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 4: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 5: All right, Good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. Saga
Speaker 5: is out today. Emily couldn't be here and so here
Speaker 5: I am joined by Crystal Ball.
Speaker 3: Crystal, how are you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm doing good.
Speaker 1: Little lefty takeover of Breaking Points appropriate.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're going to talk about the DNC, and so
Speaker 5: I think people will benefit from the lefty takeover.
Speaker 1: I mean, lefty takeover, in my opinion, is always appropriate.
Speaker 1: That's always the right move.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, as you mentioned, we're going to do a bunch
Speaker 1: of promoing of the DNZ or previewing of the DNZ.
Speaker 1: We're actually going to be on the ground, all of
Speaker 1: us there. It's part of why we wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure Saga rested it up. He is ready for that
Speaker 1: trip and We've got a bunch of new polls we're
Speaker 1: going to dig into from some interesting states and some
Speaker 1: Tim Wall's approval ratings. We want to take a look
Speaker 1: at see how he's doing with the people. We have
Speaker 1: both candidates talking about the economy. Kamala Harris issuing her
Speaker 1: very first policy pronouncements expected what is that happening Friday?
Speaker 4: I think she's given that speech.
Speaker 5: That sounds right, Yeah, first one. That's not a reversal
Speaker 5: of her past positions exactly.
Speaker 1: She's gone from backtracking to now we may actually lay
Speaker 1: some groundwork in terms of what she might actually do.
Speaker 1: We've got some grumblings from the right, including Megan Kelly
Speaker 1: and Candice Owen's about Trump and his team and how
Speaker 1: his campaign is going. We've got the media deciding not
Speaker 1: to publish any of the hacked Trump campaign documents obviously
Speaker 1: start contrast with how they handled twenty sixteen. So I'm
Speaker 1: particularly interested to hear Ryan's perspective on that. We've got
Speaker 1: Maddi Hothlan coming in. He's got a documentary about the
Speaker 1: absolute horrors that are being perpetrated in Gaza, so looking
Speaker 1: forward to speaking with him about that. And Ryan's we
Speaker 1: got a little Ryan Special. He's taken a look at
Speaker 1: MDMA therapy set had a major setback at the FTA.
Speaker 1: And you've got two different experts coming in to talk
Speaker 1: about this, right Ryan.
Speaker 5: Yes, both of them actually have been heavily involved in
Speaker 5: the decision that the FDA released recently not to move
Speaker 5: forward with legalizing it for medical purposes. So kind of
Speaker 5: a mess complicated, and we'll talk to them. They disagree
Speaker 5: pretty strongly about which direction ago, and both of them
Speaker 5: played a kind of leading role.
Speaker 3: In this mess.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because they're both advocates for the therapy,
Speaker 1: but they had very different views about what they wanted
Speaker 1: the federal government approach to be. So I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to watching that one personally and hearing what the different
Speaker 1: perspectives are there. But let's go ahead and get to
Speaker 1: the first block here. As we mentioned, the DNC is
Speaker 1: starting next week. It's easy to forget because everything just
Speaker 1: happened so fast, and it feels like a million years
Speaker 1: ago at this point that Joe by and dropped out
Speaker 1: of the race. But this is quite an unusual situation
Speaker 1: where you know, just a couple of months ago, we
Speaker 1: thought it was going to be a different guy who
Speaker 1: was being coordinated at the DNC. Now we've got Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris and Tim Walls as I mentioned before, and can
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. All four of us
Speaker 1: are going to be on the ground in Chicago there
Speaker 1: we are look at that exciting group of people. So
Speaker 1: just so you guys know the timing of the shows,
Speaker 1: because you know, most of the action of the DNC
Speaker 1: is in the evening, so timing of the shows and
Speaker 1: the structure of the shows all that's going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit different next week. But as always, if
Speaker 1: you are able to support us, you know, these sorts
Speaker 1: of things are expensive, but I think also add a
Speaker 1: lot to what you guys get out of the product
Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com if you can become a premium subscriber.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and take a look at what we
Speaker 1: are expecting there. In terms of the speaker lineup, we
Speaker 1: can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 4: From NBC News.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, former President's Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, former Secretary
Speaker 1: of State Hillary Clinton all confirmed as speakers. You're also
Speaker 1: going to have President Jimmy Carter's grandson Jason Carter, who's
Speaker 1: going to be confirmed to be speaking as a representative
Speaker 1: for his grandfather. I know you've also got you know,
Speaker 1: Pete Boutagig and some of the other sort of leading
Speaker 1: luminaries of the Democratic Party that are going to be
Speaker 1: there and have speaking slots as well. And we got
Speaker 1: a little bit of a preview of what the speaker
Speaker 1: lineup is going to be in terms of their order.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: This is kind of noteworthy because they've got Joe Biden
Speaker 1: buried in a not so great speaking slot time on Monday.
Speaker 1: Actually Hillary Clinton got a better speaking slot than he did.
Speaker 1: Then you've got Obama on Tuesday, former President Bill Clinton Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris Thursday, Walls Wednesday as per customs. So that's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a sketch of what we're looking
Speaker 1: at for next week.
Speaker 5: Ran And the controversy that the kind of White House
Speaker 5: Press Corps is trying to gin up a little bit
Speaker 5: is is about whether or not Biden is going to
Speaker 5: actually stay for the convention, and it appears that he's
Speaker 5: not like that. Those are the indications that we're getting
Speaker 5: so far that he's going to give a probably a
Speaker 5: pretty short speech Monday and then take his ball and
Speaker 5: go back to Washington and continue being the president for
Speaker 5: another couple couple of months. They're also jetting up this
Speaker 5: controversy between Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, like have these
Speaker 5: long term friends have they fallen out over? You know,
Speaker 5: Nancy Pelosi leading this this kind of soft coup to
Speaker 5: get this guy off the ticket. And as I've been
Speaker 5: following this, I've been thinking, are we supposed to really
Speaker 5: care whether or not these two people in their mid
Speaker 5: eighties are going.
Speaker 4: To be friends for the rest.
Speaker 3: Of their lives.
Speaker 5: But more fundamentally, Biden doesn't really have a base, which
Speaker 5: is exposed by this whole contra whole non non controversy,
Speaker 5: Like he never developed like a Bernie Sanders style following
Speaker 5: or an Obama style following over the course of his career,
Speaker 5: such that if he gets slighted by a speaking gig
Speaker 5: on Monday, all the Bidens are going to be furious
Speaker 5: about it. Biden was always just a stand in for
Speaker 5: the party, and that's what he was as president, And
Speaker 5: now that he's no longer kind of connected to the party,
Speaker 5: I don't think there's going to be anybody who's willing
Speaker 5: to even be like publicly upset about the fact that
Speaker 5: he's getting snubbed.
Speaker 1: Not at all, not at all, And you alluded to
Speaker 1: the palace intrigue. We can put this up on the screen,
Speaker 1: this tear sheet, that's what you're talking about. So you've
Speaker 1: got Joe Biden set to snub Barack Obama and Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris speeches at the DNC. And you know, is it
Speaker 1: a snub or is he an old man who doesn't
Speaker 1: really want to be there the whole time?
Speaker 4: While I mean, I wouldn't write, I wouldn't want to
Speaker 4: be the whole time. This was supposed to be your party.
Speaker 4: It's no longer your party.
Speaker 3: You can't yes if you have any pride whatsoever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean on a personal level.
Speaker 1: And so I do find the the Nancy Pelosi Biden thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I find her interesting as a character, the
Speaker 1: way she clearly is the one person the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: really understands and is willing to wield power. And then
Speaker 1: the tense, strange relationship between Biden and Obama has also
Speaker 1: always been interesting because of their very contrasting political styles.
Speaker 1: Biden always had this sort of chip on his shoulder
Speaker 1: about you know, Obama looking down his nose at him.
Speaker 1: Here's Obama, the Ivy League educated blah blah blah, professorial
Speaker 1: do like getting his hands dirty and the rough and
Speaker 1: tumble of politics. Joe Biden polar opposite. You know, his
Speaker 1: thing was always having the relationships and getting in there
Speaker 1: and glad handling and all of that sort of stuff. So,
Speaker 1: but I think you're right about the about how much
Speaker 1: the media fixates on this sort of thing versus, you know,
Speaker 1: any of the more substance of questions, which we're going
Speaker 1: to get to later about the policy and what any
Speaker 1: of this actually means and what any of these candidates
Speaker 1: are actually promising the American people. We can go ahead
Speaker 1: and put this next piece up on the screen here,
Speaker 1: which gives some more intel about what the week is
Speaker 1: going to look like. This is kind of an attempt
Speaker 1: at a show of force here, Harrison Walls planning a
Speaker 1: rally in Milwaukee at the very same spot that Trump
Speaker 1: recently held a rally, and they're going to do it
Speaker 1: during the Democratic Convention, so not during the primetime speeches.
Speaker 1: But this is an attempt to show, hey, we can
Speaker 1: put on two big events at the same time. We've
Speaker 1: got so much enthusiasm that we can not only pack
Speaker 1: the House, of course at the DNC, but we can
Speaker 1: pack the house at this large arena that Trump was
Speaker 1: just speaking at, so trying to make sort of a
Speaker 1: point about how big and popular the campaign is at
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 5: Right and at the same time, we can put up
Speaker 5: this next element. Organizers are expecting upwards of one hundred
Speaker 5: thousand Propouseitian protesters to show up at the DNC, which
Speaker 5: if they can actually deliver on that number, and I
Speaker 5: suspect that they may be able to, I know personally
Speaker 5: have a lot of people who are planning ongoing, that's
Speaker 5: going to be an incredible show force. And it's truly
Speaker 5: remarkable that that it's coinciding with these ceasefire talks that
Speaker 5: are getting underway and Cairo and Doha, you know today,
Speaker 5: like just as we speak, the mediators are getting together
Speaker 5: and everybody just trying to push Israel to accept the
Speaker 5: deal that Israel already accepted. And we talked about this
Speaker 5: on the show yesterday, but Iran is basically publicly saying
Speaker 5: that if Israel will cut a ceasefire deal, basically accept
Speaker 5: the deal they already put forward, then Iran will not
Speaker 5: retaliate against them. So they have they could have a
Speaker 5: ceasefire deal with hamas they could avert a strike from Iran,
Speaker 5: and all they have to do is agree to the
Speaker 5: deal they already agreed to. And it's all happening while
Speaker 5: the Democratic Convention is unfolding amid a backdrop of potentially
Speaker 5: one hundred thousand people in the streets, and yet everybody
Speaker 5: seems to think that Israel is going to say no
Speaker 5: to this deal. Do you have any optimism that next
Speaker 5: week we'll be talking about the implementation of a coming
Speaker 5: cease fire deal.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I think you'd be a fool at
Speaker 1: this point, given how many times we've been to this show,
Speaker 1: to have real significant optimism here and listen, if it's
Speaker 1: left in the hands of bb Net Yahoo, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's any doubt what direction we're going. And the
Speaker 1: only thing that could change that is if Joe Biden
Speaker 1: actually decided, Hey, we're going to basically force you to
Speaker 1: take this and by using the leverage that we have,
Speaker 1: and of course there's zero indication that he's willing to
Speaker 1: do anything other than you know, once again leaked to
Speaker 1: Barock revied how upset he is about how they're going, Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's the most that we could expect. But
Speaker 1: the polling is also at this point really quite clear.
Speaker 1: We have medi jasad On later in his outfit Zeteo,
Speaker 1: they did some polling showing that this is a significant
Speaker 1: electoral issue for quite a large chunk of Democrats and
Speaker 1: independence and that there is nothing but political benefit to
Speaker 1: be gained from actually obtaining and achieving a ceasefire. You know,
Speaker 1: bb obviously he not only wants to run out of
Speaker 1: the clock, he wants to drag us into this larger war,
Speaker 1: which is something he's wanted, you know, is to get
Speaker 1: us more directly involved in some direct conflict with the
Speaker 1: run for a long time. That would be a disaster
Speaker 1: on every level, on a humanitarian level, on an American
Speaker 1: political interest level, it would be a disaster for Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris's campaign on a political level. Those are all and
Speaker 1: those are all things that he, you know, he hopes for.
Speaker 1: He wants Trump to be back in the White House.
Speaker 1: So if it's bad news for Joe Biden, the Democrats,
Speaker 1: and Kamala Harris, that's a positive thing for BB net Yahoo.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the only way that I think that we're
Speaker 1: talking about the implementation of a ceasfire deal and what
Speaker 1: comes after and what you know, the potential prospects for
Speaker 1: a longer term, more lasting and just peace might be
Speaker 1: is if Biden actually had some sort of you know,
Speaker 1: awakening and decided to use leverage in a way that
Speaker 1: there is just no indication. But if you're Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, whatever leverage she have, which I don't has,
Speaker 1: which I don't think she has much power in that
Speaker 1: White House. I don't think she's ever had much power
Speaker 1: in that White House. The best thing she could do
Speaker 1: politically for herself would be to press and push Joe
Speaker 1: Biden and his team to put that kind of pressure
Speaker 1: on NETANYAHUO to achieve the ceasefire deal, because those protesters, will,
Speaker 1: you know, are a visible reminder of one of the
Speaker 1: biggest political problems that she that she has and one
Speaker 1: of the most difficult situations that she has to resolve. Because,
Speaker 1: you know, Ryan, I'm curious your thoughts on this. I
Speaker 1: was on Majority Report last week and Sam was asking
Speaker 1: me this question of Okay, but you know, she's the
Speaker 1: vice president, like, how far can she really distance herself
Speaker 1: from Joe Biden. Doesn't she just kind of have to
Speaker 1: do this, like wink and a nod that I promise guys,
Speaker 1: I'll be different and send out some you know, Ben
Speaker 1: Rhodes onto Chris Hayes's show, to signal like, no, no, guys,
Speaker 1: She's really going to be different if she gets in there.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's true or do you think there's
Speaker 1: more room for her to separate herself from this monstrous
Speaker 1: genocidal policy of Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: I think there's such different people that there is at
Speaker 5: least an opportunity, And I think people did understand how
Speaker 5: powerless she was, which the paradoxically creates an opening for
Speaker 5: her to start flexing some power. Now we actually put
Speaker 5: up this next element which is related to this. This
Speaker 5: is about the parallel, the shocking parallels that a lot
Speaker 5: of people have identified between nineteen sixty eight the convention
Speaker 5: in Chicago that devolved into anti Vietnam War protests and
Speaker 5: a police riot and this year.
Speaker 3: A key lesson from nineteen.
Speaker 5: Sixty eight that a lot of people have kind of
Speaker 5: missed is that privately, Hubert Humphrey, who was Johnson's vice
Speaker 5: president and was coordinated at Chicago without basically a primary,
Speaker 5: was against the Vietnam War wanted to end it. But
Speaker 5: was unwilling to kind of buck Johnson, and so went
Speaker 5: into the election this hobbled candidate who who was seen
Speaker 5: by the public as just you know, continuing to pursue
Speaker 5: the Johnson policy and not having his own path towards peace.
Speaker 5: Under pressure from the protests, he eventually said that he
Speaker 5: would propose, you know, a halt to the bombing. Johnson
Speaker 5: then got mad at him about that and said it
Speaker 5: was undermining his negotiations with the viet Cong. Kissinger and
Speaker 5: Nixon then back channeled in a genuinely treasonous way to
Speaker 5: the viet Cong and urged them not to cut a
Speaker 5: peace deal because they would get a better deal. You know,
Speaker 5: if Nixon won in nineteen sixty eight, that not only
Speaker 5: was that treason and cost the lives of you know,
Speaker 5: many Vietnamese and Americans, it was a lie, like they
Speaker 5: did not get a better deal. War went on for
Speaker 5: many years. So I was expecting perhaps a replay of that.
Speaker 5: Trump is very much a Nixon kind of acolyte. Yet,
Speaker 5: speaking of Barack revied. He reported for Axios that Trump
Speaker 5: and I don't know if you saw this, had a
Speaker 5: call with Nan Yahoo Oldham, Buddy, you need to take
Speaker 5: this deal. So even the Trump administration, which presumably would
Speaker 5: benefit or the Trump sorry, the Trump campaign hope, which
Speaker 5: hopes to be a Trump administration again, which would benefit
Speaker 5: from BB rejecting the ceasefire deal, even they are pushing him,
Speaker 5: which suggests that there's some structural interest that the US
Speaker 5: has that is diverging from Israel's at this point, which
Speaker 5: is the one thing that gives me some optimism that
Speaker 5: perhaps this is going to move forward, because at the
Speaker 5: end of the day, Israel is a tiny country, and
Speaker 5: it is a client of the United States, and the
Speaker 5: United States has major interests that it may feel are
Speaker 5: being undermined, and it may see and it may believe
Speaker 5: that Iran, China, and Russia are all objectively becoming more
Speaker 5: powerful as a result of this flailing that we're doing
Speaker 5: in the region.
Speaker 1: I don't think there can be any doubt about that.
Speaker 1: And it is interesting. I wonder with Trump too. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's also looking at this and saying, I don't really
Speaker 1: want to inherit this mess if I'm back in the
Speaker 1: White House either. But I'm sure the calculus for BIBE
Speaker 1: has always been all right, let me just muddle through
Speaker 1: and get to potential Donald Trump White House, and then
Speaker 1: I can really do whatever I want and face absolutely
Speaker 1: no even like handwringing or leaks to the process, et cetera.
Speaker 1: So I do wonder if that significantly changes his calculation,
Speaker 1: if he sees, okay, even this guy who's supposed to
Speaker 1: be my guy, even he is ready for this to
Speaker 1: get wrapped up. So potentially a little bit of hope
Speaker 1: there go ahead, Ryan No just.
Speaker 5: And the funny element there, the interpersonal element. Trump is
Speaker 5: still mad at net Yahoo for congratulating Biden on his
Speaker 5: bun venture.
Speaker 3: So petty like.
Speaker 5: Bibe didn't stop the steal, and so he's going to
Speaker 5: pay for the rest of his life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, incredible, incredible stuff.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: The funny thing about that op ed that we put
Speaker 1: up from the Washington Post about the nineteen sixty eight parallels,
Speaker 1: of which there truly are many, is, of course the
Speaker 1: conclusion is, that's why the protesters should back down. That's
Speaker 1: why the protesters shouldn't be pressing you know, Biden or Harris,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Instead of that's why Biden needs to push
Speaker 1: to get a cease fire deal. That's why we need
Speaker 1: to bring this outrageous, immoral you know, genocide to a
Speaker 1: close and move beyond this instead. It's all on you know,
Speaker 1: these relatively powerless protesters who are objecting to the absolutely
Speaker 1: horrific images that they're seeing in their social media feeds
Speaker 1: every day. So perfect Washington Post ending there. One last
Speaker 1: piece here with the DNC coming up, We've got a
Speaker 1: little bit of a chart analyzing the Democratic Party vibes,
Speaker 1: the all important vibes heading into the DNC. So this
Speaker 1: is just among Democrats. It's from civics and they ask people,
Speaker 1: how are you feeling about the way things are going
Speaker 1: in the US today? And you can see when Biden
Speaker 1: exits the presidential race, the number that feels hopeful just
Speaker 1: absolutely skyrockets jumps up.
Speaker 4: That's that blue line there to thirty four percent.
Speaker 1: The number that says the percent that says that they're
Speaker 1: scared really drops down, Angry drops down.
Speaker 4: Excited jumps up a bit.
Speaker 1: So they definitely, you know, putting aside genocide, they come
Speaker 1: in with the vibes, Ryan, they come in with much
Speaker 1: better vibes than they did previously.
Speaker 3: They sure do.
Speaker 5: And pretty hard to see a vibe shift like that
Speaker 5: that isn't drug induced, that's just reality making that line
Speaker 5: spike really quite incredible.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, all right, so can they keep those vibes
Speaker 1: going and is it enough? Let's take a look at
Speaker 1: the latest bowls that we have. This is from Cook
Speaker 1: Political Report. They did a big survey of all the
Speaker 1: battleground states and the news is really quite good for
Speaker 1: Kamal Aras. If you can keep this up on the screen, guy,
Speaker 1: so I can talk through it. So overall, if you've
Speaker 1: put together all of these battleground states, which by the
Speaker 1: way includes North Carolina and of course includes Arizona and Georgia. Previously,
Speaker 1: when it was Biden, Trump was up in these states
Speaker 1: by five points. Now if you put them all together,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris is up by two points, so significant shift,
Speaker 1: and it's reflected in all of these states. In fact,
Speaker 1: the only state where Trump remains in the lead is Nevada. Now,
Speaker 1: previously he was in the lead by eight points in Nevada.
Speaker 1: This survey shows him up by five points. The next
Speaker 1: closest You've got Georgia tiede Previously that was Trump plus four.
Speaker 4: But actually this survey has.
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris winning in North Carolina, a state where when
Speaker 1: it was Joe Biden it.
Speaker 4: Was Trump plus eight.
Speaker 1: This is all the numbers I'm giving you right now
Speaker 1: are the ones that include the third party candidates, which
Speaker 1: you know tend to be the most reflectible. Though you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of work being done to try to
Speaker 1: kick RFK Junior and Jill Stein and Cornell West off
Speaker 1: of some of these ballots. However, you know, the movement
Speaker 1: Ryan is pretty undeniable here, especially when you you know,
Speaker 1: it's difficult to say, Okay, isn't exactly this number, but
Speaker 1: this is the same they done with the same methodology,
Speaker 1: and you just see an extraordinary shift in basically the
Speaker 1: blink of an eye in terms of political time, from
Speaker 1: Joe Biden losing badly to Donald Trump to now Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris having an edge.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It basically, I think what's going on here is that,
Speaker 5: as we saw in every special election and in every
Speaker 5: election that's happened since roeby Wade was overturned, the country
Speaker 5: is leaning democratic like that. That's just the baseline fact.
Speaker 5: The only thing holding Democrats back from that becoming the
Speaker 5: manifest reality in this election was the presence of Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: Generic Democrat was always beating Trump. They swapped in two
Speaker 5: generic Democrats for the price of one, and then he's
Speaker 5: beating Trump like I think, and they're beating Trump like that.
Speaker 5: It really seems to me quite that simple. It's a
Speaker 5: reversion to the mean, and the mean was Democrats up
Speaker 5: by a couple points, closely divided country but leaning in
Speaker 5: their direction post row.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we saw that when it was Biden. That
Speaker 1: really showed up in the fact that every swing state
Speaker 1: Senate Democrat was winning.
Speaker 6: All of them.
Speaker 1: They were all outperforming Joe Biden by quite a fair amount.
Speaker 1: Whether they were more liberal or conservative or moderate, or
Speaker 1: what their personal characteristics or political talent was, every single
Speaker 1: one of them was significantly outperforming Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: As you said, you know, in.
Speaker 1: Special election after special election, we were seeing very similar results.
Speaker 1: I do want to mention there was a Fox News
Speaker 1: poll that came out last night after we put the
Speaker 1: show together. It's the first poll in quite a while
Speaker 1: that shows Trump with any sort of a lead. It's
Speaker 1: gives them a one point edge nationally over Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: and actually looks very similar to what the landscape looked
Speaker 1: like in that one pole from when Joe Biden was
Speaker 1: in the race. So I'm sure the Trump campaign is
Speaker 1: going to be happy to see that one from the
Speaker 1: Fox News poll, which is a highly rated polster. By
Speaker 1: the way, I mean, they're conservative lean in terms of
Speaker 1: their content, doesn't seem to carry over in terms of
Speaker 1: having a consistent conservative.
Speaker 4: Bias in terms they're polling.
Speaker 1: But you know, CNN dug into some of the numbers
Speaker 1: in the recent polling, and we've been talking about, Okay,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris obviously is she's doing much better with young people,
Speaker 1: she's doing much better with black and brown voters. But surprisingly,
Speaker 1: at least in some of these surveys, she's actually even
Speaker 1: outperforming Joe Biden among a group that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be an area where he was out performing, and that
Speaker 1: was with white working class voters. Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to Harry and and break that down.
Speaker 8: Kamala Harris is making gains and key swing states with
Speaker 8: a surprising and crucial voting group, and Harry Enna is
Speaker 8: here with me to go beyond the numbers. So Harry,
Speaker 8: you know, we know obviously you look at the overall polls,
Speaker 8: you see these swing state poles, the ones over the weekend,
Speaker 8: Sienna did stand out. We'll see if that's really where
Speaker 8: this goes. But you found something very interesting in terms
Speaker 8: of one group that stands.
Speaker 9: Out, white working class voters, white voters without a college street.
Speaker 9: That is Donald Trump's core group. That was the reason
Speaker 9: why he was able to break down that giant blue
Speaker 9: wall Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, in the Great Lakes. And look
Speaker 9: at their support now, for this is where we were
Speaker 9: a few months ago when the matchup was between Johnald
Speaker 9: Trump and Joe Biden. Look, Donald Trump still leads, but
Speaker 9: look at that margin. It has shrunk significantly. It was
Speaker 9: twenty five points back in May. It is now fourteen
Speaker 9: points now here in August nearly been sliced by half.
Speaker 9: Those numbers that Harris is putting up amongst that group
Speaker 9: right now are actually slightly better than Joe Biden did
Speaker 9: four years ago amongst those voters in those key states.
Speaker 9: Those are the types of numbers that Kamala Harris needs
Speaker 9: to put up in order to win. And of course
Speaker 9: Joe Biden was like, I don't want to drop out
Speaker 9: of the race because I'm not sure that Kamala Harris
Speaker 9: can break in with this group.
Speaker 10: But it turns out you absolutely can.
Speaker 1: So that's in the new York Times Sienna polling, which
Speaker 1: is a high quality poll. However, it's always dicey when
Speaker 1: you go into what's called the cross stabs where you
Speaker 1: break down all these different demographic groups, because inherently the
Speaker 1: sample size is going to be a lot smaller, so
Speaker 1: the accuracy is going to be a lot lower. And
Speaker 1: I find it hard to believe that at this point
Speaker 1: she's outperforming Joe Biden's twenty twenty numbers among this group.
Speaker 1: But if it's even in the ball park where she's
Speaker 1: even hanging on to what Joe Biden was doing before,
Speaker 1: given the way she's outperforming with other groups, that's a
Speaker 1: very positive indication for her.
Speaker 5: Right And in general, when you're doing well, you do
Speaker 5: a little bit better with everybody. And so I think that,
Speaker 5: at least directionally, that's what it seems to be reflecting
Speaker 5: here that white working class voters too are like Trump
Speaker 5: is struggling, and this person who's like healthy, you know,
Speaker 5: cognitively together seems like they could actually be president.
Speaker 3: You know, it's early.
Speaker 5: There's still like people say it's a snap election, but
Speaker 5: you know, in France they did the whole thing in
Speaker 5: what two or three weeks. We still have you know,
Speaker 5: all of September and October to go, so a lot
Speaker 5: could change, but you can imagine why Trump is as
Speaker 5: angry as he is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, And I do feel like in the same
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like there is a caricaturish view
Speaker 1: of white working class voters that certainly exists among liberal Democrats,
Speaker 1: but also very much has been picked up and exists
Speaker 1: among Republicans, where they tend to feel like this is
Speaker 1: a sort of low, lowest common denominator group. They tend
Speaker 1: to feel that they can take this group for you know,
Speaker 1: they can take it for granted as well, in a
Speaker 1: way that you know, Democrats decades ago felt And so yeah,
Speaker 1: they're also looking at like, you know, well, this was
Speaker 1: an election between two old guys, neither of whom I'm
Speaker 1: particularly fond of, and now we've got some energy injected
Speaker 1: into the race, and I think Tim Wallas is an
Speaker 1: asset in.
Speaker 4: Terms of his appeal there as well.
Speaker 1: So it wouldn't shock me if at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, Kamala Harris is able to outperform Joe Biden
Speaker 1: even with this group of voters that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be you know, his core appeal as grant and Joe,
Speaker 1: because as you were pointing out before, Ryan, it's not
Speaker 1: like he, Joe Biden, didn't really have a base or
Speaker 1: like a particular appeal among any demographic group, even as
Speaker 1: he himself made you know, his own self conception might
Speaker 1: be middle class Grant and Joe, but the reality is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not the group of voters that got
Speaker 1: him to win the Democratic primary, and it's not really
Speaker 1: what was the core of the reason that he was
Speaker 1: able to barely eke out a victory over Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: It was this sort of anti Trump coalition that you know,
Speaker 1: held together enough to get him across the finish line
Speaker 1: in East keyswing states.
Speaker 5: His lack of a base was in some ways his
Speaker 5: superpower in the sense that because he wasn't connected to
Speaker 5: any particular element of the party, he could just kind
Speaker 5: of move with the political wins. You know, when the
Speaker 5: party was shifting right in the eighties and nineties, he
Speaker 5: shifted right with them. After twenty eighteen, as it shifted
Speaker 5: left with the you know, the whole Bernie Sanders moment,
Speaker 5: he kind of shifts back towards the center a bit,
Speaker 5: and because of that, it made it harder for Republicans
Speaker 5: to kind of attack him as any particular thing, because
Speaker 5: he was no particular thing. A consequence of that, of course,
Speaker 5: is that then you don't have any solid base that
Speaker 5: kind of regrets your exit from the scene, and they're
Speaker 5: willing to just move with kind of whoever else is
Speaker 5: just following the political bras, which is what we seem
Speaker 5: to be having here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly right. So I mentioned Tim Walls.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason potentially he was put on the
Speaker 1: ticket was he's won a number of elections in swing
Speaker 1: districts that are difficult for Democrats in rural areas. You know,
Speaker 1: he himself comes from a small town. He also one
Speaker 1: of the things I've been talking about is Tim Walls
Speaker 1: is an extraordinarily class diverse pick for the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: He's the first Democrat on a presidential ticket not to
Speaker 1: have a legal background since Jimmy Carter. He does not
Speaker 1: own any stocks, bonds, real estate, crypto or anything of
Speaker 1: the sort. He's like, you know, living off his public
Speaker 1: school teacher pension. So he's he's a union member, which
Speaker 1: I know you and Emily talked about yesterday, which also
Speaker 1: makes him quite unique. And there's a sense that he
Speaker 1: has a comfort level talking to a group of voters
Speaker 1: that has become increasingly skeptical of the Democratic Party. We're
Speaker 1: getting a look at his approval ratings as people get
Speaker 1: to know him and you know, process some of the
Speaker 1: Republican attacks on him, see him perform on the stump,
Speaker 1: and see what Democrats are saying about him.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So his net approval overall is plus five percent, which
Speaker 1: is the highest of any of the four you know
Speaker 1: of Trump, jd. Vance, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walls. Tim
Speaker 1: Walls has the highest net approval rating, very popular obviously
Speaker 1: among Democrats plus sixty percent, hanging basically even with Independence
Speaker 1: at plus one percent, and deeply underwater with the Republicans
Speaker 1: and minus fifty three percent. The one that I found
Speaker 1: potentially most notable here, Ryan was if you break it
Speaker 1: down by ideology, because you know, if you look at
Speaker 1: that independent group, you have a lot of people who
Speaker 1: call themselves independence but are really just Republicans, or people
Speaker 1: who just call themselves independence but really.
Speaker 4: Mostly vote Democrat.
Speaker 1: If you look at liberals, of course he's very popular,
Speaker 1: but among moderates he's doing quite well. He's at plus
Speaker 1: sixteen percent. So the other thing that's been interesting to
Speaker 1: me is, you know, Tim Walls has been the subject
Speaker 1: of a lot of conversation on the right about quote
Speaker 1: unquote stolen valor about quote unquote tampon Tim, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I've seen so many people on.
Speaker 1: The right speculate that he was such damaged goods he
Speaker 1: was going to have to drop off the ticket, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And to me, it just exposes what an
Speaker 1: incredible bubble these MAGA influencers live in. Because lo and behold,
Speaker 1: she is the most popular person on either of these tickets.
Speaker 1: So it's so divorced from reality as to really be
Speaker 1: quite extraordinary.
Speaker 5: It is a letter of faith in the conservative world
Speaker 5: now that the pick of Walls was a quote fiasco,
Speaker 5: a disaster, that they would they would do it differently
Speaker 5: if they had it to do over again. That any minute, now,
Speaker 5: you know, she might get rid of him and replace
Speaker 5: him with Shapiro or somebody else like that is you
Speaker 5: say that, and that is just conventional wisdom among a
Speaker 5: massive portion of the kind I don't know if you
Speaker 5: called an electorate or a punditocracy or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's I see that stuff.
Speaker 5: And I'm like, you guys following the same thing I'm
Speaker 5: following here, Like democrats are not actually that bothered by it,
Speaker 5: you know, he Walls did does.
Speaker 3: Seem to have stretched.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think he was like misleading on purpose
Speaker 5: sometimes about what exactly, you know, his service was. The
Speaker 5: way he would talk about deploying for you know, Operation
Speaker 5: during Freedom or deploying.
Speaker 3: For oh EF. He did deploy deployed to Europe and
Speaker 3: support of it.
Speaker 5: And he is usually pretty pretty pretty careful not to
Speaker 5: go over the line. And he'll say some things where
Speaker 5: and when I say he's trying to be misleading, he
Speaker 5: said some stuff like I carried weapons during war. It's like, okay,
Speaker 5: I see what you're doing there. You carried weapons and
Speaker 5: then there was a war over here. In our minds,
Speaker 5: we're thinking you carried the web in the war, like
Speaker 5: with bullets flying around your head. What you actually mean
Speaker 5: is you had a weapon while you were like loading
Speaker 5: the transport planes that were flying into the actual war.
Speaker 5: So I understand why they're so frustrated with him. At
Speaker 5: the same time, the fact that he was a veteran
Speaker 5: may have made up a lot of his biography.
Speaker 3: In two thousand and six at the height of the
Speaker 3: Iraq War.
Speaker 5: While that was a big thing that Rob Manuel wanted
Speaker 5: all Democrats to run on and went around recruiting veterans everywhere,
Speaker 5: although he didn't like Tim Walls and thought Tim Walls
Speaker 5: would lose his separate story. But it's not two thousand
Speaker 5: and six anymore. Like right now, his bio is he's
Speaker 5: a football coach, and he's a teacher, and he's a
Speaker 5: union member, and he's a dad, and he drives a minivan.
Speaker 5: So unless I don't mean, I don't know if he
Speaker 5: drives a minivan, but like that's the characterurebe. Yeah, right,
Speaker 5: So unless you can challenge the fact that he was
Speaker 5: a football coach or a teacher or a dad, then
Speaker 5: you're not going to get at his bio. And so
Speaker 5: I think the Republicans are, you know, getting off a
Speaker 5: lot of decent shots on them, but they're firing at
Speaker 5: the wrong target.
Speaker 1: What have you thought about Tim Walls's response. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you and Emily talked about it yesterday, but
Speaker 1: when he was speaking to that union asked me, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, listen, I'm not going to back down. I
Speaker 1: am proud of my service and by the way, even
Speaker 1: from my opponent. You know, the only thing I have
Speaker 1: to say about your service is thank you, thank you
Speaker 1: for serving the country, And that compelled jd. Vance to
Speaker 1: have to respond and be like, well, I'm glad for
Speaker 1: your service too, but you shouldn't have lied about it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a pretty good response not to
Speaker 1: back away from it. And you know, also listen, you're
Speaker 1: dealing with the ticket that number one, the guy at
Speaker 1: the top. Of course, there's a whole bones bur situation,
Speaker 1: right and the you know, whether it happened or not,
Speaker 1: the suckers and losers conversation and the comments to John McCain,
Speaker 1: I like, you know, soldiers who didn't get captured or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they just were in Montana supporting this Republican Senate
Speaker 1: candidate who accidentally shot himself in a national park apparently
Speaker 1: and claimed that he was wounded in war like claimed.
Speaker 4: That as a battle wound.
Speaker 1: So it's not like they have a consistent track record
Speaker 1: of actually caring about whether he finished his you know,
Speaker 1: continuing education to maintain the rank and precisely talked about
Speaker 1: that in the right way.
Speaker 5: I think, yes, the people who are predisposed to not
Speaker 5: like Tim Walls are gonna like dislike Tim Walls even
Speaker 5: harder as a result of this, but that in general,
Speaker 5: it won't move the needle for.
Speaker 3: Folks outside of that.
Speaker 5: And also it's the vice president, so it's like, are
Speaker 5: you really going to make your decision based on this,
Speaker 5: which is what Trump has been saying about JD. Vance,
Speaker 5: you know, privately and even to the press when they
Speaker 5: asked him to like do you regret it? He's like, well,
Speaker 5: you know what, nobody really votes on the vice president anyway,
Speaker 5: And he's right.
Speaker 1: I love I love the anecdote about how he got
Speaker 1: asked at a fundraiser by a bunch of billionaires like
Speaker 1: what do you think of these attacks on you guys
Speaker 1: that you're wearing? And He's like, Oh, they're just saying
Speaker 1: that about JD not about me. I fine, a bit
Speaker 1: of parent of course that's not really the case. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the problem for him with Jadie Vance is
Speaker 1: just the pick of vice president is an important signal
Speaker 1: about how you will govern, what things you value. And
Speaker 1: it also made it a lot easier for Democrats to
Speaker 1: be able to frame their attacks through this lens of weird, fringe, extreme, etc.
Speaker 4: Because you don't have that.
Speaker 1: You know, if you put a Doug Burghram or a
Speaker 1: Glenn Young Cain I think is probably in fact a
Speaker 1: better choice on the ticket, it makes it more difficult
Speaker 1: to land the like these are a bunch of like
Speaker 1: fringe overly online like obsessed with these strange online subculture
Speaker 1: weirdos who don't relate to you whatsoever. I just think
Speaker 1: it makes it more difficult for that to land once
Speaker 1: you get jd Vance in the mix. We just there
Speaker 1: is another clip that came out where he was agreeing
Speaker 1: with a podcast host who said that post menopausal females
Speaker 1: only purpose, only real purpose in life is to raise grandchildren.
Speaker 1: It's like it makes it much easier to land those
Speaker 1: sorts of attacks when you've got a jd Vance on
Speaker 1: the ticket versus a Glen Youngkin on the ticket.
Speaker 5: Trump gave a speech on the economy, trying to break
Speaker 5: out of the weird a little bit. If we want
Speaker 5: to move on to some of that, here's Trump yesterday
Speaker 5: at one of his addresses.
Speaker 3: This is blieb B one.
Speaker 11: Now this is a little bit different day because this
Speaker 11: isn't around. This is we're talking about a thing called
Speaker 11: the economy. They wanted to do a speech on the economy.
Speaker 11: A lot of people are very devastated by what's happened
Speaker 11: with inflation and all of the other things.
Speaker 6: So we're doing this as.
Speaker 11: A intellectual speechur all intellectuals today. Today, we're doing it,
Speaker 11: and we're doing it right now.
Speaker 6: And it's very important today.
Speaker 11: I gave Harris and Biden an economic miracle, and they
Speaker 11: quickly turned it into an economic nightmare with a nation
Speaker 11: wrecking agenda ripped straight out of Kamala's San Francisco liberal playbook.
Speaker 6: What they've done, and.
Speaker 11: We will do something else, which was copied a mean, viciously,
Speaker 11: ruthlessly copied. No tax on tips okay, no tax okip.
Speaker 11: You know, if they wanted to do that, why did
Speaker 11: they do it three and a half years ago.
Speaker 10: They didn't want to.
Speaker 6: It was actually the opposite.
Speaker 11: They hired eighty eight thousand IRS agents to go after
Speaker 11: these people. Kamelin Joe tried to take credit for thirty
Speaker 11: five dollars insulin.
Speaker 12: You know that.
Speaker 6: You know who did that.
Speaker 4: I did that. I did that.
Speaker 13: I did the.
Speaker 6: Insulin and it kicked in. And you know, I remember
Speaker 6: when I did it.
Speaker 11: To help seniors on fixed incomes who are suffering.
Speaker 6: The ravages of inflation.
Speaker 11: There will be no tax on social security.
Speaker 6: We're going to stop it. No tax on socials secuity.
Speaker 11: This cruel double taxation of social security benefits. And this
Speaker 11: has been talked about for a long time.
Speaker 6: She'll probably announce this on Friday too.
Speaker 5: That was I liked how she ended. It's like, she'll
Speaker 5: probably say on Friday that she's going to do this too.
Speaker 5: And after that he pointed out, oh, there's commalst guy.
Speaker 5: He's like taking notes on my policies. He is, so,
Speaker 5: you know, burnt up about the fact that he picked off,
Speaker 5: about the fact that she picked off his like no
Speaker 5: taxes on tips policy. Yeah, and also burnt legitimately by
Speaker 5: the fact that when he proposed that, the media was like,
Speaker 5: this is a terrible policy, that it will be filled
Speaker 5: with loopholes that will benefit hedge funds and private equities,
Speaker 5: which is true.
Speaker 3: And then when she proposed that, they're like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is like for the service workers.
Speaker 1: The original coverage, by the way, was the correct coverage,
Speaker 1: no taxes on tips. It has a lot of like
Speaker 1: intuitive appeal, and I understand, of course you want to
Speaker 1: cut service workers a break. The much better way to
Speaker 1: do that is to get rid of that tip minimum
Speaker 1: wage altogether, least the very least raise it because as
Speaker 1: you point out, I mean, one of the problems with
Speaker 1: it is next thing, you know, you've got hedge fund
Speaker 1: managers saying, oh, this is an income, this is a tip,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't get taxed. So in any case, yes,
Speaker 1: he is very salty about the fact that she that
Speaker 1: she picked that up and copied him in a speech
Speaker 1: out in Las Vegas. I don't know if you watched
Speaker 1: the soul speech trying, but the funny thing about it
Speaker 1: is it was very clear the whole time that it
Speaker 1: was like his advisors told him he had to give
Speaker 1: this speech and you know, twisted his arm and wrote
Speaker 1: up the script for the teleprompter and whatever, because the
Speaker 1: whole time he's just trying to run away from the
Speaker 1: actual core content of the speech as much as possible
Speaker 1: and go on as normal, you know, tangents about what
Speaker 1: he thinks about Joe Biden dropping out and how Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris is far left, and he said something he said
Speaker 1: about Harrison Wallace, he said, they're actually beyond socialists. I
Speaker 1: think they skipped over socialists. So it was more of
Speaker 1: the greatest hits with a little bit of like the
Speaker 1: economics script sprinkled in. He also made this comment that
Speaker 1: kind of gave away that he was his arms being
Speaker 1: twisted to talk about this stuff, which apparently he really
Speaker 1: didn't care about. He says, they say the economy is
Speaker 1: the most important subject. I think crime is right there,
Speaker 1: I think the border is right there. We have a
Speaker 1: lot of important subjects. So even in this speech where
Speaker 1: he's supposed to be like leaning hard into the economy,
Speaker 1: he's sort of like, you know, undercutting it. And the
Speaker 1: reason I bring this up is just this is the
Speaker 1: challenge for the Trump campaign. They were doing much better
Speaker 1: obviously when Joe Biden was in the race, but when
Speaker 1: Trump was just kind of being not doing all that
Speaker 1: much and letting the issue landscape speak for itself. Now
Speaker 1: they've got a really clear edge, especially on immigration if
Speaker 1: you ask voters. They've got a clear edge still in
Speaker 1: almost all polls. On the economy, although that edge with
Speaker 1: Kamal Harris seems to be shrinking. You've got some things
Speaker 1: to work with there. But Trump is he's Trump Like.
Speaker 1: He's not going to follow your script. He's not going
Speaker 1: to just read your like economic policy speech off the
Speaker 1: teleprompter and really lean into that and make that a
Speaker 1: core message. Right now, he's finding it incredibly difficult to
Speaker 1: move on from Joe Biden. So even in this speech,
Speaker 1: he's still talking about Joe Biden getting taken off the ticket,
Speaker 1: and you know, all of these sorts of things that
Speaker 1: he finds to be very unfair and it is his
Speaker 1: own personal grievance. So in any case, that's some of
Speaker 1: what's going on there. At the same time, we've got
Speaker 1: Pamala Harris, who to this point hasn't really announced any policy.
Speaker 4: To speak of.
Speaker 1: We're all most of what she's done, As you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: Ryan was like, tell us what she's not for, like
Speaker 1: no longer for medicare, We're all no longer for that
Speaker 1: fracking band, like running away as fast as possible from
Speaker 1: those sorts of positions. But we are supposed to get
Speaker 1: some specifics of an anti price gouging policy this week
Speaker 1: in a speech that I believe is happening Friday.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: She apparently sees it to really be in her interest
Speaker 1: to try to step rate her economic policy and vibes
Speaker 1: from the current president Joe Biden, who of course is
Speaker 1: very unpopular on the economy. So on Friday in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: she's going to outline a plan of lower cost of healthcare, housing, food. Polls,
Speaker 1: they say show an opening for reset on economy and
Speaker 1: inflation not.
Speaker 4: Defined by Biden.
Speaker 1: Look for an emphasis on the prosecutor background, including price
Speaker 1: fixing fights as the California Attorney General. We can put
Speaker 1: the next piece up on the screen because just this
Speaker 1: morning we got some specifics about what she's going to be,
Speaker 1: what she's going to be looking at here with regard
Speaker 1: to her initial policy proposals, the Politico Headlin says grocery
Speaker 1: price gouging to feature prominently in harris economic plan, and
Speaker 1: they say, in addition to a push for the first
Speaker 1: ever federal ban on price gouging by food corporation, she
Speaker 1: would also direct the FTC in state attorneys general to
Speaker 1: investigate and levy penalties on food companies that violate the ban.
Speaker 1: She's also going to argue Trump's plans, including threats to
Speaker 1: slap new broad tariffs on US imports, will only drive
Speaker 1: up costs for food and other everyday items. So on
Speaker 1: the corporate power piece, Ryan, certainly our friend Matt Stuller
Speaker 1: is going to be very happy about this direction that
Speaker 1: she's choosing to take her campaign in from the very
Speaker 1: initial onset of the first policy pronouncements.
Speaker 5: And it's a good fight to have because you're also
Speaker 5: also able to divide you know, it divides Democrats because
Speaker 5: a lot of kind of neoliberal democrats, you know, really
Speaker 5: recoil at the idea that you can have the government
Speaker 5: doing anything about about prices and about profits. But those Democrats,
Speaker 5: because of partisan concerns, are going to shut up right now.
Speaker 5: So you're not going to have that fight like that's
Speaker 5: which is a terrific benefit for that policy. On the
Speaker 5: On the right, you're going to have a little bit
Speaker 5: more division because the jade advances of the world, you
Speaker 5: very much do believe that it is the government's role
Speaker 5: to go in and investigate a corporation if it is
Speaker 5: price gouging like that. That is squarely within that kind
Speaker 5: of new right populous nationalism, but it is runs up
Speaker 5: against all the you know, the free market ideology that
Speaker 5: dominates so much of the rest of the Republican Party,
Speaker 5: so that that could kick off some interesting kind of
Speaker 5: internal turmoil among those But.
Speaker 3: You know, the the there's.
Speaker 5: Long been this idea for the last you know, fifty
Speaker 5: years or so, that the government should just stay out
Speaker 5: of prices.
Speaker 3: But that historically has not been the case.
Speaker 5: Governments all around the world forever have you know, have
Speaker 5: done you know, some version of price controls. We currently
Speaker 5: have price controls when it comes to you know, we
Speaker 5: control our interest rate policy. We control our energy prices,
Speaker 5: you know, whether it's through utilities, or whether it's through
Speaker 5: our use of either our military or our strategic patrolling
Speaker 5: reserve when it comes to gas prices, or whether it's
Speaker 5: our influence with OPEK. We control wages, like if we
Speaker 5: see the price of labor, if we see the price
Speaker 5: of labor going up, the Federal Reserve comes in and
Speaker 5: raps workers right on the knuckles and make sure that
Speaker 5: they those wages.
Speaker 3: Go right back down.
Speaker 5: So all this is saying is that will extend this
Speaker 5: general idea to corporate profits and if there is price
Speaker 5: gouging going on, they're going to come after that. What
Speaker 5: that means, you know, remains to be seen. How Harris
Speaker 5: tries to even come closer to finding that is an
Speaker 5: open question. It also suggests that she would need Lena Khan.
Speaker 5: Like the idea that you're going to lead with something
Speaker 5: that is the FTC's purview and that requires an aggressive FTC.
Speaker 5: But you're also going to get rid of Lena Khan
Speaker 5: just doesn't match. So it feels like she's winning this
Speaker 5: fight against reed Hoffman right now.
Speaker 3: What's your sense.
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, I mean it seems like that, and there
Speaker 1: was another, you know, policy personnel choice that people were
Speaker 1: paying attention to. The I'm interested your take on Ryan.
Speaker 1: We can put this up on the screen, So Brian
Speaker 1: Deese is back. This is some reporting from Brent Schwartzho's
Speaker 1: good reporterver at CNBC and advising Kamala Harris on economic policy.
Speaker 1: David Dayan comments here has a resume to upset everyone
Speaker 1: black Rock experience, but he was also a good good
Speaker 1: on the National Economic Council that crafted much of the
Speaker 1: break with typical dem policy on industrial manufacturing, full employment,
Speaker 1: and more. I look at what he did in office
Speaker 1: and say it's good to have him in there. I
Speaker 1: know Matt's Suller, as I mentioned before, also very pleased
Speaker 1: with this pick, and on the on the corporate price
Speaker 1: gouging piece in particular. You know a couple of things
Speaker 1: that were note worthy to me is number one, some
Speaker 1: of what at least some of what Kamala Harris is
Speaker 1: talking about in the speech on Friday, or things that
Speaker 1: you can do with just executive power. So even if
Speaker 1: you don't have Republican you know, if you still have
Speaker 1: a Republican Senate in particular, you can still take a
Speaker 1: lot of action here, as Leema con has as FDC head.
Speaker 1: The other thing is, you know, as indicative of Brian
Speaker 1: Deese as being the carryover, like some of this stuff
Speaker 1: has been done by the Biden administration. There was originally
Speaker 1: when progressives like you and I were talking about how
Speaker 1: corporate price gouging was an important part of the inflation picture,
Speaker 1: we were practically, you know, laughed out of the room,
Speaker 1: like all the mainstream Oh, that's preposterous, as just government's.
Speaker 4: Bending blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: The data became undeniable that this was perhaps the most
Speaker 1: significant part of the inflation picture. And so while Biden
Speaker 1: did a little like nibbling around the edges with regard
Speaker 1: to the meat packing industry in particular, number one, he's
Speaker 1: just not able at this point to really clearly enforcedly
Speaker 1: articulate this case and prosecute this case. And number two
Speaker 1: he seemed to be uncomfortable with it, and he had
Speaker 1: people in his orbit. There continued to be this internal
Speaker 1: divide over like, oh, it's not appropriate to call out
Speaker 1: corporate powers, it's not appropriate to go after these companies.
Speaker 1: There continued to be a reluctance and a hesitation to
Speaker 1: publicly make this case. But it's the data backs it up.
Speaker 1: It's a very strong both reality case but also political
Speaker 1: case to go after.
Speaker 4: You know, the American people have long said that these.
Speaker 1: Corporations are price gouging, that they don't have to charge
Speaker 1: these high price and you know, make you pay through
Speaker 1: the teeth at the grocery store, et cetera. So I
Speaker 1: think it's a very strong place for her to stand politically,
Speaker 1: and I also think it's a very strong place for
Speaker 1: her to stand in terms of actually making a difference
Speaker 1: in people's lives here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and to have tough antitrust enforcement is also a
Speaker 5: way to police this this pricing problem, because what it
Speaker 5: tells companies is that there is one of the limits
Speaker 5: on what you can charge people is that you're going
Speaker 5: to draw the attention of the FTC. Like if your
Speaker 5: profit margin, you know, goes from five percent to twenty
Speaker 5: five percent, then the FTC is going to wander.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 5: If this was a competitive market and you're jacking up
Speaker 5: your prices by twenty five percent and just taking it
Speaker 5: back as profit, some other competitor ought to be able
Speaker 5: to come in and undercut you on price, Like that's
Speaker 5: how the market works. And if that's not happening, then
Speaker 5: you're doing something illegal. You're breaking the Sherman Act somehow
Speaker 5: when it comes to monopolization and anti trust, and we're
Speaker 5: going to investigate and we're going to cause problems for you.
Speaker 5: And so even if a company is a monopoly, you know,
Speaker 5: they may want to continue to fly under the radar
Speaker 5: by keeping their prices low. And if that's the result
Speaker 5: of that for consumers, it's that's not just that's not
Speaker 5: just as good as having monopolies broken up, but from
Speaker 5: a consumer perspective, like it keeps prices down and it
Speaker 5: makes it so that you can afford more groceries, so
Speaker 5: that that's a win. So it's it's really a win
Speaker 5: win to have, you know, both of these things working together.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's right.
Speaker 1: And it's also an area I feel where the bully
Speaker 1: pulpit actually does matter where if you have the President
Speaker 1: calling you out in you know, campaign speeches or in
Speaker 1: the State of the Union or in a press conference,
Speaker 1: et cetera, you know that you now have the eye
Speaker 1: of the federal government trained on you potentially for those
Speaker 1: sorts of enforcement actions. So having someone who is able to,
Speaker 1: you know, in a just, lear and consistent way make
Speaker 1: this case actually matters quite a lot. The other thing
Speaker 1: that you and Emily I think touched on some and
Speaker 1: we'll just skip over this soot from Tim Walls at
Speaker 1: Ask Me. He also talked a lot about specifics with
Speaker 1: regard to labor and continue to advocate for the proact,
Speaker 1: so that seems to also be on the agenda as
Speaker 1: you know, a priority action item. The other thing that
Speaker 1: was noteworthy you can put this last element from this
Speaker 1: block guy's up on the screen is the Harris team
Speaker 1: has really shifted the type of ads that they are
Speaker 1: running against Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: So the headline here from the washat Post Democrats.
Speaker 1: Ad shifts from Trump to abortion and economy with Harris
Speaker 1: as the nominee. They did an analysis of data from
Speaker 1: the political research firm ad Impact. They found that they
Speaker 1: are now running much more on these issues abortion in
Speaker 1: the economy versus the threat to democracy, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: really fixating on Trump type of ads that the Biden
Speaker 1: team was.
Speaker 4: Running and we had shown earlier in the week.
Speaker 1: On Monday, I believe some of the message testing from
Speaker 1: the reied Hoffman aligned like Pulling Pack, put out some
Speaker 1: message testing on how Kamala Harris should approach this race,
Speaker 1: and what they found, I think is not that surprising,
Speaker 1: which is that you're not going to change how people
Speaker 1: think about Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: They think about Donald Trump what they think.
Speaker 1: No, you know, it's not like you're going to see
Speaker 1: an ad on TV and be, oh my god, you're
Speaker 1: right he is a threat to democracy.
Speaker 4: I never thought of it that way, right, So I.
Speaker 1: Think the Harris team is smartly looking at that data
Speaker 1: and saying, okay, well, instead of endlessly moralizing about Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: which people already feel about, however they're going to feel about,
Speaker 1: we need to bolster Kamala Harris on the issues where
Speaker 1: she needs strengthening or where she's already strong, and we
Speaker 1: need to attack him specifically on the abortion, try to
Speaker 1: knock down his numbers on the economy. So maybe Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris even has an edge on the economy. I think
Speaker 1: it's you know, I think it's a much more intense
Speaker 1: and political strategy, but they're pursuing here with their odds bending.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for most people, if you're like sixty years old
Speaker 5: or younger, Trump has been famous your entire adult life,
Speaker 5: like since you became cognizant of the news, Trump has
Speaker 5: been famous. So I think that's exactly right that there's
Speaker 5: no thirty second ad that you're going to run. It's
Speaker 5: going to all of a sudden change people's minds. So
Speaker 5: the better approach is, Okay, yeah, Trump is this thing,
Speaker 5: but we're going to do this, whether it's codifi row
Speaker 5: or we're going to crack down on corporate price gouging,
Speaker 5: whatever you think of Trump, here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 5: So good good for them, like this whole because it
Speaker 5: forces them to actually then come up with something. And
Speaker 5: you know, we're what three or four weeks into a
Speaker 5: Harris campaign at this point.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's less than that.
Speaker 5: I can't keep track of time, but it's funny that
Speaker 5: this is like basically the first thing we're getting, so
Speaker 5: that you know, her campaign deserves a enormous amount of
Speaker 5: criticism for the fact that it's a good thing.
Speaker 4: We'll take that, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: At the same time, let's go and move on to
Speaker 1: some of the criticism that's coming from the right as
Speaker 1: they're watching the poll numbers shift. I mean, it's it
Speaker 1: must be head spinning to be a Trump supporter, and
Speaker 1: you know, come off the assassination attempt and the you know,
Speaker 1: the iconic image and the RNC and Joe Biden is floundering,
Speaker 1: and you feel so bold, emboldened you even put Jade.
Speaker 4: Vance on the ticket. You are riding high.
Speaker 1: You're thinking, hey, are we going to be able to
Speaker 1: put New Jersey into play? And now just in a
Speaker 1: few weeks time, the world is completely different and it's
Speaker 1: at best a toss up race. I think that probably
Speaker 1: is correct. Where it is is basically a toss up
Speaker 1: at this point. But the trends keep moving against you.
Speaker 1: You know, contrary to the idea that Kamala would just
Speaker 1: have this bump that was like a honeymoon period, she
Speaker 1: can needs to expand her margin, and she continues to
Speaker 1: put additional states in play, like the state of North
Speaker 1: Carolina as one example. So you're starting to get as
Speaker 1: with any team that feels like they're, you know, starting
Speaker 1: to lose the unity cracks and you start to get
Speaker 1: people complaining about this or that. Now with Trump, as
Speaker 1: you know, on the right, they never complain about Trump directly.
Speaker 1: It's always like the team around Trump that's the problem.
Speaker 1: So that's mostly what you've been getting is like Alway's
Speaker 1: got to fire these campaign managers and they're giving him
Speaker 1: bad advice, et cetera, et cetera. But you did actually
Speaker 1: have Megan Kelly come out and make some directly critical
Speaker 1: comments about Trump and his style. Specifically, let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to a little bit of what she had to
Speaker 1: say in a conversation with Nate Silver.
Speaker 7: One of the reasons why Trump gets upset with yours
Speaker 7: truly is because I have been raising that question for
Speaker 7: a while, and when he has what appeared to be
Speaker 7: senior moments, I will call him out on it, and
Speaker 7: he doesn't like that, and I can't say that I
Speaker 7: blame him, but that's that's my job. I will say
Speaker 7: that in that discussion with Elon, to me, he seemed
Speaker 7: quite rambling. I mean it was like he rambles, he
Speaker 7: goes on too long at his rallies and in these
Speaker 7: exchanges and at his pressor the other day to where
Speaker 7: you get kind of bored, you lose the thread, you
Speaker 7: lose interest, which is not something you're used to with Trump.
Speaker 7: Trump in twenty sixteen he was tough to lose interest in.
Speaker 7: And I think that's probably an age related change. So
Speaker 7: I think this is one of the challenges of the
Speaker 7: people around him, who are I'm sure are desperately trying
Speaker 7: to get him to stick on message.
Speaker 1: And Ryan, some of the polling has shown that since
Speaker 1: Biden has dropped out of the rays, people's concerns about
Speaker 1: Trump's age have actually increased. Now that you don't have
Speaker 1: the you know, the comparison of him versus Biden, where
Speaker 1: you're on Oh, in comparison to that guy, he looks great.
Speaker 1: Now you're comparing him to Kamal Harris and it looks
Speaker 1: very different.
Speaker 5: Yes, And people don't really want to his virus. Don't
Speaker 5: necessarily need him to stay on message. There's no such
Speaker 5: thing when it comes to Trump. But right stay on
Speaker 5: brand and on brand is entertaining and is interesting. And
Speaker 5: whether you're gawking because it's a car crash and you're
Speaker 5: wondering if the car crash is going to continue, or
Speaker 5: you're loving the way that he's just, you know, beating
Speaker 5: the heck out of the liberal elites and the media
Speaker 5: and all the others.
Speaker 3: That's what you want. You don't want to be bored.
Speaker 5: You don't want to you don't want to think that
Speaker 5: this is just an old guy telling you the same
Speaker 5: stories over and over again, saying did I tell you
Speaker 5: this one? You're like, yeah, well it does It doesn't
Speaker 5: matter if I tell you.
Speaker 1: That's like the assassination story that you know at the RNC.
Speaker 1: He's out, this is the last time I've ever going
Speaker 1: to talk about this, and then he spends like thirty
Speaker 1: minutes with Elon Musk going through detail by detail once
Speaker 1: again that very much had that vibe. Cannas Owan's is
Speaker 1: sticking in the lane of like, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: directly criticize Trump, but I'll criticize the people around Trump
Speaker 1: as like a proxy criticism. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 1: what she had to say about how the campaign is going.
Speaker 13: Something feels a little different right now. A few weeks ago,
Speaker 13: Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt, and it was very
Speaker 13: clear to me and I think to the entire role
Speaker 13: that he was going to win the election because he
Speaker 13: emerged as a leader in his response and in his
Speaker 13: speeches thereafter, in the way that he communicated with the crowd.
Speaker 14: It just seems so.
Speaker 13: Obvious that in order to defeat the deep State, who
Speaker 13: I believe was behind his assassination attempt, that we needed
Speaker 13: to elect Trump.
Speaker 14: But things have changed in just a very short time.
Speaker 14: It just the energy of the mega campaign feels very
Speaker 14: different now. At first I was owing that to the
Speaker 14: fact that there has to be some reasonable trepidation. You
Speaker 14: don't just survive an assassination attempt and just keep going
Speaker 14: and you don't come out of that not being a
Speaker 14: fundamentally changed person. And I think by the way for
Speaker 14: the better, like, you know, really recognizing how precious life is,
Speaker 14: maybe perhaps being further committed to a Christian principles as
Speaker 14: a leader. You know, you're going to be changed having
Speaker 14: survived an assassination attempt. But there is something else that
Speaker 14: seems to have had where I'm just not sure who
Speaker 14: is driving the magabus anymore.
Speaker 1: So she's not sure who is driving the magabus anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know who's driving the magabus. It is
Speaker 1: and is always Trump, but there are rumors Ryan, we
Speaker 1: can put this up on the screen that Trump may
Speaker 1: be planning to fire two of his top campaign aids.
Speaker 4: That would be characteristic.
Speaker 1: This is a man has fired I think every campaign
Speaker 1: managery's ever hired, so it would not be a shock
Speaker 1: if he's looking at these pull numbers and rather than
Speaker 1: looking internally about perhaps where he has gone astray, he's instead,
Speaker 1: you know, pointing at Susie Wiles and Chris los Avida.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's a it's a funny moment of classic
Speaker 5: UK tabloid reporting that we're mentioning because Dan Bongino yesterday
Speaker 5: kind of in response, you know, vaguely in response is reporting,
Speaker 5: was saying the knives are out for you know, the
Speaker 5: good Trump people, and he met Lasa Vita by that,
Speaker 5: so he was kind of coming to las Avita's defense.
Speaker 3: He's like, I didn't want to have to do this.
Speaker 5: I don't want to have to talk about the internal
Speaker 5: turmoil because I want to focus on the Democrats.
Speaker 3: But it looks like I.
Speaker 5: Can't because now these rumors are leaking out. But the
Speaker 5: way they leaked out is just incredible. So it's that
Speaker 5: Daily Mail with this UK tabloid. They don't mention las
Speaker 5: Aveto or the campaign manager in the headline or even
Speaker 5: in the article. The only mention of him is in
Speaker 5: a photo caption within the story, which says Trump is
Speaker 5: reportedly talking to his confidants about firing his campaign managers
Speaker 5: Chris los Avita and Susie Wiles pictured. Like, so they're
Speaker 5: breaking news in a caption with no sourcing whatsoever other
Speaker 5: than reportedly, Well, who's reporting it?
Speaker 4: The Daily Mail is reporting it in.
Speaker 5: Their caption, So it's complete and total garbage reporting. But
Speaker 5: it does appear that it reflects something real going inside
Speaker 5: the campaign because of what we know from Bongino's public comments.
Speaker 3: Otherwise you could just be like, this is just because
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 5: Tabloids don't often fabricate stuff. What they do is they
Speaker 5: play extremely fast and loose with sourcing rules and norms
Speaker 5: and what's supposed to be off the record and what's
Speaker 5: not supposed to be off the record. So it sounds
Speaker 5: like they had some stuff that was off the record
Speaker 5: they wanted to get it into print, they couldn't quite
Speaker 5: figure out how to do it, and some genius editors like,
Speaker 5: what if we just slip it into the caption nobody, no, no,
Speaker 5: there's different kind of rules around it the photo caption,
Speaker 5: and then boom, it kind of picks up fire on
Speaker 5: social media. Once it's in there, it's like, oh, daily
Speaker 5: Mail is reporting. It's like, so, just a little weird
Speaker 5: insight into how rumors get started. But the Bongino's response
Speaker 5: to it, I think is suggestive of the fact that
Speaker 5: there's something going on. And also it plays it plays
Speaker 5: as like it sounds right right, It's like, yeah, when
Speaker 5: Trump is flailing, he's all like, this is not just Trump.
Speaker 5: Everybody when they're flailing, you know, starts fingers at those
Speaker 5: below them, but of course Trump particularly Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also when a campaign or a team is flailing,
Speaker 1: then everybody starts throwing everybody else under the bus, and
Speaker 1: you know, any previous unity that they had five minutes
Speaker 1: ago is completely shattered and everyone's looking at who to blame.
Speaker 1: And also you shouldn't underestimate how quickly the posturing starts
Speaker 1: for people to write the PostScript narrative of whose fault
Speaker 1: it was, So in the after action report or whatever
Speaker 1: reporting gets released or whatever book comes out, they're not
Speaker 1: the ones who shoulder the blame. So that positioning starts
Speaker 1: very early in these campaigns as well, to make sure
Speaker 1: that they come out looking good, even if it's a
Speaker 1: losing effort. We're gonna have to skip over this conversation
Speaker 1: about the Trump campaign being hacked and maybe it was Iranians,
Speaker 1: and then the news media decides not to report on
Speaker 1: it because we've got guests standing by and we don't
Speaker 1: want to be too late for them. But just you know,
Speaker 1: thirty seconds, Ryan, if you do, you see newsworthy value
Speaker 1: in the JD. Vans dossier that was apparently leaked to
Speaker 1: the Post in Politico and one other news outlet.
Speaker 5: Supposedly the this oppo dump about JD. Vance is all
Speaker 5: based on public information.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: It's it's like it's gonna be things that are like hypocritical,
Speaker 5: like he said this at one point, he said this
Speaker 5: at another point, you know, he said this offensive thing
Speaker 5: about this group of people at this on this podcast.
Speaker 5: So it's it's it all seems to be public information,
Speaker 5: and we're constantly like it's not just iron that like
Speaker 5: it leaks these documents, The campaigns themselves sometimes leak these
Speaker 5: these opo documents, and all all it often is is
Speaker 5: just a collection of clips end quotes from like podcasts
Speaker 5: and appearances, and so in that sense, it's not really newsworthy.
Speaker 5: And so I can understand why they would say, you
Speaker 5: know what, this is just a standard opo book. We're
Speaker 5: not doing a Run's dirty work here. But you know,
Speaker 5: I'm sure they're happy to have the oppo book if
Speaker 5: it ever, ever, if ever becomes useful.
Speaker 1: What do you think, Yeah, I think it seems newsworthy
Speaker 1: because even one of the narratives around Jadie Vance is
Speaker 1: like did they even bet this guy?
Speaker 4: Like did they know about this childless cat lady stuff?
Speaker 1: Aparently did they know about like the postmenopausal woman comment whatever,
Speaker 1: So even just to have a confirmation that yeah, they
Speaker 1: knew that and they still put them on the ticket,
Speaker 1: or no, they were blindsided, but they had an incompetent
Speaker 1: vetting team and they didn't actually pull some of his
Speaker 1: most controversial comments, or you know, they were actually worried
Speaker 1: about this issue over here and it turned out, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't anticipate that the cat lady thing would be
Speaker 1: a real issue for him. Yeah, I think that is
Speaker 1: all very newsworthy, Just like I think it would be
Speaker 1: newsworthy to know we we have had some reporting, which
Speaker 1: is again proof that this is newsworthy that the Harris
Speaker 1: team did know that Tim Walls would likely face these
Speaker 1: type of attacks over his service. But I would still
Speaker 1: be interested in knowing, you know, specifically, how heavily did
Speaker 1: they wait this, how did they think about how to
Speaker 1: respond to it, did they know all of the aspects
Speaker 1: of how he would be attacked on this, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Of course, I think that that would be newsworthy and
Speaker 1: interesting to the public.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 5: Let's let's see it all put up, all the opo
Speaker 5: out there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, put it all out there.
Speaker 1: Let's see it all all right, let's go and get
Speaker 1: to the guests that we have standing by. There's a
Speaker 1: lot going on this week with regard to Israel, and
Speaker 1: we're very fortunate to be joined this morning by Mehdi Haffen,
Speaker 1: who is founder of Zeteo News and out with a
Speaker 1: fantastic new and horrifying documentary about Idea soldiers and their
Speaker 1: conduct in Gaza.
Speaker 4: Medi is great to see you.
Speaker 6: Good see Crystal, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, So to set up the promise a
Speaker 1: little bit, you can elaborate here as well. There's been
Speaker 1: this question that's been floating around. We've seen all these
Speaker 1: social media you know, tiktoks, instagrams, et cetera, of idea
Speaker 1: soldiers just publicly broadcasting their war crimes. And so you
Speaker 1: decided to send a team to Israel and actually speak
Speaker 1: to these soldiers and get in their own words why
Speaker 1: they're posting these atrocities. We have a little bit of
Speaker 1: the trailer we can show to people, and the name
Speaker 1: of the film is Israel's real extremism.
Speaker 4: Let's take a look at the trailer.
Speaker 12: Here's a soldier saying that they've destroyed the university. There's
Speaker 12: no more educational in Gaza.
Speaker 6: I think the education when Gaza was something new.
Speaker 12: You can find it humiliating, you know, maybe a minute.
Speaker 12: I don't, as they told you, I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't see.
Speaker 10: Any any problem with humaniding Palestina. There is nothing.
Speaker 12: Since the war in Gaza started, is Ready soldiers on
Speaker 12: the front line have been broadcasting the devastation and their
Speaker 12: dehumanization of Palestinians on social media.
Speaker 6: Actually, and I filmed with.
Speaker 2: My commander or like, was very they want me to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 11: Those videos where they've shown that they've tortured captives.
Speaker 4: They didn't told your captives. You are lying. You are lying,
Speaker 4: and you are lying. They are not torture, are captive,
Speaker 4: they are good.
Speaker 10: Ready is ready?
Speaker 4: French soldier investigated a lot.
Speaker 10: Of Palestinians who are already suffering. It's a monk question, okay,
Speaker 10: because the AID gets the dramas.
Speaker 12: The issue pit Israel now goes well beyond the occupations
Speaker 12: in the interest level million million.
Speaker 10: It will always be the response of the West. We
Speaker 10: are egble, but we are we are China silent.
Speaker 4: Sooth So, Maddie.
Speaker 1: Not only did these soldiers and activists justify these acts,
Speaker 1: I mean they truly celebrated them in the conversations that
Speaker 1: you were able to have here.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I mean we throw around the word crystal shocking
Speaker 15: a lot, but there is a lot of shocking stuff
Speaker 15: in this film, even for those of us who commissioned it,
Speaker 15: and props to basement FLMs in the UK, who were
Speaker 15: a bunch of Oscar nominated and Emmy Award winning filmmakers
Speaker 15: who had this pitch to go find the soldiers behind
Speaker 15: these tiktoks and instagrams and interestingly, major networks I won't
Speaker 15: say the names. In both the UK and the US
Speaker 15: turned this down. I wonder why, but we came along
Speaker 15: as the TEO managed to fund it, and they did
Speaker 15: go out there, and they did get the soldiers.
Speaker 6: And as you saw in that trailer, a lot of
Speaker 6: them don't care.
Speaker 15: It's not just the soldiers, by the way, media personalities,
Speaker 15: radical right wing activists who are blocking aid at the border,
Speaker 15: settlers who want to resettle Gaza, all of them on
Speaker 15: tape bragging about this stuff. And it's so indicative of
Speaker 15: what has happened to Israeli society, especially post October the seventh,
Speaker 15: the shift to the far right, the obsession with vengeance,
Speaker 15: the dehumanization of Palestinians, and the complete obliviousness Crystal, they
Speaker 15: just don't care.
Speaker 5: What were the lines medi that you came across. Were
Speaker 5: there any lines in these interviews where you would get
Speaker 5: soldiers or their defenders saying, okay, you know what if
Speaker 5: that happened, that did actually cross a moral line.
Speaker 15: So one of the brothers of we interviewed a barbershop owner.
Speaker 15: You may remember there was an infamous image out of
Speaker 15: Gaza where a soldier had a bunch of Palestinians, possibly
Speaker 15: dead we still don't know, bound and gagged and he
Speaker 15: had a sign for his brother or brother in law.
Speaker 15: I forget now barbershop in Israel advertising it in this video,
Speaker 15: such as the dehumanization, and the team on the ground
Speaker 15: managed to go speak to the owner of the barbershop
Speaker 15: and he says in the film he says, look, I
Speaker 15: have no you know, torture is wrong, but not torturing
Speaker 15: terrorists that's fine with me. And obviously we've seen in
Speaker 15: recent weeks since the film was made, the allegations, the
Speaker 15: video evidence of the rape and abuse in Israeli prisons
Speaker 15: that's been coming out. Look, that is a trend amongst
Speaker 15: people who really do not.
Speaker 6: See these people as human.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 15: There's a clip from one of the soldiers's name is
Speaker 15: hen Co and he's a kitchen fitter, right, He's a
Speaker 15: guy who fits your kitchens in Israel in everyday life,
Speaker 15: goes out to Gaza Films himself laughing in destroyed Gars kitchen, saying, hey,
Speaker 15: who wants a Palestinian kitchen? And when we spoke to him,
Speaker 15: he says, quite openly, it's in the trainey. He said, Look,
Speaker 15: I walk around feeling superior to these people. Why not
Speaker 15: I am superior to them?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 1: I mean when you hear this sort of sentiment. You
Speaker 1: would hope it's a fringe sentiment, but we know that
Speaker 1: it's not because we see the way that it's represented
Speaker 1: in the current government. So what is your sense of
Speaker 1: how commonplace this view is? Where you know, first of all,
Speaker 1: every Palestinian is just you know, inherently made to be guilty,
Speaker 1: and once they're made guilty, well nothing is off the table.
Speaker 1: We played here, and I'm sure you covered as well
Speaker 1: the debates that we're unfolding on popular as really television
Speaker 1: programs about how not only should it be fine for
Speaker 1: Ida soldiers to rape Palestinian detainees, but actually the only
Speaker 1: problem is that they don't do it more and it's
Speaker 1: not systematized.
Speaker 15: And this is happening on Israeli television, it's happening inside
Speaker 15: the Israeli Parliament, in the Kanesset, where the debate the
Speaker 15: right to rape. What's interesting is it's not being seen
Speaker 15: in the US Congress, Crystal, It's not being seen on
Speaker 15: US television. US newspapers have not gone big on the
Speaker 15: video that was leaked an air on Israeli television of
Speaker 15: an alleged gang rape of a Palestinian detainee. And that's
Speaker 15: why we wanted to make this documentary Israel's real extremism,
Speaker 15: because you've got to see this stuff. You've got to
Speaker 15: hear it from them in their own words. You've got
Speaker 15: to see it on the ground. Because we talk so
Speaker 15: much about shared values, we talk about all the aid
Speaker 15: that we send Israel, well, this is what it's paying for,
Speaker 15: and it's not. It's not a fringe. Sadly, I wish
Speaker 15: it was a fringe. The fringe has taken over, just
Speaker 15: like the GEO be here. The fringe is taken over
Speaker 15: the beast. You've got mainstream ministers in government. And I
Speaker 15: say mainstream because if Ma Ben Gever is not fringe,
Speaker 15: he's mainstream. When you're the security minister, you're mainstream. When
Speaker 15: you're the finance minister Bizalo's Motridge, you're mainstream. And these ministers,
Speaker 15: as we show in the film, have attended conferences calling
Speaker 15: for the resettlement of Gaza. We start polling in the
Speaker 15: film that shows anywhere between twenty five and forty percent
Speaker 15: of Israeli society's raidy Jurish society supports resettling Guzz And
Speaker 15: you know he's come out and said we're not going
Speaker 15: to resettle Gaza, but there's a big chunk of his
Speaker 15: own government out of Israeli society that wants to do that.
Speaker 6: We interview Joseph.
Speaker 15: You just saw that very young radical settler who says, look,
Speaker 15: if we have to kill a million people, we'll kill
Speaker 15: a million people.
Speaker 6: But his dream is to go back into Gaza.
Speaker 15: They're going back in and trying to put you know,
Speaker 15: facts on the ground has always been in these Raeli
Speaker 15: way and by the way, we're speaking in a week
Speaker 15: where Ben Gavie and all these guys have just announced
Speaker 15: a brand new illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank,
Speaker 15: which we don't talk about enough because obviously our attention
Speaker 15: is on Gaza.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and to the extent that Israel does defend it's
Speaker 5: a tax on civilians. What they will say is that
Speaker 5: will Hamas is using civilians as human shields. Oh the projection, right,
Speaker 5: you always get You hear a lot this saying that
Speaker 5: every accusation is a confession. So I want to get
Speaker 5: your response to this, this high Retz investigation.
Speaker 3: We could put this up on.
Speaker 5: The screen here where they confirmed what has been known
Speaker 5: for many years.
Speaker 3: I believe this is yeah, there it is.
Speaker 5: That is that IDF truepes are often using human shields,
Speaker 5: either tied to kind of roofs of cars or or
Speaker 5: sent out into the streets or sent out into into
Speaker 5: homes where they believe there may be militants, believing that
Speaker 5: the the the militants will then not fire at the
Speaker 5: Palestinian civilians, which to me is in conflict with the
Speaker 5: rhetoric that hamas you know, do not just doesn't care
Speaker 5: about Palestinian civilian life, but actively wants them to die
Speaker 5: because and then they get, you know, more international solidarity
Speaker 5: and support.
Speaker 3: So the fact that they would.
Speaker 5: Believe that this the that those humans would be actual
Speaker 5: effective shields against the mass seems to under cut that rhetoric.
Speaker 5: Did this play a role into in any of your
Speaker 5: interviews with with with folks on the ground, there.
Speaker 15: Only in the senses I say that when you're confronting
Speaker 15: these people with the images, they just don't care. I mean,
Speaker 15: all all roads lead back to dehumanization, right, and you
Speaker 15: saw Itamar Fleischmann, very prominent Israeli right with media personality
Speaker 15: and the start of that trailers. I have no problem
Speaker 15: humiliating in the Palestinians, nothing's wrong with that, just very
Speaker 15: blunt and it's kind of you know, from the horse's mouth,
Speaker 15: as they say. And even when it comes to this story,
Speaker 15: and Ryan, you're so right to use the phrase, you know,
Speaker 15: every accusation is a confession. Fundamentally. It has been the
Speaker 15: single most popular and prevalent defense of Israel's brutality in
Speaker 15: Gaza since October seventh, which is it's all Hamas using
Speaker 15: human chills. And now we get this Harretz investigation, which,
Speaker 15: as you say, confirms what we already knew as being
Speaker 15: on for years, especially in the West Bank, where we
Speaker 15: just saw a few months ago a guide tied to
Speaker 15: the roof of a jeep. But what's so shocking about
Speaker 15: the Haretz piece Three things. One is the Palestinians they
Speaker 15: grab to do this is totally random. These are not
Speaker 15: kind of alleged militants who are being used in human shoals.
Speaker 15: They're just random folks on the street who are grabbed
Speaker 15: by the IDEF. The second point is that this is
Speaker 15: done with the approval of senior military leadership.
Speaker 6: These are not random rogue operations.
Speaker 15: And number three, the most shocking part of it is
Speaker 15: they put them in Israeli military uniforms. They want them
Speaker 15: to be shot at right. They want them to be
Speaker 15: not accidentally, they want the Hamas Miltington's fighters whatever you
Speaker 15: want to call them, to shoot at Israeli soldiers who
Speaker 15: are actually Palestinians. And as you say, it goes against
Speaker 15: the whole argument, which is, well, hold on, Hamas don't
Speaker 15: care about civilian life, so why would they you know,
Speaker 15: why would they stop shooting if they do it as
Speaker 15: a Palestinian. But you know, don't let any contradictions get
Speaker 15: in the way. By the way, going back to the
Speaker 15: tiktoks when we're talking about every accusation as a confession.
Speaker 15: I just saw yesterday and is rael soldier put out
Speaker 15: another video on his social media of him using unra
Speaker 15: aid to cook himself a meal. And again, weren't we
Speaker 15: told for ten months.
Speaker 6: That Hamas is stealing unraw aid?
Speaker 15: He is an Israeli soldiers stealing the aid.
Speaker 4: Oh the projection, wow, youo, Madi.
Speaker 1: Obviously the most important factory here is the horror that
Speaker 1: Israelis are perpetrating against Palestinians. But we interviewed a liberal
Speaker 1: Zionist and Israeli liberals Zionist child Ben Afram Ryan and
Speaker 1: Emily had interviewed him previously and he was drawing a
Speaker 1: lot of parallels between the dehumanization and the increasing level
Speaker 1: of fascism in Israel with the United States, and it
Speaker 1: kind of bristled out. I didn't say much at the time.
Speaker 1: I just, you know, let him say his peace. But
Speaker 1: I kind of bristled at it because I was thinking
Speaker 1: to myself, Okay, but on the other hand, we haven't
Speaker 1: had someone in Congress literally making the argument that yes,
Speaker 1: it's fine for us for soldiers to rape detainees, like
Speaker 1: we have not gone to that level. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: can I really draw that distinction when it's our country
Speaker 1: that is sending the bombs When we have, you know,
Speaker 1: not just the right, but we have many elements of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, including the President and you know, apparently
Speaker 1: the Vice President, who have been.
Speaker 4: Supportive of this policy.
Speaker 1: Who will you know, leak some oh, we're unhappy about this,
Speaker 1: and then send billions of dollars more weapons to drop
Speaker 1: on schools where innocent Palestinians are sheltering.
Speaker 4: Is what are your reflections on that?
Speaker 1: And also what is our support of this conflict doing
Speaker 1: to us and our country and the way that we
Speaker 1: view our fellow citizens around the world.
Speaker 15: It's such a good question, because yeah, I grapple with
Speaker 15: this as well, and it's an interesting point.
Speaker 6: I think I would say a couple of things.
Speaker 15: One is, you know, I've made the point before that
Speaker 15: Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobert and all of our
Speaker 15: freaks in Congress they look like museally eating sandal wearing
Speaker 15: San Francisco liberals compared to a Ima Bengevia or the
Speaker 15: Heritage minister who wants to drop a nw CO on Gaza,
Speaker 15: or some of these kind of people arguing in the
Speaker 15: kiness for all right direct, Look, these really far right
Speaker 15: makes the American far right look mild. That's just a
Speaker 15: fact based on the record. Having said that, as you say,
Speaker 15: we are complicit in this, in fact, we have liberals,
Speaker 15: quote unquote, we have Democrats. We have John Kirby, white
Speaker 15: House National Security Council spokesman saying on the record at
Speaker 15: the podium that their military takes more precautions than our
Speaker 15: military does. We have American officials saying that the Israeli
Speaker 15: army is better than the American army, which I find
Speaker 15: astonishing on so many levels. And the only way they
Speaker 15: can do that is by you know, seeing evil hear
Speaker 15: no evil, Kristol. When people in America, especially Democrats, sign
Speaker 15: off on aid for Israel, to be fair, they're not saying, well,
Speaker 15: we want this money to go so we can rape
Speaker 15: Palestinide tennees. But they're doing something else that it's disingenuous,
Speaker 15: which is they're saying, well, we don't want to know
Speaker 15: what's happening, right, And that's.
Speaker 6: One of the reasons we made this film.
Speaker 15: And I would urge, you know, let me do a
Speaker 15: plug for anyone from the White House watching this Real
Speaker 15: Israel dot film. Ore e l Real Israel dot film.
Speaker 15: Go watch the film right because of American TV. If CNN,
Speaker 15: NBC and the rest New York Terms are not showing
Speaker 15: this stuff, go watch and see what our tax dollars,
Speaker 15: what US aid is paying for what this Israeli military
Speaker 15: looks like.
Speaker 6: Hear it from the soldier's own mouths.
Speaker 15: Because that is the problem I have, is that people
Speaker 15: in America talk about Israel at some weird abstract level.
Speaker 15: A lot of people like Joe Biden are thinking of
Speaker 15: an Israel I don't know from when, and nobody talks
Speaker 15: about the specifics. How many members of Congress have you
Speaker 15: seen Christal Be asked about the gang rate allegations in Israel.
Speaker 15: How many members of Congress are asked in TV interviews
Speaker 15: about what's happening with settler violence and terrorism in the
Speaker 15: West Bank. We just don't see those specifics put to
Speaker 15: our members of Congress, so they're able to write blank
Speaker 15: checks and then go off and do an event, do
Speaker 15: a rally, kiss babies, and forget about the fact that,
Speaker 15: as you say, we're complicit in this horror.
Speaker 5: We could take the two shot here for one second.
Speaker 5: Earlier in the show, we talked about the ceasefire talks
Speaker 5: that are opening today in the region. Do you have
Speaker 5: any sense of whether or not things have shifted that
Speaker 5: we should expect something different this time.
Speaker 15: I think what we're now seeing, belatedly around ten months
Speaker 15: into this is a lot more focus on Netaiah. Right
Speaker 15: before it was even until what a couple of couple
Speaker 15: of months ago, it was Joe Biden saying Israel's accepted
Speaker 15: the deal Hamas is the block even as was like,
Speaker 15: we haven't accepted the deal.
Speaker 6: It was almost like a really bad like skit from
Speaker 6: a comedy show.
Speaker 15: It was like they've accepted, No, we haven't, And they
Speaker 15: even got it into a UN resolution. Amazingly, there was
Speaker 15: actually uns said Israel's accepted the deal had not accepted. Bizarre,
Speaker 15: just kind of gas sliding on a level I've not
Speaker 15: seen in a long time. Level gas landing from the
Speaker 15: band administration. Now, I think there's been so much pushback
Speaker 15: publicly and credit you know where, give a lot of
Speaker 15: credit to Israeli hostages, families who have not just protested
Speaker 15: on the streets of Israel and been you know, water
Speaker 15: cannon and beaten up by police. I spoke to a
Speaker 15: family member who's been assaulted multiple times by these radio police.
Speaker 15: But they also came to d C protested whose speech,
Speaker 15: were arrested outside the speech, even as inside the hall
Speaker 15: called them Iranian proxies. So they put a lot of
Speaker 15: pressure on and have come out and said, look, this
Speaker 15: is a complete failure. We've had people like Benny Gant's
Speaker 15: former war cabinet member come out and say there.
Speaker 6: Was a deal, you know, undermined it.
Speaker 15: So now we are seeing a bit more pressure and
Speaker 15: I think now with the honea assassination in Iran, the
Speaker 15: Hamas leader who was actually leading the negotiations. They killed
Speaker 15: the guy leading the negotiations as good faith for you.
Speaker 15: I think you're seeing Hamas now saying, look, they're taking
Speaker 15: the deal more seriously. Iran has come out and said,
Speaker 15: if you don't want us to retaliate for your illegal
Speaker 15: bombing and bombing on our soil, get a ceasefire. Quite
Speaker 15: a good deal. I think it seems fair. It seems
Speaker 15: like a great deal. We won't retaliate if you give
Speaker 15: another group of people to see his father everyone in
Speaker 15: the world wants, and.
Speaker 3: That you have already approved, improved.
Speaker 15: Approved through your cabinet, through you d resolution through the
Speaker 15: Biden Administration's word is a Biden So yeah, I do
Speaker 15: hope that we are in a better place in terms
Speaker 15: of is saying that you know, the.
Speaker 6: Problem is, he's a stubborn dude.
Speaker 15: So at the end of the day, even if everyone
Speaker 15: comes around to it, unless you pressure, unless Joe Biden
Speaker 15: makes the Ronald Reagan to Monock and begging phone calls
Speaker 15: that some of us have been urging him to make
Speaker 15: for months. Now, pick up the phone called make him
Speaker 15: do it, which he has.
Speaker 6: The power to do. Yeah, he's not going to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we should.
Speaker 5: They just need to experiment with an asylum forum or
Speaker 5: something give like he can live his days out in
Speaker 5: South Florida.
Speaker 15: I will agree join a Sun there in Miami might
Speaker 15: appeal to Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely it would.
Speaker 1: Mattie's final question for you, what are your expectations about
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris and whether she would pursue a different policy
Speaker 1: than Joe Biden has with regards to not just you know,
Speaker 1: this particular assault on Gaza, but with regard to Israel
Speaker 1: palsign in general.
Speaker 15: It is the sixty four thousand dollars question, or maybe
Speaker 15: the three billion dollar question. I don't know the answer
Speaker 15: to that. In terms of policy, I think clearly we've
Speaker 15: seen a shift in rhetoric. We've definitely seen a shift
Speaker 15: in rhetoric. But obviously that rhetoric doesn't save anyone's lives.
Speaker 15: The Uncommitted movement are pressuring and will be pressuring at
Speaker 15: the DNC next week for some movement on an arms embargo.
Speaker 15: The Harris administer, the Harris team have come out and
Speaker 15: said she doesn't support in arms inmbargo, but you know,
Speaker 15: that's what pressure is for. What's interesting is those of
Speaker 15: us who put pressure on Democrats before to switch from
Speaker 15: Biden to Harris were told you want Trump to win,
Speaker 15: and actually no, Harris taking over means Trump is less
Speaker 15: likely to win. We were right about that and now
Speaker 15: is saying, hey, come out from arms of barga. They say, hey,
Speaker 15: you want Trump to win again. It's actually good policy.
Speaker 15: That's what a lot of people are trying to convince
Speaker 15: to Harait team. Put aside the morale, put aside international law.
Speaker 15: It's good for her and the Democrats to take a
Speaker 15: stronger line on net. Great statistic in the new IAMEU
Speaker 15: Yahoo so you Gov poll that my colleague prom Tack
Speaker 15: has just reported on which shows of Biden twenty twenty
Speaker 15: voters in Pennsylvania who are saying that they will not
Speaker 15: vote for Biden, will go third party or stay at home.
Speaker 15: Fifty seven percent say they're more likely to vote Harris
Speaker 15: if she were to come out from arms embargo. Zero
Speaker 15: percent say they would be less likely to vote Harris
Speaker 15: if she came out from arms in bargas. So pretty
Speaker 15: strong polling showing that it's all there for the taking
Speaker 15: if she can make a move on policy. The rhetoric, great,
Speaker 15: keep doing it, but policy is what matters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Well, medi congratulations on the film and of course congratulations
Speaker 1: on Zato. Tell people where they can go to support
Speaker 1: the work that you guys are doing with got three
Speaker 1: media entrepreneurs here, two that just launched new endeavors. So
Speaker 1: go sign up a drop site news and zteo medi
Speaker 1: go ahead and give people the web draft.
Speaker 15: Christ you were ahead of the pack and Ryan are
Speaker 15: just following in your footsteps.
Speaker 6: Zetail dot com is our site.
Speaker 15: But if you want to specifically watch the film, you
Speaker 15: can go to Real Israel dot film.
Speaker 6: That's our w L Real Israel dot film. Check it out.
Speaker 4: Terrific, Maddie, thank you so much for coming.
Speaker 6: In, Thanks for having me all right.
Speaker 5: Up next, we're going to talk about the FDA's new
Speaker 5: terrible decision on m d M A stick around for that. So,
Speaker 5: on Friday, the FDA released a major decision on the
Speaker 5: question of m d m A assisted therapy, rejecting the
Speaker 5: request to make it legal for official kind of medical
Speaker 5: use and kicking it back for what could be years
Speaker 5: of further study. Joining us today to talk about this
Speaker 5: are two people who've been pretty deeply involved in the
Speaker 5: in the push and pull over whether or not MDMA
Speaker 5: assisted therapy would would be allowed. We have John Lubecki's
Speaker 5: joining us from the middle of the screen at an
Speaker 5: advocate and participant in the in this portion of this
Speaker 5: FDA studying also David Nichols, who kind of eventually became
Speaker 5: a kind of an opponent of the process we're going
Speaker 5: to talk about. Is that, I don't know if that's
Speaker 5: a good way to characterize the world. Give you, give
Speaker 5: you an opportunity to characterize yourself when you guess to you.
Speaker 5: But John quickly to kind of tell us, tell us
Speaker 5: where we are today as a result of this FDA ruling.
Speaker 10: Well, that's actually a very good question that there are
Speaker 10: still a lot of answers that need to be that
Speaker 10: FDA needs to provide. Licos Therapeutics is requesting a meeting
Speaker 10: with the FDA to be able to sit down and
Speaker 10: get more information that is not contained in the denial
Speaker 10: letter or the notification that they got, which didn't provide
Speaker 10: a lot of information. One of the major things that
Speaker 10: they had issues with were addiction or potential for addiction,
Speaker 10: as well as trial design, even though the FDA themselves
Speaker 10: were involved in the trial is on. Once that meeting
Speaker 10: takes place, which should happen probably within the next two months.
Speaker 10: Then LEKOS will have more information on what's required with
Speaker 10: new trial designs, how many more participants need to go through,
Speaker 10: how many more trials need to go through, et cetera.
Speaker 10: But even with the denial, this isn't going to stop
Speaker 10: FDA approval. It's eventually going to be approved one of
Speaker 10: these days. The question is when.
Speaker 5: And David, let me get your respond to a couple
Speaker 5: of clips from the kind of key hearing.
Speaker 3: If we can put up F three here.
Speaker 5: These are the scientists who are tasked with kind of
Speaker 5: reviewing the process, talking about what they're calling adverse events,
Speaker 5: which means things not going well for people who are
Speaker 5: in the study.
Speaker 3: Let's roll this real quick. F three also concern about
Speaker 3: a lot of the adverse events not being perhaps recorded correctly.
Speaker 16: Adverse event associated with mdmation should be recorded.
Speaker 4: Seeing less adverse events.
Speaker 17: Until an actual member of the FDA stepped in and said,
Speaker 17: this conversation needs to stop. I've heard some comments about
Speaker 17: outside reports of potential misconduct in the studies. Although we
Speaker 17: are aware of those reports, we consider them to be
Speaker 17: unverified at this point until we do our own inspections.
Speaker 17: So the discussions and voting should be based on what
Speaker 17: is contained within our briefing documents.
Speaker 5: So that's from a video that's called what a Trip,
Speaker 5: And I think it's alluding to some of the reporting
Speaker 5: that you did that seemed to influence the committee members there.
Speaker 5: So if you talk a little bit about what those
Speaker 5: adverse events were that she's talking about, and then generally
Speaker 5: give us your view of like how you would characterize
Speaker 5: your role in this process.
Speaker 16: Sure, I think there's probably it bears mentioning from the
Speaker 16: start that that video is replete with inaccuracies and misstatements and.
Speaker 3: A number you're referring to the rest of the video, right.
Speaker 16: Yes, Oh, and and so with regards to that particular statement,
Speaker 16: I mean there's there's sections of that video that I
Speaker 16: would say are deceptively cut as well. The FDA ad
Speaker 16: come explicitly discussed the failure to report adverse events, things
Speaker 16: like positive adverse events as well, right, so, like experiences
Speaker 16: of euphoria, things that they felt could lead to drug
Speaker 16: seeking behavior in the wake of trial participants getting MDMA
Speaker 16: from licos. And so there are actually very clear documented
Speaker 16: failings which Amy Emerson, the CEO of Lycos Therapeutics, spoke
Speaker 16: to as far as why they didn't provide data that
Speaker 16: FDA was very much expecting from them, and that is
Speaker 16: also considered adverse events. Now the sort of deceptive editing
Speaker 16: or what is being presented as some of the unverified reports.
Speaker 16: Obviously in the clip, they're not getting into the specifics.
Speaker 16: There have been a range of things that have come up, however,
Speaker 16: in my and my partner Lily k Ross's extensive investigative
Speaker 16: reporting that was published via New York Magazine, extensively vetted
Speaker 16: out via fact checking and the legal process that I'm
Speaker 16: sure you can relate to, there were a number of
Speaker 16: participants who experienced increases in suicidal ideation, non completed attempts,
Speaker 16: mood drops after active MDMA sessions, and psychosis, what was
Speaker 16: described as leftover psychedelic effects, and a variety of other
Speaker 16: experiences that simply did not make it into the published literature.
Speaker 16: Around these trials, we know that there were issues with
Speaker 16: the reviewing of trial footage from the cameras that were
Speaker 16: recording different sessions. In fact, in one particular instance, when
Speaker 16: we asked the organization, the sponsor organization, when footage from
Speaker 16: a session that contained abusive behavior by therapist was viewed,
Speaker 16: we got five different answers. Different news media outlets got
Speaker 16: different answers than the five that we received, So when
Speaker 16: it comes to sort of adverse event collection, it's a
Speaker 16: bit of a mess.
Speaker 3: And I would.
Speaker 16: Describe myself as being agnostic with regards to the safety
Speaker 16: and efficacy of psychedelics as medicines. I'm a longtime psychedelic user.
Speaker 16: I think psychedelics have a lot to offer, but my
Speaker 16: role with regards to sort of medicalization, I've been a
Speaker 16: long time critic within the psychedelic field of the broader
Speaker 16: sort of socio political implications of medicalization. And as a
Speaker 16: result of getting various reports over many years in the space,
Speaker 16: that was basically the impetus for the investigation that became
Speaker 16: cover story Power Trip. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 16: I care about psychedelics. I care about people who are
Speaker 16: experiencing harm in both underground and above ground psychedelics, uh.
Speaker 10: Harms from the underground and and and as you said,
Speaker 10: this isn't about whether it works or not. This is
Speaker 10: about whether certain people will have access. As you yourself
Speaker 10: have stated in stating that law enforcement and veterans having
Speaker 10: access is a white supremacy problem, and I will broke
Speaker 10: that that as far as in depth fact checking, there's
Speaker 10: demonstrable errors in your reporting and symposia's reporting pertaining to
Speaker 10: me personally where you continually lie. So there's personally.
Speaker 5: You John before we John before you that can you
Speaker 5: give us, give us a background of what your role
Speaker 5: was in this study and what your role is kind
Speaker 5: of in the in the field now.
Speaker 10: So ten years ago, I was I had PTSD and
Speaker 10: I was a participant in Leco's trial in Charleston, South
Speaker 10: Carolina with Michael and Annie Midhoffer. The therapy I received
Speaker 10: was honestly that the therapy aspect was the same as
Speaker 10: regular therapy like CBT, just talk therapy. I then, because
Speaker 10: I was healed with PTSD, I had always had an
Speaker 10: interest in politics, So I started working on campaigns. Was
Speaker 10: Rampaul's National Veterans Director and a presidential campaign work, done
Speaker 10: a lot of Senate, congressional, et cetera. I mean, right,
Speaker 10: you know about campaign work, And I started doing a
Speaker 10: lot of media interviews on my own because when you're
Speaker 10: working on a campaign and you're sitting there waiting for
Speaker 10: the candidate to show up, You've got a whole bunch
Speaker 10: of reporters waiting and you can't sit there and talk
Speaker 10: about the campaign, so you talk about anything else. I'm
Speaker 10: not a big baseball guy, so I I talked about
Speaker 10: the MDMA experience that I had because I haven't done
Speaker 10: it in ten years, I haven't had a desire to
Speaker 10: do it in ten years. So I got more and
Speaker 10: more involved, and then because of my political acumen, I
Speaker 10: maps became a client of mine to advise them on
Speaker 10: ending the Night of Monopoly and work on cannabis. They've
Speaker 10: never asked me to do an interview. Most of the
Speaker 10: interviews I've done, I've completely sourced myself, or you know,
Speaker 10: I've had reporters email me or reach out to me
Speaker 10: in some way of their own volition. As a matter
Speaker 10: of fact, the first time you and I talked to
Speaker 10: you had mentioned something about psychedelics on the show, and
Speaker 10: I shot you an email or I think it was
Speaker 10: through Twitter. Now they've claimed that specifically, let's see in
Speaker 10: twenty eighteen, they've said that claim that I was on
Speaker 10: stage at Seapack. I've never been on stage at Seapack,
Speaker 10: that me and Rebecca Mercer had some conspiracy. I've never
Speaker 10: met the person, and that an interview that I did
Speaker 10: on Breitbart mostly talking about ending the nightA monopoly that
Speaker 10: I was paid by Maps to do that. I didn't
Speaker 10: contract with Maps till well after SEAPAC in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 10: So apparently Simposi's fact checking hasn't exactly been that good.
Speaker 10: They just make assumptions, print them, and then when they
Speaker 10: do a peer reviewed article, just point to themselves as
Speaker 10: a reference. And I will say in the cover story
Speaker 10: New York Times magazine, they used me talking about my
Speaker 10: personal suicide attempt in order to detegrate me. And now
Speaker 10: I haven't worked actually for Maps or Vets or anybody
Speaker 10: for a couple of years. Now. I do humanitarian aid
Speaker 10: in Ukraine. I do still continue to talk about MDMA,
Speaker 10: and my story hasn't changed.
Speaker 5: Not once, David, if you want to respond to that
Speaker 5: for a moment, and then I ask you about one
Speaker 5: other thing from the review.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, any organization that attacks children, I'm a
Speaker 10: white supremacist has zero integrity in my book, and that's
Speaker 10: something that you did, Brian.
Speaker 16: So I think there's a few different things that are
Speaker 16: worth replying to. So, first of all, with regards to
Speaker 16: the idea that we only cover the clinical trials and
Speaker 16: not the underground The first five episodes of the nine
Speaker 16: episode run of Cover Story Power Trip actually deal extensively
Speaker 16: with underground abuses, including a practitioner couple that at the
Speaker 16: time was quite a descendant and that we actually got
Speaker 16: reports of what was going on, and that's what sort
Speaker 16: of kicked off what ultimately became the research and investigation
Speaker 16: that took us into the clinical trials. But it's really
Speaker 16: fascinating because both the underground and the clinical trials tie
Speaker 16: back to this Mexican psychotherapist named Salvador Roquette who actually
Speaker 16: sort of not sort of, but who actually tortured student
Speaker 16: dissidents and leftists for the DFS and and there's very
Speaker 16: mk ultra vibes to the whole history.
Speaker 10: Was a therapist in the trial? Is your claimings?
Speaker 16: So this is all in Cover Story Power Trip. I
Speaker 16: would suggest people listen there.
Speaker 10: Question is this person a therapist in the trial? Because
Speaker 10: you're saying this is this is involving the trials? So
Speaker 10: is this you're referencing a therapist in the trial? Yesterday?
Speaker 16: So rich Richard Jensen, who sexually assaulted Megan Buissan in
Speaker 16: the trial, was Salvador Roquett's interpreter and actually was a
Speaker 16: devoted acolyte of his methodology and mechanism and deployed the
Speaker 16: very methods that he talks about in the trial.
Speaker 3: So I think this is we're probably gonna have weeds.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, So we're probably gonna have do a Friday
Speaker 5: show on this so that we can go a couple
Speaker 5: hours on this. But I think I think people are
Speaker 5: getting a very good sense of kind of the mess
Speaker 5: that that became of these trials through through this conversation.
Speaker 5: I want to do just play one last clip because
Speaker 5: we have to run another another segment that we have
Speaker 5: to get to, So let me let's just play F
Speaker 5: four here, because this was the most striking comment that
Speaker 5: I heard during the review.
Speaker 6: We already have.
Speaker 1: Evidence based treatments for PTSD, and yes, you know, they
Speaker 1: do have drop out rates, but they do have really
Speaker 1: strong outcomes.
Speaker 4: They're you know, covered by insurance.
Speaker 1: What is the burden on providers to be providing that
Speaker 1: treatment when we already have treatments that are really effective.
Speaker 5: What I read from that reviewer is her saying, we
Speaker 5: already have pharmaceutical interventions.
Speaker 3: I have drugs that work.
Speaker 5: I don't I wouldn't say that they necessarily do work
Speaker 5: for PTSD. But let's pretend that's true. And she said,
Speaker 5: what's the burden on the providers? Like, which is code
Speaker 5: to me? For this would be too expensive for insurers
Speaker 5: to kind of pay for the psychotherapy and the damasys therapy.
Speaker 5: Curious for just a response from the both you and
Speaker 5: then and then I promise we'll have you back on
Speaker 5: for a much longer discussion later.
Speaker 3: Why don't you go first?
Speaker 10: If they're so effective, then why is there's still such
Speaker 10: a high suicide rate with over one hundred and fifty
Speaker 10: Americans committing suicide each and every day. Suicide is no
Speaker 10: is a known effect of PTSD. The evidence based treatments
Speaker 10: that work, they do, I mean, they do work for
Speaker 10: some people, and they should be available. But also if
Speaker 10: you take SSRIs for your entire life, plus the costs
Speaker 10: of secondary issues to taking those medications and the effects
Speaker 10: of PTSD like alcoholism, liver damage, et cetera, we all
Speaker 10: know those, it's actually far cheaper to go through the
Speaker 10: protocoll just from a financial aspect and be done. I mean,
Speaker 10: I haven't taken any you know, medications other than for
Speaker 10: COVID and strep throat since I went through therapy and
Speaker 10: nobody's The VA hasn't had to pay for any mental
Speaker 10: health treatment or anything like that. I think part of
Speaker 10: it is therapists like the concept of the fifty minute
Speaker 10: therapists hour, where they don't have to be there with
Speaker 10: a patient for eight hours or six hours or however
Speaker 10: long the MDMA lasts in the system. I don't believe
Speaker 10: big Pharma was against this, and I don't believe the
Speaker 10: insurance companies were against this. I think it's actually people
Speaker 10: who like who I freely admit they use drugs and
Speaker 10: that these are safe and effective. They just have issues
Speaker 10: with who would be treated and that everybody would have
Speaker 10: a right to heal.
Speaker 5: David any So the reality final thoughts and then and
Speaker 5: we will have you guys back on.
Speaker 16: The reality is we don't know that these drugs are
Speaker 16: safe and effective for treating PTSD. Personally, I think all
Speaker 16: drugs should be decriminalized so people can take what they want,
Speaker 16: when they want, with whomever they want. My concern is
Speaker 16: that they of the research into MDMA and other psychedelics
Speaker 16: as medicines for specific indications is just not there, Like
Speaker 16: the quality is bad. And the reason that I'm here
Speaker 16: is because I'm trying to inform anyone who has PTSD,
Speaker 16: including veterans, that there are significant undisclosed risks and harms
Speaker 16: associated with these trials. There's a reason that three papers
Speaker 16: were just retracted that were tied to the LYCOS data.
Speaker 16: It's worth pointing out that even as veterans are claiming
Speaker 16: that this is going to decrease suicide, the sponsor hasn't
Speaker 16: actually reported that it decreases suicide.
Speaker 10: That isn't backed up by the data.
Speaker 16: And just as a final thing, I want to say
Speaker 16: that I resigned from Symposia at the end of last
Speaker 16: year because I was concerned about a former colleagues's conduct
Speaker 16: and the trajectory of the institution as a whole. A
Speaker 16: major factor was that Symposia failed to investigate a formal
Speaker 16: complaint of unethical behavior filed against one of the members
Speaker 16: of the organization, and then subsequently failed to address a
Speaker 16: multitude of additional issues that were entered to the team
Speaker 16: I left nearly a year ago. I do not represent
Speaker 16: their views. Some of the reporting that you have mentioned
Speaker 16: is not my reporting was not done by me.
Speaker 10: My line editorial Suneid.
Speaker 3: But well let let's yeah.
Speaker 5: We can Well we can talk about that next time,
Speaker 5: John le Becky, David Nichols, thank you so much for
Speaker 5: joining us UH to talk about this, this big mess
Speaker 5: of a mdm A trial.
Speaker 3: All right, Crystal, I know you had to step out.
Speaker 5: Because of the different zoom issues with getting too many
Speaker 5: people remote at a time, But I think what that
Speaker 5: segment really showed is the complete and total mess that
Speaker 5: the m d m A FDA trials produced and the
Speaker 5: mess that kind of undermined them. There's a lot more
Speaker 5: to it, as as people could tell UH and and
Speaker 5: we'll get them back on for a much longer converse
Speaker 5: that can really breathe and unpack this, because this isn't over.
Speaker 5: Like the FDA doesn't actually have the authority to regulate
Speaker 5: psychiatry and therapy. Yet the way that the therapists were
Speaker 5: involved with the medication ended up influencing the decision in
Speaker 5: a negative way, and so it's something that still has
Speaker 5: to be that still has to be unpacked. It's going
Speaker 5: to take you, now many more years and millions more dollars,
Speaker 5: and so we might not have an FDA approved MBMA
Speaker 5: medication for years.
Speaker 1: At this point, which is I would assume really important
Speaker 1: for sort of mainstreaming it and creating a permission structure,
Speaker 1: as they say, for more therapists to take it up
Speaker 1: more broadly.
Speaker 3: Yes, because otherwise you basically can't do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I'm looking forward to watching that. I know
Speaker 1: both of the experts you had on had really interesting opinions,
Speaker 1: So looking forward to watching that one myself. Ryan, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for sitting in for Soccer today, and guys,
Speaker 1: as we said at the top, all four of us
Speaker 1: are going to be on the ground in Chicago for
Speaker 1: the DNC, so super.
Speaker 4: Excited about that.
Speaker 1: Should be very very interesting and the show's schedule then
Speaker 1: will be a little bit different next week, so just
Speaker 1: stay tuned for that, and if you can support what
Speaker 1: we're doing Breakingpoints dot Com always appreciate that, and we
Speaker 1: will see you guys at the DNC next week.
Speaker 3: All I'd see you guys there