn Roe v Wade absolutely in an

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Speaker 1: election year, in a midterm election year. Now for the

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Speaker 1: consultants who say, don't talk about the economy because it's

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Speaker 1: too difficult to message on the economy, I think those

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Speaker 1: people absolutely do deserve criticism because I think the salience

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Speaker 1: of abortion is so high that you can kind of

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Speaker 1: gesture to it and then you can talk about your

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Speaker 1: economic agenda. Because nobody's going to forget yet that they

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Speaker 1: overturn Roe v Wade. You don't need to remind them

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Speaker 1: constantly that happened. Yeah, I think the question of whether

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Speaker 1: it's going to be a sort of deciding factor. And again,

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Speaker 1: one thing a lot of people forget is that midterm

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Speaker 1: elections are about turnout, they're about energizing the base, and

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Speaker 1: they are often in a state like for instance, Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin going to be marginal. These are going to be

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Speaker 1: really close races, and whoever can motivate their base with

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Speaker 1: the most intensity, those little differences can make a huge

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Speaker 1: difference in the outcome of the election clearly. So it

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Speaker 1: does to some extent. You have to balance not depressing

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Speaker 1: turnout from independence or other voters with energizing the base

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Speaker 1: and making sure the base is excited to actually get

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Speaker 1: out and vote for you. And so this is a

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Speaker 1: two I want to put that up as a tweet

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Speaker 1: from Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics. I think it's

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Speaker 1: actually a really helpful perspective. So he's quote tweeting The

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Speaker 1: New York Times that you've been saying the economy remained

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Speaker 1: a far more potent issue than abortion and tom ads.

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Speaker 1: This has been clear in the data for months, and

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Speaker 1: that is true. But there was a lot of conversation

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Speaker 1: over the course of the summer about how Dobbs was

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Speaker 1: going to tank Republicans in the midterms, and not only

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Speaker 1: Democrats were buying into that. There were a lot of Republicans,

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Speaker 1: even establishment Republicans, especially after what happened in Kansas, who

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Speaker 1: were freaking out and saying this could be a route

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Speaker 1: for us instead of it being a route for Democrats.

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Speaker 1: We could just get absolutely just hammered at the polls

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Speaker 1: this fall because all of these suburban women, independent voters

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Speaker 1: are our candidates are all going to be turned into

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Speaker 1: todd Ache and basically if you remember the War on Women,

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Speaker 1: it was very very much channeling the frustration of establishment

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Speaker 1: Republicans at the conservative movement in the conservative base. Although

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Speaker 1: to me, even the most optimistic Democrats, Tom Bonyer, who

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Speaker 1: was the CEO of Target Smart, which is democratic data firm,

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Speaker 1: who he wrote the kind of widely circulated op ed

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Speaker 1: in the New York Times about the surgeon women's voter

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Speaker 1: registration after Kansas, like I interviewed him for my podcast

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Speaker 1: and even he said, he's like, I'd say the House

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Speaker 1: is in play, like it's within reach, which is even

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't say that like they're favored. He seems even

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Speaker 1: he at his at the height of his optimism, was

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Speaker 1: saying that he thought that Republicans were still favored to

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Speaker 1: win the House. Yesterday he pointed out, he said, look,

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Speaker 1: if you believe every single poll, every individual poll that

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Speaker 1: comes out, then today you have to believe that there's

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Speaker 1: no gender gap. Because the New York Times Siena poll

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Speaker 1: finds a zero gender gap between men and women when

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Speaker 1: it comes to who they want to control Congress, and

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Speaker 1: nobody believes that that's true. Well, you know, women are

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Speaker 1: going to side with Democrats, like that's going that's going

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Speaker 1: to happen. And also you will have to believe that

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Speaker 1: Democrats are going to comfortably win the Oklahoma gubernatorial election

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Speaker 1: because a poll came out showing Democrats up by like

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Speaker 1: eight in that and it's like, it's a nice poll

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Speaker 1: for Democrats. Don't spend all your money on predicted guessing

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Speaker 1: that the Democrats are going to win Oklahoma. But so

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Speaker 1: on the question though, of how Democrats could message the economy,

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Speaker 1: Mike Lucks, he's a Democratic operative with American Family Voices,

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Speaker 1: was out with a memo that was circulating around town

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Speaker 1: this week. I want to read to you his a

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Speaker 1: couple of his suggestions and see if they would resonate

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Speaker 1: with you and your people. All right, So he says,

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Speaker 1: Number one, here's what he's like, This is how you

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Speaker 1: message on the economies. One you say, wealthy corporations with

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Speaker 1: monopoly power jacking up prices. He's saying this and sucking

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Speaker 1: profits like this. If you're a Democrat, this is what

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Speaker 1: Democrats should say. I agreed, all right. Number two, drug prices,

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Speaker 1: health insurance premiums are going up. Sorry, drug prices are

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Speaker 1: going down because of the Inflation Reduction Act, like you're

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Speaker 1: paying less because you've got these you got rebates and

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Speaker 1: you've got subsidies, so you're paying less for health insurance

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Speaker 1: and drugs. I don't know if they really want to

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Speaker 1: touch the Inflation Reduction Act, because if you're trying to

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Speaker 1: talk about inflation in general, you might not want to

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Speaker 1: be mess on a fairly unpopular president signature legislation. That

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Speaker 1: might be a problem, but I'm not a consultant. Number Three,

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Speaker 1: he says seniors will be getting the biggest increase in

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Speaker 1: their self security payments in forty years, while Republicans are

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Speaker 1: talking about ending social Security. Yeah, that well, that always

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Speaker 1: does well, throw that one out. We actually saw that

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Speaker 1: use last night. There was a Utah debate between Evan McMullen,

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Speaker 1: who's an independent that Democrats have gotten behind in his

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Speaker 1: challenge for Mike Lee. We have seen some close polling

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Speaker 1: in that race. I think Mike Lee will be okay.

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Speaker 1: But Evan McMullen, who was a former Republican, is attacking

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Speaker 1: Mike Lee for going after Social Security and Medicaid. And

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Speaker 1: it's just I mean, it's like the perfect evolution. But

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Speaker 1: that's how potent that particular bullet point is some fun

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Speaker 1: endorsements in that race. Mike Ley endorsed himself in the

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Speaker 1: third person. We'll see this, So did McMullen's campaign. It

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Speaker 1: was it was kind of a weird oh okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And then in the debate McMullan pointed out that Mike

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Speaker 1: Lee had voted for him in twenty sixteen for president.

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Speaker 1: That was kind of funny, all right. So number number four,

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Speaker 1: he says, point out that manufacturing job they're coming back

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Speaker 1: to the United States. Infrastructure is being rebuilt. This will

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Speaker 1: fix supply chain problems and create millions more good jobs.

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Speaker 1: I like it. And number five, I will fight for

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Speaker 1: the child tax Credit, which you give parents six hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars a month to help with groceries, gas, and housing

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Speaker 1: and pay for it by taxing corporations and millionaires. How's

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Speaker 1: that great? But nothing about drag Queen Story hour, Nothing,

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Speaker 1: nothing about tra tech Queen Story hour. You tax it

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Speaker 1: if you don't like it, taxix it. Yeah, No, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and this is getting the least is talking about it.

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Speaker 1: The debate on the left has been really interesting to

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Speaker 1: watch this week because there are pieces from you know,

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Speaker 1: David's RODA and Jacobin talking about how Democrats are really

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Speaker 1: struggling to even it seems like they don't have the

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Speaker 1: will to be taking this economic message to voters. It's

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Speaker 1: like they would rather talk, they would rather just sort

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Speaker 1: of rely on calling Republicans the Handmaid's Tale villains, and

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Speaker 1: that's their sort of signature message. They have been running

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Speaker 1: tons and tons as an abortion and one question that

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Speaker 1: I actually think is an interesting I'm curious with what

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Speaker 1: you would say, why you would say they have been

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Speaker 1: running those ads despite having plenty of access to this polling.

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Speaker 1: I don't think polling is perfect. I think, as you

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Speaker 1: just highlighted with the Oklahoma governor's race, polling is a

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Speaker 1: real problem for US period. As an industry, it's a

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Speaker 1: problem for the consultant industry, it's a problem for politics

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Speaker 1: in general. That said, there is evidence abortion is not

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Speaker 1: going to help Democrats over the finish line in some

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Speaker 1: of these races, and yet they are running tons on it,

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Speaker 1: and they aren't. You aren't hearing a lot of the

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Speaker 1: bullets that you just the messaging of a lot of

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Speaker 1: those bullets. It's not rising to the surface a little

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Speaker 1: some of it they misread, like the Pat Ryan race

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Speaker 1: for instance, Yes, in upstate New York where he ran

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Speaker 1: half of his half of his paid media was on

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Speaker 1: abortion rights, half of it was on how he took

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Speaker 1: on corporate power as a county, as a county executive,

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Speaker 1: took on the the unpopular utility. There the Democrats focused

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Speaker 1: on one half and not the other half. What Democratic

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Speaker 1: consultants say all the time to candidates is that voters

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Speaker 1: don't trust Democrats on the economy. Therefore, it is very

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Speaker 1: difficult for us to message in thirty seconds on the

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Speaker 1: economy because what we say lands flat. I think Republicans

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Speaker 1: have a flip side problem on some other issues where

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Speaker 1: they're like, look, we're just not trusted on this particular issue,

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Speaker 1: so we're not going to message on it, but to

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Speaker 1: write the court and off the entire economy. Yeah, what

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Speaker 1: kind of political party is that? Well, and again I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of it has to do with the

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Speaker 1: fact that if they're going to run on a fairly

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Speaker 1: unpopular president's signature accomplishments, they would rather talk about just

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Speaker 1: about anything else. Although the corporate greed it seems like

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Speaker 1: just a very easy opening for Democrats, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of them probably don't want to go out in bachelorperations,

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Speaker 1: even if it's not entirely sincere. Yeah, there you go.

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Speaker 1: Well we have as we as we mentioned, we should

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Speaker 1: move on here to so stuff that Sager had been

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Speaker 1: passing along, we were going to cover it, and he

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Speaker 1: passed along Ryan, what was the tweet that he sent

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Speaker 1: this morning was really interesting? Well ahead, yeah, so and

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Speaker 1: you can pull that up. So, both NATO and the

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Speaker 1: Russian Federation are preparing for these for their annual nuclear drills,

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Speaker 1: which you know every every year they come around, they

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Speaker 1: do these different they do. They do these drills. Plan

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Speaker 1: do your drills. They go off without a hitch. The

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Speaker 1: world survives. It's always been, it's always been fine, and

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Speaker 1: it's always fine until it's not fine. Uh. To have

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Speaker 1: both of these UH entities doing nuclear drills with the

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Speaker 1: nuclear tensions ratcheted up to what they are suggests you know,

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Speaker 1: it has has people on edge, has people praying that

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Speaker 1: everybody is in communication, that that each side is going

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Speaker 1: to be able to tell a drill from live action.

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Speaker 1: And it's coming amid increasingly hostile relations like war is

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Speaker 1: obviously hostile, but the war, as we were talking about yesterday,

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Speaker 1: has taken a turn where it's now battering civilian infrastructure

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Speaker 1: in a way we haven't seen in this war. And

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Speaker 1: that's actually what Zager passed along. Zelenski is claiming that

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Speaker 1: up to thirty percent of power utilities have been taken

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Speaker 1: offline so by Russian strikes, which is a war crime.

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Speaker 1: And it's not that you know, both sides are obviously

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Speaker 1: guilty of war crimes in every war. This is a

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Speaker 1: this is a war crime on a truly tremendous scale

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Speaker 1: heading into a Ukrainian winter, right, And so we have

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Speaker 1: a report from Wall Street Journals reported in Ukraine Matthew Lexmore,

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Speaker 1: who is saying Kiev is telling Ukrainians to prepare for

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Speaker 1: blackouts across the country after days on end of Russian

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Speaker 1: strikes on energy infrastructure. Indeed, as Zelenski said, thirty percent

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Speaker 1: of Ukraine's power stations have been destroyed and then the

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Speaker 1: consequence of that is blackouts heading into winter. And then

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Speaker 1: in the shadow of all of this, you have fourteen

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Speaker 1: I think it's like fourteen NATO countries doing the exercises.

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Speaker 1: This is sixty aircraft and that includes fighter jets, includes

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Speaker 1: surveillance planes. Like this is a this is it feels

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Speaker 1: like a very dystopian moment in the world. And this

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Speaker 1: I was thinking about the story of so seeing that

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Speaker 1: let's say a third of the power utilities have been

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Speaker 1: taken offline for now that I was thinking about it

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Speaker 1: in the context of the story that Ukrainians are basically

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Speaker 1: also running out of glass. Did you see that story? No?

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Speaker 1: I didn't see that. So and running out of windows basically,

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Speaker 1: so you know your when your city is getting shelled,

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Speaker 1: even if you don't, even if your building does not

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Speaker 1: take a direct hit, the chance, the chance that your

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Speaker 1: window is going to blow out is pretty significant. And

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Speaker 1: it wasn't something that I had really thought about before.

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Speaker 1: Because here you get a you get a window broken,

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Speaker 1: you head down to ace, you get a new window.

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Speaker 1: If it's too big of a window project called called

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Speaker 1: window people, and it sucks, but you get a new

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Speaker 1: window put in, or you do it my friends did

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Speaker 1: in college and use saran wrap. Well that that's what

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Speaker 1: they're doing in Ukraine. This is really the only thing

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Speaker 1: to do, right. So it's saran wrap, cardboard, plywood, which

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Speaker 1: it would be one thing in some winter conditions to

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Speaker 1: to have a blackout combined with just saran wrap and

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Speaker 1: cardboard through a Ukrainian winter is going to put you know,

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Speaker 1: tens of millions of people, and who are just civilians

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Speaker 1: not involved in this you know, didn't sign up for

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Speaker 1: this war and just excruciating conditions. Yeah, and in the

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Speaker 1: preparation for blackouts. Yeah. Again, as Rain was just saying,

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Speaker 1: we're going into mid October and November thirty percent. That's

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Speaker 1: a pretty incredible number. So just is there anything you

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Speaker 1: think that people should be watching with these exercises? Is

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Speaker 1: there anything to pay attention to particularly with them? No,

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Speaker 1: I think you'll get a five You'll get a five

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Speaker 1: minute warning that you're about to die, you know, if

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Speaker 1: it happens. So I don't think you just think about

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Speaker 1: how you're going to spend that last five minutes. I

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Speaker 1: guess from the time you get the larn I was

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Speaker 1: wanting who's the person that sends the alert because they're

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Speaker 1: probably dying too, like, because they're probably in New York.

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Speaker 1: Or do you see do they actually send the alert?

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Speaker 1: Are they like, you know what, somebody else can do this?

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Speaker 1: I quit, but I'm going out in the street and

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Speaker 1: that in the sky, or I'm going to the basement,

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Speaker 1: or did I bring my iodine pills? Some fish on

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Speaker 1: there you go just just go out like this with

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Speaker 1: the last five minutes. So no, I mean, I expect

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Speaker 1: that these two sides are going to are going to

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Speaker 1: coordinate this and you know, hopefully what we're seeing from

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Speaker 1: Russia at this point is kind of a last gasp

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Speaker 1: to get the best leverage that they can from the

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Speaker 1: negotiations that they're that they're forced into to get out

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Speaker 1: of this war that has been disasterous for them and

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Speaker 1: disastrous for Ukraine and a disaster for the world because

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Speaker 1: it really like the idea that we're talking about, you know,

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Speaker 1: nuclear armageddon over this when it can, when it can

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Speaker 1: be resolved, it can, when it can, when this can

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Speaker 1: just be finished, Well that's absurd, right, That's exactly it.

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Speaker 1: And we continue to see the clip of the finished

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister last week, for example, we continue to see

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Speaker 1: resistance to negotiation. And yes, you don't want to give

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Speaker 1: in to nuclear blackmail. I think we're all on board

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Speaker 1: with the idea of not giving into nuclear blackmail. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, you do not want to get into

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Speaker 1: a nuclear tip for tat for Russia. And so that

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Speaker 1: ongoing Western resistance to even entertaining the idea of seriously

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Speaker 1: meaningfully coming to the table and trying to end this unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: Somebody responded to my post today said, so, you know,

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Speaker 1: if we came into your apartment and we occupied you know,

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Speaker 1: two of your bedrooms and then and then you would

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Speaker 1: just negotiate with us at that point, like do you

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Speaker 1: have nuclear weapons? Yeah? Yeah, Actually, you know, at that point,

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Speaker 1: I probably am like ready for some talks. You just

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Speaker 1: just crashed your way into my apartment. Yeah, okay, let's

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Speaker 1: let's figure it a way out of this. Yes, it's

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Speaker 1: the post court cold war hubris is like stems from

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Speaker 1: this idea that we really thought we we won the

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Speaker 1: like forever, the idea of nuclear tipe for tat, like

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Speaker 1: this is how it's going to go. And meanwhile, Russia

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Speaker 1: was completely building up in stockpile and that's where we

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Speaker 1: are right now. But it's just so heboristic, I think,

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Speaker 1: to expect that you can bluster your way out of that.

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Speaker 1: When people on a daily basis are put in harms

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Speaker 1: way or targeted by boat and it's Putin's fault, there's

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Speaker 1: no question about it. That's why you go to the

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Speaker 1: negotiating table and and you know, try to find an

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Speaker 1: end to the suffering. And I do think it's fair

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Speaker 1: for people to say, like, look, okay, you should not

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Speaker 1: be able to kind of wage a conventional war, invade

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Speaker 1: another country and then use you know, nuclear saber rattling

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Speaker 1: to get to hold on to that territory. You should

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Speaker 1: not be able to do that. And Putin is not

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Speaker 1: doing it cost free, Like there has been an enormous

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Speaker 1: amount of costs that he's been and I think that's

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Speaker 1: what there can be more need to remember, and there

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Speaker 1: will be more like the you know, Russian power will

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Speaker 1: be a shell of what it was before he launched this.

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Speaker 1: Even if even if he left the war with every

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Speaker 1: single inch that he current that his troops currently hold,

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Speaker 1: they would still be so dramatically weakened that it would

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Speaker 1: be a cautionary tale to other countries who are thinking

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Speaker 1: about doing something like that. And he's not going to

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Speaker 1: he's not going to hold onto every inch that he has.

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Speaker 1: He's you know, he's losing, he's losing ground by the day,

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Speaker 1: even as you know he resorts to just bombing power centers. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's move on to developments in two investigations of Trump

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Speaker 1: era Two ongoing Trump era actually trials that would be

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Speaker 1: the first one I want to talk about is Steve Bannon.

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Speaker 1: The trial of Steve Bannon. The DOJ recommended six months

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Speaker 1: in prison for Steve Bannon in a two hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars fine over contempt he did not respond to subpoenas

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Speaker 1: from the January sixth Select Committee. And we're going to

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Speaker 1: get to what happened in the den Chenko case yesterday

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Speaker 1: as well. But Ryan, first, let's start with Bannon. What

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Speaker 1: do you make of this six months in prison for contempt?

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Speaker 1: There are other people in the course of history, other

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Speaker 1: administration officials in the course of history, that have similarly

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Speaker 1: demonstrated such contempt in and not faced what the DOJ

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Speaker 1: is recommending here. What do you make of it? Well,

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Speaker 1: I think if you think of the kind of system

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Speaker 1: as an immune system, like I think it sees it

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Speaker 1: sees somebody like Bannon as a virus that needs to

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Speaker 1: be expelled, like they it sees Bannon as as something

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Speaker 1: that is out of the normal type of operative or

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Speaker 1: politician that the system is used to dealing with. What

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Speaker 1: do you mean by the system, legal system, the entire

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Speaker 1: political system, Like he's such a table flipping radical, different

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Speaker 1: type of operative that and I think so, and so

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Speaker 1: I think that that's why I think he's getting treated differently.

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Speaker 1: That because he is a the system sees him as

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Speaker 1: a different type of figure, and so they're not going

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Speaker 1: to give him the same treatment that you would give

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Speaker 1: to a Mark Meadows. It was much more involved with

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Speaker 1: January sixth. On the right, the name that was circulating

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Speaker 1: yesterday was Eric Holder. Eric Holder was held in contempt

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Speaker 1: by the recommendation of six months in prison. We don't

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Speaker 1: actually know what the sentencing will be, but I don't

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Speaker 1: remember Eric Holder being recommended for six months in prison.

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Speaker 1: Well they never I mean, he was never convicted of

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Speaker 1: anything and it quote a law, right, but he just

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Speaker 1: got a vote. But why would the system this would

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Speaker 1: I'm saying, like in the entire political system, there was

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Speaker 1: not the same thirst to take Eric Holder to literally

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Speaker 1: to court and hold him in contempt of Congress. And well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, right, Bannon is I think ban is different

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Speaker 1: than almost everybody, but he's wildly different than somebody like

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Speaker 1: Eric Holder. He was so much go for like a

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Speaker 1: law firm to an attorney general, back back to a

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Speaker 1: law firm like that. The system's like, all right, we

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Speaker 1: get that this is what we're built to deal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Republicans are mad at him over fast and furious, and

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Speaker 1: so they can hold a floor vote that holds him

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Speaker 1: in contempt for not doing whatever they wanted to do.

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Speaker 1: But if they if they really felt like he belonged

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Speaker 1: to prison, they had to they have to go to

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Speaker 1: court and get a judge to agree with them. But

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's Bannon's persona that is that that

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Speaker 1: is like creating this this uh, this kind of distinct,

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Speaker 1: kind of punitive approach toward him. Why do you think

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Speaker 1: that he didn't just plead the fifth and do what

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Speaker 1: so many others did. Just show up, right, Hey, I

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Speaker 1: plead the fifth, right, Like you can make me come here,

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Speaker 1: but you can't make me talk. Like what about the

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Speaker 1: show the defiance? Did he need to kind of broadcast

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Speaker 1: to his people? Yeah, I think you're hitting on what

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Speaker 1: it is. It's making a point, and I think there's

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Speaker 1: some I think Steve Bannon is clever enough to know

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Speaker 1: that there's value in martyrdom from his like media perspective,

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Speaker 1: and that's probably the argument he would make. It's that,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're making this point that people are really

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Speaker 1: being sort of sucked into the system, and the system

430
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 1: is treating different people differently, And a lot of the

431
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 1: conversation on the right now is about some legitimately like

432
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,479
Speaker 1: whatever you think of January six, we talked about all

433
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:57,200
Speaker 1: the time, there are some highly questionable treatments of people

434
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,880
Speaker 1: who were involved in January six. There's some highly questionable

435
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: treatments of people who have been arrested by the FBI

436
00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 1: for squabbles in front of abortion clinics. And this is

437
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 1: all coming together in a way that the right sees

438
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: as targeting. And so in that broader context, I think

439
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: you can see that Steve Bannon probably understands there's value

440
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 1: and pushing on this button or pulling at this thread

441
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: and being the person in the center of that. So

442
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: I don't know the argument that he would make. That

443
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: would be my assumption of someone kind of on the

444
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 1: right figuring out where he's coming from. There. It's only

445
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,879
Speaker 1: six months minimum security, And if you come out of

446
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:40,879
Speaker 1: it as like the leading martyr, I guess there's some

447
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: that's better than I bending the knee and pleading the

448
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 1: fifth ye looking looking like a cock, which is the

449
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: worst thing that it's like, is that the worst thing

450
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 1: on the right right, I mean maybe on the like

451
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: in the all right, I love learning all these I can't.

452
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: I love learning all these terms from the engagement with

453
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: the right on this show. Yeah. Do people teach you

454
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 1: the word cock on the internet? Yeah? What part of

455
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: the internet are you on? On Twitter? Yeah? With right wingers?

456
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:19,879
Speaker 1: Sounds like you've been on Kanye West's parlor parlors had

457
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: had a little VIP screw up yesterday, which was very funny. Anyway,

458
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 1: anything else on Bannon? No, not on Bannon, but moving

459
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: to Igor Dnchenko his case. We have deliberations ongoing today.

460
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: He's on the jury is deliberating about false statements charges.

461
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: So charges brought on this question of false statements that

462
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: were brought by Special Consul John Durham, who was appointed

463
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,359
Speaker 1: by was Bill Barr. It was I think it was

464
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: Bill Barr under Donald Trump to look into how the

465
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: FBI mishandled actually the crossfire Hurricane Russia collusion investigation. Now,

466
00:25:59,119 --> 00:26:01,399
Speaker 1: one thing I want to actually focus on here is

467
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:05,160
Speaker 1: Margo Cleveland, and the Federalist has a piece up right

468
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: now where she says this conclusion or an important conclusion

469
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: to pay attention to, is that the criminal case against

470
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 1: dan Chenko confirmed that Crossfire hurricane was never properly predicated,

471
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: and that instead politics prompted the targeting of Donald Trump's

472
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: presidential campaign. This is why we combined the story with

473
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 1: the bannoned story because there's some similarities. And Margo says

474
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 1: that conclusion follows from two facts. First, after dan Chenko

475
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: allegedly total colleague he knew people who would buy classified information,

476
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: the FBI did not launch a full investigation into the

477
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: Russian until obtaining corroborating evidence. And then second, the FBI

478
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: refused to open investigation into the Clinton connected Charles Dolan,

479
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: as some members of Special Consul Robert Muller's team believed appropriate.

480
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: So this you have all of the convoluted nature of

481
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: the Russia collusion hoax baked into the dan Chenkos story.

482
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: It's extremely layered, and I think that's why a lot

483
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: of stories actually don't get much play in legacy media.

484
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, of course there's a huge amount

485
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 1: of bias and activism at play as well. At the

486
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 1: same time, they're really difficult to talk about because there

487
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: are so many different layers, so many different people, and

488
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 1: all of that stuff going on. But a hugely important

489
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 1: thing I think to pay attention to in the Dean

490
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: Chenko case, What did you make of the development yesterday

491
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 1: with charges thrown out and what the media described as

492
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 1: a blow to Durham to I think two of the

493
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: charges were dismissed, right, And I've I've tried to follow

494
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: this stuff pretty closely, Like, like you said, most like

495
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 1: progressives and liberals and also most mainstream media, which people

496
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 1: would call you know, a lot of people on the

497
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,479
Speaker 1: right would just call liberal, have barely covered this at all.

498
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: But even even I'm getting lost on this one, like

499
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,040
Speaker 1: it does like it does seem like on a surface level,

500
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 1: another blow to Durham that he and is it he is?

501
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 1: Are we going? What has what has been the response

502
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 1: with the right that because the last time he faced

503
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 1: planet on one of these it was like, wow, is

504
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: a jury you can't you know, you got a bunch

505
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 1: of woke libs on your jury and they're going to

506
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,959
Speaker 1: side with DC side against DC jury. Well, I mean,

507
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 1: he knows what, he knows what city he's bringing these

508
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: cases in. Has that been the response or what? Like?

509
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: At some point Durham has to have something to show

510
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: for all of this, right, And actually I'll read another

511
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: line from Margaret's piece to that point, she says, no

512
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 1: matter the eventual verdict. However, like Durham's prosecution of former

513
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: Clinton campaign Laura Michael Sussman, which Ryan was just alluding to,

514
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: the criminal case against dan Chenko revealed extensive evidence of

515
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: Malfeasan's by the Crossfire Hurricane team, and so yeah, I

516
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: think and that was always I assume part of the

517
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: impetus for the Durham probe to begin with, which is

518
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: that it's through discovery, through the criminal courts, through the

519
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: sort of legal process. What's going to emerge might not

520
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: always be criminal to the point where you have a

521
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: DC or Virginia jury ready to actually say that, but

522
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: what you are going to do is fined exactly. You

523
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: sort of put the pieces together of what the FBI

524
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: did to the Trump campaign in the lead up to

525
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen election, and with all of that additional information,

526
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: we get a clear, fuller picture of the corruption that

527
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: was at hand. And I think that's absolutely the case.

528
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I think per Margo's point, there was that

529
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: as revealed last week, she writes, the FBI refused to

530
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 1: open that investigation into Charles Dolan. So that's something that

531
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: came out over the course of the Danchenko trial and

532
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: is valuable to kind of understanding exactly what the FBI

533
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: didn't didn't do as pertained to the legitimacy of the

534
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Well, speaking of another layered and partisan,

535
00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: coded and complicated serious investigation, Hunter Biden back in the

536
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: news Chuck Grassley, one of the leading kind of oversight

537
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: Senate Republicans or republicans from either party, I was saying

538
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 1: that a whistleblower has turned over what copious amounts of

539
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Hunter Biden.

540
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden has been under criminal investigation for it feels

541
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: like years now at this point, a lot of people wondering,

542
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: what's what on earth is going on with that? Are

543
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: we going to get some type of resolution? Why are

544
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: we not getting the kind of drip drip drip leaks

545
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: that you get sometimes with these political you know, with

546
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 1: these investigations of people who are in politics, And I

547
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:39,120
Speaker 1: don't know, like, when are we in any answer here? Yeah,

548
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: this is one thing, it says Hunter. If you're watching,

549
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: you see it says Hunter at the bottom of the screen.

550
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 1: But if you read Grassley, is he put out a

551
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 1: press release yesterday in which he did say, is the

552
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 1: tweet we had up from Jerr Dunleve, you have to

553
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: Washington Examiner that whistleblowers have revealed the FBI possesses quote significant,

554
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct

555
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: by Hunter Biden related to try and that includes info

556
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: provided by Tony Babolinski and to Ukraine which tied to Barisma.

557
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 1: But if you read grass this press release, what he's

558
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 1: really talking about is the fact that the FBI may

559
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: be sitting on tons of evidence that implicates the president

560
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: himself and the Hunter Biden's story is extremely relevant and

561
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 1: concerning in a million different ways, whether you're talking about CEFC,

562
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: whether you're talking about Barisma. It's pretty much obvious the

563
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: level of corruption he's trading on his name. He's making

564
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: tons of money off of these off of trading on

565
00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: his name and operating, let's say with something like CEFC,

566
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: that's the Chinese energy conglomerate that he made a lot

567
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,480
Speaker 1: of money off of. And at a time when you

568
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily have wanted the son of the vice president

569
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: or the son of the former vice president to be

570
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: involved with a Chinese company, let alone of Chinese Energy

571
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: conglomerate on the level that CEFC was. But the idea

572
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: that the FBI, according to a scene a Republican senator,

573
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: has voluminous evidence that might actually tie Hunter Biden to

574
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: his father that his father was profiting. That is the

575
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: critical thing here. And you have people saying whistleblowers saying

576
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: that the FBI has evidence they provided of this. To

577
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 1: this extent, we're getting into a pretty remarkable territory. And

578
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: a good question for you is do you have historical precedent?

579
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: Is the historical precedent? Has this happened before? Basically, you mean,

580
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: for the FBI is sitting on evidence that might implicate

581
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: major evidence that might implicate the president in sort of

582
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: like criminal cours. Oh yes, I think. And actually there's

583
00:32:44,520 --> 00:32:48,240
Speaker 1: a new Hoover biography that just came out or it's

584
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 1: coming out soon. I gotta have a copy of it

585
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: that I've started, which is a reminder that Hoover sat on.

586
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: Hoover sat on evidence around high level misdeeds. For you know,

587
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: pretty much every president was going to say, yeah, that

588
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: would it would not be unprecedented for that for certainly

589
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:14,920
Speaker 1: for that to happen, but it is getting to this

590
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: era that we consider culturally to be a very dark one.

591
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: And that's why I assumed that there was some sort

592
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: of Hoover precedent for this, and we look back on

593
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: Hoover's tenure over the FDI, even though the building is

594
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: named after him, our culture sort of understands has in

595
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: the last couple of decades at least come to understand

596
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: the tenure of Hoover is a very dark one. Is

597
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: a very sort of Unamerican approach to I mean, the FBI,

598
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: you could argue in general is sort of predicated on

599
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: problematic grounds, but that that tenure is a very dark one.

600
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: And this seems to be happening under everybody's noses. One

601
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: question might be what would the criminal activity be? Because

602
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: if you ever do corner Democrats on this particular question,

603
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: they'll say, well, Joe Biden was out of office at

604
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: that point, but he was no longer vice president. Now

605
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: he was vice president when when Hunter was cutting some

606
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: of these deals. But during the time that, let's say you,

607
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 1: since Bobolinsky is the one that is being referenced here

608
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: by Grassley, the Bobolinsky claims if you believe them, and

609
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: I think he has presented a significant amount of evidence

610
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 1: that suggests you should believe him. That that is definitely,

611
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: you know, kind of pre him running for president and

612
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: post vice president. But if you miss this, but basically,

613
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 1: Bobolinsky has texts and emails with Hunter Biden talking about

614
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,040
Speaker 1: meeting meeting your father, right, and then there are text

615
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: messages that say, hey, yeah, I'm at the bar, I'm

616
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: over here, and you know, and then and it's like, hey,

617
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 1: it was awesome to meet your dad. Like, so there

618
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: are contemporaneous text messages that would have been that would

619
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: have had to have been concocted like seamlessly, like if

620
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: you were trying to like retcon this event having that

621
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 1: didn't happen. So the FBI should be able to then

622
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: figure out, well, where was Joe Biden at this time

623
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 1: now if if he did meet with with Bob Olinsky, Uh,

624
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 1: it would be understandable that Hunter would want that to

625
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: happen like that, because Hunter's whole pitch is my last

626
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: name is Biden. It's it's it's only useful if your

627
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 1: last name is Biden. If you can also then deliver

628
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: on those on those connections and so to be able

629
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: to have your father come and meet this guy at

630
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: the hotel bar wherever they they said they met. There's

631
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,280
Speaker 1: another one where uh will stick with Bob o Lensky

632
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: that that that now they wouldn't talk about anything. That's

633
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: not how that goes, like you would you know Biden

634
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: would show up and this is what says. There are

635
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: plenty of pictures of Joe Biden with Hunter Biden's clients,

636
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: right and and this one there was no picture, but

637
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: according to Bob o Linsky was just like, hey, take

638
00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: good care of my son. My son says that he

639
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: trusts you. Therefore I trust you, and like they like,

640
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 1: they don't talk business and talk. The other problem for Biden,

641
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: the big Guy as he likes to go by, is

642
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: that he has He has said on the record that

643
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 1: I have never discussed Hunter's business affairs with him. Ever,

644
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 1: Hunter has said on the record to The New Yorker

645
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: that they did at least once, where Biden said to

646
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,399
Speaker 1: him with beeris my I hope you know what you're doing.

647
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: You better know what you're doing, which you can you

648
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,759
Speaker 1: could see somebody saying that if your son is Hunter,

649
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 1: like cheez Hunter, you better know what you're doing here,

650
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 1: And that doesn't necessarily implicate him Biden in the business deal,

651
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: but it means they did talk about which is a lie.

652
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 1: The business deal, which means which is claimed that they

653
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 1: never talked about it is at least discredited by that moment.

654
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 1: And then then it puts the Bobylinsky meeting in a

655
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: different perspective. So I'm very curious what information the FBI

656
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 1: has has gathered to kind of because you know, if

657
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 1: Bob Lensky is able to you know, if he provided

658
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 1: all the same information that he's made public, then you know,

659
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,800
Speaker 1: the FBI has tools to try to verify was he

660
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 1: where he said he was, was Hunter where he said

661
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 1: he was? Be nice if we would learn some of

662
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: this well, and again this nice for Democrats if they

663
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: learned it before the presidential election, because yes, if the

664
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: House flips to Republicans, their focus on oversight is absolutely

665
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: going to drag a lot of this into the public domain.

666
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just it's going to be a huge

667
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: tug of war on information pertaining to Joe and Hunter Biden.

668
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 1: So there's no question about that. And the question of

669
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: criminality is a good one. The question of propriety is

670
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: a good one. I think the bottom line from my

671
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: perspective is that I would I would love to know

672
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 1: how the President of the United States funded his lifestyle

673
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:54,400
Speaker 1: from the years that he was after leaving the Obama

674
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: administration until being elected, because it seems very likely to

675
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: me that a chunk of that was fun on hunters,

676
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: sort of trading on the Biden name and paying for

677
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: different things, and what that means for Joe Biden's actual governance.

678
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 1: You know, maybe that's the last question I'll tosk to you.

679
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you think. Is there any reason to

680
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: believe that Joe Biden, say, foreign policy is compromised when

681
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: it comes to China, compromised when it comes to Ukraine.

682
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: I think it's an open question. I don't know that

683
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: there's significant evidence he's treating the China question from this

684
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: very broad, thirty thousand foot position differently because of those

685
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: relationships and because of the way that his son made money.

686
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:40,399
Speaker 1: But it does show I think, at the very least corruption, Well,

687
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: we know a significant amount of his revenue did come

688
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: from what I'd call legal corruption. The typical legal corruption

689
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: that we have in our system, which is just massive

690
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,839
Speaker 1: book deals come from these corporate conglomerates that own these

691
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: book companies. So there was that. There was which he

692
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: routed their an Es corporate right through was a eight

693
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 1: or nine hundred thousand dollars gig at the University of Pennsylvania,

694
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,839
Speaker 1: where mostly it seems like a no show gig, which

695
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: he then followed by naming the University of Pennsylvania chancellor

696
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 1: or president or whatever it was as like the ambassador

697
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 1: of Germany. So a reporter had flagged it as one

698
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:25,720
Speaker 1: of the few, like because ambassadorships are just under every president,

699
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: just rotten to the core. They just go to big donors,

700
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: and it's the one place where that's a little less awful,

701
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: because you want an ambassador to be some like or

702
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: if you're an empire, he want an ambassador to be

703
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 1: like a representative of that empire, and having some type

704
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: of super rich person who's a social being, it's like

705
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: they'll do the empire's work. And then they're like, this

706
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 1: is one of the few. This we got somebody that

707
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: runs university. So thank you Biden for doing something that

708
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: wasn't like, on his face, corrupt when it came to ambassadorships,

709
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, actually a person she paid him

710
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: nine hundred thousand dollars personally directly to him. So it's like,

711
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: all right, never mind that one was not corrupt either,

712
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,759
Speaker 1: so we already know that that, and there wasn't a

713
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: lot of time in twenty seventeen eighteen. Then by like

714
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: eighteen he's back in the race. Yeah, yes he is.

715
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: You know the reason that I think these stories between

716
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 1: Bannon and Donchenko and Hunter Biden, I think it's very

717
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: true that the media, obviously with all of the bias

718
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:32,439
Speaker 1: and activism at play, also refrains from going super deep

719
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: on them because they're just difficult to dive into. It's

720
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 1: difficult to give appropriate treatment to them in shorter segments.

721
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: But to answer your question, I don't think that his

722
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: Ukraine policy is influenced at all by it. I think

723
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: this is structural, like this is what any non kind

724
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 1: of MAGA president would be doing, although a Democrat or Republican.

725
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 1: I do think there's a question as to whether when

726
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: he was vice president and Hunter Biden was on the

727
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: Barisma board that he had people chripping in from his

728
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,800
Speaker 1: son's sort of orbit and had that sort of disproportionately

729
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: loud volume up on them as opposed to other. Yeah,

730
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: that's why this stuff shouldn't happen exactly, because you can't

731
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 1: quantify it, you can't know it, you can't disentangle it.

732
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: But the reason I think these stories are important to

733
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 1: cover is because it does, from my perspective, really show

734
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: the way in which powerful interests are being weaponized, not

735
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: just by Republicans, not just by Democrats, but by the

736
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: political establishment sort of in general. I mean, if you

737
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: look at the House January sixth committee, that'su Peen and

738
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, you have Adam Kinzinger, and you have Liz

739
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: Cheney leading the charge shattering congressional president in terms of

740
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: what we seek on select committees like that, and the

741
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: result is probably, sadly going to be something like more

742
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 1: unrest along the lines of what happened on January sixth,

743
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: along the lines of what's happened around the country in

744
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 1: different ways over the course of the last few years.

745
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:57,800
Speaker 1: Because this stuff is really happening, I mean, it is

746
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: really happening under our noses. The media lack of curiosity,

747
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: whether it is Bannon, Denchenko, Hunter, Biden is truly I

748
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:11,439
Speaker 1: think sorry state of affairs. Now on that point, Ryan,

749
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 1: speaking of sorry state of affairs, speaking of January sixth,

750
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: Bring on, what's your point? I got a point to

751
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 1: make on that. So going back to the book I

752
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:24,120
Speaker 1: talked about, Actually a couple weeks ago, so in the

753
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 1: lead up to the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump,

754
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: Congressman Jamie Raskin pushed the White House to allow impeachment

755
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,759
Speaker 1: managers to call witnesses. In particular, he wanted to call

756
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: Secret Service agents to testify about Trump's actions on January

757
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:41,360
Speaker 1: sixth and the lead up, as well as called Pentagon

758
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 1: officials to testify about the long delay in getting the

759
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: capital cleared. That's, according to the new book Unchecked, the

760
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 1: untold story behind Congress's batched impeachments of Donald Trump. Now,

761
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: I got an early copy of the book which comes

762
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 1: out today, and I talked about another scoop and in

763
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago about how Nancy Pelosi rejected attempts

764
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 1: by rank and fileocrats to impeach Trump on the night

765
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: of the insurrection. This new bit of news is particularly

766
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 1: interesting given that the clinching argument made by the January

767
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: sixth Committee related directly to Trump's attempt to practically carjack

768
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 1: the beast. Here was their blockbuster testimony from a former

769
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: White House aid, I'm the e fving President. Take me

770
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: up to the Capitol now, to which Bobby responded, sir,

771
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: we have to go back to the west wing. The

772
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 1: President reached up towards the front of the vehicle to

773
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 1: grab at the steering wheel. Mister Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir,

774
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: you need to take your hand off the steering wheel.

775
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,839
Speaker 1: We're going back to the west wing. We're not going

776
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: to the Capitol. After the testimony, Trump denied it happened.

777
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: Here was his little stand up bit making his case.

778
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: You know what else I don't want to talk about.

779
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,399
Speaker 1: How about that phony story. I'm sitting in the back

780
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: of the beast. I wasn't sure if I should be

781
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: honored because I felt very strong, and I had these

782
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: two big, strong secret Service guys. If one guy could

783
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: lift three hundred and fifty pounds, no problem, I said,

784
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 1: take me to that capital. Oh, sir, can't do it.

785
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: So I grabbed his steering wheel. The commented, and he

786
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 1: rebuffed me. She said, he rebuffed interesting, Well, he rebuffed me. Yeah,

787
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: like this, he rebuffed me. So my hands fell around

788
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: another powerful guy, strong as hell, I know, these people.

789
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: These are very strong people. It's just not my deal.

790
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: And I started to show Cam I felt, you know.

791
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 1: So when the story came out, some people said I

792
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: never knew you were that strong physically, and then they

793
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 1: said I started throwing food all over the White House.

794
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: Now I have too much respect for the White House,

795
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:10,840
Speaker 1: but that somebody could sort of believe, you know that

796
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:13,520
Speaker 1: you could, but to think that I'm going to be

797
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:17,319
Speaker 1: jumping into the seat, grabbing being rebough, grabbed this big

798
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:19,879
Speaker 1: powerful guy, his dick is like this and grabbed. I'm

799
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 1: gonna take care. Boy, oh boy, oh boy? What we

800
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: have to put And guess what? The Secret Service put

801
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: out an announce which they never do, put out an

802
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: announcement that it never happened, which everyone knew anyway. So

803
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: now Tony Ornado, the Secret Service official that Hutchinson sided

804
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: as a source for the story, later denied it, but

805
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: he has denied other things that multiple witnesses say happen.

806
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 1: Here's a tweet from Alyssa farre our old colleague back

807
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:52,239
Speaker 1: at Rising This is just one of many examples of

808
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: things that he's been caught in. And Carol Lenning actually

809
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 1: who won a polister for reporting on the Secret Service

810
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: and is as well sourced there as any body put

811
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:03,839
Speaker 1: her here. Next said that the agents denied that Trump

812
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: physically attacked them as Trump did, but confirmed that he

813
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,720
Speaker 1: was furious and demanded to be taken to the Capitol.

814
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: So the point is, this is the perfect kind of

815
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 1: thing that could have been sorted out by some witness testimony,

816
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: but the incoming Biden administration refused it. The book also

817
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 1: reports that Biden blocked investigators from calling Justice Department officials

818
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: to look into rumors of an FBI memo that had

819
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: warned of a looming threat to the capitol. Rachel Baide

820
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:35,839
Speaker 1: and Karen Demargin Wright quote. The document would have helped

821
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 1: Raskin's team make the case that the President knew of

822
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 1: the threat of violence before he urged his supporters to

823
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 1: march on the Capitol, but Justice officials told him that

824
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 1: disclosing it would complicate upcoming prosecutions of rioters. They ran

825
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 1: into a similar predicament with the Pentagon unquote. So in short,

826
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,399
Speaker 1: in order to strengthen their case against the regular people

827
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: who mobbed the capital, they purposely weakened their case against Trump.

828
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: There couldn't be a more perfect encapsulation of the democratic

829
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,400
Speaker 1: response than that now. Emily Raskin in the book seems

830
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: to think that, all right, what about you, what point

831
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: you want to make? Well it didn't get a lot

832
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: of attention, but Northwestern University dropped its State of Local

833
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 1: News report earlier this month, and that reported that America

834
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: lost over three hundred and sixty newspapers from late twenty

835
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: nineteen until last May. That's an average of about two

836
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 1: every week. Since two thousand and five, we've lost twenty

837
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 1: five hundred papers overall. This is a market failure. People

838
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 1: want affordable information on their communities, but rapid technological changes

839
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 1: made that almost impossible for businesses to supply at sustainable levels. Now,

840
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: as Northwestern notes, digital media isn't replacing those papers, and

841
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: while some philanthropies have sought to fill the gaps, those

842
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: efforts are leaving behind the same subset of communities. In

843
00:47:55,000 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: the words of report, economically struggling, traditionally underserved community that

844
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:03,879
Speaker 1: need local journalism the most are the very places where

845
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:07,240
Speaker 1: it is most difficult to sustain either print or digital

846
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:11,760
Speaker 1: news organizations. The result is a glaring disparity that haunts

847
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: our politics and our culture more than people realize. In

848
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 1: less affluent communities, powerful interests face much less scrutiny, allowing

849
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: them to more easily exploit people without fear of oversight

850
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 1: from the free press. The sanctimony about democracy dying in

851
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 1: darkness is fun to laugh at from self serious the

852
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: liberty journalists, but the problem is very real outside of

853
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: our big cities. These blind spots are dangerous and they

854
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: fuel our political discord. Take recent explosions in national coverage

855
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: of local school district's curricula. Sometimes the way these stories

856
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: are first reported is actually in national media outlets that

857
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:52,319
Speaker 1: have little connection to the place in question. They don't

858
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: have a reporter at all of the school board meetings

859
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,400
Speaker 1: who knows the superintendents, or the union leaders or the parents.

860
00:48:57,640 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 1: They don't have a direct stake in the school either.

861
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: When schools went virtual during the pandemic, parents seemed to

862
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: be learning for the first time things local outlets might

863
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: have actually caught had they been equipped with the resources

864
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 1: to more closely report on what was happening. Social media

865
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 1: platforms also vault local stories to viral reach, ripping them

866
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: from their contacts and thrusting unwitting people in international controversies.

867
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:20,240
Speaker 1: So that's a problem too, but it's one for another

868
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: show now. Northwestern's report notes, quote the number of journalists

869
00:49:24,239 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: declined in lockstep with revenue decreases by almost sixty percent,

870
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: from seventy five thousand in two thousand and five to

871
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: thirty one thousand, four hundred and twenty twenty one. They report, quote,

872
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 1: four million people live in the more than two hundred

873
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:40,800
Speaker 1: counties that have no local newspaper. More than half the

874
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 1: counties one thousand, six hundred and thirty have only one newspaper,

875
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: usually a weekly one with a small reporting staff. Only

876
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:51,200
Speaker 1: seventy of these counties have a local digital alternative, and

877
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: two thirds of the nation's counties two thousand have no

878
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: daily paper. Fewer than one hundred of these counties have

879
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:02,800
Speaker 1: a digital substitute, fewer than one hundred by necessity. The

880
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:05,320
Speaker 1: report says, the main source of local breaking news for

881
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:08,880
Speaker 1: residents in many counties without a daily paper becomes social

882
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: media or television stations, often located in cities miles away

883
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 1: or even in another state. Northwestern points out that single

884
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 1: newspaper counties in the West can encompass several thousand square miles,

885
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 1: so while they may have fewer people and thus fewer consumers,

886
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 1: they have an immense amount of literal ground to cover,

887
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:30,840
Speaker 1: which also makes it more difficult for consolidated regional outlets

888
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:34,600
Speaker 1: to be sufficiently thorough. Worst yet, the national and regional

889
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: chains that snap up dying local papers quote often replace

890
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: publishers and editors at local papers with regional publishers and editors,

891
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 1: and then merge the small weeklies with other weeklies in

892
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: the area or with a larger off a larger daily

893
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 1: that is often in another county altogether. That's according to

894
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:56,240
Speaker 1: Northwestern This means people concentrated in big cities are covering

895
00:50:56,320 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 1: communities with vastly different cultural and political characteristics because those

896
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 1: differences are often rooted in class differences. Again, we see

897
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 1: how economically disenfranchised communities get screwed in this arrangement. They

898
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,800
Speaker 1: either get no coverage or worse coverage, and both of

899
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 1: those categories are great for the power brokers, who can

900
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: more easily take advantage of people, their governments, and their land.

901
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: It's not great for people in more affluent areas either,

902
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,319
Speaker 1: because they struggle to understand and empathize with their fellow

903
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:30,040
Speaker 1: Americans because they have less accurate information about what happens

904
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:33,239
Speaker 1: outside of big cities. Now, When a coastal hedge fund

905
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 1: disappears a rural paper mill, do you think they'd rather

906
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:38,919
Speaker 1: do it with or without coverage from a strong local

907
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: news outlet. When a teacher tries to implement debunked curricula

908
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 1: into their lesson plans debunked or controversial, do you think

909
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 1: they'd rather defend it knowing a local reporter will be

910
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 1: at the meeting, filing a story that parents around the

911
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 1: district will read. A lot of people, especially conservatives like me,

912
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:57,720
Speaker 1: probably haven't been too sorry to see their local papers fold.

913
00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:00,840
Speaker 1: Journalists tend to be liberal, and even in smaller communities,

914
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 1: that bias is often clear, and often excuse further left

915
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 1: than the community they cover. But bias news is still news,

916
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: and we should prefer communities to at least know what's

917
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 1: happening around them than allowing their government and business and

918
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: faith leaders to operate in relative darkness. Plus, local journalists

919
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,839
Speaker 1: actually live and work in the same communities, meaning they're

920
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 1: familiar with their subjects and actually accountable to the people

921
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 1: around them, like other parents, or their neighbors or even

922
00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 1: friends at the gym. You can't execute hit and runs

923
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 1: as a local reporter quite like a national one doing

924
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: shoddy work and just moving right along. Local TV affiliates

925
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,839
Speaker 1: do what they can, and Instagram and Twitter profiles try

926
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,880
Speaker 1: to disseminate information, but that doesn't really instill fear in

927
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: the hearts of powerful people. Quite like traditional reporting. Those

928
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:50,120
Speaker 1: same people also need safe places to air their grievances

929
00:52:50,200 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 1: and whistleblow on things that their constituents care about, and

930
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 1: places to share in communal successes too. But they absolutely

931
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 1: need to be afraid because without fear of over site,

932
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:04,359
Speaker 1: they will abuse their power once again. The people who

933
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: bear the brunt of that abuse will be those people

934
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: who already lack resources. We're going to be joined now

935
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: by Saddar Sadiki. She is a pH d in American

936
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: Studies from University of Tehran. She joins us from Esfahan,

937
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 1: which is one of the one of the largest cities

938
00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:30,440
Speaker 1: in Iran. She's a teacher and also a podcaster her

939
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 1: YouTube her podcast and YouTube channel our host. She's the

940
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 1: host of Twice Told Tales that's on YouTube minutes, also

941
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,960
Speaker 1: a podcast. Satara, you know, thank you so much for

942
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:48,240
Speaker 1: joining us. You're welcome. That's my pleasure, and so Sadar

943
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 1: can you first set the set the background here, what

944
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,800
Speaker 1: what is what? What is your own uh, what is

945
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: your own take on the policy that is being protested

946
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:03,239
Speaker 1: against uh right now across Iran? And what what has

947
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:06,800
Speaker 1: your involvement been in kind of pushing pushing back against

948
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 1: the law that is currently at at the center of

949
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:16,399
Speaker 1: this of these protests. Well, as a woman and who

950
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: is concerned about women's rights in my country, I have

951
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:26,279
Speaker 1: been a part of the campaign online campaign which was

952
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: launched well before the tragic death of Massamini and police custody,

953
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 1: and I used hashtags to join other women and men

954
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:44,880
Speaker 1: to protest the way the mandatory hit job is enforced

955
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: and to protest the quote unquote morality please, which in

956
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:52,960
Speaker 1: person we say we call it a guidance patrol by

957
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 1: the way, But as as a woman who's been active

958
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:06,359
Speaker 1: in the societ, I have always been concerned about how

959
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:11,160
Speaker 1: this struggle of women's rights inside Iran is also represented

960
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,800
Speaker 1: outside because we don't want anyone to make our struggles

961
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 1: within the society within Iran more difficult. So when the

962
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 1: protests started, people wanted to make a statement to the

963
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:30,239
Speaker 1: state and say that the morality police has to be

964
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:35,200
Speaker 1: abandoned but soon the protests were going a totally different direction,

965
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 1: and in my city, for example, they were not as

966
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: huge as the other protest that I have seen over

967
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:47,800
Speaker 1: the years. Oh, that's really interesting. And on that point,

968
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:52,800
Speaker 1: as you sort of questioned the or worked on the

969
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 1: legitimacy of the representation of what's happening outside of Iran

970
00:55:56,440 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: and maybe Western media, what is it? Do you think

971
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:03,280
Speaker 1: or are there things that the American media is getting

972
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 1: Western media, maybe in general, is getting wrong about what's

973
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: happening right now? Are there narratives or themes or storylines

974
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:16,719
Speaker 1: you see coming out of Western media that are most egregious? Well,

975
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 1: I mean a lot. It's not the first time that

976
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: the Western media has tried to control the narrative and

977
00:56:23,680 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: portray Iran as very different from the realities on the ground,

978
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 1: but this time it has been really unprecedented, and probably

979
00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:38,320
Speaker 1: the people in America and elsewhere in the world have

980
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 1: been hearing about the news in Iran twenty four to

981
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 1: seven as if something really huge has been happening. But

982
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: when you come inside Iran. I have been talking to

983
00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:52,400
Speaker 1: tourists just a few days ago when I was on

984
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:54,959
Speaker 1: a picnic with my family, and they did not even

985
00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:59,120
Speaker 1: notice anything in Iran, in Tehran or in Esfahan and

986
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:02,360
Speaker 1: in other cities that they have been visiting. And the

987
00:57:02,440 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: tourists are even still coming to the country even though

988
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:10,080
Speaker 1: we're seeing decline in the number of people from outside

989
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:13,440
Speaker 1: who want to visit around because of obviously what they hear.

990
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:23,240
Speaker 1: So this coordinated manipulation campaign cannot be denied. And you know,

991
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:27,040
Speaker 1: as an Iranian, as one of the members of the

992
00:57:27,680 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 1: Iranian nation, I have seen that Western countries, especially the US,

993
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:41,200
Speaker 1: has launched different propaganda campaigns against my nation. They have

994
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 1: tried to demonize the Iranian nation to portray Iranian women

995
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 1: as submissive and needing help from outside. While Iranian women

996
00:57:51,880 --> 00:57:55,720
Speaker 1: are very powerful, they don't need help from outside. Fifty

997
00:57:55,800 --> 00:58:01,040
Speaker 1: seven percent of Iranian university students are women, forty above

998
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 1: forty four percent of the university graduates. Our women are

999
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: active in different sectors and they run NGOs, they're entrepreneurs,

1000
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:14,000
Speaker 1: their doctors, university teachers, etc. And they know how to

1001
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 1: control everything. But what we are seeing from the Western

1002
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 1: media is troll farms basically trying to portray what is

1003
00:58:24,600 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 1: happening inside Iran as almost a revolution, which is it's

1004
00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 1: really funny for us who are living in Iran, because

1005
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 1: if we don't open our Twitter or our Instagram or

1006
00:58:39,600 --> 00:58:43,680
Speaker 1: other social media, we don't see anything happening around us.

1007
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 1: But once we get on social media, we feel that

1008
00:58:46,760 --> 00:58:50,480
Speaker 1: something very important is happening. I walk downtown, I go

1009
00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: to work, I visit family and friends, and I don't

1010
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 1: see anything happening. I hear from friends that there have

1011
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:00,760
Speaker 1: been protests here in their many of them have already

1012
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: died out, and people are still trying to trying to

1013
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 1: make a statement to the state and try to change

1014
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:15,000
Speaker 1: the things that they don't agree with. But in overall,

1015
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:20,040
Speaker 1: we do not want a regime change. To be frank,

1016
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:23,720
Speaker 1: we're happy with a lot of things that are happening here.

1017
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:29,160
Speaker 1: At the same time, we're protesting and we're demanding more

1018
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:35,000
Speaker 1: equal rights and more civil rights. And this has nothing

1019
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:39,200
Speaker 1: to do with anyone from outside. As Malcolm X said

1020
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 1: in his famous the bulletin the bullet or Ballot speech,

1021
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 1: our brothers and sisters, I know they have good intentions.

1022
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 1: But those from outside Iran that are not even speak

1023
00:59:51,200 --> 00:59:55,000
Speaker 1: about it because they just make our struggle more difficult.

1024
00:59:55,240 --> 00:59:57,520
Speaker 1: We don't need help from outside. We know how to

1025
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 1: deal with the government and pursue our goals. How does

1026
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: the unrest that you're seeing in the protests that you're

1027
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 1: seeing now compared to twenty nineteen, and what were the

1028
01:00:10,280 --> 01:00:12,560
Speaker 1: what were the different kind of goals and agendas of

1029
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:17,960
Speaker 1: those two different protests or even two thousand and nine. Well, yes,

1030
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: I mean in twenty nineteen, the protests started over the

1031
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 1: fuel prices going high, So it was mainly wide the

1032
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 1: working class, but also a middle class that was that

1033
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 1: was also hit by the economic problems that we have.

1034
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's important to know that, I

1035
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:41,040
Speaker 1: mean alongside the mismanagement that we might have in Iran,

1036
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:47,040
Speaker 1: it's also US sanctions, the US unilateral coercive measures against

1037
01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:51,640
Speaker 1: Iran that are hitting ordinary Iranian citizens. And that's why

1038
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:54,600
Speaker 1: we find everything that comes from the US claiming to

1039
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 1: be advocating for the rights of Iranian citizens as very,

1040
01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 1: very hypocritical. We have not forgotten that the US backed

1041
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:06,920
Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein in its war. I was born during the

1042
01:01:06,960 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 1: war right away, and we have not forgotten that the

1043
01:01:09,800 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 1: US backed Saddam Husain's invasion of Iran, and some European

1044
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:18,280
Speaker 1: countries armed Saddam with chemical weapons and we still have

1045
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 1: people who are suffering from them. We haven't forgotten that

1046
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 1: the US downed our passenger plane on the Persian Gulf.

1047
01:01:26,320 --> 01:01:30,960
Speaker 1: We haven't forgotten that the Bush administration, for example, armed

1048
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:35,440
Speaker 1: and trained the m e K terrorists called in Nevada

1049
01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: to assassinate our nuclear scientists. So with, and the sanctions

1050
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:47,440
Speaker 1: are still hurting ordinary citizens. So with, Having seen all

1051
01:01:47,520 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 1: of that, we find anything that comes from the US

1052
01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:55,240
Speaker 1: very hypocritical. I think that makes a difference. I mean,

1053
01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:59,960
Speaker 1: if anyone had doubts that the US is pursuing its agenda,

1054
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:04,440
Speaker 1: now it's it has become more clear because in twenty nineteen,

1055
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,520
Speaker 1: when the working class was protesting and the protests were

1056
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:11,680
Speaker 1: a lot larger than this year, we did not see

1057
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 1: as much coverage of the events as we're seeing now.

1058
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:19,920
Speaker 1: And you know, Ciena did this article on how the

1059
01:02:20,080 --> 01:02:25,280
Speaker 1: narrative is being taken over online and how so many

1060
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:28,720
Speaker 1: of the accounts that I've been using the hashtags regarding

1061
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 1: mass amonies that have been actually fake accounts or accounts

1062
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:37,920
Speaker 1: that have been created only ten days after, up to

1063
01:02:38,040 --> 01:02:42,440
Speaker 1: ten days after mass Amini's death. And I mean, it's

1064
01:02:42,560 --> 01:02:47,200
Speaker 1: surprising that the Twitter account Twitter is not even taking

1065
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:54,840
Speaker 1: down those fake accounts, and you see celebrities with millions

1066
01:02:54,880 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 1: of followers sharing fake videos, and even when they are

1067
01:02:59,160 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 1: told that this is a fake video, this is, for example,

1068
01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 1: from a drama scene, they keep that on. And so

1069
01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 1: it's very different in the sense that people, Iranian people,

1070
01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:14,640
Speaker 1: and I think the world is gradually also understanding that

1071
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:17,040
Speaker 1: they have been lied to about whatever is happening in

1072
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 1: Iran and they have not. And how many voices from

1073
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:24,280
Speaker 1: inside Iran have people been hearing, I mean you have.

1074
01:03:25,560 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you gave me this platform so that

1075
01:03:28,200 --> 01:03:33,080
Speaker 1: I can, like, as one voice inside Iran speak to

1076
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:35,960
Speaker 1: the people of the world. But there are really not

1077
01:03:36,280 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: many platforms out there for Iranians to be able to

1078
01:03:41,280 --> 01:03:45,120
Speaker 1: speak and say that, yes, we're not a monolithic society.

1079
01:03:46,720 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 1: We have grievances with our governments where we're not we're

1080
01:03:50,200 --> 01:03:54,360
Speaker 1: not looking for regime change, and we're we're we're living

1081
01:03:54,400 --> 01:03:59,320
Speaker 1: a normal life. Speaking of that non monolithic approach, can

1082
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about the what's going on

1083
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 1: And in the Bhluki region or the or the Kurdish region,

1084
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,360
Speaker 1: there were reports that you know, more than sixty people

1085
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:08,280
Speaker 1: were killed, and I think in the Bhluki region. There's

1086
01:04:08,480 --> 01:04:12,240
Speaker 1: reports of all, like some clashes with protesters and Kurdish regions.

1087
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:16,560
Speaker 1: What's going on? How how did this begin as a

1088
01:04:16,920 --> 01:04:21,880
Speaker 1: protest around the morality police and involved into these types

1089
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:24,160
Speaker 1: of clashes and what? What? What is? What are the

1090
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:25,840
Speaker 1: latest on those that I imagine you're not there, but

1091
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:30,800
Speaker 1: I assume you're getting reports from from out there. Yes,

1092
01:04:30,920 --> 01:04:33,480
Speaker 1: because I when I lived in Tehran, I was I

1093
01:04:33,880 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: had roommates from across the country, and I have had

1094
01:04:38,160 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 1: Kurdish friends, you know, and we don't I mean, the

1095
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:45,680
Speaker 1: Kurdish ethnicity comes seconds to our Iranian nationality. We don't

1096
01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:48,920
Speaker 1: really feel that someone is from a different ethnicity. It's

1097
01:04:49,080 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: very different here. We ethnicity is something that comes seconds

1098
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:58,040
Speaker 1: to our nationality, and like we have family members who

1099
01:04:58,120 --> 01:05:00,400
Speaker 1: marry into other ethnicities and that's very norm all in

1100
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:04,720
Speaker 1: different cities. Uh So, yeah, I have been talking to

1101
01:05:04,840 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 1: them too. The thing is there are a few terrorist

1102
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:14,040
Speaker 1: groups and separatist groups that have been exploiting ethnicity to

1103
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: pursue their agendas. And they are usually as uh has

1104
01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:22,040
Speaker 1: been proved several times, not only in Iran but also

1105
01:05:22,120 --> 01:05:25,720
Speaker 1: in Turkey, in Iraq and Syria. They are funded and

1106
01:05:25,880 --> 01:05:29,360
Speaker 1: backed by the US and the UK and the Israeli

1107
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:36,320
Speaker 1: regime because they are seeking to destabilize Middle East and

1108
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:39,920
Speaker 1: especially destabilized Iran, because you know, we have been a

1109
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:47,160
Speaker 1: very a country with which has been like a well

1110
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:53,280
Speaker 1: established We don't have issues of security or destabilization that much.

1111
01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:56,480
Speaker 1: But they are trying to create chaos inside the country.

1112
01:05:56,800 --> 01:06:01,680
Speaker 1: So when when there is undress, when there are Protestant riots,

1113
01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:05,520
Speaker 1: it's a great opportunity for those terrorist groups to pursue

1114
01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:10,960
Speaker 1: their own agenda. When Masamini died, his father made it

1115
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 1: clear to the public that this has nothing to do

1116
01:06:13,920 --> 01:06:20,000
Speaker 1: with her Kourdish identity. It is an issue of women's

1117
01:06:20,120 --> 01:06:23,520
Speaker 1: right for all Iranians, regardless of their ethnicity, and they

1118
01:06:23,560 --> 01:06:26,760
Speaker 1: don't want the ethnacity to be highlighted because it doesn't

1119
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:30,040
Speaker 1: really matter. And that's the same for all Iranians from

1120
01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:34,560
Speaker 1: other ethnicities. In Valuchastan, we also had terrorist groups which

1121
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:40,080
Speaker 1: are funded and backed by Saudi in Salafi ideology, and

1122
01:06:41,040 --> 01:06:43,920
Speaker 1: they have always been very active. Unfortunately, they have killed

1123
01:06:44,040 --> 01:06:46,560
Speaker 1: a lot of police officers, not just this year, in

1124
01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:51,200
Speaker 1: previous years too, because like they are at the border

1125
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 1: with Pakistan and they cause they seek to create chaos there.

1126
01:06:57,120 --> 01:07:02,919
Speaker 1: So what happened in Walchastan and what happens in in Sanandaich,

1127
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:08,280
Speaker 1: for example, was that we saw activities from like random

1128
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:11,600
Speaker 1: people shooting and then the police had to get involved.

1129
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:15,160
Speaker 1: And when something like that happens, unfortunately and sadly, we

1130
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:18,240
Speaker 1: also see nocent people getting killed. But there are videos

1131
01:07:18,320 --> 01:07:21,080
Speaker 1: of what happens in for example, system that I've just done,

1132
01:07:21,480 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 1: where like people dressed as ordinary people come and start

1133
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:30,640
Speaker 1: shooting their protesters, like from among the protesters, and they

1134
01:07:30,680 --> 01:07:35,480
Speaker 1: start shooting their protesters. So and because of all the

1135
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:40,440
Speaker 1: lies and fake stories that have been going viral online,

1136
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:44,920
Speaker 1: it becomes very difficult for people to understand who's exactly

1137
01:07:46,480 --> 01:07:49,760
Speaker 1: causing this chaos in the country, and they want to

1138
01:07:49,880 --> 01:07:52,760
Speaker 1: step back and just not to be involved in the

1139
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:55,960
Speaker 1: protest anymore. That's I think one reason that a protests

1140
01:07:55,960 --> 01:07:59,320
Speaker 1: have already died out. It's interesting because I remember back

1141
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:00,840
Speaker 1: in two thousand and I think it was two thousand

1142
01:08:00,840 --> 01:08:03,400
Speaker 1: and nine, the Obama era. The idea was that Twitter

1143
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:06,800
Speaker 1: was fueling revolution and that it was going to topple

1144
01:08:06,880 --> 01:08:10,400
Speaker 1: authoritarian dictably well, and a target targraph is in twenty nineteen,

1145
01:08:10,480 --> 01:08:13,880
Speaker 1: they shut the Internet down for at least a week,

1146
01:08:14,200 --> 01:08:17,760
Speaker 1: but a full week, so like it's there is power. No,

1147
01:08:17,920 --> 01:08:19,760
Speaker 1: of course, of course there's power, but there's so much

1148
01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:22,679
Speaker 1: power for fake information to go viral too, and that's

1149
01:08:22,760 --> 01:08:25,880
Speaker 1: what that is. So I think that is such a

1150
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:28,800
Speaker 1: stark contrast with the way Twitter was being pitched back

1151
01:08:28,880 --> 01:08:32,280
Speaker 1: in the aughts, And I wanted to ask, you know,

1152
01:08:32,360 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 1: obviously the hostility between the United States and Iran is

1153
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:39,120
Speaker 1: long and complicated and two sided. But if we separate

1154
01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:42,880
Speaker 1: the sort of ordinary citizens from the government, you know,

1155
01:08:42,960 --> 01:08:46,519
Speaker 1: there are a lot of regular Americans who want to know,

1156
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:51,360
Speaker 1: what can the what is the plight of women in Iran?

1157
01:08:51,439 --> 01:08:53,759
Speaker 1: You know what we cut out all of the Western

1158
01:08:54,320 --> 01:09:00,639
Speaker 1: disinformation and narrative. What are activists in Iran like yourself?

1159
01:09:01,320 --> 01:09:04,120
Speaker 1: What can your government? What should your government be doing

1160
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:10,439
Speaker 1: better for women? Well? I think we have improved a

1161
01:09:10,479 --> 01:09:13,920
Speaker 1: lot over the years, and that's because women have been

1162
01:09:14,560 --> 01:09:20,320
Speaker 1: taking the lead in demanding reforms with for example, laws

1163
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:25,519
Speaker 1: regarding women, and it's been improving. So what we ask

1164
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:29,400
Speaker 1: the government is just to speed up this process and

1165
01:09:29,640 --> 01:09:33,400
Speaker 1: allow for more and more women to get involved and

1166
01:09:33,760 --> 01:09:37,519
Speaker 1: to support them. Women in Iran have been able to

1167
01:09:37,760 --> 01:09:42,280
Speaker 1: change a lot of laws regarding women and have improved

1168
01:09:42,280 --> 01:09:45,880
Speaker 1: a situation for women. And that's why, as I said,

1169
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:51,519
Speaker 1: we are seeing more women at studying at universities than

1170
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:56,280
Speaker 1: men even and in some majors it's even more than

1171
01:09:56,400 --> 01:10:00,280
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the students are women. So what we

1172
01:10:00,400 --> 01:10:03,760
Speaker 1: have been doing, and we have to educate our nation

1173
01:10:04,000 --> 01:10:06,599
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, it's it's not everything comes from

1174
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:09,040
Speaker 1: the government. We have to also educate the brass roots.

1175
01:10:09,560 --> 01:10:12,000
Speaker 1: But what we want the governments to do is to

1176
01:10:12,479 --> 01:10:20,519
Speaker 1: resist any foreign intervention and do not allow our struggle

1177
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:23,920
Speaker 1: for civil rights and for more equal rights to be

1178
01:10:24,120 --> 01:10:28,000
Speaker 1: hijacked by versus outside. This is basically the main thing

1179
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 1: and we want to We want the government to focus

1180
01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:33,439
Speaker 1: on us. And I know that when there is so

1181
01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:38,240
Speaker 1: much hostility targeted towards Iran, it becomes very difficult for

1182
01:10:38,760 --> 01:10:41,800
Speaker 1: the government also to I mean, they will have to

1183
01:10:41,880 --> 01:10:44,559
Speaker 1: be get busy at the borders, they will get busy

1184
01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:47,479
Speaker 1: at a lot of other things. But still we want

1185
01:10:47,520 --> 01:10:50,760
Speaker 1: them to focus on the issues inside and try to

1186
01:10:50,920 --> 01:10:56,280
Speaker 1: make it easier for women to pursue their goals. Somewhat

1187
01:10:56,320 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 1: off off topic question, but not totally. Iran has a

1188
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:04,040
Speaker 1: a pretty strict abortion band. And I'm curious, since I

1189
01:11:04,120 --> 01:11:06,320
Speaker 1: live in a country that's headed in that direction, what

1190
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:08,760
Speaker 1: what has been the effect of that? Is there is

1191
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:13,280
Speaker 1: there a significant black market, uh for for abortions? Is

1192
01:11:13,320 --> 01:11:15,760
Speaker 1: there is there an abortion rights is there a kind

1193
01:11:15,760 --> 01:11:18,559
Speaker 1: of an underground abortion rights movement there? Where? Where? Where

1194
01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:21,599
Speaker 1: are you know? Where? Where is Iranian society and law

1195
01:11:21,760 --> 01:11:26,880
Speaker 1: on that question right now? Well, the abortion in Iran

1196
01:11:27,280 --> 01:11:32,840
Speaker 1: is not totally banned. If abortion is necessary for the

1197
01:11:32,960 --> 01:11:37,360
Speaker 1: mother's health or if you get permission from doctors, you

1198
01:11:37,479 --> 01:11:40,680
Speaker 1: can do it in the regular hospitals and that's not

1199
01:11:40,920 --> 01:11:44,439
Speaker 1: very difficult. So, and that's also one thing that women's

1200
01:11:44,560 --> 01:11:49,040
Speaker 1: rights have been working on. Because the majority of Iranians

1201
01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:52,800
Speaker 1: are Muslim and they want the Islamic laws to be enforced.

1202
01:11:53,240 --> 01:11:58,240
Speaker 1: They have maybe some sort of different ideas about how

1203
01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:02,519
Speaker 1: abortion has to be banned or not banned here, but

1204
01:12:02,800 --> 01:12:05,599
Speaker 1: based on Islamic law and based on the Iranian law,

1205
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:12,280
Speaker 1: the mother's health and well being comes first, and that's

1206
01:12:13,479 --> 01:12:16,840
Speaker 1: what plays a pivotal role in whether a woman is

1207
01:12:16,880 --> 01:12:22,599
Speaker 1: allowed to aboard or not. Like Christians, I mean, I'm

1208
01:12:22,640 --> 01:12:28,320
Speaker 1: sure the Christian community also believes that at least as Christians,

1209
01:12:28,400 --> 01:12:30,560
Speaker 1: they should be able to practice what they've live in,

1210
01:12:31,240 --> 01:12:34,160
Speaker 1: or the Jewish community, and here too, Muslims want to

1211
01:12:34,200 --> 01:12:37,360
Speaker 1: be allowed to practice what they've lived in. And I

1212
01:12:37,400 --> 01:12:41,439
Speaker 1: think it's very important to understand it's not about only abortion.

1213
01:12:41,680 --> 01:12:44,600
Speaker 1: It's with a lot of other rules, for example, the

1214
01:12:45,439 --> 01:12:48,679
Speaker 1: head cover or the covering. It's very important to understand

1215
01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:53,320
Speaker 1: that not everyone in the world wants to enforce the

1216
01:12:53,520 --> 01:12:58,800
Speaker 1: liberal Western notion of freedom or body the autonomy. There

1217
01:12:58,800 --> 01:13:02,719
Speaker 1: are people who believe in their own ideas and that's

1218
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:07,240
Speaker 1: about the majority of Iranians here. It's interesting to know

1219
01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:12,200
Speaker 1: that there have been campaigns inside Iran because you know,

1220
01:13:12,280 --> 01:13:14,800
Speaker 1: it has become very easy for women to just get

1221
01:13:14,840 --> 01:13:17,760
Speaker 1: a permission from their doctors to abort, and there have

1222
01:13:17,880 --> 01:13:22,160
Speaker 1: been campaigns inside Iran asking doctors to make it more

1223
01:13:22,200 --> 01:13:28,920
Speaker 1: difficult because the patients have to be you know, well

1224
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:33,519
Speaker 1: informed about the consequences and about everything that would happen

1225
01:13:34,320 --> 01:13:38,160
Speaker 1: to them. And they're asking for more education for women

1226
01:13:38,439 --> 01:13:41,080
Speaker 1: so that if they make a decision, it's not only

1227
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:44,200
Speaker 1: coming from the doctors, it's also something that they really

1228
01:13:44,320 --> 01:13:49,280
Speaker 1: want to do. Well. Just curious if if you could

1229
01:13:49,320 --> 01:13:52,000
Speaker 1: get a or and maybe you have some polling that

1230
01:13:52,160 --> 01:13:55,120
Speaker 1: you that you trust. What are what is the general

1231
01:13:55,160 --> 01:14:02,599
Speaker 1: attitude toward the particular law around required hitjob in public?

1232
01:14:03,120 --> 01:14:06,519
Speaker 1: Where do you think the Iranian public would come down

1233
01:14:06,600 --> 01:14:09,800
Speaker 1: on that? And if it were repealed, what's your guess

1234
01:14:09,960 --> 01:14:11,599
Speaker 1: on what the effect of that would be, how many

1235
01:14:11,640 --> 01:14:16,040
Speaker 1: women would would voluntarily continue wearing it in public. That's

1236
01:14:16,040 --> 01:14:17,639
Speaker 1: a good question because it's another one of those things

1237
01:14:17,720 --> 01:14:20,600
Speaker 1: the Western media latches onto as a sort of straightenerw

1238
01:14:20,680 --> 01:14:25,400
Speaker 1: question of within the framing of Western freedom exactly. And

1239
01:14:25,960 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 1: the way they portrayed women Inciet Iran wearing hitjob is

1240
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:32,439
Speaker 1: that they have been asked by men to do it,

1241
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:35,760
Speaker 1: and women are submissive or anything. But women here are

1242
01:14:35,920 --> 01:14:38,599
Speaker 1: very powerful and they know how to, as I said,

1243
01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:42,120
Speaker 1: achieve their goals. But I mean, I don't have There

1244
01:14:42,200 --> 01:14:45,840
Speaker 1: are a few statistics, but because that's a topic that

1245
01:14:46,000 --> 01:14:48,400
Speaker 1: has not, you know, it has not been the main

1246
01:14:48,479 --> 01:14:52,880
Speaker 1: concern for Iranian women. Iranian women have do not have

1247
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:57,519
Speaker 1: the mandatory job, whether for it to be enforce or not,

1248
01:14:58,000 --> 01:15:01,280
Speaker 1: has not been the first priority for women. Iranian women

1249
01:15:01,680 --> 01:15:08,400
Speaker 1: want changes with other things that happened to us, for example,

1250
01:15:08,600 --> 01:15:16,719
Speaker 1: more equal rights in job opportunities in marriage rights, et cetera.

1251
01:15:17,280 --> 01:15:23,000
Speaker 1: So I understand that the West might have difficulty understanding

1252
01:15:23,240 --> 01:15:25,800
Speaker 1: that a lot of people here do not really have

1253
01:15:25,880 --> 01:15:29,000
Speaker 1: an issue with covering their heads, and they understand the

1254
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:33,160
Speaker 1: culture here because I have friends who do not like

1255
01:15:33,320 --> 01:15:36,439
Speaker 1: to wear they had a scarf, but they have been

1256
01:15:36,560 --> 01:15:38,840
Speaker 1: practicing it because they know that it's not only the

1257
01:15:38,920 --> 01:15:41,800
Speaker 1: government that I mean, the government has been enforcing it

1258
01:15:41,960 --> 01:15:45,200
Speaker 1: because a majority wanted it to be enforced. But now

1259
01:15:45,280 --> 01:15:49,800
Speaker 1: this is changing, I mean, with the demographics changing and

1260
01:15:50,160 --> 01:15:53,000
Speaker 1: with the society going on, these are changing, and I

1261
01:15:53,120 --> 01:15:56,680
Speaker 1: cannot give you. I mean, the statistics that I have

1262
01:15:56,920 --> 01:16:04,920
Speaker 1: heard from different independent bodies inside Iran is ranges from

1263
01:16:04,960 --> 01:16:08,560
Speaker 1: one person, I mean from different percentages, so it's not

1264
01:16:08,720 --> 01:16:11,200
Speaker 1: like a very exact, but I could tell you that

1265
01:16:11,840 --> 01:16:16,280
Speaker 1: there is still a majority that would practice his job

1266
01:16:16,520 --> 01:16:19,360
Speaker 1: even if it was not mandatory. And that's coming from

1267
01:16:20,160 --> 01:16:23,920
Speaker 1: even the generation Z as you call it here. I've

1268
01:16:24,600 --> 01:16:29,679
Speaker 1: talked to students at universities, I've talked to high school students,

1269
01:16:29,840 --> 01:16:33,760
Speaker 1: even those who for example practice it wearing it like

1270
01:16:34,000 --> 01:16:39,120
Speaker 1: quite relaxed and different from what the like the government demands.

1271
01:16:40,479 --> 01:16:43,240
Speaker 1: Even then they say that if if it was voluntary,

1272
01:16:43,439 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 1: voluntary and I could make a choice, I would still

1273
01:16:46,320 --> 01:16:49,040
Speaker 1: wear it even if it's like just covering half of

1274
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:51,280
Speaker 1: my hair and not fully. But I would still wear

1275
01:16:51,320 --> 01:16:54,600
Speaker 1: it because the majority of Iranians are still religious. We

1276
01:16:54,760 --> 01:17:00,160
Speaker 1: have strong family families here, we and family bonds here.

1277
01:17:00,280 --> 01:17:03,160
Speaker 1: Families are still functioning to a large extent, and that's

1278
01:17:03,320 --> 01:17:08,280
Speaker 1: very different from the West, and the families cherish and

1279
01:17:08,479 --> 01:17:14,960
Speaker 1: celebrate Islamic values. So yes, I think there's a larger

1280
01:17:15,080 --> 01:17:18,160
Speaker 1: number now compared to for example, ten years ago, work

1281
01:17:18,200 --> 01:17:21,200
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, that do not want to practice it anymore,

1282
01:17:21,240 --> 01:17:25,679
Speaker 1: and I think they should. People should be allowed to choose,

1283
01:17:25,960 --> 01:17:29,960
Speaker 1: like as it functions in all democracies. That seems like

1284
01:17:30,040 --> 01:17:31,960
Speaker 1: such a reasonable position. If you want to wear it,

1285
01:17:32,000 --> 01:17:33,320
Speaker 1: wear it. If you don't want to wear it, don't

1286
01:17:33,320 --> 01:17:36,320
Speaker 1: wear it, do you? Why won't the Is there something

1287
01:17:36,400 --> 01:17:40,360
Speaker 1: symbolic about this particular law that is that the government

1288
01:17:40,439 --> 01:17:43,960
Speaker 1: is clinging to. Why won't the government move to that

1289
01:17:44,080 --> 01:17:46,640
Speaker 1: more reasonable position which says, hey, you want to you

1290
01:17:46,680 --> 01:17:48,280
Speaker 1: want to wear it, that's wonderful. If you don't want

1291
01:17:48,280 --> 01:17:51,760
Speaker 1: to wear it, that's also fine. Well, how how do

1292
01:17:51,880 --> 01:17:54,960
Speaker 1: you How does the government and the US government decide

1293
01:17:55,040 --> 01:17:59,080
Speaker 1: on whether to legalize abortion or not. It'sa we have

1294
01:17:59,280 --> 01:18:03,719
Speaker 1: we have nine we have nine unelected kind of religious leaders.

1295
01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:07,280
Speaker 1: We have a Supreme Council of religious leaders that we

1296
01:18:07,360 --> 01:18:10,519
Speaker 1: call the Supreme Court, uh and they have final say

1297
01:18:11,280 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 1: over our over our laws. I understand that you have

1298
01:18:13,280 --> 01:18:17,240
Speaker 1: a similar system over there. Okay, yes, and but we

1299
01:18:17,360 --> 01:18:19,840
Speaker 1: also have the parliament, and the parliament is the way

1300
01:18:19,920 --> 01:18:23,160
Speaker 1: through the channel through which we can change a law.

1301
01:18:23,200 --> 01:18:27,880
Speaker 1: I mean demand from the government to start changing the law.

1302
01:18:28,120 --> 01:18:33,759
Speaker 1: So if I mean because you also need to understand

1303
01:18:33,880 --> 01:18:36,920
Speaker 1: that there is a large proportion of the population who

1304
01:18:37,439 --> 01:18:41,680
Speaker 1: is not against a mandatory hi job law. So if

1305
01:18:41,760 --> 01:18:44,680
Speaker 1: you want to satisfy and if if you want to

1306
01:18:45,320 --> 01:18:49,080
Speaker 1: convince public opinion, it has to be that people should

1307
01:18:49,120 --> 01:18:52,160
Speaker 1: be allowed. It is a long process. You have to

1308
01:18:52,320 --> 01:18:56,360
Speaker 1: start educating people and you know, working on that because

1309
01:18:56,560 --> 01:19:01,840
Speaker 1: I'm sure that if Iran stopped enforcing the hijob law,

1310
01:19:01,960 --> 01:19:04,120
Speaker 1: there would also be a large proportion who would take

1311
01:19:04,120 --> 01:19:06,880
Speaker 1: to the streets and say that this is disrespectful to

1312
01:19:07,280 --> 01:19:10,200
Speaker 1: their Islamic values. So the country has to take all

1313
01:19:10,320 --> 01:19:14,479
Speaker 1: these groups of people into accounts. But apart from that,

1314
01:19:14,640 --> 01:19:17,920
Speaker 1: it's also that hijob is also a symbol of fighting

1315
01:19:18,160 --> 01:19:22,280
Speaker 1: and resisting imperial power. Not now. But you know, even

1316
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:27,400
Speaker 1: during the shah the era or the Jar era, when

1317
01:19:28,200 --> 01:19:31,439
Speaker 1: hi job was not mandatory, most people were practicing it,

1318
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:35,920
Speaker 1: and it was not at some point, even because during

1319
01:19:35,960 --> 01:19:39,200
Speaker 1: the first Parla Visha it was banned, it became even

1320
01:19:39,520 --> 01:19:43,519
Speaker 1: more of a symbol of resistance because people were feeling

1321
01:19:43,600 --> 01:19:46,360
Speaker 1: that there is an attack on their values and they

1322
01:19:46,439 --> 01:19:50,439
Speaker 1: wanted to resist that. So I think the reason, I mean,

1323
01:19:50,560 --> 01:19:55,799
Speaker 1: I hope that the government will show more flexibility towards

1324
01:19:55,880 --> 01:20:00,720
Speaker 1: changing it and so that more people, I mean, we

1325
01:20:00,840 --> 01:20:08,760
Speaker 1: have a more inclusive, you know, concessus on what to

1326
01:20:08,880 --> 01:20:11,439
Speaker 1: do here. But I think that that's also something that

1327
01:20:11,560 --> 01:20:14,600
Speaker 1: the people should decide. The government alone cannot make a

1328
01:20:14,640 --> 01:20:18,880
Speaker 1: decision on it's we have to convince the public opinion. Yeah,

1329
01:20:18,920 --> 01:20:20,599
Speaker 1: I was, I was being a little bit glib earlier,

1330
01:20:20,600 --> 01:20:23,080
Speaker 1: because there is a there is still a link to

1331
01:20:23,600 --> 01:20:26,760
Speaker 1: there's some link to public opinion. So, for instance, when

1332
01:20:26,840 --> 01:20:31,760
Speaker 1: our Supreme Court finally legalized marriage equality, it did so

1333
01:20:32,120 --> 01:20:35,280
Speaker 1: not out of thin air, but after a serious kind

1334
01:20:35,320 --> 01:20:40,719
Speaker 1: of cultural movement pushing pushing to allow for same sex marriage.

1335
01:20:40,760 --> 01:20:42,479
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't as if they just kind of

1336
01:20:42,600 --> 01:20:45,640
Speaker 1: came up with it on their own, and there was

1337
01:20:45,720 --> 01:20:49,240
Speaker 1: a significant movement to ban you know, to curtail abortion

1338
01:20:49,400 --> 01:20:53,240
Speaker 1: rights as well that that culminated in Roe v. Wade

1339
01:20:53,240 --> 01:20:55,680
Speaker 1: being overturned. So it's not it's not like that it's

1340
01:20:55,760 --> 01:20:59,240
Speaker 1: completely disconnected from public opinion. It's just not as easy

1341
01:20:59,360 --> 01:21:03,679
Speaker 1: as in public preferences becoming law kind of overnight. Yeah,

1342
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:07,639
Speaker 1: and so it can be a long process. And yeah, well,

1343
01:21:07,720 --> 01:21:11,679
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us and sharing your perspective.

1344
01:21:12,080 --> 01:21:17,880
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it, No problem, my pleasure. All right, Well,

1345
01:21:17,920 --> 01:21:20,519
Speaker 1: that wraps up today's show. We were really packed. We

1346
01:21:20,600 --> 01:21:22,879
Speaker 1: kind of took a tour of the whole world basically

1347
01:21:23,080 --> 01:21:27,479
Speaker 1: and American politics as well. Really interesting interview and just

1348
01:21:27,760 --> 01:21:33,200
Speaker 1: an interesting guest. Yeah, and I certainly. Yeah, it's nice

1349
01:21:33,240 --> 01:21:36,479
Speaker 1: to hear a different perspective, whether or not you agree

1350
01:21:36,479 --> 01:21:38,280
Speaker 1: with it or not. Like we need to hear, We

1351
01:21:38,360 --> 01:21:41,360
Speaker 1: need to hear all a bunch of different perspectives from

1352
01:21:41,400 --> 01:21:44,120
Speaker 1: both inside and outside. That's the thing, right, And this

1353
01:21:44,240 --> 01:21:46,680
Speaker 1: conversation about the concept of freedom in the West, right,

1354
01:21:46,720 --> 01:21:49,240
Speaker 1: because Western media is so dominant, especially in sort of

1355
01:21:49,280 --> 01:21:52,680
Speaker 1: big business mass media, that I think our concept of

1356
01:21:52,760 --> 01:21:55,800
Speaker 1: freedom is the most just definition of it. It is

1357
01:21:55,880 --> 01:21:59,240
Speaker 1: the correct, proper and stars seem to agree with it. Also.

1358
01:22:00,520 --> 01:22:04,080
Speaker 1: The point the sort of the perspective though, of what

1359
01:22:04,240 --> 01:22:07,479
Speaker 1: other people see as freedom is I think one that

1360
01:22:07,560 --> 01:22:09,680
Speaker 1: the Western media doesn't like to platform and doesn't like

1361
01:22:09,720 --> 01:22:13,880
Speaker 1: to have these uncomfortable conversations because they're difficult and complicated

1362
01:22:14,040 --> 01:22:16,280
Speaker 1: and they don't sort of fit neatly into the package

1363
01:22:16,520 --> 01:22:18,720
Speaker 1: of that you want to sort of send out to

1364
01:22:19,520 --> 01:22:24,240
Speaker 1: people's living rooms and wherever for early morning television. But

1365
01:22:24,400 --> 01:22:27,120
Speaker 1: they're really important and at least to have that kind

1366
01:22:27,120 --> 01:22:30,880
Speaker 1: of cross pollination, have that conversation, it's such a loss.

1367
01:22:31,400 --> 01:22:33,720
Speaker 1: Our media can have conversations like that every day if

1368
01:22:33,720 --> 01:22:35,599
Speaker 1: they wanted to. And there's also a running theme from

1369
01:22:35,720 --> 01:22:39,240
Speaker 1: yesterday where we had Ambassador Dan Foote talking about the

1370
01:22:39,439 --> 01:22:43,280
Speaker 1: unrest in Haiti. He was and we were talking about

1371
01:22:43,360 --> 01:22:48,040
Speaker 1: how if there are protests in Cuba, we Western media,

1372
01:22:48,040 --> 01:22:51,880
Speaker 1: in particularly US media, it's going to spend its focus

1373
01:22:51,960 --> 01:22:54,000
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven looking at the protests in Cuba,

1374
01:22:54,760 --> 01:22:58,400
Speaker 1: Haiti blows up. Nobody cares about Haiti and Iran in

1375
01:22:58,439 --> 01:23:03,200
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. They're protesting over you know, fuel prices, which

1376
01:23:03,240 --> 01:23:07,280
Speaker 1: are you know, exacerbated by American sanctions. They shut the

1377
01:23:07,360 --> 01:23:10,920
Speaker 1: internet down for an entire week, they killed hundreds of

1378
01:23:11,000 --> 01:23:14,720
Speaker 1: people in those twenty nineteen protests, barely a peep, you're

1379
01:23:14,840 --> 01:23:18,160
Speaker 1: barely registered in US media. But then a protest, this

1380
01:23:18,840 --> 01:23:24,200
Speaker 1: protest is getting, you know, just relentless coverage where and

1381
01:23:24,439 --> 01:23:26,360
Speaker 1: if you if you take Setar's word for it in

1382
01:23:26,479 --> 01:23:28,840
Speaker 1: s Fahn, you walk out in Sfahn and you can't

1383
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:31,760
Speaker 1: even tell that anything's going on, doesn't it doesn't mean

1384
01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:37,200
Speaker 1: that there isn't isn't a passionate upswell exact and a

1385
01:23:37,280 --> 01:23:41,880
Speaker 1: surgeon opposition to to this head scarf law. But we

1386
01:23:42,160 --> 01:23:45,759
Speaker 1: but we also need to take it in proper context,

1387
01:23:45,920 --> 01:23:48,719
Speaker 1: because you don't want viewers then to be like totally

1388
01:23:48,760 --> 01:23:52,160
Speaker 1: shocked that the regime doesn't fall and that a week later,

1389
01:23:52,280 --> 01:23:53,720
Speaker 1: like wait a minute, what happened to those protests that

1390
01:23:53,760 --> 01:23:55,640
Speaker 1: we were talking about all the time. Yeah, and then

1391
01:23:55,680 --> 01:23:58,920
Speaker 1: you further lose trust in your media sources because they're

1392
01:23:59,240 --> 01:24:01,559
Speaker 1: telling you that the regime is on the break of collapse,

1393
01:24:01,720 --> 01:24:03,640
Speaker 1: when in fact it isn't. Well. And the money that

1394
01:24:03,760 --> 01:24:05,960
Speaker 1: the American public works really hard to make is on

1395
01:24:06,040 --> 01:24:08,280
Speaker 1: the line as well, because our tax money is on

1396
01:24:08,360 --> 01:24:11,720
Speaker 1: the line and negotiations over an Iran deal literally right now,

1397
01:24:12,520 --> 01:24:15,160
Speaker 1: and so it's important to the public to have an

1398
01:24:15,160 --> 01:24:17,599
Speaker 1: accurate sort of rendering of what's happening inside the borders

1399
01:24:17,640 --> 01:24:20,280
Speaker 1: of a country that could be getting plenty of our

1400
01:24:20,360 --> 01:24:23,599
Speaker 1: money or could be on the brunt of losing our

1401
01:24:23,680 --> 01:24:27,120
Speaker 1: money or our spending period in any different way. So

1402
01:24:27,520 --> 01:24:29,760
Speaker 1: it's frustrating. I mean, our major media could be having

1403
01:24:29,800 --> 01:24:33,040
Speaker 1: these conversations every day, they won't. And she's also right

1404
01:24:33,120 --> 01:24:36,519
Speaker 1: that there are a lot there is foreign influence in

1405
01:24:36,960 --> 01:24:39,320
Speaker 1: those particular regions that she talked about, but it also

1406
01:24:39,640 --> 01:24:43,559
Speaker 1: it absolutely doesn't justify security forces cracking down and killing

1407
01:24:43,600 --> 01:24:47,120
Speaker 1: dozens of dozens of people. So all of those different

1408
01:24:47,160 --> 01:24:50,479
Speaker 1: things can be true. Absolutely, Well, we appreciate you joining here,

1409
01:24:50,640 --> 01:24:53,400
Speaker 1: on joining us here on the show. Crystal and Sager

1410
01:24:53,439 --> 01:24:55,360
Speaker 1: will be back this week. We'll be back on Friday,

1411
01:24:55,960 --> 01:24:58,479
Speaker 1: and it's but a pleasure, and in general, we just

1412
01:24:58,560 --> 01:25:00,840
Speaker 1: appreciate the viewer so much for allowing us, for making

1413
01:25:00,840 --> 01:25:03,360
Speaker 1: it possible for us to have conversations like this one.

1414
01:25:03,400 --> 01:25:06,080
Speaker 1: So we hope everybody has a great Tuesday, and we'll

1415
01:25:06,120 --> 01:25:07,439
Speaker 1: see you soon. See then,