Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not? Twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Interesting report and analysis is from the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal about the rise of part time work.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen. Their headline is
Speaker 1: burned down. More Americans are turning to part time jobs.
Speaker 1: The number of people working part time rose by one
Speaker 1: point two million in December and January. Most were people
Speaker 1: who chose it, so they're not being forced into it.
Speaker 1: And the quote they have here is twenty five hours
Speaker 1: is the new thirty five. Let me give you a
Speaker 1: few more of the numbers here. So as I said,
Speaker 1: it rose by one point two million, and most of
Speaker 1: that increase eight hundred and fifty seven thousand workers part
Speaker 1: time workers was driven by people who work part time
Speaker 1: by choice, not because they were unable to find full
Speaker 1: time work or because their hours were cut. The total
Speaker 1: number of people working part time voluntarily twenty two point
Speaker 1: one million in January, is now almost six times the
Speaker 1: four point one million who were working part time but
Speaker 1: who are working part time but would prefer full time hours.
Speaker 1: That's the highest ratio in two decades, and of course
Speaker 1: looks very different from the first months of the pandemic
Speaker 1: when there was a huge crash and people were just
Speaker 1: taking whatever work that they could find. Now you have
Speaker 1: people who you know, this is part of a whole
Speaker 1: reorientation that we've been talking about here for a long time,
Speaker 1: where people who are in the fortunate position where they
Speaker 1: don't have to work full time are reassessing their life
Speaker 1: priorities and they're saying, hey, maybe instead of the sixty hours,
Speaker 1: maybe I work three days a week, and maybe I
Speaker 1: have more time with my kids. Maybe I'm spending more
Speaker 1: time on hobbies. Maybe I have an interest or a
Speaker 1: small business that I want to get off the ground,
Speaker 1: And they're changing their whole set of priorities within their
Speaker 1: life in a way that I think is possible. Reminds
Speaker 1: me of the four day week study that has been
Speaker 1: making the round. Yeah, I was thinking about that. To
Speaker 1: fifteen percent of workers who participated in the studies said
Speaker 1: no amount of money on earth would convince them to
Speaker 1: go back to five work like a lot of sale.
Speaker 1: It's like you're saying a lot of people who are
Speaker 1: mid thirties, even sometimes not even with kids, are deciding
Speaker 1: to quit their job. They're transitioning into part time work
Speaker 1: and they're just pursuing either hobbies or a lot of
Speaker 1: them are just spending a lot more time with families.
Speaker 1: So this is a big part time revolution. I mean, still,
Speaker 1: it's only sixteen percent, but the trend line with the
Speaker 1: highest ratio since two decades also shows you where things
Speaker 1: are headed in terms of preference, and that is going
Speaker 1: to bleed into the bigger companies who are just going
Speaker 1: to have to make it work. They'll either move to
Speaker 1: like a four day work week, which is longer, or
Speaker 1: a ton more hybridization. You basically, if you're hiring right
Speaker 1: now for a generic white collar job, good luck trying
Speaker 1: to say five day a week in person. That is
Speaker 1: very rare. With the choicest workforce. People just won't take it.
Speaker 1: They'll say, no, I'm not going to do it anymore. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean the four day work week thing is actually
Speaker 1: really important piece to bring up because this was a
Speaker 1: huge trial. It's the largest study that they've done on
Speaker 1: four day work week, and they basically found workers were happier,
Speaker 1: they were less stressed, they got as much stuff done,
Speaker 1: and the companies at the end of it almost all
Speaker 1: uniformly continued it. Yes, because so it wasn't just good
Speaker 1: for the workers, Like the corporations themselves found that this
Speaker 1: was beneficial for them. So I think more employers need
Speaker 1: to and should lean into the idea of all right,
Speaker 1: we don't have the standard forty hour work week. People
Speaker 1: are still expected to, you know, to deliver, but getting
Speaker 1: out of this archaic idea of what matters is the
Speaker 1: number of like hours that you literally have your butt
Speaker 1: in the chair. And some of that rethinking certainly happened
Speaker 1: during the pandemic when obviously people are forced to work
Speaker 1: remotely and this is all you know, white collar office
Speaker 1: workers that we're talking here, which is, you know, a
Speaker 1: sort of relatively privileged group. But that forced a rethink
Speaker 1: on the part of workers for sure. And I feel
Speaker 1: like the boss class is kind of, you know, they're
Speaker 1: kind of late to catch up to a new way
Speaker 1: of thinking about these things instead of embracing like, listen,
Speaker 1: if you get your work done, you get your work done.
Speaker 1: I don't really care what you're doing with your day
Speaker 1: or what hours you're doing it in. They're going in
Speaker 1: the direction of what sort of surveillance technology can we
Speaker 1: invest in and make sure that your like eyes are
Speaker 1: on the screen for the right percentage of time, or
Speaker 1: that you're like doing whatever you're supposed to be doing
Speaker 1: during the technical office hours. So I do feel like
Speaker 1: they're a little bit late to the trend here. They're
Speaker 1: not going to win. There's no question flexibility is here
Speaker 1: to say, it will be the growing trend now for
Speaker 1: decades and we're all just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good thing. I think people should
Speaker 1: have more flexibility, and especially you know, if you can
Speaker 1: go full if you can go part time and make
Speaker 1: it work, and you know, it also opens up the
Speaker 1: whole swads of the country. A lot of people literally
Speaker 1: only where they live because of the commute. I mean,
Speaker 1: what if you don't have to what if you know
Speaker 1: you can live an hour outside. And they quote one
Speaker 1: guy who's like a part time tech worker who move
Speaker 1: started a new family farm with his parents and raise
Speaker 1: his chickens. That sounds nice. It would never be able
Speaker 1: to do that if you didn't, if you didn't have
Speaker 1: this flexibility. So anyway, yeah, it's great work. As like
Speaker 1: a religion, has been the case for certainly our entire lives.
Speaker 1: And so to the extent that people are rethinking that,
Speaker 1: I think that is incredibly healthy, not just for those people,
Speaker 1: but for all of society. It is a fun chart.
Speaker 1: Somebody actually sent me this. It is that in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, the share of people who said that developing
Speaker 1: and meaningful philosophy of life over was surpassed by people
Speaker 1: saying being well off financially, and the gap between those
Speaker 1: two exploded during the nineteen eighties, where eighty percent of
Speaker 1: people now saying it's more important to be better off
Speaker 1: financially than it is to develop a meaningful philosophy of life.
Speaker 1: So the flip of that, even if a slightness right there,
Speaker 1: that's sick. Well, you know, it's not a surprise nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy explosion of financialization in the US economy, trade free trade,
Speaker 1: except but you know, if you have a decline within
Speaker 1: that and you come more to where words we were.
Speaker 1: People were a lot happier in the nineteen sixties. So
Speaker 1: I think it shows why. Yeah, positive trend, we'll take it.
Speaker 1: So some new revelations from the US government, they say,
Speaker 1: actually Labilique yep, it seems to be the most likely
Speaker 1: one from the Energy Department. And apparently the FBI didn't
Speaker 1: take a genius. Ryan, We've both been covering this now
Speaker 1: for a long time, but a lot of journalists and
Speaker 1: other prominent figures in the media humiliated themselves on this subject.
Speaker 1: And let's just say we're going to keep some of
Speaker 1: the receipts, you know, why not. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: there on the screen. So what do we got? Oh?
Speaker 1: Very interesting. So here you have Tom Nichols, the so
Speaker 1: called death of expertise guy, saying arguing with the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorist rarely goes well, it gives people advancing a theory
Speaker 1: to keep repeating it as just a hypothesis, as Cotton
Speaker 1: does here. Every time you ask him, he'll repeat it,
Speaker 1: say it's unlikely, and just say he's asking questions. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Cotton wasn't correct that it was a bioweapons program,
Speaker 1: But he does appear to have been correct that it
Speaker 1: did come from a actual Wuhan Institute of Virology, where
Speaker 1: the US government now claims with the intelligence points to. However,
Speaker 1: oh go ahead, there is evidence that there is a
Speaker 1: bioweapons program. Yeah, that's right under way, COVID. It wasn't
Speaker 1: part of it, right, We don't know. Yes, we don't know,
Speaker 1: and we certainly can't go We certainly there's no reason
Speaker 1: to go there. I will not say that it is
Speaker 1: part of it yet, but it could also be part
Speaker 1: of a bioweapons program and be an accidental leak. Like
Speaker 1: whenever people hear bioweapons program, then they think, oh, no,
Speaker 1: well that it was an intentional but DARPA they went
Speaker 1: for DARPA funding, which they call biodefense, and if that
Speaker 1: was if it was if it if it came out
Speaker 1: of that kind of recipe that was created for the
Speaker 1: DARPA application, then that would actually make it part of
Speaker 1: like a defense or offensive operation. But it's still an accident.
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean right. And then the person it
Speaker 1: is an applebom who said, for Tom Cotton, wow, this
Speaker 1: is just like Soviet propagandists who tried to convince the
Speaker 1: world the CIA invented AIDS and Apple Bomb is literally
Speaker 1: on the board of global disinformation in trying to dismantle
Speaker 1: So that's interesting. And what does this show you. You know,
Speaker 1: you have the ambassador, the Chinese ambassador that faced the
Speaker 1: nation had on their program saying that it was a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory, and then you also had CNN saying quote
Speaker 1: fact checking Tom Cotton's claims about the coronavirus. I mean,
Speaker 1: all of these people absolutely proclown themselves in retrospect, even
Speaker 1: SA Maddie Hassen yesterday saying it's not our fault that
Speaker 1: we labeled this conspiracy theorist, it's the conspiracy theorists fault
Speaker 1: for co opting what was a genuine theory called lapli.
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, maybe you're not supposed to use
Speaker 1: your personal feelings against Trump or somebody who's saying China
Speaker 1: virus or whatever to keep away from the facts of
Speaker 1: what's been happening here. That's actually I very much appreciated
Speaker 1: the intercept on this. I know Mara, you know who
Speaker 1: I've talked to before. I mean, she's not like some
Speaker 1: China hawk or whatever. She just always wanted to get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of this and what do we learn
Speaker 1: from those documents, from the FOYA documents on the Eco
Speaker 1: Health Alliance and the NIH and how they were circumventing
Speaker 1: their own procedures and how we've been pouring millions of
Speaker 1: dollars of fundy into this lab, Like that alone should
Speaker 1: just be the scandal, period, doesn't have to be put Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what makes me so proud of the intercept
Speaker 1: supporting because we actually didn't go into it with like
Speaker 1: an agenda one way or the other, like what's going on?
Speaker 1: We were like, this is a this is a real
Speaker 1: open question. What what documents can we find that can
Speaker 1: shed some light on this question? And that's that's what
Speaker 1: it ought to be like because it also never and
Speaker 1: by the way, and Meddi's defense, he's he's, as far
Speaker 1: as I know, the only cable host who actually pressed
Speaker 1: Fauci on this. That's true, and you know Fauci lies
Speaker 1: tucking and dodging, but he did say, like the interceptors
Speaker 1: reported this, you've said this, and but it never made
Speaker 1: sense to me, and maybe you could unpack some of
Speaker 1: it for me how this became so partisan, because like
Speaker 1: I understand why if you're doing research about the effect
Speaker 1: of the minimum wage, the effective minimum wage on say joblessness,
Speaker 1: that people who oppose a minimum wage will see in
Speaker 1: the data that it raises unemployment, and then they'll they're
Speaker 1: talking points, and people who support the minimum age will
Speaker 1: find their own studies, Like I understand how that epistemologically
Speaker 1: kind of evolves into a partisan fight? This what like,
Speaker 1: how is this democratic? Look, it's simple, and it became
Speaker 1: from It came from day one. Nancy Pelosi remember saying
Speaker 1: we can't discriminate against Chinatown walking around in which she's
Speaker 1: the biggest hawk. Oh but oh, the Chinatown in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: it was sparking hate. Crimes became an anti Asian hate thing.
Speaker 1: And look, I'm not saying that there hasn't been violent
Speaker 1: crimes against Asian people, although you know a lot of
Speaker 1: that is product of just violent crime in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and New York. Some people don't really like to talk
Speaker 1: about that one. But the point that I'm making is
Speaker 1: that it became immediately that the idea was if we
Speaker 1: acknowledge this, if we talk about it, it's racist against
Speaker 1: Asian people in America, which of course is ludicrous. And
Speaker 1: the part to me that didn't make sense about that
Speaker 1: is that the non bigoted explanation was that it was
Speaker 1: actually these rural, redneck Chinese who were eating bat soup. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. That to me, they still talks about that
Speaker 1: all the time. That's like, so it's less racist to
Speaker 1: say that these like peasant Chinese were eating bat soup
Speaker 1: at wet markets, which apparently is not that common of
Speaker 1: a phenomenon, right, and and Weland it's like a city
Speaker 1: of like twenty million people's super sophistic huge. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: we played on these these tropes and these bigotries that
Speaker 1: Western people have about royal Chinese people to say that
Speaker 1: that's yeah, you know, you know how you know those
Speaker 1: Chinese people always eating those bats. That's that's the woke answer, right,
Speaker 1: I listen. But like that we were doing joint US
Speaker 1: and Chinese research in a lab right near there, and
Speaker 1: there was an accident. That's the that's the that's the
Speaker 1: bigot an explanation that the whole look, the whole thing
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. And from day one, so many of these
Speaker 1: reporters The New York Times, Don McNeil straight up admitted
Speaker 1: he didn't take lab League seriously because he trusted doctor
Speaker 1: fauctions we've been talking about, and a lot of these
Speaker 1: people have egg on their face. Beyond that, a lot
Speaker 1: of the social media sensors are have to straight up
Speaker 1: need to apologize to many of the figures who were
Speaker 1: deplatformed and smeared his conspiracy theory. It took a long
Speaker 1: time until you were able to talk about this. Was
Speaker 1: it Facebook taking your account down? Yes? Twitter did as well.
Speaker 1: They took down the zero hite account for talking about
Speaker 1: the bioweapons thesis. And that's look from day one, it
Speaker 1: was like, well, the lab is there and they were
Speaker 1: studying back coronaviruses. Maybe it came out of there. Oh,
Speaker 1: it turns out it's not consistent with evolutionary Like every
Speaker 1: scrap of evidence from day one has pointed to the
Speaker 1: Huhan lab. In my opinion, had to be an idiot
Speaker 1: to believe the natural origin theory thesis outside of two
Speaker 1: months into it, when we already knew from independent analysis
Speaker 1: that the fear and cleavage site looked like it was
Speaker 1: inserted into the virus. That's it, pack it up and
Speaker 1: go home. Well, that's that's why in early February you
Speaker 1: had that conference call with these scientists who are Christian
Speaker 1: Anderson and all these people who are now like the
Speaker 1: most outspoken opponents of the idea, saying all this looks
Speaker 1: like it came from the lab, like as we look
Speaker 1: at the cleavage site, as we look at the relationship here,
Speaker 1: Like to me, some guys are saying, I'm seventy thirty LAB,
Speaker 1: I'm sixty forty LAB, I'm fifty to fifty LAB, like
Speaker 1: some saying I can't see any explanation for how this
Speaker 1: has a natural origin. Those same dudes then like three
Speaker 1: days later or organizing a letter saying that the science
Speaker 1: has settled on this, well certainly settled now I think
Speaker 1: maybe we'll find out not quite. It's it's still not
Speaker 1: quite Like there's no there's well the same, but the
Speaker 1: gun is dead because they covered it up. It's gone,
Speaker 1: And people say we'll never know, and I just don't
Speaker 1: know if that's true. Like I still do think that
Speaker 1: we could know, Like there still could be there's evidence
Speaker 1: that the that the NIH and that the US has
Speaker 1: access to that has not been revealed yet related to
Speaker 1: Ralph Barrack's lab and some other places. So it's not
Speaker 1: just the Chinese, you know, who are who have a
Speaker 1: lack of transparency on this and maybe we will get
Speaker 1: something more out of out of China, like we like.
Speaker 1: I think it's too early to say that we'll never know. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I hope. So at this point, personally, I got
Speaker 1: all I know. Yeah, I mean I think most people should.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty confident. Yes, yes, I don't even I barely
Speaker 1: even even say hypothesis anymore, because at this point, the
Speaker 1: natural origin hypothesis is the one that's bunk like, it
Speaker 1: has far less evidence on its side. But we'll let
Speaker 1: the rest of the mainstream catch up with that one
Speaker 1: and we will see you guys later. Angela Davis appeared
Speaker 1: on Skip Gates' show where he searches people's genealogy, and
Speaker 1: boy was she stunned by what he found. Let's roll
Speaker 1: this any idea what you're looking at? That is a
Speaker 1: list of the passengers on the Mayflower. No, I can't
Speaker 1: believe this. No, my ancestice did not come here on
Speaker 1: the may Flow. Your ancestors kate on the may Flow. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you are descending from one of the one hundred and
Speaker 1: one people who sailed on the Mayflower. That's a little
Speaker 1: bit too much to deal with right now. Did you ever,
Speaker 1: in your wildest dreams think that you may have descended
Speaker 1: from people who laid never the foundation, never never. Amazing clip.
Speaker 1: It's easy to see why it went viral. And Henry
Speaker 1: Lewis Gates show on PBS, I think it's called finding
Speaker 1: your roots occasionally has a moment like this. He discovered
Speaker 1: Angela Gates is. Angela Davis is a distant relative of
Speaker 1: William Brewster, one of as Gates said, there the Puritans
Speaker 1: to arrive on the Mayflower. He was fleeing persecution, religious persecution, drama,
Speaker 1: one of the major founders of the Plymouth Bay Colony.
Speaker 1: And so there are a number of different ways that
Speaker 1: I think people can kind of interpret what this means
Speaker 1: about America, what it means about Angela Davis such a
Speaker 1: One of the things that always strikes me when these
Speaker 1: types of situations arise is kind of the rape culture
Speaker 1: associated with slavery, Because now there were free blacks in
Speaker 1: New England, you know, you know, from the you know,
Speaker 1: seventeen hundred's on. So it is certainly within the realm
Speaker 1: of possibility that there was some type of relationship that
Speaker 1: that was that was not rape, that produced this, But
Speaker 1: that possibility is extraordinarily slim. You know, most likely you're
Speaker 1: talking about some somehow you wind up in a situation
Speaker 1: of slavery that produces this type of outcome. And that's
Speaker 1: because that that is where most of the where most
Speaker 1: of most of that those family trees intersected. No, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And you can imagine then why actually it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: that surprising to Angela Davis. And I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: just sort of the shock of the moment because she's
Speaker 1: obviously very well aware of that history. Also the Mayflower,
Speaker 1: it's the may Flower. It's the icon of colonization and
Speaker 1: exploration and America and everything. Yeah, which is again why
Speaker 1: it's easy to see that it went viral. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, Ryan about the significance of Angela Davis
Speaker 1: obviously on the left, the right actually sort of makes
Speaker 1: her college campus appearances, et cetera. The right myself included,
Speaker 1: will weigh in on that and ask, you know, these
Speaker 1: lavish speaking fees that come to Angela Davis, who was
Speaker 1: once on the FBI's most wanted list for her role
Speaker 1: in a very complicated situation back in the seventies, I
Speaker 1: end up going to jail being quitted. So Angela Davis's
Speaker 1: role in the contemporary left, as and Henry Lewis Kese Junior,
Speaker 1: by the way, was involved in the Beer Summit, the
Speaker 1: famous beer summit that everyone seems to have forgotten about
Speaker 1: in the Obama administration, where he accused a white Boston
Speaker 1: cop basically of racially profiling him as he was trying
Speaker 1: to break into his own house, which he did, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that's still an open question
Speaker 1: as to whether it was like malicious racial profiling. But
Speaker 1: Obama then brought the officer and Henry Lewis Gates to
Speaker 1: the White House for the Beer Summit, and Angela Davis
Speaker 1: going back to her as we're now involved in this
Speaker 1: DEI what people call wokeness cancel culture discussion. Is there
Speaker 1: a significance to Angela Davis being the person here who's
Speaker 1: learning about the William Brewster Plymouth colony relationship. Sure, I
Speaker 1: mean she is an iconic and also polarizing figure on
Speaker 1: the left. The specific crime that she was accused, but
Speaker 1: so basically, somebody tried to break a couple guys out
Speaker 1: of prison in California and used weapons that Angela Davis
Speaker 1: had purchased, and that the assailant died, other people died
Speaker 1: like it was became an atrocity, and Angela Davis was
Speaker 1: then arrested for buying the guns that were used, but
Speaker 1: an all white jury actually like acquitted her, although she
Speaker 1: spent I think more than a year kind of in
Speaker 1: jail between the charges and the and the trial and
Speaker 1: her then being found not guilty. Obviously, the FBI was
Speaker 1: cracking down on black panthers and leftists at the time,
Speaker 1: and this was a part of that. And from there,
Speaker 1: you know, she went on to be one of the
Speaker 1: more kind of celebrated writers and academics in on on
Speaker 1: the left over the years, you know, viewed with an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of moral authority. You know, fell in fell
Speaker 1: into more controversy over the last several years when, if
Speaker 1: you remember, a Birmingham Jewish organization gave her some lifetime
Speaker 1: award and then rescinded it, saying that her her views
Speaker 1: on Israel, She's supportive of the boycott of Israel, made
Speaker 1: it so that she didn't they no longer wanted her
Speaker 1: to get this award, and so then that that produced
Speaker 1: a lot of backlash saying that you know that it's
Speaker 1: unfair to call her an anti semit just because of
Speaker 1: her position on Israeli abuses towards Palestinians. So but she
Speaker 1: she has maintained, you know, she has maintained her cultural
Speaker 1: cachet for sure. So to have somebody with you know,
Speaker 1: who has been part of our culture for fifty years,
Speaker 1: to learn that she came from the Mayflower, it's pretty amazing. Well,
Speaker 1: then let's put the next element up on the screen,
Speaker 1: because I think this was a good take from Michael
Speaker 1: Brendan Doherty of National Reviews. So take coming from the right.
Speaker 1: That wasn't just you know, owning the Libs, he said,
Speaker 1: think about it from both perspectives. Almost certainly exploitation played
Speaker 1: its role, But someone who came on the Mayflower has
Speaker 1: a radical like Angela Davis as a descendant America is huge.
Speaker 1: Talk of divorce is senseless in light of this reality. Obviously.
Speaker 1: I think the reason this clip popped on the right
Speaker 1: is because there's a lot of momentum that seeks to
Speaker 1: hold people accountable for the sins of their ancestors because
Speaker 1: of the color of their skin. Right now, So that
Speaker 1: is white Americans who are being held accountable or want
Speaker 1: to be The argumentation goes or should be held the accountable,
Speaker 1: as the argument goes before the sins of previous white Americans.
Speaker 1: This complicates that obviously when exploitation. Obviously, as Doherty says,
Speaker 1: there may have played a role, yes, But then on
Speaker 1: the other hand, sometimes it didn't, sometimes it did, sometimes
Speaker 1: it didn't, sometimes it didn't, And that makes it a
Speaker 1: very difficult sort of reality. The reality is much more
Speaker 1: complicated and in some ways much more beautiful in that
Speaker 1: American sense that William Brewster, the line from William Brewster
Speaker 1: to Angela Davis is sort of thoroughly American, that you know,
Speaker 1: you can descend from the lineage of somebody who founded
Speaker 1: the Plymouth Colony and be a sort of black radical
Speaker 1: and someone who's allowed to have rightfully, who's fought for
Speaker 1: all of these different metrics of progress for black Americans,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. I think we'd have to know
Speaker 1: a lot more to say whether or not it's complicated,
Speaker 1: because if it is, if it is what we assume,
Speaker 1: and he says exploitation, he's talking about rape, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that the product of a rape, you know, bears
Speaker 1: any responsibility or any kind of culpability or even relationship
Speaker 1: to the to the power structures that produce that. No,
Speaker 1: but that's the thing, like we don't know, and sort
Speaker 1: of trying to categorically say we do know is a problem, right,
Speaker 1: but I mean we can, we can, we can certainly
Speaker 1: make a very educated guess, oh absolute. But then codifying
Speaker 1: things legally into policy, I think is a really different question, right,
Speaker 1: which which shows why it would be better, I think,
Speaker 1: to produce a social democratic society that that elevated everybody,
Speaker 1: rather than saying, well, we're going to go back, you know,
Speaker 1: four hundred years and figure out whether there was consent
Speaker 1: between these ancestors, to determine whether you are going to
Speaker 1: get some form of reparations that you know, that just
Speaker 1: falls apart pretty quickly. Let's go back to the Skip
Speaker 1: Gates thing real quick, because I mean, it'd be one
Speaker 1: thing if the cop and this is what was July
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, he's trying he came back from
Speaker 1: a trip. He's like couldn't find his keys. He's like
Speaker 1: trying to get into his house, right he's in Cambridge.
Speaker 1: It'd be one thing if the cop like stops him
Speaker 1: as rude to him, asks him, you know who who
Speaker 1: are you like and and kind of gets aggressive, like
Speaker 1: you could say, look, that was you know, let's do
Speaker 1: the protect and serve thing, let's not be hostile with
Speaker 1: people until we know what's going on. But they went
Speaker 1: further than they put the guy in cuffs and arrested him. Well,
Speaker 1: he started arguing and saying, do you know, like, basically
Speaker 1: I don't think you do messing with Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: understandable again because he's going into his own house and
Speaker 1: Louis Gates, Yeah, it's and this is a Cambridge police
Speaker 1: I think I think I said earlier Boston, but Cambridge police,
Speaker 1: speaking of Plymouth and the settling of Massachusetts. Here you
Speaker 1: have in this is happening in Cambridge, Harvard professor, Cambridge
Speaker 1: cop and an too. It's like you can't ask a neighbor, hey,
Speaker 1: is this is this actually Henry Lewigates Junior. You can't
Speaker 1: type it in your phone. And so again you can
Speaker 1: understand entirely why any of those Gates gender would be
Speaker 1: furious that you know and would be This is one
Speaker 1: of the things I think the right got wrong about
Speaker 1: the kind of Beer Summit discourse back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine is that you can understand why somebody of
Speaker 1: his age who has lived through the America that he's
Speaker 1: lived through would be on guard and would sort of
Speaker 1: have that reflexive upset over being treated that way on
Speaker 1: his own porch by a cop. That doesn't mean the
Speaker 1: cop was acting in a racist fashion necessarily, but you
Speaker 1: can understan and why Gates would jump to that conclusion.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying this is how he felt, but
Speaker 1: there's also a sense of survivor's guilt among a lot
Speaker 1: of people who escape oppression and escape a marginal circumstance
Speaker 1: and get to Cambridge, get to an endowed professorship, get
Speaker 1: to a place where you're on speaking terms with presidents,
Speaker 1: while so many people that you grew up with are
Speaker 1: still living in these brutal conditions. And so I think
Speaker 1: that that kind of cuts against somebody like Gates's willingness
Speaker 1: to kind of bow down to an officer who is
Speaker 1: treating him in that way because he feels like, I've
Speaker 1: made a lot of compromises to get where I am,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to stand up for myself on my
Speaker 1: own porch, you know. I think it's really interesting that
Speaker 1: this is on his show and with Angela Davis, because
Speaker 1: it's a good reminder from the Beer Summit to from
Speaker 1: the arc of like early Obama years to Biden your
Speaker 1: now that our media discourse has done the entire country
Speaker 1: basically a disservice by just erasing any nuance from these
Speaker 1: really complicated conversations. And I think that's had positive I
Speaker 1: think that's had negative effects for both sides of the debate,
Speaker 1: whether or not you think one side is right or wrong. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it's just what's wrong is the lack of seriousness and
Speaker 1: nuance that our media culture in the age of Twitter,
Speaker 1: which was very new in two thousand and nine, has
Speaker 1: brought to these conversations because we're forced to make snap
Speaker 1: judgments for the algorithm. We're not forced to, but people
Speaker 1: do make snap judgments for the algorithm to be involved
Speaker 1: in the discourse as quickly as it possibly can, and
Speaker 1: that brings us to I think it's a totally flattened
Speaker 1: dialogue about that. And I do think on the question
Speaker 1: of how this complicates things, it also has to complicate
Speaker 1: the mythology of the mayflower, like it has to remind
Speaker 1: people that what they learned in third grade about about
Speaker 1: that landing has many other layers to it that have,
Speaker 1: you know, combined to produce the fabric of this society.
Speaker 1: I think the schools have definitely moved in that direction
Speaker 1: to the point of perhaps overreach, which we would probably
Speaker 1: disagree on at this point. But again we don't actually
Speaker 1: know where down the line exploitation if that was the
Speaker 1: case occurred, it could have been. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's really hard to know, but fascinating reminder of
Speaker 1: how unique this country is. There are more cases like this,
Speaker 1: and you say unique in a bad way, But the
Speaker 1: I think the way of looking at it that I prefer,
Speaker 1: the Michael Brendan Doherty way, is to say there are
Speaker 1: people who are legitimately were white supremacists from another age
Speaker 1: who have paved the way for the Angela Davises of
Speaker 1: the world. Well, that's for sure. So one of our
Speaker 1: great partners, Ken Clippenstein of The Intercept, has some bombs
Speaker 1: tell new reporting. Let's go and put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen here, guys, Penanon developed contingency plan for war
Speaker 1: with Iran. In January, the US and Israel conducted the
Speaker 1: largest joint military exercise in history, and obviously Ken is
Speaker 1: here with me. Now, great to Caesar, good to be
Speaker 1: with you, all right, So just tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit of what you found here. Yeah. So this con plan,
Speaker 1: which stands for a concept plan, it's basically a war
Speaker 1: plan that the military does to try to game out
Speaker 1: how scenario would happen and how they would fight a
Speaker 1: war with partner nations. And what's interesting about this is
Speaker 1: I think there's this misconception that the military has plans
Speaker 1: for every single thing, but the reality and I interviewed
Speaker 1: in the story is I interviewed a advisor of the
Speaker 1: Joint Chiefs who himself was a military planner under the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps Special Operations Command. These con plants, in particular,
Speaker 1: are very expensive to do because you have to get
Speaker 1: buy in not just from DoD but from outside agencies
Speaker 1: like the State Department as well as the White House.
Speaker 1: So these tend to be pretty rare. The last time
Speaker 1: that there was an Iran con plan reported was in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two and run up to the Iraq War,
Speaker 1: and so this is the first indication that they've had
Speaker 1: any kind of update to those plans. And the code
Speaker 1: name for it is Support Centry, And basically what's interesting
Speaker 1: about it is that takes place in the context of
Speaker 1: a huge shift regionally in terms of the US's relationship
Speaker 1: with Israel. So under the Trump administration, they passed what
Speaker 1: was called the Abrams Accords, which were sort of pitched
Speaker 1: as a peace accord, and to some extent it was
Speaker 1: that because it did normalize relations between the Arab Gulf
Speaker 1: States and Israel. But an unintended consequence of that is
Speaker 1: that it made it so that they can negotiate together
Speaker 1: as a block for what they want and basically their
Speaker 1: common enemy in that region now that they have normalized
Speaker 1: relations is Iran. And so the concern on the part
Speaker 1: of people are interviewing this story, and a lot of
Speaker 1: military planners too, is that we're going to get dragged
Speaker 1: into a conflict that Washington doesn't necessarily want because Israel
Speaker 1: is now able to coordinate with the Arab Gulf States
Speaker 1: to do these sort of things. Give us a little
Speaker 1: bit more of the history on those because I think
Speaker 1: this is important. Obviously, back under the Obama Biden administration,
Speaker 1: they negotiated the Iranian nuclear deal. Israel's very unhappy Nan
Speaker 1: Yahoo came gave this sort of infamous speech in front
Speaker 1: of Congress. Then Trump comes in, he backs out of
Speaker 1: that deal. Biden campaigned on getting back into it, he
Speaker 1: has not actually done that. There was sort of a
Speaker 1: window of time at the beginning of this administration that
Speaker 1: was probably the most likely time for him to get in.
Speaker 1: And so now, I mean, what you're showing here, and
Speaker 1: what seems to be the case from other activities as well,
Speaker 1: is that we're sort of backing the Israeli view of
Speaker 1: a much more brazenly aggressive approach to Iran. Is that
Speaker 1: a fair characterization? And what else are we seeing in
Speaker 1: that regard totally? To give you an example, recently, this
Speaker 1: is just a couple of weeks ago, the US ambassador
Speaker 1: to Israel made a statement publicly saying, whatever Israel wants
Speaker 1: to do to handle the alleged nuclear threat in Iran,
Speaker 1: we have their back. And there were so many questions
Speaker 1: to the press State Department Press secretary about that. It's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting they didn't walk it back. Now, they
Speaker 1: didn't say like, oh, we're totally on board with that,
Speaker 1: but they were like, we supported the Israeli's and our
Speaker 1: partners in the region. So that's going to be a
Speaker 1: signal to a country like Israel, which recently accorded to
Speaker 1: the new York Times conducted a drone strike in Iran
Speaker 1: where they blew up a I think it was a
Speaker 1: military production factory. And that's one of a bunch of
Speaker 1: covert operations that they've been doing. Killed a nuclear scientist
Speaker 1: not long ago. And so when you have a green
Speaker 1: light like that, you have to imagine that the Israeli
Speaker 1: is going to take that in a certain way. And
Speaker 1: so the question now is how far are they going
Speaker 1: to go. We had, as you mentioned before, the biggest
Speaker 1: US military exercise in history, and I think something that's
Speaker 1: important for the audience to understand is that war is
Speaker 1: not when the troops go into the country. That war
Speaker 1: is a continuum and it's an entire plan. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of logistics in planning. That was the point of
Speaker 1: my reporting this con plan, the concept plan, to give
Speaker 1: people the idea that the planning is happening, that in
Speaker 1: addition to that, the military exercise are happening, and that
Speaker 1: has the effect if you look at the Iranian government
Speaker 1: statement in response to that military exercise, the Iranians started
Speaker 1: having their own military exercise, and I think it was
Speaker 1: lieutenant general in charge of I think it was the army.
Speaker 1: He said military exercises are the war before war, and
Speaker 1: I thought that that was a pretty good way to
Speaker 1: put it, war before war. Regarding those drone strikes, I mean,
Speaker 1: there were a couple of things that Israeli drone strikes
Speaker 1: on Iran. There are a couple of things that I've
Speaker 1: found noteworthy. Number One, it came right in the wake
Speaker 1: of those giant military exercises. Number Two, Typically, when Israel
Speaker 1: has engaged in these type of attacks on Iran, and
Speaker 1: we'll put aside, you know, in Ukraine, Row territorial senateergy, etc.
Speaker 1: Here we have a different view. Apparently, Usually we say, oh,
Speaker 1: we don't really know what happened here. They came out
Speaker 1: and said it was Israel. I found that to be
Speaker 1: noteworthy because it was almost an endorsement of the actions
Speaker 1: that normally we try to keep ourselves a little more
Speaker 1: removed from exactly, and that's the effect that this regional
Speaker 1: shift has had. Another point I make in the story
Speaker 1: is that historically Israel has been put under the combatant
Speaker 1: command of European Command in the US military, and that
Speaker 1: sort of seems not very intuitive, Like why would the
Speaker 1: Israel being under European Command instead of Central Command, which
Speaker 1: is the Middle East Command. President Trump, in his capacity
Speaker 1: as commander in chief, is able to change something like that,
Speaker 1: which he did with an order in the last few
Speaker 1: days of his administration he moved Israel from European Command
Speaker 1: to Central Command. I started interviewing, you know, former military officers,
Speaker 1: trying to get a sense of why that what that
Speaker 1: change meant, because there's hardly in reporting on it. And
Speaker 1: it turns out there's good reason to have Israel under
Speaker 1: European Command because that makes it so that they're not
Speaker 1: fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Arab Gulf States, and
Speaker 1: it just keeps our combatant command separate from the full
Speaker 1: extent of what their interests are in that region. Insulates
Speaker 1: us a little bit from having to respond to problems
Speaker 1: that that might be, you know, in the Israelis interest,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily ours. But now that they're on Central
Speaker 1: Command along with the restaurant, that's completely changed the state
Speaker 1: of play in the region and not only align the
Speaker 1: Arab Golf States with Israel, but also puts us on
Speaker 1: the hook to respond to problems that happened with regard
Speaker 1: to Israel that we wouldn't have responded to when they
Speaker 1: were under European Command. And finally, there was a news recently,
Speaker 1: this is from the UN agency, the IAEA, that uranium
Speaker 1: purity and Iran is just seven percent off from bomb
Speaker 1: making levels. What do you make of this news and
Speaker 1: the timing of the news. I think it's early reminiscent
Speaker 1: of the run up to Iraq. Again, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: two thousand and two. I'm talking to the Clinton administration
Speaker 1: when the UN is putting out all these statements hand
Speaker 1: rating about a nuclear enrichment on the part of the
Speaker 1: Iraqi government, and then the effect that has is it
Speaker 1: stokes a lot of anxiety in the public. You don't
Speaker 1: want to be very clear, I don't want the Iranians
Speaker 1: to get nucle weapons. That's going to trigger an arms
Speaker 1: race in the region. Saudi Arabia has made its own
Speaker 1: moves towards a nuclear program, so as the UAE, that
Speaker 1: would be very dangerous. You know, I'm opposed to all
Speaker 1: of that. However, if you look at what our intelligence communities'
Speaker 1: conclusions have been in the Nuclear Posture Review, which it
Speaker 1: seems no one read, they state very clearly that they
Speaker 1: have no evidence. This is as close as a quote
Speaker 1: as a quote as I can remember. They have no
Speaker 1: evidence that the Uranians actually want a nuclear weapon. Now
Speaker 1: you can say, why are they enriching? They want to
Speaker 1: get to the point where they're near to it if
Speaker 1: they feel they need to hurry up and get one,
Speaker 1: a deterrent kind of thing, but that our best intelligence.
Speaker 1: The CI director reiterated this in an interviewed just a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, also said, we have no evidence
Speaker 1: that they're actually going to cross that line into full
Speaker 1: on enrichment as opposed to getting to the point where
Speaker 1: they could do it quickly. And I said the last
Speaker 1: one was the last. But I think it's important to
Speaker 1: get this as well, because under the Obama administration, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, the Iranian nuclear deal was one of their
Speaker 1: greatest achievements. Trump was just opposed to whatever Obama did. Reflexively,
Speaker 1: he you know, backs out of it. And as I
Speaker 1: said before, Biden ran on, we're going to get back
Speaker 1: into this deal that we walked away from. How did
Speaker 1: that fall apart? And to the point now where I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any expectation from anyone that it's really
Speaker 1: possible or feasible for the tale to be rekindled. I
Speaker 1: think that's really important angle to all this because Trump
Speaker 1: is in the past. You know, we can wring our
Speaker 1: hands all we want about what he did or didn't do.
Speaker 1: The reality is that Biden didn't reverse those things. Biden's
Speaker 1: commander in chief could send Israel back to European command.
Speaker 1: Biden commander as commander in chief has all sorts of
Speaker 1: a suite of options in terms of relationship. The best
Speaker 1: impression I get from folks in the defense community that
Speaker 1: I talk to is not so much that he's a
Speaker 1: pope that he hates the Iran deal, but is that
Speaker 1: he just did not prioritize it to the extent that
Speaker 1: he needs to, more focused on domestic stuff, didn't care
Speaker 1: as much about foreign regional policy. When you do that,
Speaker 1: the POSSE gets farmed out to the autopilot of the
Speaker 1: military community, which is always going to be escalate, escalate, ESCALATEE,
Speaker 1: which I think is what we're seeing in the region. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. And in the meantime, while they
Speaker 1: squandered time on the US side, totally there's now a
Speaker 1: more hardline leader in Iran. And of course now you
Speaker 1: have the complicating factor of them allegedly providing support and
Speaker 1: drones to Russia, which again, just creates a more adversarial
Speaker 1: relationship between US and Iran, makes it much more difficult
Speaker 1: to imagine getting back into any sort of deal. Really
Speaker 1: important reporting, guys, I really encourage you to read through
Speaker 1: the whole thing, because, as Ken points out, listen before
Speaker 1: a war actually happens. These are all of the sort
Speaker 1: of preparations that her so that they can build the case,
Speaker 1: so they can build the preparedness, so they can then
Speaker 1: go and sell it to the American public. So Ken,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, great reporting, Thanks for having me