Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
Speaker 2: the future of this show.
Speaker 1: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 1: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 1: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 1: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday, and welcome to Breaking Points.
Speaker 3: Good to see Emily.
Speaker 2: I'm back.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry to the haters.
Speaker 2: Three three Lady shows in a row. If the audience
Speaker 2: can handle it.
Speaker 5: We did say that Ryan is going to have to
Speaker 5: compensate with extra masculinity this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's mentally preparing for that. Tomorrow we have
Speaker 2: Should I reveal the special Small Liberty guestos Absolutely so,
Speaker 2: Tim Miller of the Bulwark, so we can talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, his evolution, which I'm curious to hear him
Speaker 2: talk about and get his, of course opinion on news
Speaker 2: of the day, and he and me have some disagreements
Speaker 2: about where the Democratic Party should head from here, so
Speaker 2: it should be fun.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because he's really a convert. He's not just another
Speaker 5: Trump Republican. He's actually like had an ideological transition really
Speaker 5: to the left, at least the center left and not
Speaker 5: the left left.
Speaker 4: So he's a fascinating story. This was really exciting. He's
Speaker 4: also fun, and he's I don't know, a great sense
Speaker 4: of humor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I don't know him at all.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking forward to, you know, having a dialogue
Speaker 2: with him and see where that goes.
Speaker 4: Dialogue.
Speaker 5: Okay, tune in tomorrow for dialogue.
Speaker 3: I love everybody.
Speaker 2: Why we put in the headline Crystal dialogues with Tim Miller.
Speaker 2: That'll be a hot hot take care of that one.
Speaker 4: I would still click, I would still click.
Speaker 2: Thanks em, appreciate that you and my mom, thank you. Okay,
Speaker 2: there is a lot of breaking news this morning we have.
Speaker 2: I don't think he can call it a China deal,
Speaker 2: but a major step back from the terror regime. Some
Speaker 2: may call it complete capitulation, but we get we talk
Speaker 2: through the details of what.
Speaker 3: We know after those meetings.
Speaker 2: We've got big news coming out of the Middle East
Speaker 2: as President Trump has the region this week. Confirmation that
Speaker 2: we are now indirect talks with Hamas and a US
Speaker 2: American citizen hostage is going to be released as sort
Speaker 2: of like a you know, attempt by Hamas sign of
Speaker 2: good faith, something of that nature. So Jeremy Scale is
Speaker 2: going to join us to break down.
Speaker 3: All of that. He has some new reporting, so always
Speaker 3: great to talk to him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I mean, he has fresh reporting, so we're
Speaker 5: going to get updates straight from Jeremy in just a bit,
Speaker 5: so make sure stay tuned for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We also have Steven Miller floating the suspension of Habeas Corpus,
Speaker 2: so that seems pretty significant. We have President Trump out
Speaker 2: with a big truth social about prescription drug prices.
Speaker 3: This is big. This is big. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: Maybe, I mean he did, we can talk about it.
Speaker 2: He did the same thing basically in the first term.
Speaker 3: It's just an executive order locked in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so it may not be something you can
Speaker 2: do by executive order.
Speaker 4: It likely is not.
Speaker 5: Although I think Roe Khana has legislation on that front.
Speaker 5: So there might be some I think they could do
Speaker 5: through Congress if Trump has the will and if Congressional
Speaker 5: Republicans want to get on board, and that is a big.
Speaker 2: Giant if there. In addition, we have a new Kanye
Speaker 2: West song. I regretted inform you it is everything you
Speaker 2: would expect it to be at this point in his.
Speaker 3: Life and career.
Speaker 2: And I recorded yesterday an interview with the mayor of Newark.
Speaker 2: He is the one who was arrested outside of that
Speaker 2: ice facility, charged with trespassing.
Speaker 3: He of course denies the charges.
Speaker 2: Trump administration is now threatening the three Democratic members of
Speaker 2: Congress who were there at that ice facility as well,
Speaker 2: with threatening them with arrest and claiming that they assaulted
Speaker 2: ICE agents who were there, Federal agents who were there.
Speaker 2: So in any case, I asked him all the questions
Speaker 2: about that, his timeline, what his experience of what went
Speaker 2: down there was as well, and we had some video
Speaker 2: too that we.
Speaker 3: Could take a look at.
Speaker 2: And then after the show for our previous subscribers, Emily
Speaker 2: and I are going to be doing that AMA live,
Speaker 2: So if you want to participate in that Breakingpoints dot Com,
Speaker 2: thank you so much to everybody who has been signing
Speaker 2: up and supporting the show, making that Friday show happen,
Speaker 2: which I personally really enjoy doing so it's really fun
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 5: Also, you and Kyle last week just taking the second half, and.
Speaker 4: It was like cathartic, I think for everyone, was it? Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, it's fun.
Speaker 2: Like the opinions are divided on that, but yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. I'll enjoyed it, of course.
Speaker 3: I mean it would be bad if you did it
Speaker 3: was worse.
Speaker 2: That would be a bad side. So in any case,
Speaker 2: thank you for supporting us and making that happen. And
Speaker 2: thank you guys also to those of you who are
Speaker 2: just liking, sharing, subscribing, all of that really makes a
Speaker 2: big difference as well. So with that, let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and get into what we know about these China talks.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, we have some huge news with regard
Speaker 2: to the Trump Administration's trade war visa the China, in particular,
Speaker 2: where negotiators met over the weekend. In particular, the specifics
Speaker 2: as we know them are there's going to be a
Speaker 2: ninety day pause on the full hundred and forty five
Speaker 2: percent tariffs that have been levied against China. China is
Speaker 2: going to drop their teriff right for US down to
Speaker 2: ten percent. We are going to drop our tariff rate
Speaker 2: on China down to thirty percent. Truman administration officials, we're
Speaker 2: out making the case for this temporary pause and deal.
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that, Joe.
Speaker 6: This is going to go where the President wants it
Speaker 6: to go. I was in touch with him over the weekend,
Speaker 6: and he wants free trade, free and fair trade. We've
Speaker 6: had free trade and as you said, that has not
Speaker 6: worked for the American people. There's something called the China
Speaker 6: shock which has gutted our manufacturing sector. And China has
Speaker 6: a different form of government for us. They have a
Speaker 6: different economic model where they subsidize labor, they subsidize capital goods,
Speaker 6: and they have exported that to US and the rest
Speaker 6: of the world. We have put up tariffs to push
Speaker 6: back on that. So it will be a matter of
Speaker 6: what is the equilibrium level on tariffs and also getting
Speaker 6: China to open their markets for American companies because China
Speaker 6: actually has a low terraf regime, but it is the
Speaker 6: non tear of trade barriers that can be the most
Speaker 6: difficult to overcome. So we will be focusing on the
Speaker 6: non terar of trade barriers and the subsidies, and the
Speaker 6: idea the China can become more open to American business
Speaker 6: and the things that are sold into the US can
Speaker 6: not have the same level of subsidy. And no one
Speaker 6: wants to do a generalized decoupling, but we are going
Speaker 6: to do a strategic decoupling because we realized during COVID
Speaker 6: that efficient supply chains were not secure supply chains. So
Speaker 6: with steel, with semiconductors, with medicines, with a couple of
Speaker 6: other strategic categories, we are going to have to become
Speaker 6: self reliant again.
Speaker 2: So Emily he's calling this a strategic decoupling. We's gone
Speaker 2: put New York Times up on the screen. We've got
Speaker 2: a great chart here showing the levels. First you had
Speaker 2: ten percent, then you had twenty percent, then you had
Speaker 2: fifty four percent, then you had one hundred four percent,
Speaker 2: Then you have one hundred and forty five percent. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to read a little bit of this article
Speaker 2: as well, so you can hear the specifics as we
Speaker 2: know them.
Speaker 3: At this point.
Speaker 2: The US and China said Monday they reach an agreement
Speaker 2: to temporarily reduce the punishing terrorists they've imposed on each
Speaker 2: other while they try to defuse the trade war threatening
Speaker 2: the world's two largest economies. In a joint statement, the
Speaker 2: country said they would suspend their respective terifts for ninety
Speaker 2: days and continue negotiations they started this weekend. Under the agreement,
Speaker 2: the US would reduce the tariff on Chinese imports to
Speaker 2: thirty percent from its current one hundred and forty five percent. Well,
Speaker 2: China would lower its import duty on American goods to
Speaker 2: ten percent from one hundred and twenty five percent. We
Speaker 2: concluded that we have a shared interest, said Treasury Secretary
Speaker 2: Scott Besson at a news conference in Geneva. The consensus
Speaker 2: from both delegations is that neither side wanted a de coupling,
Speaker 2: he said, So this is really being interpreted as I mean,
Speaker 2: I think you have to call it effectively a capitulation
Speaker 2: on the part of the Trump administration. And some of
Speaker 2: the numbers Emily that came in that I think have
Speaker 2: to impact them is number one concern over the bond market,
Speaker 2: concern over the stock market and how dowur things were
Speaker 2: looking there. But in addition, China seemed much more able
Speaker 2: to withstand this extraordinary trade war than perhaps the Trump
Speaker 2: administration anticipated. We covered mentioned last week, numbers just came
Speaker 2: in that actually showed Chinese exports rising even as these
Speaker 2: punishing tariffs had been levied against them, so that indicated
Speaker 2: that they were kind of in it for the long haul.
Speaker 2: They took some initial retality to reactions, including you know,
Speaker 2: what are the things they instituted export controls on these
Speaker 2: rare earth minerals that are really critical. I'm seeing some
Speaker 2: indications on Twitter, but I don't have it confirmed yet
Speaker 2: that those are actually going to stay in place. But
Speaker 2: they get to a certain point where they said, basically,
Speaker 2: we're not going to do anything else, and you're going
Speaker 2: to have to come to us when you're ready, when
Speaker 2: you're ready to act responsibly here. And I think the
Speaker 2: Trump administration really between the stock market, the bond market,
Speaker 2: and also the Chinese government's ability to withstand these tariffs
Speaker 2: better than they had previously expected, that they needed to
Speaker 2: act or there was going to be an imminent economic
Speaker 2: catastrophe complete with shortages, empty shelves, you know, inflation. And
Speaker 2: it's also not clear that all of that will be
Speaker 2: forestalled because thirty percent terrace is still a very high number.
Speaker 5: I was going to say, yeah, I think whether this
Speaker 5: is the capitulation is going to play out of the
Speaker 5: course of the next ninety days, because this is a
Speaker 5: ninety day pause, and if you are a small business owner,
Speaker 5: that's still really terrifying.
Speaker 4: That's still a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 5: I'm perfectly prepared and eager to be pleasantly surprised by this.
Speaker 5: I think the idea of a strategic decoupling is directionally
Speaker 5: exactly accurate the confusion and chaos that rained for a
Speaker 5: couple of weeks after Liberation Day. If it goes down
Speaker 5: in the ANNAWSI of history as being a month of
Speaker 5: of chaos and confusion that led to a quote unquote
Speaker 5: strategic decoupling, it's interesting to see Best saying, on the
Speaker 5: one hand, we realize we have multiple multiple interests that align,
Speaker 5: and that at the same time, nobody wants to do
Speaker 5: a general decoupling, so we're doing a strategic decoupling.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting.
Speaker 5: And his number here is that both sides de escalated
Speaker 5: by quote one hundred and fifteen percent.
Speaker 4: That's more from his interview on Morning Joe.
Speaker 5: Very interesting. By the way they sent Scott Besson onto
Speaker 5: Morning Joe. The day after this announcement is made, he
Speaker 5: was on Bloomberg as well, I think, But for him
Speaker 5: to go on Mourning Joe is actually pretty interesting to
Speaker 5: make a big trade announcement.
Speaker 3: Yeah true.
Speaker 4: I mean, we'll put that aside for now.
Speaker 5: So what this actually accomplishes, I just think is still
Speaker 5: completely out in the open. For the next ninety days,
Speaker 5: I hope is good. But ninety days from now.
Speaker 4: We could be we could be back where we work tomorrow.
Speaker 5: Let's say the ninety day pause becomes an eighty nine
Speaker 5: or a one day pause.
Speaker 4: You know, like we actually still don't really know.
Speaker 2: Yeah so you so, yes, you still have a high
Speaker 2: level of uncertainty that hangs over this whole trade war.
Speaker 2: Charles Gasparino, who's the Fox Business senior correspondent and who's
Speaker 2: been the beneficiary of a lot of leaks from the
Speaker 2: Trump administration, so he's been really important to read. He says,
Speaker 2: breaking Trump Ray's tariffs on the world, the market's, particularly
Speaker 2: the bond market, which we need to finance our debt.
Speaker 2: Rebelled Trump then was forced to back off end of
Speaker 2: story film at eleven of the present, spinning this is
Speaker 2: a major victory Okay, sorry, I couldn't help myself. But
Speaker 2: what we've seen is a little lesson on how markets
Speaker 2: exert their power when you have to depend on them,
Speaker 2: as we still do. And remember it's really the budget
Speaker 2: deficit that's causing the trade deficit, and we need the
Speaker 2: budget deficit to maintain our standard of living. You can't
Speaker 2: go to trade war with the world without bad stuff happening.
Speaker 2: So this is someone who's been you know, very sympathetic,
Speaker 2: I would say to the Trump administration. He's on Fox Business,
Speaker 2: so he has those ideological inclinations, saying basically Trump folded night.
Speaker 3: I think you have to look at it. Definitely a
Speaker 3: free trader for sure. Yeah, true.
Speaker 2: I think you have to, though, look at it in
Speaker 2: that light, just given the fact that there really was
Speaker 2: not much here in terms of quote unquote face saving gestures,
Speaker 2: even from the Chinese government. You know, there was some
Speaker 2: discussion of fentanyl and you know, some talks about how
Speaker 2: they may do more to curb the you know, production
Speaker 2: export of the ingredients that go into making fentanyl. So
Speaker 2: there was some discussion around that. That's really about it.
Speaker 2: So the Chinese government's calculation that they could basically do
Speaker 2: nothing and that the Trump administration would have to fold
Speaker 2: and come to them to back off of This ends
Speaker 2: up pretty much being correct. Now again, that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that I think the most dire possible circumstances of a
Speaker 2: complete economic collapse, I think that will likely be forestalled
Speaker 2: by this announcement and scaling back, because when you are
Speaker 2: talking about one forty five percent, you are talking about
Speaker 2: a complete cutoff. And you all know how many things
Speaker 2: that we need in this country that you have in
Speaker 2: your own households that are made in China. So that
Speaker 2: is forestalled called you know, so the very worst of
Speaker 2: a potential economic calamity at least gets pushed off for
Speaker 2: the moment. But we also shouldn't underestimate that thirty percent.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you think of like if they directly
Speaker 2: hiked your taxes thirty percent or even ten percent, that
Speaker 2: is really significant. So if we had started Liberation Day,
Speaker 2: if we'd well, I think what was the initial tariff
Speaker 2: that was announced on Liberation Day Visa v.
Speaker 4: China.
Speaker 3: It very quickly escalated.
Speaker 2: But if we had started from a position of thirty
Speaker 2: percent across the board tariffs on China, that was more
Speaker 2: than what Trump ever floated during his campaign. So it's
Speaker 2: still quite a high and very significant number. And I
Speaker 2: think you still have to worry about the inflationary impacts
Speaker 2: both of this thirty percent tariff on China and the
Speaker 2: ten percent tariffs that you know are sort of across
Speaker 2: the board. Howard Lutnik was out saying effectively that he
Speaker 2: thinks ten percent may just be the going rate tariff
Speaker 2: rate going forward. You know that alone could have significant
Speaker 2: inflation effects. But there's no doubt some of the most
Speaker 2: potential catastrophic fallout here should be forestalled by walking away,
Speaker 2: by deciding by effectively blinking visa via this trade war
Speaker 2: with China. One last thing, Emily, before I get your
Speaker 2: reaction too, is I think it's also an indictment of
Speaker 2: the strategy that they deployed, of pissing off everyone in
Speaker 2: the world going into this. You know, if this really
Speaker 2: is about China, then you would want to have Japan
Speaker 2: on your side. You want to want to make sure
Speaker 2: Europe's on your side, you want to make sure Canada
Speaker 2: is on your side. You know, you would want to
Speaker 2: gather your allies and have some sort of unified front. Instead,
Speaker 2: those allies were increasingly uniting against you and with very
Speaker 2: few exceptions, actually sort of holding the line together in
Speaker 2: a relatively unified front that also made the position fundamentally
Speaker 2: unsustainable from the American perspective.
Speaker 5: I want to say also, I mean, there will be
Speaker 5: a lot of people coming out afterwards if if let's
Speaker 5: say ninety from now, this is fine. Things have stabilized,
Speaker 5: and you know, maybe if you're a free trader, you're
Speaker 5: still upset with us, but things are stabilized and they
Speaker 5: aren't the you know, chaos that people felt on April
Speaker 5: second Liberation Day. There will be a lot of people saying,
Speaker 5: you know, you were Trump was right all along, the
Speaker 5: haters were wrong once again. But I think also in
Speaker 5: this case it's very clear that the haters put up guardrails,
Speaker 5: not I think the good faith haters, let's say on
Speaker 5: the right at least probably convinced people like Bessn't and
Speaker 5: Trump himself to take another look at the execution of
Speaker 5: these policies. Now, the ten percent tariff was, before it
Speaker 5: was actually implemented, seen as insane and extreme, and now
Speaker 5: because the reciprocal tariffs across the board were even like crazier,
Speaker 5: Trump is like successfully at the very least like numbed
Speaker 5: people to the idea of a ten percent.
Speaker 3: Across the board.
Speaker 5: The Liberation Day announcement was a thirty four percent tariff
Speaker 5: on China, so reciprocal tariff on China. So to Crystal,
Speaker 5: that gets your point about pitulation. He's coming down pretty
Speaker 5: damn close to that level.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: The Dow has surged more than a thousand points as
Speaker 5: of when we're taping this, so big market jump. I
Speaker 5: think CNBC and some covers this morning used the word explosion.
Speaker 5: The markets are exploding. So we'll see to what extent
Speaker 5: the Trump administration touts that. I will still say, you know,
Speaker 5: this is Joe Wisenthal SMP five hundred only done one
Speaker 5: point two five percent this year. I'm sure some people
Speaker 5: in the Trump administration actually will tout that. But the
Speaker 5: point that they made actually remains when the market was plunging,
Speaker 5: that that doesn't that has limited impacts on the working
Speaker 5: class compared to the wealthy, and so they still have
Speaker 5: a long way to go to dig themselves. I shouldn't
Speaker 5: say dig themselves out of the hole, but to prove
Speaker 5: that the strategy is more stabilizing than chaotic, because these
Speaker 5: ninety day pauses. If I'm a small business owner, these
Speaker 5: are just they're killing you horrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again thirty percent is still quite significant.
Speaker 3: But you also have to ask, like, okay, so you
Speaker 3: did all this.
Speaker 2: Okay, the market isn't down, cat Istra, but it's still down.
Speaker 3: The likelihood of.
Speaker 2: Recession is still up significantly from where you started the administration.
Speaker 2: And for what what did you accomplish?
Speaker 3: You know, So for the people who.
Speaker 2: Thought that there was a grand plan that was being
Speaker 2: executed here, who were all on board for a kind
Speaker 2: of you know, very radical reorienting of the global economic order,
Speaker 2: that's decidedly off the table, at least for ninety days,
Speaker 2: that is very much off the table at this point.
Speaker 2: This will, if anything, be you know, a mild sort
Speaker 2: of tinkering around the edges. So, you know, I think
Speaker 2: that theory that there was a grand plan. Maybe there
Speaker 2: was a grand plan, but they had to back away
Speaker 2: from it in the face of realizing that they had
Speaker 2: made some faulty assumptions going in.
Speaker 4: I think the Grand Plan was chaos. Like I think
Speaker 4: that's really.
Speaker 2: I think that my theory of the Grand Plan was
Speaker 2: always just power for Trump being able to do whatever
Speaker 2: he wants.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think he wanted to be able
Speaker 5: to set off global chaos, and with the.
Speaker 4: Belief that that was his leverage, that his leverage.
Speaker 5: Is that we're the United States, we can upend your systems,
Speaker 5: we can upend the global financial system with the flick
Speaker 5: of a pen from the President of the United States,
Speaker 5: with this chart that we printed out that has Penguin
Speaker 5: tariffs on it. I think part of his strategy was
Speaker 5: actually just throwing everything into chaos. And I think when
Speaker 5: the bond market started freaking out, the realization is that
Speaker 5: that leverage only goes so far because it ends up
Speaker 5: hitting your own people at some point.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: And I do think there was just a fundamental miscalculation,
Speaker 2: both with launching the trade war against everyone in the
Speaker 2: world and with thinking that the Chinese that we were
Speaker 2: in a stronger position than the Chinese were, and we
Speaker 2: just weren't, you know, we just weren't. It was easier
Speaker 2: for them to find other customers around the world, as
Speaker 2: evidenced by their experts actually rising during this period, than
Speaker 2: it was for us to be able to replace all
Speaker 2: of the goods that we rely on importing from China
Speaker 2: at this point. Now that could be done over a
Speaker 2: longer period of time, which will require, as we've discussed
Speaker 2: many times on the show, significant investments in industrial policy.
Speaker 2: And yet they were going the opposite direction of that.
Speaker 2: And I know they were had big hopes for the
Speaker 2: tax cut that was supposed to be in the reconciliation bill,
Speaker 2: but none of that has even come to pass as
Speaker 2: of yet. I wanted to read, because we've relied on
Speaker 2: his analysis a fair amount, for a read on how
Speaker 2: the Chinese may be viewing these events. Arno Bertrand had
Speaker 2: initial reaction to China's statement on the agreement with the US.
Speaker 2: He says they highlight that besides the fact that tariff
Speaker 2: would be reduced, he says, to ten percent. There was
Speaker 2: some confusion about this. We went and checked. It's actually
Speaker 2: to thirty percent. But in any case, he says, a
Speaker 2: key outcome of the meeting is that both sides quote,
Speaker 2: recognize the importance of bilateral economic and trade relation to
Speaker 2: the two countries and the global economy. Recognize the importance
Speaker 2: of sustainable, long term and mutually beneficial bilateral economic and
Speaker 2: trade relations. Continue to advance relevant work in the spirit
Speaker 2: of mutual openness, continuous communication, cooperation and mutual respect. This
Speaker 2: is indeed perhaps the most important outcome. Trump's teriffs marked
Speaker 2: the apex of Washington's decoupling illusion, and this reversal should
Speaker 2: deter any future attempts of doing the same. To use
Speaker 2: the card analogy that the Trump administration loves to use,
Speaker 2: Trump went all in with his extreme tariffs, but when
Speaker 2: China called his bluff, he was forced to fold and
Speaker 2: accept that his approach could not be sustained. It is
Speaker 2: now clear when it comes to severing economic ties with China,
Speaker 2: the US simply does not have the cards, no matter
Speaker 2: how aggressively they try to play them. So with that
Speaker 2: in mind, you're left with only one viable strategy, cooperation
Speaker 2: and mutual respect. So that's his reading of the contours
Speaker 2: of the at least temporary agreement that we have at
Speaker 2: this point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I wondered what extent China was reacting to
Speaker 5: other deals that the Trump administration was working on with
Speaker 5: places like like you said, they had already found some
Speaker 5: willingness in that region, particularly to have you know, Tamu
Speaker 5: ship things.
Speaker 3: Over to Cambodia, Vietnam or Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I wonder to what extent actually they saw
Speaker 5: that some of those countries actually do rely so heavily
Speaker 5: on US business that the Trump administration was coming to,
Speaker 5: if not, you know, great deals for the American people,
Speaker 5: at least deals, So I'm curious to what extent they
Speaker 5: were reacting to that. I'm also really curious what this
Speaker 5: does to the crackdown on Deminimus. And I'm really curious
Speaker 5: for how this pertains to the Hollywood announcement last what
Speaker 5: was that Sunday?
Speaker 4: Yeah, last Sunday, so we yeah.
Speaker 3: And then that's another thing I always thought was fake TikTok.
Speaker 5: I'm really curious what this does for the TikTok deal
Speaker 5: because remember China's retaliation about a month ago. It scuttled
Speaker 5: that last minute deal that the Trump administration allegedly was
Speaker 5: very close to working out for a sale of TikTok
Speaker 5: from Byteedance to a US company. And by the way,
Speaker 5: I've always thought that that was fake because not that
Speaker 5: there aren't buyers here that'll snatch up TikTok very eagerly,
Speaker 5: but that I don't think China has any serious intention
Speaker 5: of actually selling TikTok because guess what, they they have
Speaker 5: the freaking leverage because Trump doesn't want TikTok to be
Speaker 5: sold to a US company over and over again. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's why he's delaying it over and over again. He
Speaker 5: knows that they have the leverage on that point. So
Speaker 5: that's just a huge section of the economy and of
Speaker 5: the average young American's daily life that's on the table here,
Speaker 5: and we don't really know what's going to happen going forward.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now that is a good point.
Speaker 2: So you know, all of the and this has been
Speaker 2: the overall trend of the Trump administration trade war because
Speaker 2: we've had all these fits and starts, first with regard
Speaker 2: to Canada and Mexico, and you'll have his defenders, you know,
Speaker 2: defend these extraordinarily maximalist policy positions of one hundred and
Speaker 2: forty five percent terras and total decoupling of China, and
Speaker 2: they're all in on it, and this is delivering for
Speaker 2: mainstream and then they get rolled back and it's part
Speaker 2: of the deal. But you know, with this, it's hard
Speaker 2: to even point to what was actually achieved here because
Speaker 2: you still now they're backing away from total to coupling.
Speaker 2: So if you were in the we're going to do
Speaker 2: this hard reset and it's going to reindustrialize America that's
Speaker 2: not happening. Apparently the tariffs are not going to be
Speaker 2: you know, paying for the budget deficit.
Speaker 3: That's not happening.
Speaker 2: And you're you have not actually gotten any real concessions
Speaker 2: from the Chinese government out of this. You've just made
Speaker 2: it more likely we're going to face recession, more likely
Speaker 2: we're going to face inflation and higher costs on goods.
Speaker 2: So Trump walking away from this, walking back from the
Speaker 2: most maximust policy position, It's just hard to see how
Speaker 2: we're in any way better off and not worse off
Speaker 2: from before Liberation Day was originally announced.
Speaker 3: I mean, the lack of even any real.
Speaker 2: Face saving gesture here I think is pretty extraordinary. But
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I'm glad to see that the
Speaker 2: worst of the potential economic calamity is at least for
Speaker 2: the moment, being put off the table. And at the
Speaker 2: same time, just to conclude here, I don't want to
Speaker 2: underestimate how they're still First of all, will likely be
Speaker 2: reverberating impacts from this pause and trade that we did have.
Speaker 2: We saw in COVID how the supply shocks took a
Speaker 2: long time to work out, So I think you could
Speaker 2: have a verbrating impacts from that, and then the continued
Speaker 2: you know, teror regime that does exist around the world
Speaker 2: impacts from that, and to your point, Emily, the continued
Speaker 2: uncertainty because this guy, if he doesn't like the headlines
Speaker 2: that come out of this and he's filled in a
Speaker 2: certain kind of way and he wants to reassert his
Speaker 2: authority or whatever, they could be hyped back up to
Speaker 2: two hundred percent tomorrow.
Speaker 3: We just have no idea.
Speaker 4: Well, in China has a very long, long, long, long, long.
Speaker 5: Term strategy and its economy and its society more broadly,
Speaker 5: and right now, by the way, if you are a
Speaker 5: foreign investor, not even in China, you don't even know
Speaker 5: how the next United Space president is going to handle
Speaker 5: this question, let alone the next three years. The level
Speaker 5: of uncertainty in the US market right now is just dramatic.
Speaker 5: And to underscore that, Crystal, even as we were talking here,
Speaker 5: Trump is giving a press conference and he has said
Speaker 5: that he's not looking to hurt China, that he plans
Speaker 5: to speak to Sheet and Pang maybe by the end
Speaker 5: of the week, and also that the Chin China deal
Speaker 5: does not include tariffs that are already on.
Speaker 4: So we're learning more.
Speaker 5: About this by the minute based on what the President
Speaker 5: of the United States says. But it's really really, really hard,
Speaker 5: not just to understand what's happening. To get the exact numbers,
Speaker 5: we had to sift through just this morning before Trump starts. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and we to sift through a lot of different reports
Speaker 5: because the flow of information is confusing. So that's just
Speaker 5: day by day, let alone trying to project out into
Speaker 5: the future.
Speaker 4: The uncertainty is so so significant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, so I'm sure I'll be covering this more
Speaker 2: tomorrow as we get more information, and we'll be able
Speaker 2: to play some of those clips from Trump's press conference
Speaker 2: today and figure out what exactly the hell is going on.
Speaker 2: Thinking of figuring out what exactly the hell is going on,
Speaker 2: Trump is also headed to the Middle East this week.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of reports coming out of Gazaway.
Speaker 2: Thing we know in particular is that idea of soldier
Speaker 2: who's an American Israeli citizen and on Alexander is being
Speaker 2: released by Hamas in sort of a gesture of goodwill,
Speaker 2: as the Trump administration is doing something that the Biden
Speaker 2: administration never did and talking directly to Hamas bypassing Israel
Speaker 2: in you in negotiations being for. We don't know what
Speaker 2: that exactly is going to lead to or what it means.
Speaker 2: But if one person can help us understand what is
Speaker 2: going on, that would be Jeremy Scahill, and he joins
Speaker 2: us now.
Speaker 3: Happy to be.
Speaker 2: Joined this morning by co founder of drop site News,
Speaker 2: Jeremy Skaehill.
Speaker 3: Great Caesar, thank you, Crystal Hamiley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So let's go ahead and put this
Speaker 2: first element up on the screen. There's a lot going
Speaker 2: on this week as President Trump heads to the Middle East.
Speaker 2: We got this announcement that I'll just read from President
Speaker 2: Trump's true social here. I'm happy to announce that Eden Alexander,
Speaker 2: an American citizen who has been held hostage since October
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, is coming home to his family. I'm
Speaker 2: grateful to all those involved in making this monumental news happened.
Speaker 2: This was a step taken in good faith towards the
Speaker 2: US and the efforts of the Mediator's Cutter and Egypt
Speaker 2: to put an end to this very brutal war and
Speaker 2: return all living hostages and range their loved ones. Hopefully
Speaker 2: this is the first of those final steps necessary to
Speaker 2: end this brutal conflict look very much forward to that
Speaker 2: day of celebration. So, Jeremy, just to start off with,
Speaker 2: can you break down some of the context in which
Speaker 2: this agreement and this ability to return again Alexander was obtained.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, one of one of the aspects of
Speaker 7: this that is truly extraordinary is that this is the
Speaker 7: first time that the United States has made a direct
Speaker 7: deal with Hamas that does not involve Israel. That's a
Speaker 7: major step away from Biden era policy. For instance, there
Speaker 7: were a number of people with US citizenship who were
Speaker 7: taken captive on October seventh during operational upsa flood, and
Speaker 7: the Biden administration, you know, stood by and refused to
Speaker 7: actually negotiate directly with Hamas and constantly deferred to the Israelis.
Speaker 7: So what we're seeing is a kind of unorthodox aspect
Speaker 7: of Donald Trump's presidency. He recently made a deal with
Speaker 7: what the US considers to be a foreign terrorist organization
Speaker 7: and a non state actors ansar Ala, the Houthis of Yemen.
Speaker 7: Now you have the US, beginning in February, engaged in
Speaker 7: direct talks with HAMAS that is now leading to the
Speaker 7: release of a dual US Israeli citizen. The other aspect
Speaker 7: of this crystal that's really significant is that during this
Speaker 7: entire nineteen month period, there has not been a single
Speaker 7: male Israeli soldier that has been released from captivity in Gaza.
Speaker 7: And it's important to remember a lot of the coverage
Speaker 7: of this implies that Idon Alexander was a civilian that
Speaker 7: was kidnapped. Well, HAMAS considers him to be a prisoner
Speaker 7: of war because he was an active duty soldier in
Speaker 7: the Israeli military. On October seventh, he was captured by
Speaker 7: Palestinian fighters in uniform while serving in a military that
Speaker 7: the Palestinians view as an occupying force that is operating
Speaker 7: on behalf of an apartheid entity. So, you know, there
Speaker 7: are details of this that I think we need to remember. Factually, recently,
Speaker 7: when I was meeting with senior officials from HAMAS and
Speaker 7: Palestinian Islamic Jihad, they indicated that for months they have
Speaker 7: told the United States that they are willing as what
Speaker 7: they call a goodwill gesture, to release Dan Alexander. And
Speaker 7: part of this is that Hamas views Trump. They know
Speaker 7: that Trump's administration is filled with Zionists, They know that
Speaker 7: Trump's administration is very pro Israel. That's the big picture
Speaker 7: of this. But on a sort of technical level, they
Speaker 7: feel that they have a better shot with negotiating something
Speaker 7: with Steve Whitcoff and Adam Bohler than they did with
Speaker 7: Antony Blincoln or Bill Burns when Biden was president.
Speaker 5: Well, let's put the next element on the screen, Jeremy,
Speaker 5: because this kind of gets to exactly what you were
Speaker 5: just saying. I mean, you pointed out that this was
Speaker 5: the first deal broker directly between the United States and
Speaker 5: Hamas without Israel, And I mean, there's been some interesting
Speaker 5: comments from the Israeli right in the last twenty four
Speaker 5: to forty eight hours, and I just wanted to see
Speaker 5: what you make of all of these developments. Is this
Speaker 5: signal maybe the next chapter in the United States relationship
Speaker 5: with Israel is Israel realizing sort of the hardcore Israeli
Speaker 5: right realizing that maybe they want to disentangle from the
Speaker 5: United States as well. I mean, basically, what's the reaction
Speaker 5: been like in last twenty four to forty eight hours
Speaker 5: politically from Israel?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, I mean last week you saw Mariam Aidelson,
Speaker 7: who is a US and Israeli citizen, her husband of course,
Speaker 7: was Sheldon Adelson. She gave one hundred million dollars to
Speaker 7: Trump's reelection effort in the last election cycle, and she
Speaker 7: owns a newspaper in Israel, and that paper really was
Speaker 7: kind of fanning the flames of this. The idea that
Speaker 7: there are indications that the Trump administration is sort of
Speaker 7: kicking Netanyahu under the bus is distance seeing itself from Israel.
Speaker 7: I think we should be really careful about embracing that
Speaker 7: narrative too much. There's a big picture here, which is
Speaker 7: that Trump's agenda is an extremely pro Israel agenda. He
Speaker 7: puts Mike Huckabee in as the ambassador, their rhetoric on
Speaker 7: the West Bank indicates that they're moving toward recognizing full
Speaker 7: Israeli annexation of the West Bank. We could talk for
Speaker 7: hours about the ways in which the Trump administration has
Speaker 7: facilitated Netnyahu's agenda, including taking the leash off and letting
Speaker 7: Netnyah who goes scorched earth ever since March eighteenth, killing
Speaker 7: upwards of twenty six hundred Palestinians, many of them women
Speaker 7: and children, including really indiscriminate attacks on camps housed by
Speaker 7: housing displaced persons, but on a micro level, Yes, Emily,
Speaker 7: there's something really interesting going on, which is that Donald Trump,
Speaker 7: of course is a transactional guy. He also thinks very
Speaker 7: highly of himself, he thinks very highly of his legacy,
Speaker 7: and he is right now on his way in a
Speaker 7: day to the Middle East where he's going to meet
Speaker 7: with Saudi Arabia and try to secure this more than
Speaker 7: trillion dollar deal that involves weapons sales and other economic matters.
Speaker 7: Similar deal being made with United Arab Emirates. Of course,
Speaker 7: there's going to be a lot of focus on the
Speaker 7: airplane that Qatar is reportedly going to be giving Trump.
Speaker 7: Trump seems to really want the Gaza war to be done.
Speaker 7: He called it a brutal war and said that it's
Speaker 7: time to wrap it up in that truth social post
Speaker 7: that you cited earlier. So I think what we're seeing
Speaker 7: here is have no illusion about the fact that Donald
Speaker 7: Trump wants to facilitate a horrifying agenda on behalf of
Speaker 7: the Israelis. But on the technical aspects where Netanyahu starts
Speaker 7: to mess with let's just say America's business as Trump
Speaker 7: views it, which is also Trump's business and his family's business,
Speaker 7: then I think we have some space that opens up
Speaker 7: where people like Witcoff and Adam Bowler become quite interesting
Speaker 7: to the Palestinian negotiators. And I've said on this show
Speaker 7: many times before, and I'll say it again, there is
Speaker 7: a chance that Trump's interests aligned enough with stopping that
Speaker 7: war that it benefits the Palestinians of Gaza, who have
Speaker 7: endured a horrifying genocide under both Biden and Trump.
Speaker 2: How does this square with the reporting we saw last
Speaker 2: week from Reuters that there were high level discussions centered
Speaker 2: around a US occupation of Gaza that would be based
Speaker 2: on the Iraq government of the you know, our occupation
Speaker 2: of Iraq after and during the Iraq War. Does How
Speaker 2: did these talks square with that? Square with Trump previously floating,
Speaker 2: you know, we're going to clear ount all of the Palestinians.
Speaker 2: We're going to let the world's people be in Gaza,
Speaker 2: you know his big real estate development plans there. How
Speaker 2: are you making sense of those things? And how are
Speaker 2: the Hamas officials you're speaking with making sense of those things?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I mean this morning I was communicating with a leader
Speaker 7: within the Palestinian Armed Resistance and he was saying, look,
Speaker 7: Hamas is taking a gamble here by making this deal
Speaker 7: for Idon Alexander, because they're not getting anything on paper
Speaker 7: in return that we know of. None of my sources
Speaker 7: have said that the US committed to anything. And the
Speaker 7: calculus here on their part is it relates to what
Speaker 7: I was saying earlier. They feel that they that their
Speaker 7: best shot right now is to try to accentuate the
Speaker 7: divisions on a tactical level between net Yahoo and Trump
Speaker 7: in the hopes that Trump then will ultimately force net
Speaker 7: Yahoo to end the war. That's the gamble that Hamas
Speaker 7: has taken. Their broader position is we will not release
Speaker 7: a single Israeli captive unless there is a deal that
Speaker 7: leads to a permanent ceasefire and the full withdrawal of
Speaker 7: Israeli forces. I spoke to a senior Hamas official last
Speaker 7: week about these AID plans that you're talking about, and
Speaker 7: he said, no one has consulted with us about this.
Speaker 7: We're not involved with us, and the dimes worth of
Speaker 7: difference between the Israeli position and Trump's position on how
Speaker 7: AID should be administered ultimately plays to Israel's agenda. Now,
Speaker 7: there's also discussion that there may be a summit involving
Speaker 7: the Palestinian Authority President Mahmudabas, who's eighty nine years old,
Speaker 7: incredibly unpopular, is viewed by Hamas and in fact many Palestinians,
Speaker 7: as a collaborator with Israel. It's possible that Trump is
Speaker 7: going to try to make some deal that circumvents both
Speaker 7: Israel and Hamas and Islamic Jihad and try to say, well,
Speaker 7: We're going to make a deal with Mahmudabas. There's a
Speaker 7: lot of complicated politics behind that. So I would say,
Speaker 7: Crystal that what Trump is trying to do with his
Speaker 7: proposal for having a so called NGO, which really isn't
Speaker 7: an NGO. It seems, as you indicated, it's more like
Speaker 7: a Paul Bremer coalition provisional authority type IRAQ two point zero.
Speaker 7: What Trump is sort of trying to do is get
Speaker 7: enough aid to say I'm doing something into the country,
Speaker 7: but not really linking it to an end to the war,
Speaker 7: which ultimately is what Netanyahu wants. So you know, let's see.
Speaker 7: I mean, Hamas I think has shown an ability to
Speaker 7: really hold out despite the massive human consequences, and I
Speaker 7: don't see them just because Donald Trump wants photo ops
Speaker 7: in the Middle East. I think we're still in for
Speaker 7: quite a battle, both diplomatically and potentially militarily on the ground. Now,
Speaker 7: look what Netnyahuo has responded to all of this in public.
Speaker 7: You know, all of these reports about Trump and Hamas,
Speaker 7: Trump and ansar Ala Llah onsar Allah in Yemen, as
Speaker 7: As sort of saying, well, We're going to go in
Speaker 7: and conquer all of Gaza. We're going to take all
Speaker 7: of Gaza. We're going to force the Palestinians into the south,
Speaker 7: and then we're going to have to try to figure
Speaker 7: out what third countries are going to take them. So
Speaker 7: he's really telegraphing I want to continue this genocide. The
Speaker 7: question is is Trump willing to actually rain him in
Speaker 7: a in a serious way or is Trump going to
Speaker 7: try to have it both ways. Let it be a
Speaker 7: little bit calmer for some months, and then it all
Speaker 7: blows up again, which is basically what happened with the
Speaker 7: January ceasfire deal.
Speaker 5: And it seems like a lot of that rides on
Speaker 5: what he hears from Steve Whitkoff. So we can go
Speaker 5: ahead and roll B to B on the screen. These
Speaker 5: were celebrations from Palestinians in the aftermath of the news.
Speaker 5: You can see this on your screen. This is a
Speaker 5: spontaneous march that was in Gaza City after the announcement yesterday,
Speaker 5: and when that's finished, we can put B three on
Speaker 5: the screen. This is from Steve Witcoff. It is a
Speaker 5: drop site tweet noting that Israel's Channel twelve reported that
Speaker 5: Steve Whitcoff's meeting with hostage families. He said that, basically quote,
Speaker 5: Israel is prolonging the war even though there's no path forward,
Speaker 5: which is what a lot of the hostage families actually
Speaker 5: already believe as well. So, Jeremy, this brings us to
Speaker 5: the momentum. At least if people are looking for a
Speaker 5: glimmer of good news. The momentum is at least in
Speaker 5: a positive direction towards a ceasefire. But what could a
Speaker 5: potential timeline look like. I mean, if we put before
Speaker 5: on the screen. Jeremy, you had and we talked to
Speaker 5: you about this last week. You had an interview with
Speaker 5: a top Hamas official last week in Dropsite on May fifth,
Speaker 5: So you have a sense of what might be on
Speaker 5: the table right now in the next week or so.
Speaker 4: While there is this sense of.
Speaker 5: Momentum, what could maybe what is the best case scenario.
Speaker 4: What is the worst case scenario?
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, first of all, it really is heartbreaking,
Speaker 7: and this has happened a number of times over the
Speaker 7: past nineteen months. When Palestinians and Gaza hear any sort
Speaker 7: of good news or something that feels like a step forward,
Speaker 7: you know, people are so desperate for an end to
Speaker 7: this that they do go into the streets and they
Speaker 7: do celebrate, and sometimes it's real and sometimes a deal
Speaker 7: is in the works, and other times Israel just responds
Speaker 7: by escalating the attacks. I mean, just in the last
Speaker 7: twenty four hours, we've had a couple of dozen Palestinians,
Speaker 7: most of them women and children killed in heavy attacks
Speaker 7: that were conducted by Israel. So you know, on that front,
Speaker 7: it continues to be very heartbreaking, but understandable why people
Speaker 7: are so desperate for this. On the issue of Witcough,
Speaker 7: Witcoff is saying what is basic common sense now among
Speaker 7: the families of Israeli captives, and that they've been saying
Speaker 7: for a very long time. So from their perspective, you
Speaker 7: now have an American official in Steve Whitkoff and to
Speaker 7: a degree in Donald Trump, that are willing to openly
Speaker 7: criticize net Yaho for not prioritizing the freedom of Israeli captives.
Speaker 7: This is a departure from the way Anthony Blincoln or
Speaker 7: people in the Biden administration were conducting themselves. They were
Speaker 7: very reluctant to publicly criticize net Yahoo. At the end
Speaker 7: of the day, I think the best case scenario is
Speaker 7: that the United States recognizes that net Nyahu's agenda is
Speaker 7: totally counter to what would be good for the United
Speaker 7: States in the world, is totally counter to what would
Speaker 7: be good for stability in the region, and that means
Speaker 7: actually being willing to speak with organizations and movements like Hamas,
Speaker 7: Because whatever one thinks about Hamas, they were the last
Speaker 7: democratically elected government in Gaza, they're not particularly happy about
Speaker 7: continuing to be the government. But if you are able
Speaker 7: to work with them to try to stabilize the situation,
Speaker 7: I think that you would find that the Middle East
Speaker 7: would that there would be steps in the right direction,
Speaker 7: and that Donald Trump's sort of accidental way in which
Speaker 7: he could end up making a deal ends up being
Speaker 7: a good case scenario because it ends war because it
Speaker 7: gives some opening to talk. The worst case scenario is
Speaker 7: that Trump is very crassly and cravenly trying to secure
Speaker 7: these deals, give the facade that he actually wants peace,
Speaker 7: and at the end of the day washing his hands
Speaker 7: of it and allowing the net Yahoo's and the Mike
Speaker 7: Huckabies of the world to determine what American policy is
Speaker 7: going to be. That would be a catastrophic series of events.
Speaker 7: I think it's more likely we'll have some sort of
Speaker 7: a deal. Whether that deal is going to be acceptable
Speaker 7: to the Palestinians and make it more likely that they're
Speaker 7: going to get liberation or self determination is a very
Speaker 7: very serious question that remains unanswerable right now.
Speaker 2: To that point, Jeremy, if it ends up that Hamas
Speaker 2: committing to demilitarize, if that ends up being a red line,
Speaker 2: are they on that question?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 7: I mean, it often gets thrown around in the media
Speaker 7: in a simplistic way. What does it actually mean? What
Speaker 7: the let's not just talk about Hamas in a broader
Speaker 7: sense among Palestinians. The idea that Palestinians are supposed to
Speaker 7: just hand in all weapons and trust that the world
Speaker 7: is going to somehow keep net Yahoo or Israel at
Speaker 7: bay is a farce that history shows is a total lie.
Speaker 7: So it's not just about oh, Hamas has some weapons
Speaker 7: stored somewhere that they want to use to go attack Israel.
Speaker 7: We're talking about the very existence of the Palestinian people.
Speaker 7: There have been suggestions that if there's a hudnah, the
Speaker 7: Arabic term for a long term truce, that Hamas would
Speaker 7: be willing to make concessions on how weapons would be stored,
Speaker 7: how weapons would be held, But right now they're not
Speaker 7: really engaging much with that discussion outside of a technical
Speaker 7: framework that results in a US guaranteed and to the
Speaker 7: genocide and full withdrawal of his Israeli forces. So of
Speaker 7: course is going to say this is a million red
Speaker 7: lines at present, but the devil will be in the details.
Speaker 7: If the international community ensured that Palestinians we're going to
Speaker 7: have sovereignty and we're going to be able to constitute
Speaker 7: an armed force capable of defending its territorial integrity, then
Speaker 7: I think that the rationale for groups like Hamas or
Speaker 7: Islamic Chiad having the weapons goes away. When people get
Speaker 7: their freedom and they get their stability, they don't need
Speaker 7: to be engaged in resistance movements. Armed resistance movements. That's
Speaker 7: the core of the story. So from their perspective, weapons
Speaker 7: aren't the issue. The issue is their rights as a people,
Speaker 7: and you can make the resistance movements irrelevant by respecting
Speaker 7: the rights of Palestinians as all other people in the
Speaker 7: world are supposed to have under international law.
Speaker 4: And go ahead, Crystal.
Speaker 3: Last question for you, Jeremy.
Speaker 2: We're about to talk about the Air Force one replacement
Speaker 2: from Kutchar and the extraordinary corruption of this administration. But
Speaker 2: I wanted to get your opinion on the reason why
Speaker 2: Kutcher wants to give this plane to the Trump administration
Speaker 2: and how that ties into the various negotiations that are
Speaker 2: going on here.
Speaker 7: I mean, I have no idea what the actual if
Speaker 7: there's like a specific policy motivation for it. But you know,
Speaker 7: Donald Trump, the store of Donald Trump's presidency is wide
Speaker 7: open for business, and that's very clear. You know, Kutar
Speaker 7: is obviously an increasingly powerful player in international diplomacy. It
Speaker 7: is a major figure in the Gaza negotiations but also
Speaker 7: in other regional issues. So you know, Katar is subjected
Speaker 7: to a lot of smears. Kuttar also is playing its
Speaker 7: own game here and recognizes that it is increasingly an
Speaker 7: influential player, and I think that it's it's symbolic of
Speaker 7: the fact that we have a man in the White
Speaker 7: House who' views the White House as a business that
Speaker 7: can benefit himself and his family, and you know, at
Speaker 7: the end of the day, maybe we'll do something good
Speaker 7: for America. But let's be clear about it. Donald Trump
Speaker 7: is an open store for more business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: Ryan was pointing out on Twitter that in the first
Speaker 2: Trump administration there was apparently some sort of real estate
Speaker 2: bailout that Jared Kushner's dad was looking for from Qatar,
Speaker 2: and they declined, and then they felt that they really
Speaker 2: screwed up by not just you know, giving the you know,
Speaker 2: the Trump administration whatever grift and gift and corruption that
Speaker 2: they were asking for at the time.
Speaker 3: So apparently they learned that lesson.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, it's it is it is extraordinary. It's
Speaker 7: it's presidency inc. You know, no doubt about it. But
Speaker 7: you know, I'll just go back to actually what Hamas
Speaker 7: people have told me. They recognize all of that, and
Speaker 7: they realize in that kind of specific, kind of kind
Speaker 7: of institutional corruption, there may be opportunity to accidentally get
Speaker 7: something better than they would have gotten, you know, from
Speaker 7: the adults in the room under Biden, and I think
Speaker 7: they're right who.
Speaker 2: Were ideological, committed Zionists. So we'll see where all of
Speaker 2: this goes. Jeremi, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 2: time to break it all down for us.
Speaker 3: Great to see you.
Speaker 7: Thank you as always.
Speaker 5: Well, as we just mentioned in our conversation with Jeremy,
Speaker 5: if we put B six on the screen, news broke
Speaker 5: yesterday that kind of the details of this news broke yesterday.
Speaker 5: To be clear, some of this we kind of already knew,
Speaker 5: but then Jonathan Carlo at ABC broke the story open
Speaker 5: and there were some follow up reports that Cutter is
Speaker 5: essentially giving the United States the gift of a to
Speaker 5: be fair beautiful luxury plane.
Speaker 3: They call it a flying palace, a flying.
Speaker 5: Palace, and some of four has pictures of it, and
Speaker 5: it is indeed a flying palace. They came out with that,
Speaker 5: I think late last night or earlier this morning. Actually,
Speaker 5: we have some pictures here. If you put B seven
Speaker 5: on the screen, we could go through them. So the
Speaker 5: way this arrangement is going to work is basically that
Speaker 5: you have the plane being gifted to the Department of
Speaker 5: Defense used as Air Force one. Because this will come
Speaker 5: as a shock to no one. Boeing has been myired
Speaker 5: in delays and all kinds of problems with their efforts
Speaker 5: to rehaul the plane for the president. So this is
Speaker 5: what you're seeing said by side on the screen. Last week,
Speaker 5: the Trump organization unveiled a new five point five billion.
Speaker 4: Dollar golf resort project and Cutter.
Speaker 5: Today, ABC reports that Cutter are set to give Trump
Speaker 5: a four hundred million dollar luxury Boeing seven forty seven.
Speaker 5: And then if you're looking at those things side by side, Crystal,
Speaker 5: the dates are just incredible.
Speaker 4: April twenty ninth and then May.
Speaker 3: Eleven, two weeks later.
Speaker 5: And you know the true story of this, like how
Speaker 5: Cutter has worked out the steal with the United States government.
Speaker 4: The details are still a little bit unclear.
Speaker 5: We do know that Pambondi, who is the obviously sitting
Speaker 5: attorney in General, she used to be a lobbyist for Cutter.
Speaker 5: She was at Ballard Partners. And what she was doing
Speaker 5: the filing. You can look at the filing. It was
Speaker 5: to help Cutter basically improve its approach to human trafficking
Speaker 5: to it was in the leader of the World cup.
Speaker 5: She left and then came back and re picked up
Speaker 5: the contract. But it was like to help them message
Speaker 5: and deal with the United States all of that stuff
Speaker 5: as it pertained to human trafficking. So we just have
Speaker 5: a web here of conflicts of interest and before I just.
Speaker 3: Making one hundred and fifteen K a month.
Speaker 5: Yeah, those Cutter contracts are good, which is why Cash, Pattel, Lee, Zelden,
Speaker 5: and Pambondi are members of the Trump administration who have
Speaker 5: previously taken money from Catter before going into the administration.
Speaker 5: This is an intercept story back from February that I
Speaker 5: highly recommend everyone read. Obviously, Cutter is served infamous for
Speaker 5: doing this with Western countries. But this is the arrangement
Speaker 5: of this. The Trump administration says, put BA eight on
Speaker 5: the screen. This is the actual text of the emolument's clause,
Speaker 5: which Crystal demanded we put up on the screen. She
Speaker 5: was like, like during the tea party, like the Libertarians
Speaker 5: walking around with their pocket constant.
Speaker 2: Right, blanch your pocket constitution, friends, This is the emolument's clause.
Speaker 5: So the way they're getting around it with the gift
Speaker 5: of the Boeing seven verse seven eight is that it
Speaker 5: is going to the Defense Department. So the e Molument's
Speaker 5: cause prevents gifts to rulers, officers or representatives. So Crystal
Speaker 5: their way around that is saying it is a gift
Speaker 5: to the Defense Department from what we can tell.
Speaker 2: And then it's being given to the Trump Presidential Library. Yes,
Speaker 2: so it will only ever benefit him. It's not like
Speaker 2: whatever the next president, whoever the next president is AOC
Speaker 2: or JD vance probably is going to benefit from it.
Speaker 3: It's just going to be Trump.
Speaker 2: But technically because it's going to the Defense Department, not
Speaker 2: directly to the person of him.
Speaker 3: That's how they're.
Speaker 2: Getting around it. And bond memo authored by Pam Bondi,
Speaker 2: who had previously been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
Speaker 2: by Kaitar.
Speaker 5: Yes, no exactly, and so Crystal this is their way
Speaker 5: around it is saying that it is a gift not
Speaker 5: to the president himself but to a the Department Defense,
Speaker 5: which Cutter says, it's just temporary, so you know, the
Speaker 5: next three years temporary quote unquote, and then it goes
Speaker 5: to the Trump Library. So in neither of those cases
Speaker 5: is it going directly to Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: That's the that's the line.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I mean it's so cliche to say at
Speaker 2: this point, but imagine if Barack Obama, you know, and
Speaker 2: you know so many Republicans too, they you know, they
Speaker 2: consider Qutar to be just like an agent of Hamas
Speaker 2: and you know, run by terror, like the language around
Speaker 2: Qatar that comes from the right. And then to have
Speaker 2: them making this extraordinary, just brazen gift of corruption, this
Speaker 2: four hundred million dollar plane to Donald Trump is I mean,
Speaker 2: what can you even say about it? This is what
Speaker 2: I was referring to with Jeremy what Ryan said on Twitter,
Speaker 2: which I think is good sort of like context for
Speaker 2: how this and why this all is happening. He says
Speaker 2: during Trump One, Jared Kusher's dad shook down Qatar for
Speaker 2: a real estate bailout. Qatar turned him down. The US
Speaker 2: then let Saudi Arabia and the UAE block Qatar, and
Speaker 2: they very nearly invaded. Secretary Tillerson tried to stop them
Speaker 2: and defend Qatar, where the US is a major military base,
Speaker 2: but Kushner intervened against Katar. Katari officials told us at
Speaker 2: the time they understood it all to be paid back
Speaker 2: for not making the investment, and said if they'd have
Speaker 2: known the consequences, they would have just paid it. Clearly,
Speaker 2: they've learned from last time, and that's where you are.
Speaker 2: It is like, you know, it's very clear he's for
Speaker 2: sale to the highest bidder. So they're like, okay, you
Speaker 2: have this. He's always had this fixation on Air Force
Speaker 2: one and wanting a new Air Force one and upgrading
Speaker 2: Air Force one blah blah blah. So they picked up
Speaker 2: on this and they're like, okay, well we can play
Speaker 2: that game too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Trump put out a truth social on it as well,
Speaker 5: and yeah, it's just completely the word is shameless, so
Speaker 5: he says, So the fact that the Defense Department is
Speaker 5: getting a.
Speaker 3: Gift free of charge of a seven.
Speaker 5: Forty seven aircraft to replace the forty year old Air
Speaker 5: Force one temporarily in a very public and transparent transaction,
Speaker 5: so bothers the crooked Democrats if they insist we pay
Speaker 5: top dollar for the plane.
Speaker 4: Anybody can do that.
Speaker 3: The Dems are.
Speaker 4: World class losers Mega Crystal.
Speaker 5: So this introduces an interesting question, which is, to his point,
Speaker 5: they are so shameless about this. We are just seeing
Speaker 5: it transpire completely nakedly in public. So maybe there's a
Speaker 5: benefit in a weird way to trump Ism, which is
Speaker 5: literally just we are treating Jeremy just said this.
Speaker 4: Actually we had them on.
Speaker 5: We're treating the American government as a business, and we're
Speaker 5: doing it out in the open ways that other presidents
Speaker 5: had it previously done it. So I guess it's a
Speaker 5: on another level of like just money going back and forth.
Speaker 5: But b at least we get some more insights into
Speaker 5: it as it happens.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I can't get on board with classes half full.
Speaker 2: There are solatives of the American presidency being for sale
Speaker 2: to the highest bidder, I mean, and that's that, truly
Speaker 2: is what it is. And I think, you know, to
Speaker 2: zoom out to the matter perspective, because you see these things,
Speaker 2: you see this, you see I will never get over
Speaker 2: the Trump crypto coin and the way that that is
Speaker 2: just a direct pipeline for bribery, and it has already
Speaker 2: been utilized. We don't even know by how many people
Speaker 2: and to what ends. We have no clue. So to
Speaker 2: the point about you know, oh, at least it's transparent,
Speaker 2: it's not transparent. We know that the vast majority of
Speaker 2: the largest purchasers of Trump shit coin are foreign nationals.
Speaker 2: We have no idea who they are, what they want,
Speaker 2: or what they're going to ask for when they get
Speaker 2: their little private dinner with him. We know that some
Speaker 2: people who are you know, involved in various crypto scams
Speaker 2: have used that in order to get their enforcements dropped
Speaker 2: against them. So, you know, I think you have such
Speaker 2: a brazen ramping up of outright theft, corruption and bribery
Speaker 2: in this administration, and it can sometimes boggle the mind
Speaker 2: as to why there isn't just this mass public reaction
Speaker 2: against it, because obvious the public is disgusted with corruption.
Speaker 2: And I do think that it's this thing where number one,
Speaker 2: it's just become sort of accepted with Trump, like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's just as hard what it is.
Speaker 3: And number two, because.
Speaker 5: He ran on it, I know the system alone can
Speaker 5: fix it.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Well he ran on the draining the swamp. He did
Speaker 2: not run on I'm going to be the swamp times
Speaker 2: one million. But I think because he just does these
Speaker 2: things out in the open, and because there's so much
Speaker 2: to get outraged about, people get sort of fatigued over
Speaker 2: and it just becomes kind of like baked into the cake.
Speaker 2: I think that's number one with regard to him. But
Speaker 2: number two, I do think because you have this sense
Speaker 2: and reality of a granted much lower level, but still
Speaker 2: significant and outrageous and unacceptable levels of corruption that have
Speaker 2: been endemic in the American government across both parties for
Speaker 2: so long, it's hard to it's hard to make plane
Speaker 2: how much of a different scale we're talking about here.
Speaker 2: You know, even if you consider what I think, are
Speaker 2: you know, some of the most grotesque abuses, like the
Speaker 2: insider trading of Nancy Pelosi and things of that nature,
Speaker 2: that cannot come close to getting a direct four hundred
Speaker 2: million dollar gift from a foreign government. It doesn't come
Speaker 2: close to getting literally billions. I mean, I saw the recently,
Speaker 2: a huge percentage of Trump's net worth is now because
Speaker 2: of his crypto coin, which is just about.
Speaker 3: Yes, overt bribery. It's a huge chunk in history.
Speaker 2: There is nothing that compares to this level of corruption.
Speaker 2: But when you have, you know, so much corruption that
Speaker 2: was already endemic to the American presidency and American politics,
Speaker 2: with the floodgates being opened under Citizens United, and how
Speaker 2: big money flows and courses through the veins of our
Speaker 2: political system, I think it becomes very difficult for people
Speaker 2: to really wrap their minds around how much of a
Speaker 2: different scale we're talking about here with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I mean I think that's true.
Speaker 5: And I was I was sort of being tongue in
Speaker 5: cheek earlier, so forgive me for that. I mean, it
Speaker 5: is with Trump kind of interesting to see his justification
Speaker 5: for these things as they happen, that he is merely
Speaker 5: getting the Trump plane or he's merely getting the plane
Speaker 5: back when Boeing couldn't, you know, make all of the
Speaker 5: necessary improvesment. By the way, the right answer to that
Speaker 5: is to make Boeing get.
Speaker 4: Its shit together.
Speaker 5: Rank you have all of the le as Trump would say,
Speaker 5: you have the cards, make Boeing get its shit together.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean, I think with him it's easy
Speaker 5: to I guess, forget that he can say these things
Speaker 5: are transparent.
Speaker 4: What we do not know is what's happening behind closed doors.
Speaker 5: So Ryan putting out that point about the Kustner family
Speaker 5: and Rex Tillerson, A lot of that is known in
Speaker 5: retrospect after the first Trump administration. A lot of the
Speaker 5: like even the broad contours of that, we understand post presidency.
Speaker 5: There's always there are always things happening that we don't
Speaker 5: know about. And right now Donald Trump is going to
Speaker 5: the Middle East. He's attempting to brokers cease fire, he's
Speaker 5: attempting to calm tensions. But what how you get from
Speaker 5: point A to point B. We would be foolish to
Speaker 5: think that we know everything. Yeah, is being negotiated with
Speaker 5: Cutter and with other countries that also may be engaged
Speaker 5: in soft levels.
Speaker 3: Of corruption, you know.
Speaker 4: And by the way, I don't know that.
Speaker 5: This will actually be called illegal, Like I don't know
Speaker 5: that this will I'm sure it'll be challenged in court. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't know that they'll actually I think I think
Speaker 5: they have found a pretty good loophole here legally, but
Speaker 5: it's obviously on its face corrupt, so something not technically
Speaker 5: being against. There are things all the time, like actually
Speaker 5: a lot of the stock trades that happen you just mentioned,
Speaker 5: Nancy Pelosi. Ye, a lot of the stuff. Sometimes they
Speaker 5: don't comply with the law. But a lot of this
Speaker 5: stuff actually is compliant with the law. They're trading and
Speaker 5: they just close it, but it's still completely unethical.
Speaker 2: Well, the Supreme Court has made it basically so that
Speaker 2: you know, corruption or bribery literally has to be like
Speaker 2: I am taking this bag of money from you in
Speaker 2: exchange for this thing which I then actually accomplished. I mean,
Speaker 2: they have narrowed it extraord narrowly so that you know,
Speaker 2: the general baseline level of corruption in DC is wildly
Speaker 2: unethical to your point, yes, but much of it not illegal.
Speaker 3: And so in terms of.
Speaker 2: How the courts will view this, particularly that I have
Speaker 2: no idea, you know, I haven't read any legal analyzes
Speaker 2: of what direction they could go in with this, but
Speaker 2: I think it's important to think about why the monument's
Speaker 2: clause is in the Constitution, and it's because listen, zooming
Speaker 2: out from look, it may end up that the four
Speaker 2: hundred million dollar plane here actually helps secure a better
Speaker 2: deal for you know, the Palestinians and ends in a
Speaker 2: place where I'm glad that they you know, that the
Speaker 2: thumb was put on the scale in that direction, that
Speaker 2: there were a long way from that.
Speaker 5: But as opposed to Democrats taking a bunch of money
Speaker 5: from APAC and then pretending that they well.
Speaker 2: He's got on the other side, he's got Maria Maddilson
Speaker 2: giving him one hundred million dollars. So maybe the four
Speaker 2: hundred million dollar plane you know comes out in the back.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'm just saying, zoom out from
Speaker 2: these particular details. You don't want an American president to
Speaker 2: be operating foreign policy based on what is in their
Speaker 2: own personal financial interests.
Speaker 3: The ideal here is.
Speaker 2: That you want them to be representing the interests of
Speaker 2: the country, not the interest of their own bank account.
Speaker 2: And with Trump, this has always been a problem because
Speaker 2: his business obviously has tentacles all around the world. You
Speaker 2: raise the element here of they just did a business
Speaker 2: deal in Qatar as well. He's got the Saudi Live
Speaker 2: golf deal, real estate developments all over the place, Gozla.
Speaker 4: He wants to be a real estate film apparently.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the level of foreign entanglements with this president has
Speaker 2: always been extraordinary, always really truly been unprecedented, I think
Speaker 2: in American history. I don't think there's any parallel that
Speaker 2: you could really point to with this. And now you
Speaker 2: layer on top of that just these totally outright brazen
Speaker 2: bribery schemes and Trump one point zero. You had the
Speaker 2: Trump Hotel, and the way to get in his good
Speaker 2: graces here in DC was to come with your foreign
Speaker 2: delegation and book a large block of rooms and spend
Speaker 2: wildly and lavishly at Trump Hotel. That was your way
Speaker 2: to signal you know that you are helping him out
Speaker 2: personally and financially with the crypto coin. And then this
Speaker 2: just like brazen Freere's four hundred million dollar luxury palace
Speaker 2: in the skyplane that we know that you'd be really
Speaker 2: excited about. Those things are you know, are just on
Speaker 2: steroids in a way that we could not have possibly imagined.
Speaker 2: And you can never know when he's making decisions. Are
Speaker 2: these actually the decisions he thinks are good for the
Speaker 2: American people in American interests and good for you know, whatever
Speaker 2: goals we would want to establish, or is this just
Speaker 2: about who came in as the highest bidder.
Speaker 5: Well, and it's also not about money like this is
Speaker 5: it shouldn't be about money. Foreign policy shouldn't just be
Speaker 5: about money, obviously, And that's another problem with this is,
Speaker 5: you know, the blend in his truth social post I
Speaker 5: think is genuinely a very interesting glimpse into how he
Speaker 5: views these things. It is this Trumpian pragmatism, which is
Speaker 5: that it's not corruption. It's this pragmatic way to get
Speaker 5: around Boeing and do what's in the best interests of
Speaker 5: the United States, And how could you possibly be upset
Speaker 5: about that? But it's not just about getting a new plane.
Speaker 5: It's about what Katar thinks it's getting for giving you
Speaker 5: the new plane.
Speaker 4: And that's why.
Speaker 5: We talked about this on the show last week. The
Speaker 5: problem with conflicts of interest, which we cover here all
Speaker 5: the time, whether it's Republicans or Democrats, is the appearance
Speaker 5: of the conflict of interest. It is not merely whether
Speaker 5: someone acts in a way.
Speaker 4: That exposes their conflict.
Speaker 5: It's actually this is what the United States for a
Speaker 5: long time was at least slightly better than some other
Speaker 5: countries and actually cracking down on the appearance of conflict
Speaker 5: of interest.
Speaker 4: And by the way, I said slightly better, that's the bar.
Speaker 5: And global politics for this is low, such as the
Speaker 5: nature of humanity. But we used to take that much
Speaker 5: more seriously, and now there's just a complete shamelessness to it,
Speaker 5: at least around Trump. And I mean I hope that
Speaker 5: Democrats being scandalized by this, and even like the Center
Speaker 5: and everyone basically being scandalized.
Speaker 3: By this, scandalized by this, as it.
Speaker 5: Would be consistent and so I hope people being scandalized
Speaker 5: by this. It means that in the post Trump era
Speaker 5: we go back to being scandalized by these things in general,
Speaker 5: because it really is the appearance that gives other countries
Speaker 5: the idea that maybe something happened, that he can be bought,
Speaker 5: that the United States can be bought. That in and
Speaker 5: of itself, just the appearance of it, whether or not
Speaker 5: he actually acts in their interest.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously.
Speaker 3: It's worse if he does.
Speaker 5: But the appearance in and of itself is part of
Speaker 5: the problem here, because it erodes the reputation of the
Speaker 5: United States, and it erods the credibility of whatever deal
Speaker 5: is ultimately.
Speaker 3: Reached, and that's the sort of long term damage.
Speaker 2: Obviously, I'm worried about the immediate damage with the terump presidency,
Speaker 2: but I also am worried about the long term damage
Speaker 2: because typically when these things get put on the table,
Speaker 2: then you don't walk back from it. Like what president
Speaker 2: future president Republican or Democrat, is going to look at
Speaker 2: the opportunity to become massively wealthy and you know, take
Speaker 2: these sorts of bribes from foreign countries and is going
Speaker 2: to turn away from that? Talking about people who are
Speaker 2: you know, extraordinarily ambitious and power hungry who ascend to
Speaker 2: those levels. So I think that post Trump, I think
Speaker 2: it's going to take more than just a sort of
Speaker 2: return of norms. I think you're gonna have to codify.
Speaker 2: You're going to have to have some new laws. Like
Speaker 2: you know, post Watergate, post Nixon, there was a rash
Speaker 2: of legislation that was meant to ensure okay, we're not
Speaker 2: doing that again.
Speaker 3: We need to return to good governance.
Speaker 2: Some of that was campaign finance reform, by the way,
Speaker 2: that has been completely destroyed and decimated by this point.
Speaker 2: But you're going to need some actual like legal teeth
Speaker 2: and legislation to put this toothbasse back in the tube.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I think that's right.
Speaker 5: I think we saw that with Joe Biden refusing to
Speaker 5: acknowledge his mental capacity after Trump won, and a lot
Speaker 5: of establishment Democrats helping him cover up the state of
Speaker 5: his health no matter what they say now. I think
Speaker 5: a lot of it was because of the first Trump administration, which,
Speaker 5: by the way, we have technowledge in and of itself.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump was elected because of in part Clinton corruption,
Speaker 5: because people were so discussed by Clinton corruption, So we
Speaker 5: can keep pulling back the layers on this, but there
Speaker 5: has never been. I mean, Clinton Foundation, I think was
Speaker 5: utterly egregious. I think Joe Biden's part in the Hunter
Speaker 5: Biden and Frank Biden and James Biden and Valerie Biden
Speaker 5: lobbying scheme was grotesque. I think it was undercovered. All
Speaker 5: of that is true, but on the scale of what's
Speaker 5: happening with Donald Trump. You mentioned the net worth. I
Speaker 5: looked it up while we were talking to CBS reported
Speaker 5: on it. This is a normal Eisen Richard Painter thing
Speaker 5: from a sort of left of center nonprofits. So take
Speaker 5: that for what you will. But they estimate the Trump
Speaker 5: families networth has increased by two point nine billion because
Speaker 5: of the crypto holdings, and that represents about forty percent
Speaker 5: of Trump's networth. Forty percent of his net worth, imagine.
Speaker 5: So this is a man who has spent decades in business.
Speaker 5: These meme coins lost launched in January. We're five months
Speaker 5: in and forty percent of his net worth is now
Speaker 5: tied up in those meme coins.
Speaker 2: Is remarkable, tells remarkable, tells you everything right there.
Speaker 3: That's statistic