Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 3: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 3: What do we have, Chrystal.
Speaker 1: Indeed, we do lots of interesting things that are happening
Speaker 1: for us to comment on this morning. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you guys caught this RFK Junior with a big
Speaker 1: Super Bowl ad last night and it.
Speaker 4: Kind of worked out perfect for us.
Speaker 1: Our focus results from our URFK Junior focus group are
Speaker 1: also in, so we can tell you how voters are
Speaker 1: thinking about his candidacy.
Speaker 4: Super excited about that.
Speaker 1: Also, you probably saw Biden dealt a legal victory but
Speaker 1: a massive political blow by that special counsel that who
Speaker 1: had been appointed to investigate his handling of classified documents.
Speaker 1: Missandling of classified documents a lot to say about that, and.
Speaker 4: Interestingly, Hillary Rodham Clinton weighing in with.
Speaker 1: A hot take on that one that you may not expect,
Speaker 1: so we will react to that as well. Trump also
Speaker 1: making some very noteworthy comments on NATO that have caught
Speaker 1: a lot of people's attention. We'll talk about that separately.
Speaker 1: Also making some very noteworthy comments about Taylor Swift. We
Speaker 1: of course have to comment on that as well. Tucker's
Speaker 1: big interview with Putin is out. It was a lot,
Speaker 1: it was very interesting, it was sort of revealing. We'll
Speaker 1: show you some of the highlights, some of the parts
Speaker 1: that caught our attention and give you our reaction to
Speaker 1: all of that. And at the same time, while we
Speaker 1: were all watching the Super Bowl, Israel began their offensive
Speaker 1: on Rafa over the very weak protestations of our own
Speaker 1: president and over the stronger protestations of the Egyptians and
Speaker 1: the Saudis.
Speaker 4: So we will show you the very latest there.
Speaker 1: They are also saying that they were actually able to
Speaker 1: rescue two hostages in what they considered to be a
Speaker 1: very successful mission. So that is what we've got for
Speaker 1: you this morning. Before we get into any of that, though,
Speaker 1: thank you so much to all of the premium subscribers
Speaker 1: for making this RFK Junior focus group.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think you guys are really going to like it.
Speaker 2: As we said, you guys are going to get full
Speaker 2: access to it. We'll have clips here, but later on
Speaker 2: this week we'll drop the full episode for you. It
Speaker 2: won't drop until many days later for the general public
Speaker 2: and the general audience. If you want to first look
Speaker 2: at that, if you want to see why people are
Speaker 2: supporting RFK Junior in their own words with a major
Speaker 2: search term bump form that happened last night over the
Speaker 2: super Bowl breaking points dot com, and you could support
Speaker 2: our work there.
Speaker 3: But with that, let's go to the RFK Junior group.
Speaker 4: Yeah, indeed.
Speaker 1: So, I don't know how many of you guys watched
Speaker 1: super Bowl last night. Probably a good number I watched.
Speaker 1: It was a fantastic game. But of course we were
Speaker 1: very highly attuned to all of the political things because
Speaker 1: those are the kind of political nerds that we are.
Speaker 1: RK Junior with a big seven million dollar actually his
Speaker 1: super pack ad by with a throwback Kennedy ad let's
Speaker 1: take a listen to that.
Speaker 5: Want I'm a hand for president who's season through and
Speaker 5: through a man who's old enough to know.
Speaker 3: A young up to do well.
Speaker 6: It's up to you.
Speaker 7: Rid's up to you.
Speaker 8: It's strictly up to you.
Speaker 9: American Value twenty twenty four is responsible for the contents
Speaker 9: of this advertisement.
Speaker 1: So I think that this was even though seven million
Speaker 1: dollars a lot of money, obviously, I think this is
Speaker 1: probably money well spent because there are a whole lot
Speaker 1: of people who are discussed with Joe Biden or think
Speaker 1: that he's way too old. Eighty six percent I think
Speaker 1: of voters think he's too old to be president again.
Speaker 1: People also disgusted with Donal Trump, who is very likely
Speaker 1: to be a convicted felon by the time the election
Speaker 1: comes around, looking for some alternative, and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a guy with the last name Kennedy might have
Speaker 1: heard of before, and he is also running.
Speaker 4: He is a viable alternative.
Speaker 3: He's a genie.
Speaker 2: Sad for several reasons. Number one, didn't tell us anything
Speaker 2: about him. You're not supposed to know anything about him're
Speaker 2: supposed to know that their last name is Kennedy, and
Speaker 2: that there's a vote independent, which is another option, which
Speaker 2: is the major reason that many people are backing him,
Speaker 2: and why they would be interested in Cannessey. Second, as
Speaker 2: a student of those ads, one of my favorite lines
Speaker 2: from that song actually is quote old enough to know,
Speaker 2: young enough to do. Now.
Speaker 3: Look, he may be seventy years old.
Speaker 2: But he's a lot younger, unfortunately for than all of
Speaker 2: the other people who are in the race. The seventy
Speaker 2: eight year old Donald Trump if you were to be elected,
Speaker 2: the eighty two year old Joe Biden if he were
Speaker 2: to be reelected. So he's got the you know, the
Speaker 2: age at the very least comparatively on his side. The
Speaker 2: Kennedy ad too, and people are going to see this
Speaker 2: in our focus group. The ability to evoke the inspiration
Speaker 2: of that era, especially amongst people who watch their parents
Speaker 2: really fall like prey to the Kennedy magic is just
Speaker 2: it is. I cannot describe how powerful and emotive that
Speaker 2: is for the younger of RBS, sorry for the older voter,
Speaker 2: the median voter in this country fifty five years old
Speaker 2: with no college degree, who can think and talk to
Speaker 2: their parents about what that time was like and about
Speaker 2: some of the feelings that they can connect to it.
Speaker 2: So the nostalgia, the being younger, the fat you know,
Speaker 2: these are the type of ads that we learn about
Speaker 2: in our social studies classes and to be able to
Speaker 2: connect it back to some like this to win a modern
Speaker 2: age get people a choice.
Speaker 3: I thought it was very very powerful.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing that we've said from the beginning
Speaker 1: with him is that the more vague he keeps his
Speaker 1: messaging better. And because he has a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: very divisive stances, some of which we talk to the
Speaker 1: focus group about.
Speaker 4: Obviously it's really interesting to hear their reaction to that.
Speaker 1: But the more that he is just like you know,
Speaker 1: associated with the Kennedy brand as sort of a generic
Speaker 1: alternative to these two dudes that a majority of the
Speaker 1: country hate and are disgusted by the fact that they
Speaker 1: only have these DWO choices, the better for him, I
Speaker 1: think probably, you know, the bigger obstacle, maybe the largest
Speaker 1: obstacle for RFK Junior at this point, is just the
Speaker 1: ballot access because the way our system is so rigged
Speaker 1: and makes it so incredibly difficult to be on the
Speaker 1: ballot as a viable alternative, but you know, as a
Speaker 1: bit of political theater and as a way to get
Speaker 1: his name in front of the country and get people googling,
Speaker 1: like who is this, dude, what is this all about?
Speaker 1: I thought it was a very very intelligent move. So
Speaker 1: we've been really curious about who are the RFK Junior supporters,
Speaker 1: what do they look like, what are the different archetypes.
Speaker 1: And we got a lot of really really interesting data
Speaker 1: and insights from the focus group that we were able
Speaker 1: to do with James Johnson of Jail Partners, and he's
Speaker 1: going to join us in the studio now. Just give
Speaker 1: us a moment to set up and we'll get right
Speaker 1: to that. All right, guys, So we are lucky to
Speaker 1: have James Johnson of Jail Partners here in the studio
Speaker 1: to tell us what he found noteworthy about the RFK
Speaker 1: Junior focus group. Great to Caesar, So tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about who this group was in your initial impressions.
Speaker 10: Seven people who say that they are going to vote
Speaker 10: AREFK junior in November from the suburbs of Detroit, so
Speaker 10: key swings say, obviously in Michigan. And they are people
Speaker 10: who at the moment at least are saying they're going
Speaker 10: with you for the many for them for the first
Speaker 10: time for a party candidate in.
Speaker 3: R K Junior.
Speaker 1: Interesting, we have an initial sort of intro piece of
Speaker 1: why they feel like RFK Junior has won their vote
Speaker 1: over Let's take a listen to what they had to say.
Speaker 10: You've all got one thing in common.
Speaker 3: Robert F.
Speaker 10: Kennedy Jr. Now, one by one, I won't you just
Speaker 10: tell me about your story of where you ended up.
Speaker 7: That his announcement was phenomenal. I thought it was one
Speaker 7: of the best speeches I've heard in a long time,
Speaker 7: and I thought it addressed something real. I'm hungry for
Speaker 7: a change and I want leadership.
Speaker 11: I also saw the pitch for his campaign opening, but
Speaker 11: I was looking at it more toward legacy and the
Speaker 11: views that I grew up with. So it was a
Speaker 11: little bit deeper for me that the Kennedy family would
Speaker 11: throw a candidate in there that would would fulfill what
Speaker 11: the past Kennedys have and work for all people.
Speaker 12: Legacy and the name, and for change and for the people.
Speaker 12: Because I do not like, you know, our other potential
Speaker 12: candidates are.
Speaker 13: Okay, I smiled when I heard his name. I can
Speaker 13: just hear my mom talk about and smile every time
Speaker 13: FK came up, So I just knew they were a good, supportive,
Speaker 13: rounded family. He seems very confident in what he talks about,
Speaker 13: and he's listening to views from other people. I'm not
Speaker 13: for Biden. I'm definitely not for Trump, but I'm just
Speaker 13: for for the people, just like RFK is for.
Speaker 14: To me, he's a strong person and he's going to
Speaker 14: be willing to take on the establishment, to take on
Speaker 14: the military and establishment and some of the entrench political
Speaker 14: organizations that you know are running our country. He's proved
Speaker 14: himself in his legal profession standing up to big Pharmah
Speaker 14: and doing you know, work on pollution environmental issues. He's
Speaker 14: got his legacy of his family and some of it's tragic,
Speaker 14: so good for him for standing up and making a
Speaker 14: go at it.
Speaker 15: I think I was on the internet on Facebook or
Speaker 15: something and they put up that he was running, and
Speaker 15: I was.
Speaker 3: Like, dang, that would that would probably be really cool.
Speaker 15: You know, to come back like the bushes, you know.
Speaker 15: Now it's to Kennedy's I think it would be a
Speaker 15: good idea for him to run at this time when
Speaker 15: everything is going down. He will probably help the economy
Speaker 15: a little bit more as far as because it's basically
Speaker 15: going down, even though they say and everything is going up,
Speaker 15: is going down, and I just I just think overall
Speaker 15: the person would be you'll be a good fit.
Speaker 16: I didn't actually know about him until a random episode
Speaker 16: of Joe Rogan. He was on it, and I actually
Speaker 16: heard about him several times before, but you know, he's
Speaker 16: mentioned as like a crackpot or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's really hard.
Speaker 16: To like lie for three hours straight about yourself, to
Speaker 16: put on a facade. And I look at Trump, I
Speaker 16: don't really see integrity there. I see manipulation. I look
Speaker 16: at Biden, I don't even see substance there. I see
Speaker 16: a guy who is enough of a figurehead that a
Speaker 16: party can use. And then RFK Junior just looks like,
Speaker 16: for the most part, that's a lot of integrity.
Speaker 10: Not choice that we face in November, but looking almost
Speaker 10: sing now that it's going to be Trump USUS by
Speaker 10: going by the primaries, How does that choice make you feel?
Speaker 10: In one word, it makes.
Speaker 11: Me feel uncomfortable and too uncomfortable, nervous.
Speaker 13: I see recklessness with the two of them.
Speaker 7: I'm concerned about a fair election.
Speaker 14: Continued divisiveness.
Speaker 16: It's two words, makes it off feel partless.
Speaker 10: There are some suggestions that the Trump team might have
Speaker 10: reached out to RFK Junior about him being his potential
Speaker 10: vice presidential running mate. How does that make you feel?
Speaker 11: That would be a deal breaker for me.
Speaker 13: I'm not a fan of Trump. I mean, he's a
Speaker 13: loose cannon. He's done some horrible things. But if he
Speaker 13: asked RFK to be his vice president, I would feel
Speaker 13: like Rfk's copping out, Like, oh, I guess if I
Speaker 13: want to get in the White House, is what I'm
Speaker 13: going to have to do.
Speaker 14: I thought that was a really good political move if
Speaker 14: Trump was going to do that. Frankly, so if he
Speaker 14: could get him on board, then you know, he would
Speaker 14: get his voting base increase substantially.
Speaker 16: He would sway me more to accepting Trump because I
Speaker 16: believe in the integrity that he has.
Speaker 10: Put your hand up if you think if it would
Speaker 10: make you feel better about Trump if he became Trump's
Speaker 10: vice presidential nominee.
Speaker 1: So many interesting things there One thing that I note
Speaker 1: in terms of how they explain their support for RFK,
Speaker 1: there's sort of a few themes.
Speaker 4: There were a couple who touched on some kind of
Speaker 4: specific political issues.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one gentleman talking about like taking on the
Speaker 1: entrenched political establishment, but a lot of it was either
Speaker 1: I like the Kennedy name.
Speaker 4: It gives me the warm fuzzies.
Speaker 1: Or I really hate my other two options and this
Speaker 1: one seems genuine. That was the other thing you heard
Speaker 1: a lot is like he seems like he's authentic.
Speaker 4: He seems like he has integrity, and I don't feel
Speaker 4: like either of these other two dudes do.
Speaker 3: I think that's right.
Speaker 10: We know from our other breaking points, focus groups and
Speaker 10: wide appolling that people are really dissatisfied about this choice
Speaker 10: of Biden and Trump.
Speaker 3: Yes, and it.
Speaker 10: Seems like, you know, sort of they are yearning for
Speaker 10: something else, and the nostalgia of the Kennedy name, plus
Speaker 10: things that they really like about Robert Kennedy. I think
Speaker 10: that is important. Yes, Kennedy is playing a role, but
Speaker 10: the Robert f is too. They quite like him. Some
Speaker 10: also said that they liked the fact that he was
Speaker 10: bucking the trend a little bit with his family name,
Speaker 10: not just embodying it, and so you know, they understand
Speaker 10: that nuance that he's trying to try and to carry. So, yes,
Speaker 10: they like it, and they like that he seems like
Speaker 10: a breath of fresh air. Integrity as a word that
Speaker 10: came up a lot, honestly, was a word a lot
Speaker 10: of a came up a lot.
Speaker 17: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It also was clear to me on that answer with
Speaker 2: the Trump VP, like they don't like Trump, they don't
Speaker 2: like Biden either. There really was a real independent streak.
Speaker 2: We were talking a bit before the break. Could you
Speaker 2: just give us a breakdown of who these people were
Speaker 2: politically on the spectrum. They're all over the map as
Speaker 2: we understand, if you could break it down.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so they were basically split into thirds between people
Speaker 10: who voted for Biden in twenty twenty, Trump in twenty twenty,
Speaker 10: and a third party in twenty twenty. So this is
Speaker 10: a really quite diverse group. There were quite a pragmatic
Speaker 10: group as well. They didn't feel like diehard Democrats or
Speaker 10: diehard Republicans. You know, they were quite transactional about their
Speaker 10: about their vote, and I think that speaks to the
Speaker 10: fact that RFK Junior can pull these voters from across
Speaker 10: the across the political spectrum because they're so fed up
Speaker 10: with the status ploy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 4: Speaking of that. You know one thing that struck me.
Speaker 1: You asked them a good bit about his vaccine stance
Speaker 1: and what they think about the vaccines, what they thought
Speaker 1: about the handling of COVID and obviously that's a very
Speaker 1: divisive stance that RFK has. It's a very divisive issue
Speaker 1: and has been in America. I was sort of struck
Speaker 1: by that pragmatism that you had people who had different
Speaker 1: views there, but they weren't like at each other's throats
Speaker 1: over it. Let's take a listen to how that part
Speaker 1: of the conversation went.
Speaker 10: Arth Keajuniors said Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates may have
Speaker 10: tried to profit from the COVID nineteen vaccine. RFA Junior
Speaker 10: has also made links between the COVID nineteen vaccine and
Speaker 10: five G, including that Faucin Gates suppressed information about other
Speaker 10: COVID nineteen cures, so the vaccine was the only viable option.
Speaker 7: I think that ERFK did his homework. All they did
Speaker 7: was follow the money. You know, they were way too
Speaker 7: involved in the lab in uh in China, and you know,
Speaker 7: there's nothing more to prove. I mean, it's just it
Speaker 7: doesn't nothing adds up about it.
Speaker 13: That's to me a speculation, just like they speculated that
Speaker 13: you know it started in China, this wet market and
Speaker 13: oh it was intentional, And I'm like, how.
Speaker 3: Do they know that.
Speaker 10: What's your personal views of those vaccines? Were they in
Speaker 10: that benefit? Were they in that problem?
Speaker 3: I was against them.
Speaker 7: It was such a push on something that was not tested,
Speaker 7: and it put a lot of people in danger.
Speaker 12: I was really against vaccinations until my mother screamed at
Speaker 12: me that I could not even come to her home
Speaker 12: unless I was vaccinated because she's older people with pre
Speaker 12: existing conditions. I think it's important to have the vaccinations
Speaker 12: you know available.
Speaker 3: I think it's individual.
Speaker 13: You know, big corporation can't say either the vaccine you
Speaker 13: don't work for us anymore, you know, I think totally wrong,
Speaker 13: totally wrong.
Speaker 14: Well, I've had family members die from COVID, so in
Speaker 14: the early days, I was definitely pro vaccination, but I
Speaker 14: also think it was a personal choice for people. As
Speaker 14: time has gone on, we're hearing about side effects. More
Speaker 14: research has been done. Now I feel more comfortable because
Speaker 14: I know we have treatments that can be used, so
Speaker 14: you don't just go to the hospital and get on
Speaker 14: a ventilator and don't come home anymore.
Speaker 16: I took one dose and I had a very very
Speaker 16: strong negative reaction and didn't take the second one, and
Speaker 16: then my wife was pregnant at the time, and I
Speaker 16: couldn't good faith imagine her taking it at the same
Speaker 16: time like it was.
Speaker 3: It was rough.
Speaker 16: My father died in care after getting COVID. What they
Speaker 16: did is they induced, put them on a ventilator, gave
Speaker 16: him medications. He died of organ failure later that year.
Speaker 16: His sister Mitham MILLI exact same way with Trump and
Speaker 16: with Biden, something like the treatment during that time period, did.
Speaker 3: All the protocols.
Speaker 16: They're both culpable for how all of that was handled.
Speaker 16: They would both rather be dismissed and ignored. And he's
Speaker 16: the guy who's not that that's a focus is to
Speaker 16: address that stuff.
Speaker 3: A politician is telling the truth about COVID well.
Speaker 7: I don't think Trump was informed. I don't think Biden's
Speaker 7: being honest, and I think Fauci misled everybody.
Speaker 14: Fauci is a politician. He's also had special interests, personal
Speaker 14: interests in different things going on with the vaccine, with
Speaker 14: the lab in China, supposedly. But I liked him, you know, initially,
Speaker 14: I thought, you know, he meant well, I told you
Speaker 14: start finding out more information about what going on.
Speaker 2: You have gained notoriety for your skepticism about vaccines, and
Speaker 2: over the summer in an interview, you said, quote, there's
Speaker 2: no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.
Speaker 3: Do you still believe that? I never said so stop me.
Speaker 3: We have the clip.
Speaker 4: Please play the clip.
Speaker 5: Play the whole clip.
Speaker 3: I just talked about that. The media slanders you by
Speaker 3: calling you an anti vaxxer, and you've said that you're
Speaker 3: not anti vaccine, you're pro safe vaccine. Difficult question. Can
Speaker 3: you name any vaccines that you think are good?
Speaker 5: I think some of the live iris vaccines are probably
Speaker 5: of earning more problems than their causing. There's no vaccine
Speaker 5: that is, you know, safe and effective.
Speaker 4: So you did say it.
Speaker 3: Do you still believe it?
Speaker 5: Well, here's what Here's what I Here's what I would say.
Speaker 5: First of all, I'm not anti vaccine.
Speaker 8: How is that statement not anti vaccine?
Speaker 5: Well, it's I can say right now there's no because
Speaker 5: of medicine for cancer that's safe. In the fact that
Speaker 5: it doesn't mean I'm like I saw medicines. I've been
Speaker 5: fighting forty years to get mercury out of fish. Nobody
Speaker 5: calls me anty fish. What I want is vaccines that
Speaker 5: are proven safety. And what I meant, which was a
Speaker 5: bad use of words. And as none of the vaccines
Speaker 5: that are currently on the mandated schedule for children, there
Speaker 5: seventy two vaccines have ever been tested in a pre
Speaker 5: licensing safety study.
Speaker 10: How do we feel he came across that he was
Speaker 10: defending his position.
Speaker 11: What do we think I think he should say what
Speaker 11: he really felt on that. And because I think all
Speaker 11: of us understand any medication, you just wanted to be safe.
Speaker 11: You don't know how it's going to react with you
Speaker 11: as an individual looking at the science of it. But
Speaker 11: he did look a little nervous and trying to clean
Speaker 11: it up.
Speaker 13: He seemed a little uneasy. He said it, he said,
Speaker 13: I might have used the wrong words.
Speaker 16: I'd rather his approach of overcaution then reckless abandon.
Speaker 10: If there was another global pandemic, you know, a real
Speaker 10: problematic new virus, the same issues we talked about are
Speaker 10: on the table again, vaccines, lockdowns. Put your hand up
Speaker 10: if you think rfk's union would be the best person
Speaker 10: to leave the country in that situation.
Speaker 14: Yeah, if there's a situation that like previously, where they
Speaker 14: need to get the vaccine out there, I would hope
Speaker 14: that he wouldn't hold it up too much. He has
Speaker 14: to weigh that testing element and the safety element up,
Speaker 14: because if people are dying, it's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 16: I'm sure he'll weigh the pros and cons of you know,
Speaker 16: how many people it would benefit, and wouldn't actually hold
Speaker 16: up something that would benefit more people than it hurt.
Speaker 3: But he would pay attention.
Speaker 7: I also think that he wouldn't have like put all
Speaker 7: these businesses, make them close, these mom and pops, they
Speaker 7: could have stayed in business. They could have had safety
Speaker 7: measures in place rather than just across the board make
Speaker 7: them close.
Speaker 1: So much about that that's interesting. First of all, it
Speaker 1: seems for one, maybe two of them, this is a
Speaker 1: relatively motivating issue. For most of them, it didn't seem
Speaker 1: like I'm curious about your thoughts on that. But for
Speaker 1: people who are just of just listening to this and
Speaker 1: weren't able to actually see the clip when you're playing
Speaker 1: to them that CNN clip and the comments from RFK
Speaker 1: on the Lex Rieman podcast, the faces were very pained,
Speaker 1: very concerned. They were not enjoying that exchange. And so
Speaker 1: I found that interesting as well, especially since a lot
Speaker 1: of the focus group participants seemed like, you know it
Speaker 1: was less about his specific stances on the issues. They
Speaker 1: may not even be aware that he's been sort of
Speaker 1: like leading vanguard of the anti vaxx movement for decades.
Speaker 4: At this point, there was.
Speaker 1: More of just like Kennedy nostalgia and I want something different.
Speaker 4: That did raise the question in my mind that.
Speaker 1: If more of this was played, if there was more
Speaker 1: sort of like oppositional ads against him, et cetera, that
Speaker 1: you may actually move some of these people off of him,
Speaker 1: if they had more awareness of what his positions were.
Speaker 4: What do you think of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, three things came across from that.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 10: The first is that I think, certainly there is a
Speaker 10: bit of a It's not their most important issue in
Speaker 10: terms of, you know, they're not necessarily going to turn
Speaker 10: away from Urk Junior because of it. But I do
Speaker 10: think we need to remember that these are people who
Speaker 10: are FK Junior already has. You know, these are sort
Speaker 10: of his ten percent or so in the polls at
Speaker 10: the moment. If he wants to grow that base, then
Speaker 10: that could be a problem, even though these guys are
Speaker 10: pretty much okay with it. I think the second point
Speaker 10: is that the thing they didn't like about the clip
Speaker 10: was not so much a substance, but something we always
Speaker 10: see in these focus groups, which was this sense that
Speaker 10: he was being a bit of a classic politician. He
Speaker 10: was dodging the day exactly, and that is exactly why
Speaker 10: they like RFK Junior because they don't think he's like that.
Speaker 10: So if they see clips like that, So if I was,
Speaker 10: you know, the Biden or Trump campaign, I'd be compiling
Speaker 10: clips of him looking like a politician rather than you know,
Speaker 10: the populace sort of you know, sort of favorite that
Speaker 10: they currently see him as.
Speaker 16: The third thing, and I.
Speaker 3: Think this is important.
Speaker 10: I think this is what these focus groups let 'us see,
Speaker 10: is that you hear a lot about how RFK Junior
Speaker 10: supporters are. You know, they're crazy, they're cranky, they're conspiracy theorists.
Speaker 3: These people's views on the vaccine.
Speaker 10: People listening and viewing might not necessarily agree with them all,
Speaker 10: but they were reasoned from personal experience positions to take.
Speaker 3: And I just think that.
Speaker 1: Is talking about like Bill Gates from microships and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, there's a listen.
Speaker 4: I think everybody should have a choice.
Speaker 1: You know, people who said, look a net benefit, you know,
Speaker 1: I was very for it in the beginning, especially I
Speaker 1: lost loved ones because of COVID. That jumped down at
Speaker 1: me as well, because that was one of my questions
Speaker 1: going into the focus group was how much are these
Speaker 1: people who have a die hard commitment to this issue
Speaker 1: or another issue that RFK has champion and how much
Speaker 1: of it are they just, you know, people who are
Speaker 1: looking for an alternative to two really shitty choices at
Speaker 1: this point, and by and large, I think it's the ladder.
Speaker 2: The ladder jumped out at me too, James, give us
Speaker 2: a taste of some of the we're going to keep
Speaker 2: debuting clips and all of these other things. What were
Speaker 2: some other moments that really jumped out to you that
Speaker 2: were really noteworthy that our audience can look for and
Speaker 2: pick up on.
Speaker 10: I think the big one, and on that subject of
Speaker 10: what are the deal breaker issues is RFK Junior's position
Speaker 10: on Israel. And they broadly knew that he was very
Speaker 10: pro Israel, and some and for a lot of them,
Speaker 10: that did not coincide with their views. They had more
Speaker 10: of the view that perhaps the Israeli response have been
Speaker 10: a little bit too disproportionate, that they felt that America
Speaker 10: shouldn't be involved in funding Israel or in ded Ukraine.
Speaker 10: So that was an interesting example of where you know,
Speaker 10: views rubbed up against there. The interesting thing there that
Speaker 10: was though they would rather RFK Junior just let his
Speaker 10: views be known and say agree with me if you
Speaker 10: want to disagree with me if you don't, because rather
Speaker 10: than you know him, try and fudge a position on
Speaker 10: on on his actual views. So that's the lesson for
Speaker 10: RFK Junior on this. You are running as an insurgent,
Speaker 10: you are running as the anti politician. Make sure that
Speaker 10: you continue to continue to be that. You saw him
Speaker 10: trying to get that across in that Super Bowl ad,
Speaker 10: and I think if we'd have you know, the people
Speaker 10: who went and focus group that so super Bowl ad,
Speaker 10: they could have done it from our focus group because
Speaker 10: the messages they were looking for were exactly the same,
Speaker 10: leaning in on the brand and leaning in on independence.
Speaker 10: Someone new in the field rather than the old.
Speaker 3: Politicians ran nostalgia.
Speaker 2: It's not political, it's more of a rejection of the
Speaker 2: existing choice vote independent being very strong.
Speaker 1: My last question for you, James, which may be a
Speaker 1: difficult one to answer, but I'm just curious as a
Speaker 1: polster what your thoughts on this are there's a lot
Speaker 1: of debate about who RFK quote unquote takes more votes
Speaker 1: from right. Some of his issues code more right wing,
Speaker 1: on vaccines, on Ukraine, on quote unquote cancel culture, and
Speaker 1: early on his favorability was higher with Republicans than it
Speaker 1: was with Democrats. I think that continues to be the case. However,
Speaker 1: he is a Kennedy and when you actually look at
Speaker 1: the polling that comes out, it kind of seems like
Speaker 1: a wash. Which candidate he helps or hurts the most,
Speaker 1: and it kind of varies poll to poll. So do
Speaker 1: you have a sense, after talking to these individuals, whether
Speaker 1: Biden or Trump should be more concerned about an RFK
Speaker 1: junior candidacy.
Speaker 3: I think it's both of them.
Speaker 10: Our most recent national poll showed that it was exactly
Speaker 10: the same po coming coming from both Trump and Biden,
Speaker 10: And when you look at the voters he can grow into,
Speaker 10: it's also both. Who would I know, if you really
Speaker 10: had to push me, who would I say we most concerned?
Speaker 10: I would say Biden And that's just because he's got
Speaker 10: slightly lower approval ratings than Donald Trump and.
Speaker 1: Weaker supporters, Like weaker support is Trump, people freaking love
Speaker 1: the guy. Biden people are like, he's fine, I guess.
Speaker 10: And then you know he is the disenchantment candidate RFK Junior,
Speaker 10: and therefore the candidate who people are most disenchanted by
Speaker 10: has the most to lose.
Speaker 3: That's a really smart point.
Speaker 2: It's about negative polarization for a lot of Biden support,
Speaker 2: so that can be split very much with RFK and James.
Speaker 2: You did a fantastic job as always. We really appreciate
Speaker 2: you GLP partners and all this for doing this with us.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely disenchantment candidate. I think that's why I like that phrase.
Speaker 1: I'm going to steal that one.
Speaker 4: Great to see.
Speaker 2: Okay, So as you guys, also thanks to Crystal, she
Speaker 2: broke this all down for you. We had an extraordinary
Speaker 2: report on Thursday afternoon when the Special count the Department
Speaker 2: of Justice came out with a report that President Biden
Speaker 2: cannot face trial for his wilful negligence on classified document
Speaker 2: storage because he's too old and infirm and no jury
Speaker 2: would convict a man who had forgotten when his own
Speaker 2: son had died.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: President Biden appears was very ticked off by that response,
Speaker 2: and he gave his first press conference in quite some
Speaker 2: time to try and to lay concerns about his age,
Speaker 2: and it went well, it was interesting.
Speaker 17: Let's take a listen, thank you, and I'll take some questions,
Speaker 17: President Biden.
Speaker 6: Something the Special Counsel said in his report is that
Speaker 6: one of the reasons you were not charged is because,
Speaker 6: in his description, you are a well meaning elderly man
Speaker 6: with a poor memory.
Speaker 17: I'm well meeting and I'm an elderly man, and I
Speaker 17: know what the hell I'm doing. I'm in President. I
Speaker 17: put this country back on his feet. I don't need
Speaker 17: his recommendation.
Speaker 9: It's totally your memory.
Speaker 6: And can you continue?
Speaker 17: It's President, my memory is so bad, I let you speak.
Speaker 17: That's that's that's worse. My memory is not got. My
Speaker 17: memory is fine. My memory. Take a look at what
Speaker 17: I've done since I become president. None even thought I
Speaker 17: could pass any of the things I got passed.
Speaker 3: How'd that happen?
Speaker 17: You know? I guess I just forgot.
Speaker 3: What was going on.
Speaker 4: For months when you were at about their age, you would.
Speaker 1: Respond with the words, watch me while any American people
Speaker 1: have been watching and they have expressed concerns about your age.
Speaker 17: That is your judgment. That is your judgment the public.
Speaker 17: That is not the judgment for the press. It's initially
Speaker 17: the President of Mexico CCI did not want to open
Speaker 17: up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in.
Speaker 17: I talked to him. I convinced to open the gate.
Speaker 3: He convinced him to open the gate.
Speaker 2: And a person he's talking about there, Crystal, the President
Speaker 2: of Mexico CC, he means the President of Egypt. So
Speaker 2: in a press conference to a lay concerns about his
Speaker 2: age and confused the president of Mexico and of Egypt,
Speaker 2: which you know, maybe in a one off situation you
Speaker 2: can forgive it. But in a scenario like this where
Speaker 2: he the Special Council of selves as he literally forgot
Speaker 2: wherein his own son died, that he appeared to be confused,
Speaker 2: that he appeared not to have a well big grasp
Speaker 2: of what was going on.
Speaker 3: That's simply extraordinary.
Speaker 2: And you know, these are basic facts like they're trying
Speaker 2: to go after, and we'll show people in a bit
Speaker 2: attacks on the Special Council. He either forgot or he
Speaker 2: didn't forget whenever his son died, Like it's a very
Speaker 2: basic thing. And look, I know this sounds awful and
Speaker 2: it's mean, but he's the one in trying to ask
Speaker 2: us to entrust him with four or five years more
Speaker 2: in office. I'm sorry, you know, these concerns just simply
Speaker 2: have to be voiced, or we're all going to feel
Speaker 2: like we're taking crazy pills.
Speaker 1: ABC News Episodes has a new pull out eighty six
Speaker 1: percent of American survey I think President Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: too old to serve at another term eighty six percent.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the problem isn't with the Special Council, right, Perhaps
Speaker 1: eighty six percent of Americans are not insane and delusional.
Speaker 1: They can see right what is right in front of
Speaker 1: their faces and sager, you're exactly right. Listen, we need misspeak.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it doesn't mean necessarily you have dementia, but when
Speaker 1: you look at the pattern, yes, we're talking about Just
Speaker 1: in the last couple of weeks, this man has cited
Speaker 1: two different foreign leaders that have been long dead in
Speaker 1: stories that supposedly just happened, Mitterrand who died in the
Speaker 1: nineties and Helmut Cole, who died some six seven years ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just that he forgot, you know, within several
Speaker 1: years when his son passed. He also couldn't say when
Speaker 1: he was even vice president of the United States. There
Speaker 1: were some other details there that got a little bit
Speaker 1: less attention, which to me are just as significant, which
Speaker 1: is he couldn't remember which side of an issue a
Speaker 1: key ally was on. He couldn't explain the details of
Speaker 1: debates around Afghanistan, something that he, you know, was once
Speaker 1: incredibly well versed in. You know, I almost feel like
Speaker 1: I don't even have to say these things because obviously
Speaker 1: eighty six percent of American people already see it in
Speaker 1: the front of their eyes. In terms of the political
Speaker 1: choice of this press conference, of course, it ends up
Speaker 1: in complete disaster because of the mix up of the
Speaker 1: Mexican and Egyptian president. He had, you know, incredibly pissed off, cranky,
Speaker 1: old man energy. I think it probably would have been
Speaker 1: wiser if he was up to actually sitting for the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl interview, rather than in this reactionary way coming
Speaker 1: out and trying to give a press conference to prove
Speaker 1: you're not senile, which is, you know, not a great
Speaker 1: position to take it. You could see the press was
Speaker 1: really out for blood. They were gunning for him, They
Speaker 1: went all in. If he was able to competently handle
Speaker 1: himself during the Super Bowl interview, that would probably have
Speaker 1: been a better approach, but there's a reason why he.
Speaker 4: And his team opted not to do that.
Speaker 1: Either he or his team or both have zero confidence
Speaker 1: that he would actually be able to handle that task.
Speaker 1: So you just look at this and you're like, what
Speaker 1: the hell are we doing here?
Speaker 4: It is complete insanity.
Speaker 1: And then I just want to say, on the substance
Speaker 1: of the Special Council report, you know, I think it's
Speaker 1: entirely fair for Democrats to say Trump's mishandling of classified
Speaker 1: documents was more egregious, There was more clear, appears to
Speaker 1: be more clear wilful intent in terms of moving documents
Speaker 1: around and hiding in them. All of that, and the
Speaker 1: level of classification may have been higher. I think all
Speaker 1: of that is incredibly fair. But I also think it
Speaker 1: is quite apparent that the standard that Biden is being
Speaker 1: held to, well, this.
Speaker 4: Is a cenail man, what are you gonna do? Can't
Speaker 4: charge him?
Speaker 1: And the standard that anyone else in the government with
Speaker 1: this level of mishandling of classified documents would be held
Speaker 1: to are two totally different things. And so frankly, I
Speaker 1: think it's outrageous that these people in power get a
Speaker 1: pass for things that other ordinary workers within the government
Speaker 1: or ordinary service members would not be allowed to get
Speaker 1: away with Look.
Speaker 2: At the Discord guy they got, Yeah, he was an idiot,
Speaker 2: a right lead to stuff on discord.
Speaker 3: He's god to go jil for the rest of his life.
Speaker 3: He's probably gonna die in prison, all right.
Speaker 1: And he didn't even you know, they look literally anyway
Speaker 1: nobody else.
Speaker 3: I mean during the Hillary case, I covered a couple
Speaker 3: of guy.
Speaker 2: There was a guy with a nuclear submarine and he
Speaker 2: accidentally leaked a photo or whatever, same thing. He was
Speaker 2: thrown up in jail. This is the Trump campaign used
Speaker 2: to talk about it all the time. If you read
Speaker 2: the report, as you said, Biden's main defense is, oh.
Speaker 3: It's my Staf's fault. It's like, it wasn't your Staf's fault.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 2: The report, Clay lays out very very clearly that you
Speaker 2: willfully told biographers just as Trump did. Quote that's probably classified,
Speaker 2: but whatever, I mean, we don't have to get into it,
Speaker 2: because the real main takeaway is not about the documents.
Speaker 2: It's that you are so old you could not remember
Speaker 2: basic facts about your life presented defense and the Department
Speaker 2: of Justice has concluded that you cannot stand trial and
Speaker 2: yet he wants to run the country. And so MSNBC,
Speaker 2: what is their cope, what they could possibly.
Speaker 3: Come up with?
Speaker 2: Well, they've certainly come up with a new narrative. Let's
Speaker 2: take a lesson.
Speaker 18: Now that we have this closed and final report. Her
Speaker 18: looks like the Trump holdover prosecutor. Here looks like having
Speaker 18: gotten the thing that helps you get the most facts possible,
Speaker 18: a timely interview with a very busy and very legally
Speaker 18: protected figure, the President the United States, and having gotten
Speaker 18: the answers that helped him reach the conclusion that there
Speaker 18: was no crime. He then started to cherry pick the
Speaker 18: interview for his spin on basically what he perceives to
Speaker 18: be mister Hurd's opinion, derogatory information. I think Lawrence hit
Speaker 18: it on the head, and it bears repeating that it.
Speaker 3: Is standard ops to say. I don't recall that.
Speaker 18: The former president in other cases recently has said it
Speaker 18: and many If you want to get to the age thing,
Speaker 18: because this is let's call it what it is. This
Speaker 18: is agism snuck into a report clearing the person of
Speaker 18: any wrongdoing. If you want to get into the agism,
Speaker 18: young people are told all the time by their lawyers, Hey,
Speaker 18: you're way better off leaning into I don't recall, than
Speaker 18: possibly misstating something to a federal officer or under oath
Speaker 18: in this case.
Speaker 19: Is that the fact of his age is not something
Speaker 19: you can rebut he can't be you can't tact to
Speaker 19: if someone says you're too far left, you can tack
Speaker 19: to the center.
Speaker 3: There's no the man is eighty years old.
Speaker 2: He rides a bike, but he is the age he is, and.
Speaker 3: So it's a very useful political attack for that.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 19: Along with the legal conclusion comes this flood of characterizations,
Speaker 19: factual mistation, and pejorative comments about the president that are
Speaker 19: inconsistent with DOJ policy and norms, and that, as you
Speaker 19: see over the last forty eight hours, have been widely
Speaker 19: criticized by legal experts.
Speaker 3: This is not what prosecutors do. It is shoddy work product.
Speaker 3: It's shoddy work product.
Speaker 2: I mean, did I not live through a whole work
Speaker 2: cycle of these people can do no wrong, and their
Speaker 2: heroes and anyone who questions them.
Speaker 3: Was above the No one is above the law. How
Speaker 3: many times we have that drum doing to us.
Speaker 2: Now they're attacking him apparently because the man can ride
Speaker 2: a bike. Listen, I've seen a lot of eighty year
Speaker 2: olds on a bike.
Speaker 3: They're on freaking retirement.
Speaker 2: Okay, they're not asking us to be run for re
Speaker 2: election for access to the nuclear codes where they're forget.
Speaker 2: Whether they forget something or not does not have world
Speaker 2: altering consequences. Like you, I feel nuts having to even
Speaker 2: articulate this because the vast majority of people.
Speaker 3: Agree with me, but apparently I do.
Speaker 2: You know, we're living in an area where they call
Speaker 2: it agism. That's not agism. It is a basic acknowledgment
Speaker 2: of reality. You could sling insults and all that if
Speaker 2: you want, but you know the way the jiu jitsu
Speaker 2: these people are trying to use to to make themselves
Speaker 2: okay with this, it's just crazy. Just admit the truth. Well,
Speaker 2: just say you hate Trump so you don't care anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the layers of cope are just sort
Speaker 1: of entertaining to me. I was interested to see what
Speaker 1: would happen here, and I think they just realized, like,
Speaker 1: we got no choice but to circle the wagons at
Speaker 1: this point because it's too late to do anything else.
Speaker 1: So there was a moment right when the report dropped,
Speaker 1: and then when Biden gave that presser where it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: are they going to actually they going to actually try
Speaker 1: to do something here? Are they going to actually try
Speaker 1: be honest about, you know, the state of the president
Speaker 1: and whether or not he has a chance at beating
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and whether this is actually the best candidate
Speaker 1: for the Democratic Party to put forward. But nope, said,
Speaker 1: they decided to go in the total opposite direction and
Speaker 1: completely circle the wagons. And the reason why the cop
Speaker 1: is so amusing to me is because, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: it's it's agism and how dare you questions age?
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, they're going to great lengths to
Speaker 1: find Trump misspeaking, which she's been doing a lot lately too.
Speaker 4: I mean, he is it is true, he is also
Speaker 4: an old man.
Speaker 1: But so it's like, okay, so are they both snile?
Speaker 1: Is it okay to criticize this one's age but not
Speaker 1: that one's age. Is Joe Biden actually totally fine?
Speaker 4: Or is he?
Speaker 1: You know, is Trump having the same type of mental lapses?
Speaker 1: And so you know, we're just supposed to say, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we have no choice but to elect some
Speaker 1: senile president or another. It's pretty incredible what's going on
Speaker 1: right now. But I mean we did see this before
Speaker 1: soccer with Diane Feinstein, and yeah, I was much less
Speaker 1: important as one single senator in a state that is
Speaker 1: going to be democratic, whether it was her or someone else.
Speaker 1: And the lengths that Pelosi in particular was willing to
Speaker 1: go to to cover up the extent of her decline
Speaker 1: for years and years and years, all the way up
Speaker 1: until the very end where this lady is casting both
Speaker 1: just before while she should be on her deathbed and
Speaker 1: literally dying.
Speaker 4: What was it that day or the next day.
Speaker 1: It was astonishing that they were willing to go to
Speaker 1: those lengths and deny reality that was right in front
Speaker 1: of the faces of the American people. So it shouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised that they would be willing to sink to
Speaker 1: those steps with this president as well.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons I went so hard on the
Speaker 2: pain on that and on McConnell as well as y
Speaker 2: as I can tell, there's a standard being set right,
Speaker 2: They're all protecting each other, and it's like Feinstein at
Speaker 2: a certain point she had that. One of the reasons
Speaker 2: to go as hard there is because she was genuinely
Speaker 2: on the verge of death, like she came back at
Speaker 2: the risk of her own legacy.
Speaker 3: The people around her were all popping her up.
Speaker 2: McConnell is the same way the man is frozen twice
Speaker 2: on camera and we're all just supposed to like move
Speaker 2: past that, right.
Speaker 3: Oh, I guess it's cool.
Speaker 2: You know, he's the same age as the president, by
Speaker 2: the way, and same here with Biden.
Speaker 3: Just look at him, literally, look at him.
Speaker 2: I mean, did you see how long it takes him
Speaker 2: to open a single page.
Speaker 3: Again, I'm sorry that this sounds mean.
Speaker 2: It's not person it's about the fact that he wants
Speaker 2: to run the country. He's the one who's confusing the
Speaker 2: president of Mexico with Egypt in the middle of a
Speaker 2: literal international crisis. And if people want to see the
Speaker 2: cope also that people are coming up with, let's put
Speaker 2: this up there. Just just take a look at some
Speaker 2: of these, they say. Just Joe Scarborough MSNBC. He couldn't
Speaker 2: indict Biden legally, so he tried to indict Biden politically.
Speaker 2: Oh really, because actually the entire thing was about how
Speaker 2: he could have indicted him legally, but that no jury
Speaker 2: would convict him.
Speaker 3: Matt Iglesius quote, this is fucking bullshit.
Speaker 2: You appoint a Republican special counsel to investigate, he investigates,
Speaker 2: the investigation does not reveal a crime. So instead of
Speaker 2: saying all good, he goes off and does partisan political
Speaker 2: hits another, Oh, y'all are so funny, dunking on an
Speaker 2: eighty one year old's poor memory, like you don't use
Speaker 2: a password manager, lose your phone anywhere from six to
Speaker 2: thirty times a day, and dig the pizza box out
Speaker 2: of the garbage to check bake time.
Speaker 3: And then, my.
Speaker 2: Personal favorite contrarian take today's report dramatically lowers expectations of
Speaker 2: Biden's abilities, lowering the bar for what he needs to
Speaker 2: do is succeed incoming appearances. All of these are completely crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, how much lower can the bar even be?
Speaker 2: What are we talking about here? You know, in terms
Speaker 2: of the American.
Speaker 1: Loans for our presidents to have a super low bar
Speaker 1: eighty six inspiration.
Speaker 2: Eighty six percent say he's too old eighty six percent.
Speaker 3: Now let me say this, that doesn't mean.
Speaker 2: A lot of people want to go to vote for him.
Speaker 2: A lot of people are probably still going to vote
Speaker 2: for him. A lot of people will say, ie, Trump
Speaker 2: enough that I'm willing to take the risk. I think
Speaker 2: that's nuts, but hey, you know, you do what you want.
Speaker 2: My point, though, is just that you the age question itself.
Speaker 2: Think about the standard we are setting America from all
Speaker 2: the way at the top, where Chuck Schumer, who is
Speaker 2: seventy six is the spring Chicken, and Senate leadership.
Speaker 3: It's totally crazy.
Speaker 2: Even you know, Nancy Pelosi, the shadow leader of the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, eighty one, Mitch McConnell freezing twice, Trump, Biden, everybody,
Speaker 2: I mean, all of these people are basically I mean,
Speaker 2: in some cases they're older than grandparents of people who
Speaker 2: can vote today. That's just something where we need to
Speaker 2: really internalize what that standard, as you said, about the
Speaker 2: actual bear for the president should be, and that that's
Speaker 2: how you have institutional collapse, degradation, and well that's you know,
Speaker 2: things are going to happen if Biden gets re elected,
Speaker 2: which had not happened since Franklin Roosevelt was reelected for
Speaker 2: a fourth term where he could basically stop, not stop
Speaker 2: drooling out of the left side of his mouth, and
Speaker 2: they rolled him all the way up to the mic
Speaker 2: just to make sure they could go him over and
Speaker 2: By the way, we've passed a new constitutional amendment to
Speaker 2: say that can never happen again in terms of just
Speaker 2: you know, rolling having a popular president just continue to
Speaker 2: get re elected over and over again.
Speaker 1: Well the coke from Jonathan Chait and his has been okay.
Speaker 1: Next level is that, well, Reagan was c now, so
Speaker 1: it's fine. Reagan was c now on the second term,
Speaker 1: So Biden c now and the second home, Eh, what
Speaker 1: are you going to do? We just have the AIDS
Speaker 1: take over because we're all voting for the presidential aids. No,
Speaker 1: we're voting for this individual person to be the leader
Speaker 1: of the country, supposedly the most powerful person on the planet,
Speaker 1: commander in chief. It is I just it's hard for
Speaker 1: me around my head around how.
Speaker 3: We got here.
Speaker 4: It really truly is.
Speaker 1: There was another poll that I think is maybe the
Speaker 1: most devastating poll I have seen for Joe Biden yet
Speaker 1: the eighty six percent saying is too old.
Speaker 4: That's really bad.
Speaker 1: But NBC News ask voters how the Biden and Trump
Speaker 1: administrations had matched up with their expectations. Only fourteen percent
Speaker 1: said Biden was better than expected. Forty two percent said
Speaker 1: worse than expected. Trump it's almost reversed. Forty percent actually
Speaker 1: said that he was better than expected, and twenty nine
Speaker 1: percent said worse than expected. And the numbers with independence
Speaker 1: are even more lopsided. So the reason this is devastating
Speaker 1: is because, you know, as perhaps memories have faded of
Speaker 1: what the Trump arrow was like, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: You know, used to really be an advantage to be
Speaker 1: the incumbent president, but right now it's actually better. I
Speaker 1: think the memory fades of how terrible you were while
Speaker 1: you were in office. And so the fact that you
Speaker 1: have so many people saying, you know, what Trump actually
Speaker 1: wasn't so bad, it was not as bad as I
Speaker 1: can expected, and Biden is way worse than I expect.
Speaker 1: I think that is incredibly devastating in terms of their
Speaker 1: political positioning heading into that next election. And you know,
Speaker 1: in this way, Chris Hayes, in that little MSNBC coke
Speaker 1: clip that we played where Rachel Maddow is like, well.
Speaker 4: He's not too old because he can ride a bike.
Speaker 1: We're not electing him to ride a freaking bicycle. And
Speaker 1: by the way, we watch him fall off of that
Speaker 1: bike before too. But the thing that Chris Hayes said
Speaker 1: about like there's nothing you can do to Rebut this
Speaker 1: is true. It's true, and not just because his age
Speaker 1: is what it is, but because his capabilities.
Speaker 4: Are what they are.
Speaker 1: He is not going to be able to sit for
Speaker 1: the interview and knock it out of the park, give
Speaker 1: the press conference and knock it out of the park
Speaker 1: when he says, you know, are you too old?
Speaker 4: Just watch me? Well we are.
Speaker 1: They have seen you, and that's exactly the problem. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you're doing everything you can do hide
Speaker 1: yourself from the American people. And for good reason. We
Speaker 1: understand why your staff and why the people around you
Speaker 1: are trying to text you from being exposed to any camera,
Speaker 1: because even though that is a bad option, it is
Speaker 1: the best move that they have on the table to
Speaker 1: try to hide the actual state of.
Speaker 4: Your condition here.
Speaker 1: So it really is an astonishing situation that we're facing
Speaker 1: at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I felt so reading that I was stunned.
Speaker 2: I thought, maybe for once, something will happen. Anybody, Gavin,
Speaker 2: you know, anyone that they can drag in there. They're
Speaker 2: trying to set up Kamma. But at this point it's cleared.
Speaker 2: They're like they're gonna do the same thing that the
Speaker 2: Republicans did after the mar Lago rate. They're circling the wagons.
Speaker 2: This is it, guys, like, don't delude yourself. Unless he's dead,
Speaker 2: They're not gonna drag him out. And it just is
Speaker 2: what it is. Let's move on to Hillary. I was
Speaker 2: honestly kind of surprised by this, although I guess every
Speaker 2: once in a while, you know, broken clock is right
Speaker 2: twice a day, and all of that. Hillary Clinton weighing
Speaker 2: on and says, actually, Joe Biden's age.
Speaker 3: It is a legitimate issue. Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 20: Or should he embrace his you know, eight decades on
Speaker 20: earth and the great wisdom he's through all of this,
Speaker 20: I mean high above, oh yeah above. I mean, you know,
Speaker 20: I talk to people in the White House all the time,
Speaker 20: and you know they know it's an issue. But as
Speaker 20: I like to say, look, it's a legitimate issue.
Speaker 3: It's a legitimate.
Speaker 20: Issue for Trump who's only three years younger, right, So
Speaker 20: it's an issue. Once you say that, then you have
Speaker 20: to also talk about what's at stake in the election.
Speaker 20: And I'm for Joe Biden for reelection on the merits.
Speaker 3: It's a legitimate issue on the merits. I'm Joe Biden.
Speaker 21: Eight.
Speaker 2: Of course, she tries to deflect, you know, onto Trump,
Speaker 2: like what are we doing she made? How many attacks
Speaker 2: did she make against Trump? And how many implications you know,
Speaker 2: the same things she fell for all these like Trump
Speaker 2: health conspiracy theories. And we have a glaring actual conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory here, like right, and not even a conspiracy theory,
Speaker 2: glaring fact, like right in front of all of our faces.
Speaker 2: But like I said before in our previous block, this
Speaker 2: is the strategy. They are going to circle the wagons.
Speaker 2: They are running this man until the end unless he
Speaker 2: literally dies. And I don't I honestly, I don't know
Speaker 2: how they can morally come to turn with that. I
Speaker 2: was talking previously Crystal about the FDR fourth term.
Speaker 3: The people around him knew he was going to die.
Speaker 2: They knew he was going to die, And in many
Speaker 2: ways they actually were very similar in their arrogance with
Speaker 2: the way they handled Truman.
Speaker 3: Where they selected Truman. Truman only got to meet.
Speaker 2: FDR three times before he assumed office eighty three days
Speaker 2: into the presidency. They never told him about the Manhattan Project.
Speaker 2: We had an entire war in Europe going on Hitler's
Speaker 2: you know, suicide and all this other stuff. He was
Speaker 2: not prepared for it at all. The people around him,
Speaker 2: Harry Hopkins and other ads, they were running the country.
Speaker 3: They literally were running the country. Nobody.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe if you read the New York Times
Speaker 2: at that time, you might have known Harry Hopkins name.
Speaker 2: You don't know, you know, the secret Service agent who's
Speaker 2: running the guy around and the people who were really
Speaker 2: running the country.
Speaker 3: We basically had.
Speaker 2: An actual like military coup for eighty three days in
Speaker 2: this country and nobody knew about it. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that's what we're signing up for, something like this,
Speaker 2: and no one is.
Speaker 3: Being honest to us. But the ease if they're asking
Speaker 3: for four years and.
Speaker 2: Then with Kamala too, we all better get real comfortable
Speaker 2: with the idea of Kamala as president. If you're going
Speaker 2: to pull that lever for Biden, you've got to really
Speaker 2: think about that, because people didn't think about that at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 3: In nineteen forty four.
Speaker 2: Most of the people, many of the troops who were
Speaker 2: serving in World War Two, they're like, who the hell
Speaker 2: is Harry Truman? They after you had been president for
Speaker 2: twelve years. They barely even remembered you know, Hoover at
Speaker 2: that time. That's the level of insanity that we haven't lived,
Speaker 2: you know, through seventy six years or something like that,
Speaker 2: that they're trying to foist on us.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The thing with the Hilary comments that's interesting to me
Speaker 1: is I believe that interview was recorded before the Special
Speaker 1: Council report came out, because it look appears to be
Speaker 1: part of that same interview that we covered last week
Speaker 1: where she made her comments about Tucker and the you know,
Speaker 1: puppy dog or whatever the hell she said about that situation.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder if after the report, with the
Speaker 1: circling of the wagons, if she would have said the
Speaker 1: same thing maybe, because I do think it's important because
Speaker 1: you know, part of why those comments from Hillary got
Speaker 1: as much traction as they did is because there was
Speaker 1: a sense of like, oh, maybe the power brokers behind
Speaker 1: the scenes and the Democratic Party or trying to make
Speaker 1: a move to take out Biden whatever whatever.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 1: First of all, you need to know that the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party is just not that organized, Like I don't think
Speaker 1: that there is some cabal behind the scenes that is
Speaker 1: really capable of just pushing him out and inserting in
Speaker 1: their favorite candidate, whether that's Kamla.
Speaker 4: Or Gavin or Pete or whoever that would would be.
Speaker 1: So I actually think before the report came out, it
Speaker 1: was probably more acceptable to just vaguely acknowledge.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, he's a legitimate issue, but you.
Speaker 1: Know, obviously on the Marins, I'm for Joe Biden, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Now there is a heightened sensitivity where I
Speaker 1: think it will be more radioactive within these sort of
Speaker 1: like mainstream democratic establishment in their media organs to suggest
Speaker 1: such a thing.
Speaker 4: That's kind of my read into that.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that I'll say about this is,
Speaker 1: I mean Hillary is younger than Biden, but she's obviously.
Speaker 4: Older as well.
Speaker 1: The thing that always blows my mind is Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: who obviously's president in the nineties, is younger than Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: which blows my mind. But you know, counter to the
Speaker 1: point of ageism, if you talk to older folks, like
Speaker 1: they're aware of their own aging, they're aware of their
Speaker 1: own limitations, they're aware of the fact that it would
Speaker 1: be you know, incredibly onerous and difficult and you know,
Speaker 1: put potentially beyond their capability to be president at this
Speaker 1: later stage in their life.
Speaker 4: And you also look at it like, you're why would
Speaker 4: you want to do that? You could be on a beach, enjoying.
Speaker 1: Your family and living account your golden years and with
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of a legacy that you know,
Speaker 1: I personally wouldn't be proud of, but you probably would
Speaker 1: be proud of instead. You know, you're You're Diane Feinstein,
Speaker 1: this is your life, this is it.
Speaker 4: You only have one of them.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you couple that with the incredible
Speaker 1: damage if you know, if you really believe as I do,
Speaker 1: that Trump is an existential threat to the country and
Speaker 1: that I don't want them to see him back in
Speaker 1: the White House, and all of those things. I think
Speaker 1: of the incredible risk that you're taking with the country,
Speaker 1: just the level of arrogance, and it is astonishing the
Speaker 1: level of risk they're willing to take with their party,
Speaker 1: the country, the world is truly something to behold. I
Speaker 1: can't run my head around it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to both of your point.
Speaker 2: I remember I won't give away his name, but a
Speaker 2: very very famous, a world famous.
Speaker 3: Person, and had dinner with him in like twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: He's seventy eight years old it was at the time,
Speaker 2: which is exactly how old Biden was whenever he took
Speaker 2: the oath of office, and he looked at me and
Speaker 2: he was like, look, I'm seventy eight years old. The
Speaker 2: idea that I could be president is batshit crazy. And
Speaker 2: this man today is much more, much more put together
Speaker 2: than Joe Biden was, and he had the wherewithal to
Speaker 2: know that about himself. And he's like, I've accomplished a lot.
Speaker 2: People know my name, you know, you know, I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of good things. I'm just going to retire
Speaker 2: and I'm going to have you know, I have good times,
Speaker 2: my golden years, my wife, my grandchildren.
Speaker 3: That's what most people in this position would do Biden.
Speaker 2: You know, in many respects too, it's not like this
Speaker 2: is a call of service thing because it's about narcisses.
Speaker 2: It has been running for president since nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: Like he's desperate to do this.
Speaker 3: He finally the stars aligned for him to get him there.
Speaker 2: There's a huge portion of this too, where I don't
Speaker 2: know if you noticed whenever that reporter was said to him.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the the American people feel as if
Speaker 2: you're too old to be present. He was like, that
Speaker 2: is not that is your judgment. That is not the
Speaker 2: judgment of the press. I'm not sure what he meant
Speaker 2: exactly by that, but I think what he meant is
Speaker 2: that it's not the judgment of the people. But that's
Speaker 2: not true. That is the overwhelming judgment of the people.
Speaker 2: But again, you see characteristics that are typical of the elderly,
Speaker 2: ornery all you know, agitated, not wanting to grapple with reality,
Speaker 2: very difficult, you know, egomaniac, very what's sensitive about having authority, challenge,
Speaker 2: feeling as if losing a grasp on things around you,
Speaker 2: not secure And these were all characteristics they already had
Speaker 2: before it was old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everything just you know, what is the whole thing
Speaker 3: about being old?
Speaker 2: It just exacerbates who you were, you become even more
Speaker 2: so what you already are.
Speaker 3: Nothing wrong with that. It probably happens to everybody, but
Speaker 3: we see it all on display. You can see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, your patience just runs thin. Your you know,
Speaker 1: your ability to like control or temper or whatever. This
Speaker 1: is again not a judgment. I mean it's when I'm eighty,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to have a.
Speaker 4: Use for you know.
Speaker 1: Visical city I tell you what I think too, But
Speaker 1: you know, it's it shows like it really shows Branco
Speaker 1: Marca Teach pointed out, and I thought this was a
Speaker 1: good point, that this really puts into context the David
Speaker 1: Ignacious column in particular. But there are a few others
Speaker 1: at that time, maybe about a year ago, that was
Speaker 1: sort of like gently encouraging Joe Biden to step aside.
Speaker 1: And one of the other layers of cope that we've
Speaker 1: seen is this, like, well, if he was really that
Speaker 1: infirm and that adult, there are a million reporters in
Speaker 1: this town who would love to report it, and so
Speaker 1: we know all about it. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: really silly because look at how long they hit Diane
Speaker 1: Fine Stanstein's condition. The reporters in this town know that
Speaker 1: if they want any prayer of access to not just Biden,
Speaker 1: but anyone in the White House, anyone in this administration,
Speaker 1: they've got to.
Speaker 4: Toe the line.
Speaker 1: And that is one line that it would be very
Speaker 1: difficult for them to cross and maintain any sort of access,
Speaker 1: et cetera.
Speaker 4: They know that.
Speaker 1: But also it's not like there were some signs and
Speaker 1: inklings in the press like that David Ignatius column indicating
Speaker 1: that you know there's some issues here and preserve your legacy.
Speaker 1: Step aside that gentle suggestion. Obviously it wasn't taken. And
Speaker 1: where we are, where we are, And I agree with you, Sager.
Speaker 1: Anyone who is deluding themselves to think there's some sort
Speaker 1: of back room conspiracy going on to replace Joe Biden
Speaker 1: and push them out and then they finally realize that
Speaker 1: this isn't going to go well for them, I would
Speaker 1: not get your hopes up because I think this is
Speaker 1: just this is what it is. They've circled the wagons,
Speaker 1: They've decided this is their guy, Come what may. They
Speaker 1: don't really care about the consequences, and I guess we're
Speaker 1: the ones who all have.
Speaker 4: To live with it.
Speaker 3: God help us.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's move on to Donald Trump also making some
Speaker 2: interesting eyebrow raising comments which have set off a firestorm
Speaker 2: in Washington and on the newspaper columnists of America. Donald
Speaker 2: Trump weighing in on an alleged conversation I'm going to
Speaker 2: say alleged with a European leader of NATO asking to
Speaker 2: Trump allegedly whether Trump would defend him, and he said no,
Speaker 2: I would not defend you if you don't pay your bills.
Speaker 2: In fact, I would tell Russia do whatever the hell
Speaker 2: they want. Let's take a listen to what he said.
Speaker 22: The presidents of a big country stood up said, well, sir,
Speaker 22: if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will
Speaker 22: you protect us. I said, you didn't pay your delinquent.
Speaker 22: He said, yes, let's say that happened. No, I would
Speaker 22: not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to
Speaker 22: do whatever the hell they want.
Speaker 3: You gotta pay, you gotta pay, Crystal.
Speaker 2: This has set off some of the most deranged discourse
Speaker 2: that I've personally seen since twenty sixteen. Whenever he said
Speaker 2: something similar at one point, the front page of the
Speaker 2: Financial Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, and there's one other I think, the
Speaker 2: the Big five, I guess, as you could say, all
Speaker 2: had the exact same headline, which was like Trump to
Speaker 2: abandon allies, encourage Russians to attack. Now, first of all,
Speaker 2: that's not what he said. He didn't say abandon allies.
Speaker 2: He said, if you don't pay your bills the minimum
Speaker 2: two percent threshold, then I would encourage Russia to do
Speaker 2: whatever the hell they want. That's not the same thing
Speaker 2: as saying that you are abandoning the NATO treaty. Second,
Speaker 2: and this is obviously something I feel very strongly about
Speaker 2: about Europeans who are not pulling their weight. I have
Speaker 2: the official NATO numbers right here in front of me.
Speaker 2: The majority of the NATO alliance, even after the Russian
Speaker 2: invasion of Ukraine, including the great powers from Germany and France.
Speaker 2: Germany and France and Italy, some of the biggest economies
Speaker 2: in the world, do not spend the minimum two percent
Speaker 2: on the NATO guideline.
Speaker 3: Now, they can do what they want, but remember.
Speaker 2: That it's supposed to be a mutually beneficial pack that
Speaker 2: is happening here.
Speaker 3: So anyway, with all of that, and curious for what
Speaker 3: you think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I have a few things to say about this.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, of all, as you said,
Speaker 1: like the conversation probably didn't.
Speaker 3: Happen, He's probably not obviously didn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that's number one. Number two. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: this is a crazy thing to say, to be like, hey, Russia,
Speaker 1: go ahead and invade whoever the hell you want. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't support that. I think that's an outrageous thing
Speaker 1: to say. I think it's part of why, like, you know,
Speaker 1: having him as commander in chief is once again is
Speaker 1: a terrifying prospect, as he is incredibly impulsive and all
Speaker 1: over the map, and he was not the peacenick that
Speaker 1: his supporters try to claim that he was. So there's that, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think the comments were good. Now I'm someone
Speaker 1: I'm not a big NATO person, you know, and I
Speaker 1: certainly don't support the expansion of NATO. So all the
Speaker 1: freak out about the NATO alliance and the sanctity of
Speaker 1: it and oh my god, he is going to go
Speaker 1: after NATO, et cetera, et cetera. I find that part
Speaker 1: a little bit silly, not only because I'm not a
Speaker 1: NATO person, but because he also didn't really do that
Speaker 1: time he was president. And this is one thing that
Speaker 1: you know, I think you have to consider his words,
Speaker 1: but I think you also have to consider what his
Speaker 1: actual policy was as president. And this is where, you know,
Speaker 1: we're just kind of getting back to this like Russia
Speaker 1: Gate impulse within the mainstream press, within the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: et cetera, which took just his words and his seeming
Speaker 1: you know, often voiced sympathy and affection for Putin and
Speaker 1: did not consider the fact that his actions were actually
Speaker 1: in the totally opposite direction. He was very hawkish towards Russia,
Speaker 1: did not in fact give them what they want, did
Speaker 1: in fact like bolster Ukraine and ship weapons to them
Speaker 1: in ways that even Obama was not willing to do so.
Speaker 1: I just think that the dialogue becomes very unhinged when
Speaker 1: you only take those comments and project them into policy
Speaker 1: and don't also look at the actual policies that he pursues.
Speaker 2: So obvious and true right to anybody who is a
Speaker 2: genuine observer of this, I honestly wish we'd seen more
Speaker 2: of that guy whenever he was president.
Speaker 3: Trump expanded NATO. Trump is the one who put freaking
Speaker 3: North Macedonia into the US nuclear umbrella.
Speaker 2: Do people even know in North Macedonia as a country,
Speaker 2: did you know that you're signed up for nuclear war
Speaker 2: that if they get attacked? Anyone want to riddle me
Speaker 2: that about why exactly that makes sense? Or Montenegro Again,
Speaker 2: people may know from a Bond movie that's their most
Speaker 2: extent they're going to know anything about freaking Montenegro.
Speaker 3: Also, now we're all signed up to die for Finland.
Speaker 2: And Sweden, which is great obviously, countries that have previously
Speaker 2: been at war with Russia awesome. Now let's think too
Speaker 2: about the actual substance where everyone's like he's going to
Speaker 2: abandon NATO. Trump shipped weapons to Ukraine. Trump was one
Speaker 2: of the most incompetent commanders in chief of our lifetime
Speaker 2: in actually executing what he wanted.
Speaker 3: He wanted to withdraw from Syria.
Speaker 2: Who just died Crystal troops doing what exactly right?
Speaker 3: Oh, the ones who were insane.
Speaker 2: Trump said he was gonna bond or he's going to
Speaker 2: pull us out of Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: That didn't happen, signed.
Speaker 2: A peace deal, he tried to do it allegedly or
Speaker 2: whatever at the end, never happened. Biden is the one
Speaker 2: who ended up actually pulling through with it. Trump was
Speaker 2: the one who told us that he was going to
Speaker 2: force NATO to pay their fair share. Not none of
Speaker 2: that happened, and in fact, most of their defense spending
Speaker 2: remain static until the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and then
Speaker 2: even the measly Baltic countries are the only ones who
Speaker 2: are paying up and they barely mean anything in.
Speaker 3: Absolute terms of military power.
Speaker 2: It's like I can go on and on forever in
Speaker 2: terms of like what he actually did. But that's part
Speaker 2: of why it is so infuriating, because I'm like, I
Speaker 2: wish he would be more like this if he were
Speaker 2: to president. If he did this, I would support him
Speaker 2: even more. I'd be like, absolutely, congratulations, Please make them
Speaker 2: actually pay their fair share. But that's not what happens.
Speaker 2: It's like NATO at this point is a religion. And
Speaker 2: then that's what I've really come to understand. Ukraine and
Speaker 2: NATO allegiance is a literal religion of the columnists and
Speaker 2: the foreign policy elite in this country. They think it's
Speaker 2: like nineteen seventy six or whatever in the Soviet, big
Speaker 2: bad Soviet Union is on the horizon, and all this
Speaker 2: complete nonsense. I mean even here in Ukraine, Ukraine is
Speaker 2: not in NATO. Ukraine borders NATO. That's different, it's not
Speaker 2: the same thing. They treat it as an attack on NATO.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, then what does that mean? Every country
Speaker 2: that borders NATO is now also in NATO. So there's
Speaker 2: no limiting principle to any of this. So it's one
Speaker 2: of those where the freak out does not match the action.
Speaker 2: And then even then consider this, majority of people at
Speaker 2: this point are against against more funding to Ukraine. How
Speaker 2: can you try and run this like NATO scam again
Speaker 2: electorally after the majority of people see through your bs.
Speaker 3: Blob talking points. So that's it.
Speaker 2: Finally, then we have to get to Nikki Haley, who
Speaker 2: of course is seizing on this.
Speaker 3: You know she's running on NATO.
Speaker 2: I guess she's going after Trump for saying that he
Speaker 2: would quote unquote abandon NATO, even though that's not what
Speaker 2: he said.
Speaker 3: Here's what she had to say.
Speaker 21: NATO has been a success story for the last seventy
Speaker 21: five years.
Speaker 3: But what bothers me about.
Speaker 21: This is, don't take the side of a thug who
Speaker 21: kills his opponents. Don't take the side of someone who
Speaker 21: has gone in and invaded a country and half a
Speaker 21: million people have died or been wounded because of Putin.
Speaker 21: Don't take the side of someone who continues to lie.
Speaker 21: I dealt with Russia every day. The last thing we
Speaker 21: ever want to do is side with Russia. What we
Speaker 21: always need to remember is America needs to have friends.
Speaker 21: After September tenth, we needed a lot of friends. We
Speaker 21: can never get into the point where we don't need friends.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's like, look at the way that
Speaker 2: she talks about it. It's like a religion. It's like friendship.
Speaker 2: Friendship is supposed to be mutually beneficial, not one person
Speaker 2: taking something out of your pocket for seventy five years straight.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just don't get it, like the way that they talk,
Speaker 2: you know, freak or whatever about about this. And I
Speaker 2: also just genuinely think this is a popular position amongst
Speaker 2: the American people if you frame it the way I
Speaker 2: did around you know, it's like, listen, if you don't pay,
Speaker 2: then what exactly you're not fulfilling your obligations that you
Speaker 2: all mutually agreed to over a decade ago and then
Speaker 2: especially post Ukraine. I don't know how they can think
Speaker 2: like being pro NATO is a popular position outside of
Speaker 2: like the DC electorate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again, listen, I don't want to say,
Speaker 1: like I thought it was, comments were great, because encouraging
Speaker 1: Russia to like invade wherever the hell they want is insane.
Speaker 1: Don't support it. It's just like imperialism. Also with regard
Speaker 1: to NATO. You know, I don't think I do share
Speaker 1: that same position, because if you're calling for Europeans to
Speaker 1: increase funding of NATO. What you're really looking at is
Speaker 1: pushing increasing even more funding to Ukraine.
Speaker 4: Not really right, But it's not really calling for like.
Speaker 1: You know, cutting back NATO or you know, curtailing it
Speaker 1: or even moving forward with the war in Ukraine. And
Speaker 1: that's the other thing is, like, you know, he made
Speaker 1: some comments about the Ukraine war. He doesn't really talk
Speaker 1: about these things anymore. His position's very unclear, and it
Speaker 1: was very all over the map from the beginning. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes he'd be more hawkish in what he said than
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Then when he realized there was a political
Speaker 1: lane for him to be, you know, calling for a
Speaker 1: negotiated solution, then he was, oh, well make a deal
Speaker 1: on day one. Who the hell knows what this guy
Speaker 1: is going to do when he's actually in office. That's
Speaker 1: the real truth is the things that he says, the
Speaker 1: things that he does, the things that he wants to
Speaker 1: do versus the things he's actually capable of doing are
Speaker 1: two totally different things. But you know, at this point,
Speaker 1: to have a total panic freak ount over some comments
Speaker 1: related to NATO when he wasn't able to deliver on
Speaker 1: any of that or push forward any of that agenda
Speaker 1: last time around. I just think, you know, the freak
Speaker 1: coount is not justified.
Speaker 3: Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean actually, Michael Tracy went back and pulled all
Speaker 2: these predictions made by David Frum in July twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: of what would happen with NATO, not a single one
Speaker 2: came true. He's like, NATO will be abandoned, Trump will
Speaker 2: pull us out of not one like expansion, increase of funding,
Speaker 2: more NATO friendly policy, consistently allowing the NATO Secretary General
Speaker 2: Stultenberg to basically roll him, and Sultenberg would smile at
Speaker 2: Trump and be like, yeah, absolutely, just keep giving us
Speaker 2: a little bit more money. And Trump would be like, okay, sure,
Speaker 2: you know the NATO Secretary General told me he was
Speaker 2: going to do it. It's like he was so easily
Speaker 2: to manipulate and to influence. And honestly, we don't talk
Speaker 2: enough about that, you know. And Trump supporters and them too,
Speaker 2: they don't, they don't don't really with any of that.
Speaker 3: Let's move on.
Speaker 2: We just had to throw this in for fun because
Speaker 2: of the super Bowl. Let's go ahead, put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. Trump in the most Trumpian way,
Speaker 2: possible has now taken credit for Taylor Swift's more recent
Speaker 2: financial success. She says, I signed and was responsible for
Speaker 2: the Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other
Speaker 2: musical artists. Joe Biden do and do anything for Taylor
Speaker 2: and never will. There's no way she can endorse crooked
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt president in the
Speaker 2: history of our country, and be disloyal to the man
Speaker 2: who made her so much money. Besides that, I like
Speaker 2: her boyfriend Travis, even though he may be a liberal
Speaker 2: capital l and probably can't stand So.
Speaker 3: You know, one thing you.
Speaker 2: Can always say about Trump is that he is smarter
Speaker 2: than many of his online supporters. He's like, yeah, Taylor
Speaker 2: is super popular. I'm not going to attack her. I'm
Speaker 2: going to take credit for her success. And now she
Speaker 2: does move against me. You know, I can roll my
Speaker 2: eyes or whatever, but he understands the popularity of what
Speaker 2: he's dealing with, especially you know, in the whole America's
Speaker 2: couple thing in light of what happened last night at
Speaker 2: the super Bowl.
Speaker 3: So I actually thought it was smart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, people are waiting for him to weigh
Speaker 1: in with his own like Taylor swift deep state conspiracy.
Speaker 1: But I never thought that was going to come because
Speaker 1: he is intelligent enough to know that he says he
Speaker 1: loves I mean, he loves celebrity. This is not a
Speaker 1: man who does not care for celebrity. This man freagain
Speaker 1: loves celebrity. And so it does not surprise me at
Speaker 1: all that he put out something that was just basically
Speaker 1: like supportive of both Taylor and Travis. And it also
Speaker 1: comes sagerum Or recovered last week calling for people to
Speaker 1: give bud Light a second chance. You know, he doesn't
Speaker 1: have to win over these like insane people that are
Speaker 1: online supporters of him that fabricated this tailor Nato, Soros,
Speaker 1: bud Light, Pfizer conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4: They're gonna vote for him. So he's got a.
Speaker 1: Much better grasp of like, you know, normy instinct of America.
Speaker 1: And so does this like really move the needle in
Speaker 1: either direction, No, not really, But I just think it
Speaker 1: once again just demonstrates that he has good political instincts
Speaker 1: and that's why he was prisident of the United States
Speaker 1: and may well be president of the United States again.
Speaker 2: Exactly right, you know, And of course the amount of
Speaker 2: earned media that he's getting, you know, from this, people
Speaker 2: are like, people are posting it everywhere, like Lord Trump
Speaker 2: is taking credit for Taylor and all of that. I
Speaker 2: just thought it was a smart play. Same thing with
Speaker 2: Travis Kelcey. I mean, look, I'm not a big Travis
Speaker 2: Kelcey fan, and I'll tell you why. For one reason,
Speaker 2: I cannot stand the way that man dresses.
Speaker 3: I was all in for Brock. Brock wears a suit
Speaker 3: to the game.
Speaker 2: Travis wears some glittery streetwear monstrosity which won't even be
Speaker 2: in fashion a year from now. But again, he's not dumb.
Speaker 2: He understands that the Kelsey Brothers are like a national brand.
Speaker 2: They've one of the most popular podcasts. Why would you
Speaker 2: want to alienate? And they're like, you know, cast yourself
Speaker 2: on the side of one of the most popular football players.
Speaker 2: He's not even football player at this point. I mean
Speaker 2: he's in stratospheric celebrity level status. The two of them together,
Speaker 2: it's like one of the most powerful brands in America today,
Speaker 2: whether you like it or not. And so Trump is
Speaker 2: the same thing. He's like, I'm going to be on
Speaker 2: their side. I'm not going to be quote unquote antagonistic.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try and throw this thing out out
Speaker 2: there about the Music Modernization Act and maybe hope that
Speaker 2: she doesn't endorse Biden, even.
Speaker 3: Though, look, she's gonna endorse Biden. She endorsed him last
Speaker 3: time around.
Speaker 2: So that's why part of the reason why everyone's like
Speaker 2: it's a siop, I'm like, guy, she already did it.
Speaker 2: Though it would be a sip. She'd never endorsed anybody,
Speaker 2: but she already wouldn't be.
Speaker 4: A siy anyway.
Speaker 1: Most of Hollywood is just liberal, like she has some
Speaker 1: standard issue normal as politics.
Speaker 4: And she barely talks about politics. So what did you see?
Speaker 4: I didn't really look online.
Speaker 1: Did you see much conservative commentary online or right wing
Speaker 1: commentary about the fact that the Chiefs won, Because I.
Speaker 4: Know the whole theory.
Speaker 1: The theory was the games can be rigged, Chiefs are
Speaker 1: going to win, and then Travis is gonna propose to Taylor,
Speaker 1: and then Taylor is gonna endorse Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: And I did see some would you say and all that, Well.
Speaker 1: There aren't many to like really super controversial call.
Speaker 2: Look, our technical director Colvin was explaining it to me.
Speaker 3: So I am not a football expert.
Speaker 2: But basically there's like a lot of upset about the
Speaker 2: overtime rules and previously used to be sudden death and
Speaker 2: it's not sudden death, and the Chiefs were able to
Speaker 2: win based on that, and so obviously Chiefs fans are
Speaker 2: happy about it.
Speaker 3: Forty nine that wasn't changed.
Speaker 1: Like I agree, it was just changed like in the
Speaker 1: heat of the moment, because like, oh, we need to
Speaker 1: give the Chiefs an edge here.
Speaker 2: But I and I saw a couple of forty nine ers,
Speaker 2: guys be like this is WWE Now it's not the
Speaker 2: NFL anymore.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you watch it.
Speaker 2: I mean, look again, I only watched the first half.
Speaker 2: I didn't watch the rest because I went to bed
Speaker 2: and I'm an old man.
Speaker 3: But I woke up.
Speaker 2: I looked at the Yeah, it looked fun. It looked like,
Speaker 2: you know, things were you know, down to the wire
Speaker 2: up until the last minute. Forty nine Ers had a
Speaker 2: very very real chance of winning the game. So no,
Speaker 2: I don't think it was rigged. Do I think that
Speaker 2: you know that Kelsey and Swift and all of them
Speaker 2: are going to capitalize on this, Yeah, but like not
Speaker 2: for political reasons.
Speaker 3: I think they just want to make money capitalism.
Speaker 4: That's the conspiracy.
Speaker 2: I think those dumb ass glitzy, you know, custom clothes
Speaker 2: play pay for themselves.
Speaker 3: He needs to learn from Taylor. She's a classy lady.
Speaker 3: She actually dressed as well. She needs to.
Speaker 2: She's there's a whole thing about like Taylor dresses him.
Speaker 2: I wish that she dressed him. She has much better
Speaker 2: style since than this walking teenager. But this is a
Speaker 2: whole other Uh, this is a whole other dietract.
Speaker 4: I was telling me that he had like a different
Speaker 4: style before she came on. I don't have a guys.
Speaker 1: That's what I was told is that he used to
Speaker 1: dress and like look, like present himself differently, and then
Speaker 1: with Taylor, he's like adopted a different a different look.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's necessarily true. He's had like trashy
Speaker 2: style for quite a long time. I mean, let's be
Speaker 2: look at the man's cars and the way that he behaves. Okay,
Speaker 2: like he's not exactly the paragon of taste. So again,
Speaker 2: I wish he would learn from Taylor in terms of
Speaker 2: this taste, which is probably not a take you'll hear
Speaker 2: from medic conservative.
Speaker 1: Well, I was cheering for the chiefs both because of
Speaker 1: Travis and kelt and Taylor Taylor whatever the hell their
Speaker 1: names are, but mostly because of Colvin. Oh yeah, because
Speaker 1: Colvin is so happy and he cares so much, and
Speaker 1: I don't really care that much. So I was just
Speaker 1: cheering for him to do time in a row. Apparently
Speaker 1: they're a dynasty now, is what people are saying.
Speaker 3: So I'm just sad for but that. I love that kid.
Speaker 3: You know, he's twenty four. I can't imagine twenty four
Speaker 3: years old. He's got a top ahead of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but to win it at twenty four would have
Speaker 2: been I mean, he was mister irrelevant, last pick of
Speaker 2: the draft, first mister irrelevant. I think to ever you know,
Speaker 2: be in the to be in a Super Bowl, I mean,
Speaker 2: he's you know, he's engaged.
Speaker 3: He's like, he's mister America. He's like Americana. That's what
Speaker 3: it is. Saw. I'm sad that he lost.
Speaker 1: The thing that was entertaining to me was I mean,
Speaker 1: if you just looked on its face, like Kansas City
Speaker 1: versus San Francisco, you would think the Conservatives will all.
Speaker 4: Be cheering for Kansas City.
Speaker 1: Was the fact that Taylor Swift made them decide to
Speaker 1: get behind San Francisco that in and of itself was
Speaker 1: an entertaining team.
Speaker 3: It's not the town. The team is not the town.
Speaker 2: I guess okay, I'm sure you guys have been wanting
Speaker 2: to hear Crystalini's thoughts about the Tucker Putin interview. We're
Speaker 2: gonna try something a little bit different here, just a
Speaker 2: little bit of an experiment the first eight minutes or so.
Speaker 2: This is going to be free in terms of our reaction,
Speaker 2: and if you want to become a prem subscriber, you
Speaker 2: can listen to our full analysis at breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 2: But let's go ahead and begin with the interview Putin,
Speaker 2: you know, really just embracing the full caricature of himself.
Speaker 2: Tucker asked him a simple question, why didn't you invade Ukraine?
Speaker 2: It took us thirty minutes to learn that answer. We
Speaker 2: went all the way back a thousand year. We learned
Speaker 2: about the Great Yaroslav, the whys, and every accord.
Speaker 3: Written since the year nine hundred. Here's what he had
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 23: February twenty second, twenty twenty two. You addressed your country
Speaker 23: in a nationwide address when the conflict in Ukraine started,
Speaker 23: and you said that you were acting because you had
Speaker 23: come to the conclusion that the United States, through NATO
Speaker 23: might initiate a quote surprise attack on our country. And
Speaker 23: to American ears, that sounds paranoid. Tell us why you
Speaker 23: believe the United States might strike Russia out of the blue.
Speaker 3: How did you conclude that.
Speaker 9: It's not that America the United States was going to
Speaker 9: Launchester price strike in Russia. I didn't say that. Are
Speaker 9: we having a talk show or a serious conversation?
Speaker 3: Here's the quote? Thank you.
Speaker 23: It's a formidable series.
Speaker 8: Nosk was ran because your basic education is in history,
Speaker 8: as far as I understand, yes, So if you don't mind,
Speaker 8: I will take only thirty seconds or one minute to
Speaker 8: give you a short reference to history.
Speaker 9: For giving you a little historical background, please, let's look
Speaker 9: where our relationship with Ukraine started from. Where did Ukraine
Speaker 9: come from? The Russian state started gathering itself as a
Speaker 9: centralized statehood, and it is considered to be the year
Speaker 9: of the establishment of the Russian state. In eight hundred
Speaker 9: and sixty too, when the townspeople of Novgorod invited Avarangian
Speaker 9: Prince Rurik from Scandinavia to reign. Prince Yaroslav Devise introduced
Speaker 9: the order of succession to a throne, but after he
Speaker 9: passed away it became complicated for various reasons. The throne
Speaker 9: was passed not directly from father to eldest son, but
Speaker 9: from the prince who had passed away, to his brother,
Speaker 9: then to his sons in different lines. All this led
Speaker 9: to the fragmentation and the end of russ as a
Speaker 9: single state. I'll give you these documents.
Speaker 23: Well, it doesn't sound like you're inventing, and I'm not
Speaker 23: sure why it's relevant to what happened in Union.
Speaker 9: But still, these are documents from the archives copies.
Speaker 3: So that was his friend Vlad.
Speaker 2: He was like, Lad, give us those documents for those
Speaker 2: who didn't watch the full thing. I'm not kidding. It
Speaker 2: was like that for thirty straight minutes. I listened to
Speaker 2: the full thing, I promise you.
Speaker 3: I internalized many.
Speaker 2: Of Putin's history lessons, but it was very clear here,
Speaker 2: and I thought what Tucker actually said the best in
Speaker 2: his follow up was Okay, I don't see why this
Speaker 2: is relevant, And if it was, why didn't you invade
Speaker 2: Ukraine on the first day that you took into office.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you think Ukraine is a totally illegitimate state.
Speaker 2: Why did you wait more than a decade while being
Speaker 2: in office in order to invade.
Speaker 3: There were also it was this is the other thing.
Speaker 2: Look again, as someone who believes that Russia has legitimate
Speaker 2: security concerns and the NATO expansion was a strategic disaster
Speaker 2: for the US, Putin also is not calibrated for the
Speaker 2: way that we argue here in.
Speaker 3: The West, because he didn't mention that once.
Speaker 2: It all went back to what the history of Ukraine.
Speaker 2: Ukraine is an illegitimate state. And by the way, and
Speaker 2: this is what validates like the worst Russia hawks in
Speaker 2: this country. He kept saying how Poland, Lithuania and all
Speaker 2: of them are illegitimate states too, under the same definition
Speaker 2: of why he hates the Bolsheviks and the Treaty of Breslatovsk.
Speaker 2: I mean, he did at least say I have no
Speaker 2: interest in invading Poland. That would lead to a world
Speaker 2: war and that wouldn't be good.
Speaker 1: But it's like he did say that, very inquivalent he did,
Speaker 1: whether he could take the word for it or not.
Speaker 2: But my main take is like, look, this man's brain
Speaker 2: is literally addled by imperialism, and I put this out.
Speaker 2: This is my only real reaction is everyone always talks
Speaker 2: about how Putin is KGB. No, this is he doesn't
Speaker 2: have a communist bone in his body. Putin is a
Speaker 2: straight out of Central casting of the Dukes and the
Speaker 2: czars of the late nineteenth century. He is the same paranoid,
Speaker 2: obsessive feeling inferior to the West. They believe in Russian
Speaker 2: defense and depth in terms of imperial territory orbon put
Speaker 2: it best is that Russian security thinking has nothing to
Speaker 2: do with democracy. It has to keeping with the whole together,
Speaker 2: and that the togetherness, the security in the whole of
Speaker 2: the country is considered genuinely existential if we analyze it
Speaker 2: through the lens of the tragedy of the First World War.
Speaker 2: And then, according to Putin, the greatest tragedy in the
Speaker 2: history of Russia was the demise of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: not not for communist reasons, but for imperial territorial reasons.
Speaker 3: And it is very clear to me that that is
Speaker 3: who he is.
Speaker 2: He is only solidified in age, and he has a
Speaker 2: like almost autistic need to impress this upon the West
Speaker 2: and the American people. And the problem for him is
Speaker 2: like that is just counter to any modern understanding of
Speaker 2: not even just Western modern understanding for the community of
Speaker 2: nations in the post World War two era.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just doesn't fly.
Speaker 4: I have many observations.
Speaker 1: Let me start with the most surface level, so it
Speaker 1: will not surprise you all to learn. I have very
Speaker 1: low expectations for how Tucker would conduct himself in this interview.
Speaker 1: He vastly surpassed my expectations. I thought he did a
Speaker 1: good job in general. Good job especially, Like, if you
Speaker 1: think about it, and you are a journalist in this country,
Speaker 1: you know, with an autocrat who controls the military, controls
Speaker 1: the believe or whatever. Like, you know, you're in a
Speaker 1: tough position, right, You're in a jam. And it's not
Speaker 1: like you can just cut this man off when he
Speaker 1: wants to go on his Really it was fifty minutes
Speaker 1: of a historical diatribe, but definitely thirty minutes.
Speaker 4: Of a historical diatribe.
Speaker 1: And I don't think it really behooves you to cut
Speaker 1: him off either, because he decided this is what he
Speaker 1: wants to put out to us into the world. And
Speaker 1: whether it was Tucker Carlson or George Stephanopolis or whoever
Speaker 1: it was going to be, it was very clear Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin was going to say his piece about the thousand
Speaker 1: years of history that he feels justifies this moment, and
Speaker 1: so for Tucker to just react by being like, I
Speaker 1: don't really see how this is relevant. That's really the
Speaker 1: best that you could do in that circumstance. And he
Speaker 1: went on and we'll show you some more pieces. He
Speaker 1: went on to ask some really important questions that I
Speaker 1: thought were you know, we're quite good, including pushing for
Speaker 1: the release of the Wall Street Journal Reporter, which I
Speaker 1: was very gratified to see that he did. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: number one. Number two in terms of Putin, there was
Speaker 1: clearly a lot of like alpha assertion of dominance. Will
Speaker 1: show you a little bit of that too, with him
Speaker 1: like throwing in Tucker's face like, oh, that CIA, you know,
Speaker 1: that organization that you wanted to work for previously. There
Speaker 1: was another moment where Tucker said something to the effect
Speaker 1: of like, you know, he's trying to get Putin back
Speaker 1: on track, trying to cut off this historical diatribe, and
Speaker 1: Putin says to him, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm boring you,
Speaker 1: and Tucker said, well, you're not boring me. I'm just
Speaker 1: not sure how it's relevant, and he says, well, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're I'm gratified to hear that you're enjoying my
Speaker 1: historical lesson, and he continued to start care. There was
Speaker 1: just a lot of like apparently he made Tucker wait
Speaker 1: like two.
Speaker 4: Hours sitting there waiting for him.
Speaker 1: We just showed you the very opening moment where putin
Speaker 1: immediately and this is very intentional, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we've done enough interviews to see these sort of games
Speaker 1: being played by people, especially people in power, where he
Speaker 1: immediately jumps in and puts Tucker in his place of
Speaker 1: like are we doing a talk show or are we
Speaker 1: doing a serious conversation here?
Speaker 4: That sets the tone for the entire thing.
Speaker 1: So okay, so those are sort of like the surface
Speaker 1: level theatrics. I reached out to our friend Jegor for
Speaker 1: his reaction, you know, Russian.
Speaker 4: What is he taking from those? How is he viewing this?
Speaker 1: And he had a few noteworthy comments that were things
Speaker 1: that I would not have picked up on.
Speaker 2: So in that moment and if you want to hear
Speaker 2: my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today
Speaker 2: at Breakingpoints dot Com.
Speaker 1: So, guys, while we were watching the Super Bowl last night,
Speaker 1: Israel began bombing Rafa crossing. That is the place where
Speaker 1: over a million Palestinians have been displaced to just right
Speaker 1: there at the bottom of the Gaza Strip. And you
Speaker 1: can see some of the aftermath of those strikes as
Speaker 1: people were waking up in the morning. You can see
Speaker 1: the grief and the horror of those who have been struck,
Speaker 1: children who have been injured among those who were bombed.
Speaker 1: And this was something that people have been fearing for
Speaker 1: a while. Not that Rafa has been a safe place
Speaker 1: during this war whatsoever. But of course you'll recall, you know,
Speaker 1: initially attacks were the heaviest in Gaza City. People left
Speaker 1: Gaza City, they moved to Kanunis Communists came under incredible bombardment.
Speaker 1: People were pushed down to Rafa, and as I said,
Speaker 1: it is literally the border crossing there with Egypt, and
Speaker 1: there has been grave international concern about what this could
Speaker 1: mean for the civilians who are sheltering there already under
Speaker 1: horrifying humanitarian conditions.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: As part of this bombardment, Israel saying that they were
Speaker 1: able to rescue two hostages held by Hamas in Rafa.
Speaker 1: Let me read you a little bit of this report
Speaker 1: from the Wall Street Journal of the official record of
Speaker 1: what occurred here. They say Israel rescued two hostages held
Speaker 1: in Gaza in an overnight raid, as the military prepares
Speaker 1: for a larger operation to enter what it says is
Speaker 1: the last bastion for Hamas, where more than one million
Speaker 1: Palestinians are sheltering. Israeli military said Monday the rescue of
Speaker 1: Fernando Simon Marvan and Lewis Harr was a complicated operation
Speaker 1: performed under fire in the heart of Rafa, a city
Speaker 1: in southern Gaza, near where Palestinians are seeking refuge from
Speaker 1: the conflict between Israel and Hamas. At roughly two am
Speaker 1: local time, military forces and a police SWAT team broke
Speaker 1: into a house in Rafa engaged in a gunfight with
Speaker 1: Hamas militants while shielding the hostages before evacuating them to
Speaker 1: a secure location. In addition, those airstrikes that we played
Speaker 1: you a little bit of the video of in Gaza
Speaker 1: killed one hundred and sixty four people overnight, including dozens
Speaker 1: in Rafa. That is according to health authorities on the ground.
Speaker 1: So a deadly Knight and Soager obviously incredibly significant. The
Speaker 1: rescue of these two hostages, this is something that Israel
Speaker 1: has almost completely failed in accomplishing through military operations. Believe
Speaker 1: they were previously able to rescue one hostage. That means
Speaker 1: they have now killed as many hostages as they have
Speaker 1: been able to rescue of their own hostages in terms
Speaker 1: of right, they killed three, they've rescued three. Now, oh,
Speaker 1: that's right, So I guess it's even from that regard,
Speaker 1: there are also somewhere estimates around fifty hostages who have
Speaker 1: been killed during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, So, you know,
Speaker 1: a rare success for them in terms of bringing hostages home,
Speaker 1: but obviously unacceptably high, horrific toll on the civilian population
Speaker 1: there in rob.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very I mean this really, I think is
Speaker 2: just to continued extension of the Biden policy, and I
Speaker 2: think that it just shows you where Biden is schizophrenic.
Speaker 2: And at this point, I would just prefer it if
Speaker 2: he just said, I'm just signing up for everything Israel's doing,
Speaker 2: because what is the point of these constant leakings of
Speaker 2: things like oh, I think it's over the top. I
Speaker 2: think you shouldn't do it. You know, we have some
Speaker 2: of that that we can go ahead and play. Where
Speaker 2: in his age press conference where he tried to clean
Speaker 2: everything up and where he confused the Egyptian leader with
Speaker 2: the President of Mexico, he also did make some news
Speaker 2: where he said that the Israeli response has been over
Speaker 2: the top.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to what he said.
Speaker 17: The conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza
Speaker 17: Strip has been over the top. Initially, the President of Mexico, Cisi,
Speaker 17: did not want to open up the gate to allow
Speaker 17: humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I
Speaker 17: convinced to open the gate. I talked to Bbie to
Speaker 17: open the gate. On the Israeli side, I've been pushing
Speaker 17: really hard, really hard to get humanitarian assistants into Gaza.
Speaker 17: There are a lot of innocent people who are starving,
Speaker 17: a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying,
Speaker 17: and it's got to stop. And I'm pushing very hard
Speaker 17: now to deal with this hostage ceasefire because as you know,
Speaker 17: I've been working tirelessly in this deal. How can I
Speaker 17: say this without revealing to lead to a sustained pause
Speaker 17: I have no proof what I'm about to say, but
Speaker 17: it's not a reasonable suspect that the Hamas understood what
Speaker 17: was about to take place and wanted to break it
Speaker 17: up before it happened.
Speaker 2: Okay, what are we supposed to take away from that?
Speaker 2: It's like, I think it's over the top. I think
Speaker 2: a hostage deal is going to happen. By the way,
Speaker 2: it's not even true. And then later on, as we
Speaker 2: learn and you're about to break down, Crystal, they had
Speaker 2: a phone call where Biden was like, please don't do this,
Speaker 2: we're against the operation, or I guess we want you
Speaker 2: to be more concerned, and they were like, no, that's
Speaker 2: not going to happen, and they've rejected Espied deal. Now
Speaker 2: at this point, it just seems clear that they're Look,
Speaker 2: it's been clear now for a while they're going to
Speaker 2: do whatever they want to do. The administration is like
Speaker 2: constantly expressing concern, leaking phone calls, and you know they're
Speaker 2: going to get to a point where I think we're
Speaker 2: slow walking ourselves to a full break and we're about
Speaker 2: to talk about this with Egypt.
Speaker 3: We are in genuinely unprecedented waters.
Speaker 2: Now. What I have always thought was this is that
Speaker 2: Biden and them will you know, back Israel and all
Speaker 2: that to the point. But an actual expulsion of mass
Speaker 2: millions of people from Gaza is a war triggering event
Speaker 2: of some kind. I'm not exactly sure what it could
Speaker 2: be most Iran. It could happen in Jordan, Syria, Egypt,
Speaker 2: et cetera. But it will be a break, you know
Speaker 2: for foreign relations. We're going to a point where that
Speaker 2: seems almost inevitable at this point, where we're going to
Speaker 2: have to make a choice when obviously it could have
Speaker 2: is this really was probably the last time and we
Speaker 2: could probably look back, you know, in the beginning of
Speaker 2: this and if there is no ceasefire deal or any
Speaker 2: of that, I don't see in a separate way out
Speaker 2: of this, you know, in terms of what exactly is
Speaker 2: going to happen, just because we've got a million five
Speaker 2: people who are all clustered in a single area and
Speaker 2: they can't go north.
Speaker 3: There's only one way to go.
Speaker 2: The Egyptians are threatening to terminate, so now what what
Speaker 2: are we going to do here?
Speaker 1: Up against there is nowhere else for them to go.
Speaker 1: You all have seen the images of northern Gaza. There
Speaker 1: is nothing left for them to return to and by
Speaker 1: the way, it's not safe for them. They have not
Speaker 1: been told by the Israeli military that they can go
Speaker 1: back without being presumed to be terrorist and murdered for
Speaker 1: the you know, for existing in an area that used
Speaker 1: to be their homes. It is Boebe has ordered for
Speaker 1: the military to draw plans to evacuate these civilians and
Speaker 1: again there is nowhere for them to go except out
Speaker 1: of the Gaza Strip entirely and complete the program of
Speaker 1: ethnic cleansing, which plenty of people in his government have
Speaker 1: made it really crystal clear, including drawing maps and having
Speaker 1: plans of who's going to take how many of these refugees,
Speaker 1: et cetera, that that is one hundred percent their end goal.
Speaker 1: With regard to Biden and his comments that the Israeli
Speaker 1: response is over the top, okay, first of all, there
Speaker 1: was a whole you know, news cycle, Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: these comedies, so that this is the furthest Biden has gone.
Speaker 1: I mean even this language is so weak and so
Speaker 1: sanitized given what has been done to these people. I mean,
Speaker 1: they are all displaced for their homes. The entire strip
Speaker 1: has been basically decimated at this point, thirty plus thousand killed,
Speaker 1: majority women and children, Hospitals, schools, universities, you know, ambulances,
Speaker 1: target I'm going to do a monologue tomorrow about this
Speaker 1: little girl and her rescuers that were targeted and murdered
Speaker 1: by the IDF. And the best you can say is
Speaker 1: quote unquote over the top, and to Soger's point, to
Speaker 1: make matters worse, like if it's over the top, or
Speaker 1: as he said before, the bombing is disproportionate, do something
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 4: But we know all they'll do, which we.
Speaker 1: Have another report in the press that I just saw
Speaker 1: this morning, another one of these like oh, he's concerned,
Speaker 1: and BB's hard to maneuver, but behind the scenes he's
Speaker 1: very like obviously, none of this is having any kind
Speaker 1: of an impact, even if you are actually having these
Speaker 1: quote unquote tough conversations without throwing your weight around. So
Speaker 1: here we are, and what has been done already is
Speaker 1: completely unjustifiable, to the point that the ICJ has said
Speaker 1: they're plausibly committing a genocide. And the most you can
Speaker 1: do is say it's quote unquote over the top. Let
Speaker 1: me put this up on the screen. This is also
Speaker 1: in that vein of like, oh, the deep concerns that
Speaker 1: we have blah blah blah, which really is just disgusting
Speaker 1: and offensive to see these reports at this point.
Speaker 4: But this is the latest from Axios.
Speaker 1: Biden tells Bbe, no Rafa operation without plan to protect
Speaker 1: Palestinian civilians.
Speaker 4: Courses we already showed you.
Speaker 1: They already said screw you and have started bombing Rafa
Speaker 1: without any plan to protect Palestinian civilians. Over one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty four people dead in air strikes overnight. The
Speaker 1: details here are he spoke to Bbe on Sunday. He
Speaker 1: cautioned him against the military operation. Why it matters. There's
Speaker 1: growing frustration. How many times have we heard that sagur
Speaker 1: in the White House with nat YAO and the Israeli
Speaker 1: government's rejection of several US requests. Biden earlier this week
Speaker 1: called the Israeli military operation in Gaza over the top.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'm sure that'll really make them listen. And
Speaker 1: here's the other thing, is like, if you know anything
Speaker 1: about Netanyahu specifically, his government specifically, but also where Israeli societies,
Speaker 1: the prosecution of the war in the direction that this
Speaker 1: was going to go in was one hundred percent predictable.
Speaker 1: And predicted, including by people like us who aren't experts
Speaker 1: at the time. From the beginning, we knew what this
Speaker 1: was going to look like, and all we have ever
Speaker 1: gotten are these pathetic and impotent leaks about how concerned
Speaker 1: they are. So the stakes here not only first and
Speaker 1: foremost for Palestinian civilians, but not only for Palestinian civilians,
Speaker 1: for the region in the broader world, could.
Speaker 4: Not possibly be higher. Egypt, let's put this out.
Speaker 1: They are furious about this potential operation, which already appears
Speaker 1: to have begun in Rafa. They are threatening to suspend
Speaker 1: the Camp David, a course that were negotiated by freaking
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter if Israel pushes in to Rafa and engages
Speaker 1: in all an assault there. Egypt is threatening to suspend
Speaker 1: that peace treaty if Israeli troops are sent into the
Speaker 1: densely populated Gods of Bordercount of Rafas as fighting there
Speaker 1: could force the closure of the territory's main aid supply route.
Speaker 1: To Egyptian officials in a Western diplomat said Sunday, the
Speaker 1: threat to suspend the Camp David accords a cornerstone of
Speaker 1: regional stability for nearly half a century came after b
Speaker 1: sent troops into Raffa and said that it was necessary
Speaker 1: to win the four month old war against the Palestinian
Speaker 1: militant group Hamas. Egypt fears a mass influx of hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of Palestinian refugees who may never be allowed
Speaker 1: to return. By the Way, Yaho, in an interview with
Speaker 1: ABC News, said that civilians in Rafa could flee north,
Speaker 1: saying there are plenty of areas that have been cleared
Speaker 1: by the armies at Israel's developing a detailed plan to
Speaker 1: relocate them. A European Union Foreign policy chief Joseph Worrel,
Speaker 1: he said, and Israeli offensive on Rafa would lead to
Speaker 1: an unspeakable humanitarian catastrophe and grave tensions with Egypt. Egypt,
Speaker 1: by the way, was also extremely pissed at Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: comments that we played earlier accusing them a blocking aid
Speaker 1: from coming in, and also released a statement saying basically
Speaker 1: like this is bullshit. We have been trying to help
Speaker 1: with aid the whole time, but I mean this is
Speaker 1: a threat of war effectively, is what this looks like.
Speaker 2: Well that's what That's why I'm actually the most concerned
Speaker 2: as I am right now because the Egyptians of Camp
Speaker 2: David peace Accords. I mean, we shouldn't forget Egypt and
Speaker 2: Israel fought a lot of wars prior to this.
Speaker 3: I believe the numbers.
Speaker 2: Five yeah, in terms of the number of full blown
Speaker 2: military conflicts.
Speaker 3: Don't forget this.
Speaker 2: Other than the Keiban missile crisis, the closest that the
Speaker 2: world has ever come to a nuclear exchange was the
Speaker 2: yam Kpor war that we were very, very lucky to.
Speaker 3: Get out of.
Speaker 2: So there was a reason that those were signed by
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter, and it was considered one of the most
Speaker 2: important things that he did while he was president, and
Speaker 2: the building upon that peace.
Speaker 3: Framework from Osla was such an important part of that. Now,
Speaker 3: the other.
Speaker 2: Problem that I see here is again is that the
Speaker 2: Arab States are genuinely being pushed into a corner. Let's
Speaker 2: put this up here on the screen. This is from
Speaker 2: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They say the KSA warns
Speaker 2: of quote very serious repercussions of storming and targeting of
Speaker 2: the city of Rafa in the Gaza Strip. We don't
Speaker 2: know what exactly that means, but we do know this
Speaker 2: that the Saudis have a major military, they have capacity,
Speaker 2: but probably more important for Israel's case, they got a
Speaker 2: lot of money and they have a lot of money
Speaker 2: and ties to a lot of people who were very
Speaker 2: willing to blow themselves up inside of Israel and nearby.
Speaker 2: As you can ask anybody who fought in Iraq and
Speaker 2: in Syria or you know who's observed international terrorism. This
Speaker 2: is one of those where I have to say it again,
Speaker 2: the Saudi royal family, they don't care about Palestine, They
Speaker 2: barely even care about the Arabs. But the Saudi population
Speaker 2: and those Saudi clerics, those people care a lot.
Speaker 3: And the Ksa.
Speaker 2: They rely upon basically the acquiescence of their people and
Speaker 2: of the clerics to keep things going. They've had like
Speaker 2: a weird daytant over the last twenty five years. If
Speaker 2: things step up, if there is some sort of ethnic
Speaker 2: clin they may not have they may not have a choice,
Speaker 2: you know, to do something militarily to support Egypt. Who
Speaker 2: knows that we could find ourselves in a serious yam
Speaker 2: kopor level diplomatic crisis. We've already had the Egyptian president,
Speaker 2: not president Prime minister, I think, who has said that
Speaker 2: they quote will sacrifice millions to make sure that there
Speaker 2: is no mass expulsion of people onto their territory.
Speaker 3: That is a threat of war.
Speaker 2: So now it's the question, you know, what is going
Speaker 2: to happen nasonis as you said, said they can flee north.
Speaker 2: They're not obviously because it's a you know, critical zone.
Speaker 2: But the other thing is that you know, we have
Speaker 2: how much confidence do you really have? And is really
Speaker 2: targeting because if they blow up the wall or border
Speaker 2: area crossing, which is this is the real Egyptian fear,
Speaker 2: then people will just run into the Sinai. And if
Speaker 2: that happens, you know, it's not like the Israelis are
Speaker 2: going to let them back in.
Speaker 3: That's what they want, that's literally their goal.
Speaker 2: So now we're in a genuine standoff in a crisis,
Speaker 2: and that's a war, and then we will find ourselves
Speaker 2: involved in that use we supply both.
Speaker 3: Sides of it.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, because I mean people have been forced
Speaker 1: into unimaginable circumstances. They're homes bombed, nothing to return to
Speaker 1: living intents amidst a million other people starving to death,
Speaker 1: no sanitation, medical facilities bombed, and so the level of
Speaker 1: desperation absolutely means that if the border is bombed and
Speaker 1: the crossing is open, people will flee into Egypt.
Speaker 3: I would do it too. I don't blame them at all,
Speaker 3: it's they're fleeing for their lots. I would do the
Speaker 3: same thing.
Speaker 1: And not to be clear that those conditions directly created
Speaker 1: by Israel I mean so you know, and this is
Speaker 1: another thing they came out and said at that like
Speaker 1: resettlement ethnic cleansing conference that we covered here, As they said,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes resettlement are conditions that you create until
Speaker 1: people leave. So basically you just threaten to kill them
Speaker 1: and bond their children whatever, until they have no choice
Speaker 1: but to flee for their lives.
Speaker 4: And that those are the conditions they have already created.
Speaker 1: The only thing standing between you know, the complete goal
Speaker 1: of ethnic cleansing of the territory and not is the
Speaker 1: Rafa boarding border. So that that's where we are. That
Speaker 1: is the precipice that we're standing on. And I also
Speaker 1: want to say, you know, in terms of this leaked
Speaker 1: phone call of Biden to b b saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't attack Rafa until there's some sort of plan
Speaker 1: for civilians run another way, that's basically a green light.
Speaker 1: That's not saying number one is certainly not saying I'm
Speaker 1: going to do anything about it. That's number one. Number two,
Speaker 1: it's not even saying don't do it. It's saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you have to float some kind of a plan for
Speaker 1: civilians in the area, which BB is claiming that he's doing,
Speaker 1: even though there is nowhere else.
Speaker 4: For these people to go.
Speaker 1: They are already pressed up against the southern border and
Speaker 1: the rest of the Gaza strip has already been destroyed
Speaker 1: and occupied.
Speaker 4: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's a horrifying and terrifying moment for these human beings,
Speaker 1: and it is a terrifying moment for us in the
Speaker 1: world as well. I genuinely think we are on the
Speaker 1: precipice of absolute chaos.
Speaker 3: It very much could be.
Speaker 2: We'll continue to monitor the situation here. Thank you guys
Speaker 2: so much for watching. We really appreciate you, and hopefully
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Speaker 16: M