Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, Let's get to the show. All right,
Speaker 3: Good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints. Emily. How you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm good. I've got a new job.
Speaker 5: By the way, we should probably mention that I'm now
Speaker 5: the DC correspondent at Unheard, switched over from the Federalist
Speaker 5: after six awesome years, but a DC correspondent at Unheard.
Speaker 5: We're going to be doing some stuff on YouTube, actually,
Speaker 5: so subscribe to the Unheard YouTube. We'll be launching a show.
Speaker 5: I'll be co hosting it twice a week and am
Speaker 5: writing in the meantime. But make sure you stay tuned.
Speaker 5: Subscribe and we'll be there soon with more.
Speaker 6: And congratulations on that. Unheard is kind of cool. It's
Speaker 6: it's not exactly left or right like, isn't it like?
Speaker 6: Kind of what is the contrarian or like or.
Speaker 5: I think it trains a good way to put it
Speaker 5: publishes opinions that aren't you with het, yeah, heterodoxic, Like
Speaker 5: it really tries to not go in a direction either way.
Speaker 5: That's like, this is the consensus opinion. You're being pushed
Speaker 5: by the political establishment. So here's some takes that are
Speaker 5: kind of different on both sides.
Speaker 3: Well, congrats, looking forward to your stuff.
Speaker 5: There, Thanks so much. We have a big show to
Speaker 5: Actually we have two guests.
Speaker 6: That's right, We're going to have a liberal Zionist, which
Speaker 6: is I'll be honest of you, that is probably lacking
Speaker 6: on this program. Now we have four hosts, probably none
Speaker 6: of them would consider themselves quote unquote liberal Zionists. So
Speaker 6: we're gonna have one who's really plugged in and is
Speaker 6: going to talk about the negotiations inside the Israeli cabinet
Speaker 6: to get to a place where they're going to be
Speaker 6: able to if they'll be able to accept a peace deal,
Speaker 6: if Hamas is going to be able to accept this
Speaker 6: this deal.
Speaker 3: So we'll see about that.
Speaker 6: And also twenty twenty four is a year that is
Speaker 6: going to go down in history as the kind of
Speaker 6: the most people voting. Ever, in one year, we've already
Speaker 6: seen hundreds of millions go to the polls in Pakistan, Indonesia.
Speaker 3: That gets you know, over five hundred million right there.
Speaker 6: And just in the last couple of days we had
Speaker 6: South Africa, Mexico, and India.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they all went to the polls.
Speaker 6: Fascinating developments out of all of those elections. I think,
Speaker 6: especially for people who watch this show and are unhappy
Speaker 6: with elites in the direction that they're taking this country,
Speaker 6: they might be pretty pleased to see the results in
Speaker 6: some of those countries as well.
Speaker 3: We'll we'll unpack like why.
Speaker 5: That is right, Yeah, you're going to become remotey. We
Speaker 5: have one w rosehas here from Compact. She's going to
Speaker 5: talk about the election of Claudia Shanebaum in Mexico. I
Speaker 5: think that's a much more interesting development than some people
Speaker 5: are giving it credit for, given that she's you just
Speaker 5: sort of Amlow's successors how she's being covered, but she's
Speaker 5: interesting because she's different than him in several ways. Now,
Speaker 5: speaking of Mexico, the big story this morning is actually,
Speaker 5: i would say Ryan Democratic reactions to Joe Biden's executive
Speaker 5: order that would cap daily border crossings. We're going to
Speaker 5: get into all of that right now, let's put this
Speaker 5: first element a one up on the screen. The New
Speaker 5: York Times headline is in shift Biden issues order allowing
Speaker 5: temporary border closure to migrants.
Speaker 4: Now some of the details of this.
Speaker 5: Basically, as this went into effect at twelve oh one
Speaker 5: pm or twetal one am, I should say, last night,
Speaker 5: at twenty five hundred crossings illegal entries is how the
Speaker 5: New York Times says it. Seven day average for illegal
Speaker 5: entries hits twenty five hundred per day. That had already happened.
Speaker 5: So that's why the order went into effect at twelve
Speaker 5: one am.
Speaker 4: So let's take a.
Speaker 5: Listen actually to what Biden said when he signed the
Speaker 5: bill first or the executive order first.
Speaker 7: Here he is, I've come here today to do what
Speaker 7: Republics in Congress refused to do, take the necessary steps
Speaker 7: to secure our border. Four months ago, after weeks of
Speaker 7: intense negotiation between my staff and Democrats Republicans, we came
Speaker 7: to a clear bipartisan deal. It was the strongest border
Speaker 7: security agreement in decades. Then Republicans in Congress not all
Speaker 7: but walked away from it. Why because Donald Trump told
Speaker 7: them to He told the Republicans, who has been published
Speaker 7: widely by many of you, that he didn't want to
Speaker 7: fix the issue. He wanted to use it to attack me.
Speaker 7: That's what he wanted to do. Is a cynical and
Speaker 7: an extremely cynical political move and a complete disservice to
Speaker 7: the American people who are looking for us to not
Speaker 7: to weaponize the border, but to fix it.
Speaker 4: So a lot of that was untrue.
Speaker 5: I'll just say the part about Donald Trump in particular,
Speaker 5: because in my own conversations with Republican sources, they say,
Speaker 5: we would have totally opposed that bipartisan border deal no
Speaker 5: matter what Donald Trump. If Donald Trump had supported it,
Speaker 5: we would have opposed it because our constituents would have
Speaker 5: been so opposed to it. The argument is that it
Speaker 5: allowed a lot of exemptions, and actually, in this case,
Speaker 5: Biden's executive order also allows for a lot of exemptions,
Speaker 5: and you know they're reasonably debatable exemptions. So unaccompanied minors
Speaker 5: will be exempt from these caps. So you have to
Speaker 5: stay low and average a daily average of fifteen hundred
Speaker 5: for seven days in a row in order for the
Speaker 5: for these caps.
Speaker 4: To go away.
Speaker 3: Fifteen like unpack this for people Okay.
Speaker 5: So it's interesting because a lot of what happens now
Speaker 5: is not the sort of stereotypical border crossing that a
Speaker 5: lot of people probably think about.
Speaker 3: There are still peopeople running across the river and right.
Speaker 4: And that the wall that does still happen.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it still still happens, But a lot of people
Speaker 5: will cross the river with cartel escorts and then just
Speaker 5: turn themselves in instead of trying to hide from border patrol,
Speaker 5: go through the desert and totally unnoticed all of that,
Speaker 5: they'll simply turn themselves in claim asylum. And that's why
Speaker 5: some of this is interesting in and of itself because
Speaker 5: the asylum process. You know, a lot of the reporting
Speaker 5: here is that it's just going to be asylum is
Speaker 5: simply going to be cut off with this Biden policy.
Speaker 5: But I don't know that that's necessarily true because it's
Speaker 5: not affecting what's called CBP one, which is the app
Speaker 5: that Biden launched. It's the New York Times as they're
Speaker 5: booking fourteen or almost fifteen hundred appointments daily through CBP one,
Speaker 5: and that's so you can make an asylum claim.
Speaker 6: That's an orderly entry into like you get an appointment.
Speaker 6: This is when you're supposed to come to the border,
Speaker 6: show your app and then you get and then you
Speaker 6: move through the process.
Speaker 5: Right, And the government provides mostly in the numbers for
Speaker 5: encounters at the border, which are so hard to know
Speaker 5: what that means. They actually provide do a really poor
Speaker 5: job providing numbers on asylum and so some of the
Speaker 5: reporting again has suggested that bends already reduced the number
Speaker 5: of daily encounters at the border, and that's true. But
Speaker 5: it's true because a lot of times those encounters are
Speaker 5: just the people who are crossing actually illegally, like swimming
Speaker 5: across the river. Border patrol apprehends them as opposed to
Speaker 5: people who are turning themselves in for asylum. We don't
Speaker 5: really know what the breakdown is of what's happening at
Speaker 5: the border.
Speaker 4: We just know that a lot of people are showing
Speaker 4: up and.
Speaker 3: There's also the Mexican roll right like over the last
Speaker 3: three months.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for whatever reason, we don't know what what exact
Speaker 6: deal was cut or what domestic interest. Samlo had at
Speaker 6: the time A good point it could be, you know,
Speaker 6: could have been election or later we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 6: He helped to cut down the crossings by something like
Speaker 6: fifty percent by basically holding migrants who are coming through
Speaker 6: transiting through. These are not Mexicans. We're not seeing a
Speaker 6: surge of Mexicans across the border. We're going to talk
Speaker 6: about that later. Yeah, these are people transitting through Mexico.
Speaker 3: And he was holding a lot of those back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I'm reading from the hill
Speaker 5: right now. Their headline is that he's limiting asylum at
Speaker 5: the southern border. That might turn out to be accurate. Again, though,
Speaker 5: what's one of the really interesting things. I looked up
Speaker 5: the definition and I actually read through the entire executive
Speaker 5: order and it relies on this definition in the US
Speaker 5: Code of Trafficking to exempt unaccompanied miners and people who
Speaker 5: have been trafficked from the limits. And you know, there
Speaker 5: are a lot of unaccompanied miners that come. And what
Speaker 5: the government has found is that when you exempt unaccompanied miners,
Speaker 5: that's when you end up even with more trafficking, and
Speaker 5: more clever trafficking, where cartels are finding ways to have
Speaker 5: people who are desperate for their children to get more
Speaker 5: opportunity to flee gang violence. I mean serious real asylum cases.
Speaker 5: In many instances, it incentivizes this weird trafficking system, horrible
Speaker 5: trafficking system where people will send their unaccompanied minors with
Speaker 5: cartel escorts posing as their fathers or their uncles or
Speaker 5: whatever it is, and it creates just a really crazy situation.
Speaker 5: The exemption on trafficking, I want to read the definition
Speaker 5: here pulled up because it's pretty interesting. This is the
Speaker 5: definition it relies on. I haven't seen this report at
Speaker 5: a lot of places. The severe forms of trafficking in
Speaker 5: persons sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is
Speaker 5: induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the
Speaker 5: person is induced to perform such act has not attained
Speaker 5: eighteen years of age, or the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision,
Speaker 5: or obtaining of a person for labor services through the
Speaker 5: use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of
Speaker 5: subjection to involuntary service, to debt, bondage, or slavery peonage
Speaker 5: as well. So if you want to be exempt from
Speaker 5: this cap, you probably will have a really good case
Speaker 5: that you qualify for a trafficking exemption under that definition,
Speaker 5: because every single person who crosses the border and claims
Speaker 5: asylum has been trafficked.
Speaker 4: You can talk to people they pay the cartels.
Speaker 5: It's maybe, I mean maybe ninety percent is the number.
Speaker 5: There are some people who you know paid to get
Speaker 5: up to the border, but like you said, they're coming
Speaker 5: from Argentina and Brazil.
Speaker 3: Or if you don't pay, they break your legs, right.
Speaker 4: They will. I talked to a family.
Speaker 5: I looked at this little girl who had been held
Speaker 5: in captivity in a house in Renosa for ten days
Speaker 5: without much food or water. Dark safe house, basically safe
Speaker 5: house because they didn't realize they hadn't paid the cartel
Speaker 5: fee for that region. Hunter and family is just people
Speaker 5: would be shocked if they heard the story.
Speaker 6: Right, So it's not necessarily that you need their assistance
Speaker 6: to get there. It's that if you try to do
Speaker 6: without their assistance, they're gonna make you pay. It's interesting
Speaker 6: because our understanding of trafficked is that you've basically our
Speaker 6: Hollywood version is a kidnapped exactly. Yeah, And this turns
Speaker 6: it on his head a little bit because you've actually paid.
Speaker 6: Sometimes paid you've paid out of extortion at the border.
Speaker 6: Other times you've paid out of desperation back at home.
Speaker 6: And the other twisted incentive that that you alluded to
Speaker 6: is the unaccompanied Minors exemption, which means you see an
Speaker 6: enormous number of sixteen and seventeen year olds coming to
Speaker 6: the border because if you're sixteen or seventeen, you live
Speaker 6: in Honduras, it's now the moment of truth for you,
Speaker 6: like I need to go now or never, and you
Speaker 6: might have family in the United States, and if you
Speaker 6: go before your eighteenth birthday, then you're able to get
Speaker 6: this exemption. That that was the truth before, it was
Speaker 6: the truth after. We'll see if Trump does any thing
Speaker 6: about that. It's very difficult because what do you do
Speaker 6: with a child who comes the border without without any accompaniment,
Speaker 6: just kick him back in the desert, Like it's an
Speaker 6: extraordinarily difficult policy and ethical question. Well, I don't think
Speaker 6: it's that difficult. I think we should be much more
Speaker 6: welcoming the immigrants.
Speaker 3: But if you're trying to here, no borders guy, right, But.
Speaker 6: If you're trying to stop people from coming, then it
Speaker 6: becomes a difficult one.
Speaker 3: You want to move to the democratic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I was going to say, that's what's interesting
Speaker 5: is because the Biden administration is not in favor openly
Speaker 5: of open borders, it's not like Joe Biden is out
Speaker 5: there making the libertarian and you're sort of progressive argument
Speaker 5: for open borders. He's making this argument as he attempts
Speaker 5: to look really hawkish, and this is something he could
Speaker 5: have done at any time, of course, and he's doing
Speaker 5: it an election year. Three point nine million crossings. That's
Speaker 5: a conservative estimate I run in the New York Post today.
Speaker 5: I think that is it's conservative, but I think that's
Speaker 5: probably accurate over the course of the Biden administration. If
Speaker 5: you cap this at twenty five hundred, you're still up
Speaker 5: about one and a half million a year.
Speaker 4: That's Ja Johnson.
Speaker 5: Jay Johnson in the Obama administration said that a thousand
Speaker 5: encounters a day was a quote christ So capping it there,
Speaker 5: I mean, we're we're on a different scale than people realize.
Speaker 5: And I guess that's where the Biden administration, heading into
Speaker 5: an election, decides to finally finally do something. We'll see
Speaker 5: what actually happens now. To the point about making the argument, honestly,
Speaker 5: here's how Greg Kassar, representative from Texas Reactive front of
Speaker 5: the show he was on back.
Speaker 3: In December, I think and talking to immigration.
Speaker 5: Yeah, talking immigration here's how he reacted to the news
Speaker 5: on MSNBC.
Speaker 8: I have real disagreements and concerns with this executive action
Speaker 8: because I think it plays into the current Republican talking points.
Speaker 8: You see the Republican Party here in Congress tries to
Speaker 8: cover up its own failures by scapegoating immigrants. It's the
Speaker 8: oldest trick in the book, and they continue to advocate
Speaker 8: for closing legal pathways to migration and pointing at chaos
Speaker 8: at the border. Unfortunately, it created this political pressure that
Speaker 8: has the presidents today responding by restricting asylum, which isn't
Speaker 8: going to work because it doesn't actually reduce the number
Speaker 8: of people being pushed out of their homes in Latin America,
Speaker 8: doesn't actually create new legal pathways for people to migrate here,
Speaker 8: and so I think we need an alternative, progressive vision
Speaker 8: for what will work on the border.
Speaker 5: Right, I've seen a lot of pushback, actually more than usual,
Speaker 5: even I would say from just sort of justice Democrat
Speaker 5: or Justice Democrat adjacent adjacent type people.
Speaker 6: Even more like Alex Padilla in the Senate, the entire
Speaker 6: Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which is which politically is very centrist
Speaker 6: or moderate, lashed out at this and when he was
Speaker 6: pressed when Kassar was president, what's your vision here, he said,
Speaker 6: well, we have to work on what's pushing people out. He said,
Speaker 6: start by relieving sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba, and our
Speaker 6: kind of hostile policy towards Central and South Americans, which
Speaker 6: is making it so that they want to leave, Like
Speaker 6: people don't actually want to leave. We have a kind
Speaker 6: of chauvinistic view of the US, and good for us.
Speaker 6: We were proud of our country. We think it's the
Speaker 6: greatest place on earth, and so we therefore assume that
Speaker 6: everyone on earth is just clamoring to come here.
Speaker 4: Some people really are.
Speaker 5: I mean, like when I talked to Haitian migrants at
Speaker 5: the border who were coming from Argentina and Brazil, they
Speaker 5: were like, you know, I was making a normal amount
Speaker 5: of money, wasn't in danger? And I said, well, why
Speaker 5: did you come? Was it the American dream? And they
Speaker 5: lit up and they were like the American dream, But
Speaker 5: they weren't in Cuba, right, And.
Speaker 3: That also wasn't why they left Haiti. Like they left.
Speaker 6: Those people left Haiti to go work basically, like to
Speaker 6: help build the Olympic structures and such in Brazil and
Speaker 6: if Haiti were a place where there could be a
Speaker 6: Haitian dream. No, most Haitians, I think would prefer the
Speaker 6: Haitian dream. We did this in like the sixties. We
Speaker 6: opened up our immigration policy because we thought everybody in
Speaker 6: Europe would come pouring over here and we're so racist,
Speaker 6: Like they were like, those are those are the immigrants
Speaker 6: that we want, the Europeans, and we got like zero
Speaker 6: basically from Europe.
Speaker 3: They're like, we're going, m hmm, it's fine. I mean,
Speaker 3: America seems great, but it's great here too.
Speaker 4: Is the consensus response?
Speaker 5: Do you think so far from Democrats who are opposing
Speaker 5: the Biden policy a root causes kind of argument.
Speaker 6: Yes, And as Beto you know, talked about in our
Speaker 6: discussion a couple of weeks ago, there really isn't a
Speaker 6: consensus kind of border policy yet that Democrats have settled on,
Speaker 6: and they're really being pulled in this kind of reactionary
Speaker 6: direction that Biden is leading him in, with others kind
Speaker 6: of pulling back in the other direction. What all of
Speaker 6: the research has shown in Europe, as the center left
Speaker 6: parties became anti immigrant, they lost vote share to the right,
Speaker 6: Like in every single case so maybe there's something unique
Speaker 6: about Biden that he's just such a spectacular political genius.
Speaker 3: That will work.
Speaker 6: That's him, and it didn't work for anybody else who
Speaker 6: has ever tried it. So, setting aside the morale, the ethics,
Speaker 6: whether it works, whatever, just on a pure cynical political basis,
Speaker 6: what he's trying to do, which is be less Trump.
Speaker 6: And he even said in his speech, he said, this
Speaker 6: is going to see it sound similar to, well, you
Speaker 6: know what Trump did, but we do.
Speaker 3: It with love.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 6: He was basically saying, you know, we're not going to
Speaker 6: accompany this with the rhetoric that Trump used. He cited
Speaker 6: Trump's rhetoric that immigrants poison the blood of America. He's like,
Speaker 6: I would never say that, but I'm going to do
Speaker 6: the same policy but in a much gentler way, just
Speaker 6: from a cynical perspective. That politics doesn't work, like there
Speaker 6: are no there are no Trump voters who were like,
Speaker 6: oh okay, cool, then that works for me, And there
Speaker 6: really are, apparently, according to the research, no other voters
Speaker 6: who were like, oh, well, I wasn't with you, but
Speaker 6: now I am, because if that was their big issue,
Speaker 6: they were already with Trump.
Speaker 5: You know if it's their big issue, but I guess
Speaker 5: I wonder if there are independent voters around the country,
Speaker 5: this makes them feel moremfortable with Biden, even if they're
Speaker 5: not happy with Biden overall, it could factor in to
Speaker 5: them feeling more comfortable with Biden. Again, though we were
Speaker 5: less than a day in and there's a lot One
Speaker 5: of the reasons a lot of people immigration hawks are
Speaker 5: coming out on this is similar to the border deal
Speaker 5: that Biden just said was the strongest thing in the
Speaker 5: world or in recent history.
Speaker 4: Is how you described it.
Speaker 5: There's a way to interpret this that could still let
Speaker 5: I mean, first of all, it lets a lot of
Speaker 5: people in. If you're saying we're turning away those credible
Speaker 5: fear interviews. Once we hit twenty five twenty five hundred dollars,
Speaker 5: twenty five hundred people a day, which amounts to a
Speaker 5: crazy amount of dollars actually for cartels. When you do that,
Speaker 5: you're still letting in. I think it's one point five
Speaker 5: million people a year, which is a huge number compared
Speaker 5: to it. I mean that was around it's been about
Speaker 5: two million a year. It was around two hundred thousand
Speaker 5: during the Trump years. And people probably remember we still
Speaker 5: were talking about migration as a crisis at the southern
Speaker 5: border at that point in time. So it's just we
Speaker 5: don't know exactly how this is going to work yet,
Speaker 5: and either way it's still to the If Kasar were here,
Speaker 5: I think we would have a conversation probably similar to
Speaker 5: what we had with Beto Arouric, which I recommend people
Speaker 5: listen to, I think for a good sort of debate, push.
Speaker 4: A pull on what's right.
Speaker 5: I have a hard time with Democrats who aren't openly
Speaker 5: saying we should be letting in, you know, at least
Speaker 5: one point five million a year, if not more. If
Speaker 5: that's your position, you should own it like you do Ryan,
Speaker 5: because it's perfectly it's perfectly defensible and reasonable.
Speaker 4: It's not one that I agree with.
Speaker 5: But if you're saying, you know, we want the border
Speaker 5: to be safe and orderly, and yet you're still allowing
Speaker 5: for these exemptions and all of these entries a year,
Speaker 5: basically you're not doing and not doing anything about the
Speaker 5: root cause. In the meanwhile, you know, I know they've
Speaker 5: made some overtures to you know, spending more on humanitarian
Speaker 5: aid in these countries and stationing more people to you know,
Speaker 5: tell them about CBPP one throughout South and Central America.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I mean it seems like it's sort of a half
Speaker 5: measure that could know, really not end up changing much.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that's how most of our policy has done,
Speaker 6: especially if you if you can't do anything through Congress.
Speaker 6: But yeah, we have a labor shortage, like people seem
Speaker 6: to hate it, like politically when you say it, but
Speaker 6: it's like the country that can attract young immigrants who
Speaker 6: then can be productive like people. People tend to think
Speaker 6: of immigrants as these these like drains on society parasise
Speaker 6: when it when in fact, immigrants on net are adding
Speaker 6: productivity to the economy, like just across the board, from
Speaker 6: everything from the high level engineering, medical professional professionals to
Speaker 6: the to the low level to construction and everything else
Speaker 6: in between. Plus, if you can keep the American education system,
Speaker 6: the university system, you know, rocking like it has been,
Speaker 6: which we're not, you know, we're watching it collapse in
Speaker 6: front of our eyes, but it has been the envy
Speaker 6: of the world in the post World War two era.
Speaker 6: You combine those things, you're going to continue to be
Speaker 6: the country that is dominant on the world stage. If
Speaker 6: you're an aging country that is keeping people out and
Speaker 6: that can't keep up, then who's going to do the
Speaker 6: work of productivity that you need.
Speaker 5: It's absolutely true by the way that we are an
Speaker 5: aging country.
Speaker 6: Birth rates are declining, We're getting older, like that's just
Speaker 6: a fact. And so you can either have a lot
Speaker 6: more babies, or you can allow immigrants, or a combination
Speaker 6: of the two.
Speaker 3: And immigration is really.
Speaker 6: The part of that equation that is first well, obviously easier,
Speaker 6: it's pretty complicated, time consuming. Raise somebody to eighteen years
Speaker 6: old if that's your policy. So anyway, we'll see, Yeah,
Speaker 6: we'll see.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm not one of those people that's like,
Speaker 5: you know, we have to stop immigration, all immigration. I
Speaker 5: actually think, you know, a much more clear system would
Speaker 5: allow for actual, orderly, sensible, logical system that helps us
Speaker 5: be competitive and does increase productivity without hurting American workers.
Speaker 4: There's a way to do it.
Speaker 5: But to your point, it's not how our policy is
Speaker 5: done in these days whatsoever. Speaking of divides between Democrats
Speaker 5: and the Biden administration, let's move to this Israel block
Speaker 5: because if you see, we can put this up on
Speaker 5: the screen, this is b one. If you take a
Speaker 5: look at how Democrats are responding to Biden's comment. In
Speaker 5: this big Time magazine interview, he was asked by the interviewer,
Speaker 5: do you believe that na who's prolonging the war for
Speaker 5: his own political self preservation? Biden said, I'm not going
Speaker 5: to comment on that.
Speaker 4: Then he goes and.
Speaker 5: Comments on it and says there's every reason for people
Speaker 5: to draw that conclusion. And he goes on also to say,
Speaker 5: I would cite that before the war began, the blowback
Speaker 5: he was getting from the Israeli military for wanting to
Speaker 5: changed the constitution, changed the court. And so it's an
Speaker 5: internal domestic that seems to have no consequence. And whether
Speaker 5: but change his position or not, it's hard to say,
Speaker 5: but it has not been helpful, sort of saying the
Speaker 5: quiet part allowed kind of in the Time magazine interview
Speaker 5: and then going into b two.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 5: Netan Yahoo was he was invited to address a joint
Speaker 5: session of Congress. There is no date for it. I
Speaker 5: think this happened actually back back in March, but more
Speaker 5: congressional progressives, this cites Jaya Paul even you know, you
Speaker 5: have people like Stenny Hoyer saying I'm not sure this
Speaker 5: is helpful for Yahu. They're actual like Apac people who
Speaker 5: are now trying to.
Speaker 3: Distance themselves the trip every other year.
Speaker 4: So it is real, Ryan, this is your bread and butter.
Speaker 4: Break down.
Speaker 5: What's happening with the divide, the growing divide here between
Speaker 5: Biden who's trying to kind of have it both ways
Speaker 5: with Yahoo and his coalition here at home.
Speaker 6: Right, So Biden, by saying it has not been helpful
Speaker 6: when he's talking about Yahoo sense of self preservation, is
Speaker 6: referring to a piece that doesn't get discussed enough. I
Speaker 6: think in American media that factors into the war, which
Speaker 6: is that.
Speaker 3: Nenya who is facing.
Speaker 6: Corruption charges, and if he leaves power, it's not just
Speaker 6: that he goes to become a fellow at the Harvard
Speaker 6: Kennedy Center. He could actually go to prison for these
Speaker 6: corruption charges. He is extraordinarily unpopular for his for his
Speaker 6: moving a whole bunch of troops up to the West
Speaker 6: Bank to defend these kind of rampaging settlers before October seventh,
Speaker 6: and by sapping the country's energy for like six months
Speaker 6: leading up to October seventh, by trying this takeover of
Speaker 6: the courts, which was not unrelated to the corruption charges,
Speaker 6: so that already people are already furious at him about
Speaker 6: that and believe that those two things factored into Israel
Speaker 6: kind of being weakened the moment of October seventh, which
Speaker 6: allow this this attack to be to go from an
Speaker 6: attack on a couple of century positions outside of gods
Speaker 6: and grab some uh, grab some military hostages to.
Speaker 3: An absolute horrific massacre over the course of the day.
Speaker 6: And so the thing that's keeping him, you know, out
Speaker 6: of jail and in power is the fact that he's
Speaker 6: still prime minister.
Speaker 3: And the thing that's keeping him prime minister is the war.
Speaker 6: So that's that's exactly what Biden is referring to, that
Speaker 6: his sense of self preservation. So we talk about how
Speaker 6: Hamas is being asked to sign on a dotted line
Speaker 6: and under with Israel saying, by this agreement, you will
Speaker 6: all die. Like their condition is that Hamas must must
Speaker 6: dissolve and go away. Uh, And Hamas is I'm not
Speaker 6: so sure about this. On the flip side that's asked,
Speaker 6: that's also in some ways what the public and the
Speaker 6: US is asking that Yahoo to do, Like once this
Speaker 6: war ends, you're in trouble, Like I wish we could
Speaker 6: come up with some like asylum, Like look, you know what,
Speaker 6: I would love it if Yahu would face justice, But
Speaker 6: I'd rather that the war end and that the tens
Speaker 6: of thousands of people, the hundreds of thousand people's facing
Speaker 6: famine could get relief, and that we can begin reconstruction
Speaker 6: and this. And if that means he gets a retirement
Speaker 6: without prison or with some corruption charges, then find there's
Speaker 6: the Panama just I mean, Florida, Come on, sure you
Speaker 6: can give him asylum here in the United States.
Speaker 3: And so that's what Biden's referring to there.
Speaker 6: Meanwhile, there's an invitation extended to him to come here
Speaker 6: and address a joint session of Congress, and you had
Speaker 6: when he came in twenty fifteen, it was this massive
Speaker 6: thumb in the nose of Obama, who very much did
Speaker 6: not want him to come. Painter invited him anyway, and
Speaker 6: he came to demand that the Iran nuclear deal, you.
Speaker 3: Know, not get put together.
Speaker 6: The audacity a foreign leader coming to our capital and
Speaker 6: telling our lawmakers not to do a deal with a
Speaker 6: different foreign country, it's.
Speaker 3: Just kind of incredible.
Speaker 6: You cannot imagine any other foreign leader who would come
Speaker 6: to the United States and tell us how to strike
Speaker 6: a treaty with some other country.
Speaker 5: While we are sending tons of money and weapons, and
Speaker 5: at the invitation by the way of our leaders of
Speaker 5: John Bayner at the time. And also it looks like
Speaker 5: one of the big reasons that this invitation was originally
Speaker 5: extended to the Tanyahoo was as a kind of olive branch,
Speaker 5: right Ryan. At the time, this was back and I
Speaker 5: think this was a march ish it was earlier in
Speaker 5: the spring. It was sort of seen as a negotiating chip, like,
Speaker 5: we may be attacking you publicly here, we may be
Speaker 5: disagreeing with you publicly here, but come on over address
Speaker 5: a joint session of Congress, because we're your greatest ally.
Speaker 4: It was kind of an interesting move.
Speaker 5: And now it seems like, while there's no date, this
Speaker 5: looming over Congress is really allowing for some of the
Speaker 5: big divides between progressive justice Democrat adjacent people and the
Speaker 5: Biden administration too. I don't know, I mean to become
Speaker 5: more pointed, more acute than I've seen over the course
Speaker 5: of the Biden administration. I actually think it's influenced the
Speaker 5: boldness and speaking out against the Biden border policy.
Speaker 4: We talked about earlier that it's just there's a snowball.
Speaker 5: Kind of rolling down the hill with people getting comfortable
Speaker 5: now openly criticizing Biden. Biden in a way that reminds
Speaker 5: me of how the Freedom Caucus typically treats you people
Speaker 5: like Mike Johnson, although there's a lot of agreement even
Speaker 5: in like the Democratic establishment that maybe the whole net
Speaker 5: Yaho joined address isn't a good thing, even for Netnahu himself.
Speaker 6: And all of this is happening while the question is
Speaker 6: being called both to Israel and to Hamas, with Biden
Speaker 6: has elevated this offer that Israel made. Israel has now
Speaker 6: said that it's ratified of something very close to it
Speaker 6: that's gone through the Katari Foreign Minister to Hamas. There
Speaker 6: are multiple in multiple courts and politics within each of
Speaker 6: those different coalitions. Like you know, Hamas is a coalition,
Speaker 6: just like the Israeli government is a coalition. It's not
Speaker 6: as if any of them are a monolith. And so
Speaker 6: to help us walk through this, child Ben A. Frame,
Speaker 6: who is the host of the podcast Israel, explained uh
Speaker 6: is going to join us in a moment to unpack
Speaker 6: where he thinks this is heading for net Yahoo and
Speaker 6: for the potential beginning of the end of the war.
Speaker 3: Joining us now is Child Ben a Frame.
Speaker 6: He's the host of the podcast Israel Explained and also
Speaker 6: a history of the land of Israel. Child, Thanks for
Speaker 6: joining us. So can you walk us through your assessment
Speaker 6: of what where net Yahoo is now when it comes
Speaker 6: to this this offer that has been made and has
Speaker 6: has this actual offer been made? Let's actually before you answer,
Speaker 6: let's put this first. Let's put this element up. This
Speaker 6: is this is b three. This is Barack Revide reporting
Speaker 6: that the Katari Foreign Minister is basically saying that they've
Speaker 6: received an Israeli proposal for a hostage deal quote that
Speaker 6: reflects the principles laid out in President Biden's speech, and
Speaker 6: they delivered it to Hamas, and so unpack that for us,
Speaker 6: like what is cutter saying here?
Speaker 3: What have what has Israel given them? And what have
Speaker 3: it sent to Hamas?
Speaker 10: So on May twenty ninth, the Israeli War Cabinet voted
Speaker 10: on an offer to give to Hamas. That offer was
Speaker 10: made at a very low moment for Israel, when a
Speaker 10: video of several female soldiers that had been taken by
Speaker 10: by Hamas who worked as observers had been revealed to
Speaker 10: the public, and there was a lot of pressure to
Speaker 10: get a deal right now. Nataniell was somewhat hesitant to
Speaker 10: make that offer, but he did, and because he was
Speaker 10: very hesitant to make that offer, he's been backtracking ever since.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 10: That offer is very similar to the one that Biden
Speaker 10: referenced in his speech. Biden made no changes from the
Speaker 10: offer that Israel made, despite some claims to the contrary.
Speaker 10: There were some things that he omitted for sure, especially
Speaker 10: the number of prisoners things like that, but a lot
Speaker 10: of that is confidential and under Israeli military censorship to
Speaker 10: begin with. Nathaniel also made that offer when as the
Speaker 10: only holed out in the cabinet, he was the only
Speaker 10: one who wanted to vote against that offer, and then
Speaker 10: he eventually did because he lost his closest ally in
Speaker 10: the cabinet, Ron Dermer.
Speaker 9: So it's a three stage offer.
Speaker 10: In the first stage, there'll be in exchange of humanitarian
Speaker 10: hostages in exchange for a release of prisoners and Israel
Speaker 10: stopping the war for forty six days.
Speaker 9: Then there'll be negotiation over a second phase.
Speaker 10: In the second phase, there's supposed to be complete cessation
Speaker 10: of the conflict permanently, a return of soldiers, and in
Speaker 10: the third phase there is going to be a rebuilding
Speaker 10: of Gaza that will take place over three to five years.
Speaker 10: So that's the full.
Speaker 6: So Netna Who's initial response when Biden came out with
Speaker 6: that proposal was to say, well, you know, this is
Speaker 6: a non starter. This isn't really what I meant because
Speaker 6: it doesn't allow us to continue the war. Then there
Speaker 6: were leaks from his own office saying no, actually, this
Speaker 6: was our offer. So how did we get from a
Speaker 6: how do we get from that place where he was
Speaker 6: reluctantly for it, then he was against it, and now
Speaker 6: he's transmitting something that is the same in principle through cutter,
Speaker 6: And what does it mean in principle?
Speaker 3: Is it the same deal?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Yeah, So the trouble with what we're doing here is
Speaker 10: as as more rational people, is that we're trying to
Speaker 10: find continuity in Nathaniel's policy on a on a foreign
Speaker 10: policy level, in terms of the national interest, in terms of.
Speaker 9: Getting a deal.
Speaker 10: Uh, that's a mistake because Nathaniel is only working on
Speaker 10: the level of trying to maintain his coalition, and right
Speaker 10: now his coalition is ailing on both sides. He's got
Speaker 10: Ben Vereen smolt Rich on the right and they're saying
Speaker 10: that they're going to bolt if there.
Speaker 9: Is an advance on this deal. Then you have.
Speaker 10: Gance on the left say that he's going to bolt
Speaker 10: if there isn't advance on a deal or any kind
Speaker 10: of strategic vision towards the war, and you have immense
Speaker 10: international pressure from Biden, the lights of which if you ignore,
Speaker 10: there will be repercussions.
Speaker 9: So what Nathaniel was trying to do is he's trying
Speaker 9: to avoid.
Speaker 10: All these pitfalls by maneuvering left when he goes too
Speaker 10: far right, and maneuvering right when he goes too far left,
Speaker 10: to try to maintain his coalition, to try to beat
Speaker 10: the worst ramifications of having an open spat with with Biden,
Speaker 10: and to try to keep guns in the coalition for
Speaker 10: as long as possible. So as far as the actual
Speaker 10: offer is concerned, nothing has changed, because that offer is
Speaker 10: one that is Reel's made.
Speaker 9: So the offer is locked in.
Speaker 10: The US has already revealed it, and the reason they
Speaker 10: revealed it was because they knew that it Daniel might
Speaker 10: back away from it and to put pressure on Hamas
Speaker 10: to agree to it.
Speaker 9: Too, because Hamas was probably going to say no without all.
Speaker 10: This, so that the offer is the same offer, but
Speaker 10: the spin is going to constantly change according to Nataniao's
Speaker 10: political needs, and a lot of the things that he's
Speaker 10: saying are in there are not the most obvious ones.
Speaker 10: He's saying that the offer includes the Israeli right to
Speaker 10: destroy Hamas. But you're never going to give an offer
Speaker 10: to someone with saying I'm going to destroy you.
Speaker 9: That is nonsensical.
Speaker 10: But he's saying that for political reasons, and if we
Speaker 10: understand that, then we understand.
Speaker 9: What he's doing. But the offer is the same offer,
Speaker 9: and so.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about actually how Biden is navigating some of
Speaker 5: those challenges here. Matthew Miller was asked about this by
Speaker 5: a Nile Stange. I forget how to pronounce this last name. Sorry, Nile,
Speaker 5: but let's play this next clip and get you to
Speaker 5: react to it.
Speaker 4: Chill.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the present remarks, which included the idea that
Speaker 1: as long as a mask lives up to its commitment,
Speaker 1: there could be and I quote, the cessation of hostilities permanently.
Speaker 1: And you say that is an Issueli proposal. The government
Speaker 1: of the State of israel Is signed up to a
Speaker 1: proposal that there could be a permanent and true hostilities
Speaker 1: and a mass still in existence in a meaningful way.
Speaker 12: No, they are signed up to an agreement that leads
Speaker 12: to a permanent cessation of hostilities, but with a number
Speaker 12: of provisions that have to be negotiated to get there
Speaker 12: at the.
Speaker 3: End of the faith.
Speaker 11: But it's a provision.
Speaker 12: But I'm not going to negotiate all those provisions in public.
Speaker 12: I've talked about this a good deal yesterday, about the
Speaker 12: fact that one of the principles the Secretary outlined in
Speaker 12: Tokyo and November is that there cannot be continued rule
Speaker 12: of Hamas in Gaza after October seventh. I'm sorry, after
Speaker 12: the end of this conflict, and that's what we're committed to.
Speaker 1: No, but I understand that. But if the provisions required
Speaker 1: would be the dissolution of Hamas, why would a mass
Speaker 1: sign up to get that ball willing.
Speaker 12: Because they don't want to see continued conflict, continued Palestinian
Speaker 12: people dying. They don't want to see war in Gaza.
Speaker 12: They want to see reconstruction of Gaza. Now, look, I
Speaker 12: will say I will grant you one thing I said
Speaker 12: this to matt yesterday. It may be that Sinoar decides
Speaker 12: that he's safe in the tunnel and his interests have
Speaker 12: diverged from the people of Gaza, and so he's not
Speaker 12: willing to agree to a ceasefire, and he's not willing
Speaker 12: he's not willing to look at this proposal and say
Speaker 12: it requires good faith negotiations to get from phase one
Speaker 12: to phase two. So I'm not going to accept it
Speaker 12: because I'm safe and I don't have any interest in
Speaker 12: the Palestine people who continue to suffer the ravages of war.
Speaker 12: But I will say, if you look at the deal
Speaker 12: that's on the table, it is manifestly in the interests
Speaker 12: of the Palestinian people, is manifestly in the interests of
Speaker 12: the Israeli people, is manifestly in the interests of the world.
Speaker 9: And so that's why we'll continue to push for it.
Speaker 12: And if Hamas really does represent the interests of the
Speaker 12: Palestine people, as they say over and over, it's without
Speaker 12: a doubt that they'll take this deal.
Speaker 5: So Nile pushing Matthew Miller on some of the same
Speaker 5: questions that you guys were just talking about. Ryan and
Speaker 5: Schielle Hill, give us a little bit of reaction to
Speaker 5: that exchange. Not an easy question to answer for the
Speaker 5: Biden administration.
Speaker 10: Yeah, so, you know, I hate to COVID but like this,
Speaker 10: But everything he's saying is completely erroneous and he knows it.
Speaker 9: And it's not even a question.
Speaker 10: What Miller is saying is that Hamas would accept an
Speaker 10: offer calling to remove them from power. Because I'm paraphrasing here,
Speaker 10: he cares about the Palestinian people. Sinwa cares about the
Speaker 10: Palestinian Sinwa does not care about the Palestinian people. Sinwar
Speaker 10: uses the Palestinian people as a tool in order to
Speaker 10: hurt Israel and increase the power of his organization. That's
Speaker 10: what he does. There's no other way to understand this war.
Speaker 10: If he cared about the Palestinian people, then he would
Speaker 10: have reached a ceasefire long ago.
Speaker 9: The Palestinian people are suffering terribly.
Speaker 10: And neither leader here particularly cares about their people, and
Speaker 10: they certainly don't care about the people on the other side.
Speaker 10: And what that clip reveals is how ridiculous it is
Speaker 10: to pretend that this deal that Israel has offered is
Speaker 10: going to allow for the destruction of Hamas. Hamas are
Speaker 10: not idiots, they have said they're not accepting this deal
Speaker 10: unless Israel states clearly that it will end the war,
Speaker 10: which they have said in that offer, and there's no
Speaker 10: question that Israel had did say that in that offer,
Speaker 10: and that the United States will guarantee an end to
Speaker 10: the war. And if they don't get that, they're not
Speaker 10: going to sign an agreement. There's no reason for them
Speaker 10: to stop their control of Gaza because Israel has failed
Speaker 10: to remove Hamas militarily.
Speaker 9: The only way you can remove an enemy.
Speaker 10: Organization like that is by defeating them in the battlefield.
Speaker 9: Israel, for various reasons, has not done that. Hamas knows
Speaker 9: they haven't done that.
Speaker 10: And more than that, Sinwar is very hesitant to take
Speaker 10: this deal to begin with. The only reason he's thinking
Speaker 10: about doing it is because of pressure from Qatar and
Speaker 10: from Egypt. He knows that the longer this war goes on,
Speaker 10: the more of a price he exacts from Israel on
Speaker 10: the international state age between the ICC and the ICJ
Speaker 10: and the Biden administration and the EU and the UK
Speaker 10: not sending arms and so on and so forth.
Speaker 9: And that's just the beginning.
Speaker 10: In two months, things will be worse, and sin of
Speaker 10: war showed in October seventh that his goal is not
Speaker 10: to help the Palestinian people. His goal is to hurt
Speaker 10: Israel as much as possible, as it says in the
Speaker 10: Hamas Charter, and also increase their political power. October seventh
Speaker 10: has done that. They're more popular now than ever. And
Speaker 10: with the amount of pain he's inflicting on Israel, we're
Speaker 10: talking about damage that no other actor has ever done
Speaker 10: to Israel in it's entire history.
Speaker 9: And he knows that.
Speaker 6: And to unpack this Matt Miller's kind of contradiction that
Speaker 6: he has here, it reminds me a little bit of
Speaker 6: the US and the Taliban. And you said, you know,
Speaker 6: the only way to defeat an enemy like that is militarily,
Speaker 6: And even in the case of the Taliban, we actually,
Speaker 6: the United States did actually completely to defeat the Taliban,
Speaker 6: and yet, because of the nature of counter terrorism in
Speaker 6: the way that it produces more enemies, the Taliban eventually
Speaker 6: came back. And we spent like about a decade here
Speaker 6: in the United States trying to figure out a day
Speaker 6: after for Afghanistan, but trying to do so in a
Speaker 6: way that did not account for the Taliban, and finally
Speaker 6: eventually reality just intervening. We're like, you know what, actually, okay,
Speaker 6: Actually it's going to be the Taliban. We're just gonna
Speaker 6: be okay with that. And it's been a couple of
Speaker 6: years in the world and the US just kind of
Speaker 6: moved on. And it feels very similar that like neither
Speaker 6: the neither Israel or the United States want to acknowledge
Speaker 6: the potential that Hamas, even if it's some renamed organization,
Speaker 6: might still be there after the war is over, and
Speaker 6: so therefore their ability to think of a day after
Speaker 6: is as irrational and kind of incoherent as the US
Speaker 6: as was in Afghanistan. Does that what's going on with
Speaker 6: their with Hamas and the day after here?
Speaker 10: Yeah, So I'm going to push back on that a
Speaker 10: little bit because I think what we're seeing here is
Speaker 10: that the Biden.
Speaker 9: Administration actually had a pretty good plan for what to
Speaker 9: do in Gaza.
Speaker 10: Biden administration said to Nathaniel early on in the war, Listen,
Speaker 10: when you finished taking over Gaza, we're going to bring
Speaker 10: in the PA, We're going to reform the PA. We're
Speaker 10: going to do that with the help of the United
Speaker 10: Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the eu et.
Speaker 9: Cetera, et cetera, a whole plan for that.
Speaker 10: Nathaniel did not accept that because that would require talking
Speaker 10: about a Palestinian state. That would require giving up on
Speaker 10: Nathaniel's policy of divide and conquer of the Palestinians. Where
Speaker 10: you have Hamas in Gaza and you have the Palestinian
Speaker 10: Authority in the West Bank. That way you're never going
Speaker 10: to have a Palestinian state because they're divided forever. And
Speaker 10: that way he can avoid losing ben Vere and Smotrich
Speaker 10: from his coalition.
Speaker 9: So Biden had a plan, a pretty good one.
Speaker 10: I don't know if it would have worked, but at
Speaker 10: least have had some realistic prospect, and Nathaniel rejected it.
Speaker 10: Not only did he reject the diplomatic element. This is
Speaker 10: the part that people miss. He rejected the military element.
Speaker 10: Nathaniel did not and has not, taken over all of Gaza,
Speaker 10: and he's avoided doing that by withdrawing from cities that
Speaker 10: he's already taken.
Speaker 9: And then taking the next city.
Speaker 10: Think about the fact that he's going into Rafach now
Speaker 10: but left Hanyunis. If he had Hanyunis and Rafa and
Speaker 10: Gaza city, he basically have the strip. He doesn't want
Speaker 10: that because once he has that, he owns the Gaza Strip,
Speaker 10: and then he has to decide what to do with it.
Speaker 10: If he just takes the city here, it takes a
Speaker 10: city there because of destruction, he's continuing the war. But
Speaker 10: there's no day after plan, and so right now the
Speaker 10: Americans are and I think this is a mistake playing
Speaker 10: along with this fantasy that you can have a day
Speaker 10: after plan without a taking over the entire Gaza Strip
Speaker 10: and b bringing in an alternate reform government.
Speaker 9: And you mentioned competit to Afghanistan.
Speaker 10: Of course Afghanistan was a disaster, but Afghanistan was so
Speaker 10: much more logical than this, because in Afghanistan, the United
Speaker 10: States took over the entire country and put in an
Speaker 10: alternate government. They cleared the enemy, and they rebuilt. The
Speaker 10: Israelis are unwilling to do either. They're unwilling to get
Speaker 10: rid of Hamas and they're unwilling to rebuild a new government.
Speaker 10: And the reason for that is because the Nitannail government
Speaker 10: is not does not want a movement towards a two
Speaker 10: state solution and to lose support from the extreme right.
Speaker 10: So there's no policy at all. It's much worse than Afghanistan.
Speaker 10: If Ghanastan was an honest attempt to do something that
Speaker 10: went wrong, there's no honest attempt to do anything.
Speaker 6: I've got one more question, unless you know, no go
Speaker 6: So here in Washington, DC, yesterday the House of Representatives,
Speaker 6: we could put up B five here. The House of
Speaker 6: Representatives passed a bill basically sanctioning the International Criminal Court
Speaker 6: two hundred and five Republicans joined by forty two Democrats.
Speaker 3: Here's my colleague at the Intercept, Prem Tucker.
Speaker 6: Listing who the forty two Democrats are sanctioning the ICC
Speaker 6: for threatening to.
Speaker 3: Issue arrest warrants.
Speaker 6: Well, how does how does both the ic CS move
Speaker 6: originally but also then the US pushback against the ic C?
Speaker 6: How does that play into Utahu's calculations.
Speaker 10: I don't think it plays into his calculations all that much.
Speaker 9: I don't think the ICC at this.
Speaker 10: Point is going to be bullied into dropping the chargers
Speaker 10: against Nitanyahu and Gallant. I have I've been talking to
Speaker 10: some people in the in the ic C.
Speaker 9: I've been talking to some people in the Israeli justice ministry.
Speaker 10: They feel and if anyone knows this, because he's getting
Speaker 10: advice from these people. They feel that the more the
Speaker 10: ICC is bullied, the more likely they are to go
Speaker 10: forward with with it.
Speaker 9: What this is on on an I the level of.
Speaker 10: The ICC and diplomatically speaking, is an attempt to shore
Speaker 10: up again the base. And also it helps divide and
Speaker 10: conquer Biden from the Republicans in the in the House
Speaker 10: and some Democrats as well, because Biden doesn't want to
Speaker 10: be sanctioning the ICC, nor should he. Honestly, the United
Speaker 10: States is part of the liberal world order. The ic
Speaker 10: C is an organization set up to prevent future genocides
Speaker 10: going after them in some kind of war because you
Speaker 10: disagree with their with their stance on the war in
Speaker 10: Gaza goes against everything that a liberal internationalist like Biden
Speaker 10: and that entire administration should be doing.
Speaker 9: And that's why he doesn't want if he really doesn't
Speaker 9: want to be doing it.
Speaker 10: But the reasons being done for Republicans and for Nataneo
Speaker 10: is completely political. It's to the Republicans to show that
Speaker 10: they're more pro Israel than Biden is, and for Nathaniel
Speaker 10: to show that he's standing up to Biden. The place
Speaker 10: that where Natelle feels the most comfortable in the world
Speaker 10: is in Washington, d C. Speaking before Congress, sticking a
Speaker 10: finger in the eye of a democratic president. That's that's
Speaker 10: that's his sweet spot, and that's that's always gotten him
Speaker 10: are raising the polls, and he feels very comfortable there
Speaker 10: running wars, not so much fixing problems, not so much.
Speaker 9: Giving nice speeches in Congress is great and and like.
Speaker 10: Everything else that Nathaniel does, this is not going to
Speaker 10: fix the problem with the ICC.
Speaker 9: ICC is a legal organization, and.
Speaker 10: What they asked is that Israel investigate what it's doing
Speaker 10: in Gaza. And that's the only way that you could
Speaker 10: get the ic C to do anything is by having
Speaker 10: valid internal investigations in Israel. And Nathaniel refuses to do
Speaker 10: that because that wouldn't play well with the base. So
Speaker 10: instead he's going to do a grand standing show actishly.
Speaker 3: I did have one last question for you before before
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 6: Yesterday were there were some reports that Hamas had already
Speaker 6: rejected this offer. Yet we also have reports that Hamas
Speaker 6: is engaged in these you know, detailed negotiations, which see
Speaker 6: those two things seem to be in contradiction. What's what's
Speaker 6: your understanding of who the final negotiators are and what
Speaker 6: what should people be watching for for signals of whether
Speaker 6: that not this is going to lead to a deal.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So the first thing I would question is that if
Speaker 10: you hear that someone accepted or didn't accept without a statement,
Speaker 10: ignore it.
Speaker 9: There's a lot of spin right now.
Speaker 10: From interested actors and people are trying to raise the price,
Speaker 10: lower the price, and they say, that's fine that.
Speaker 9: They're doing that.
Speaker 10: That's how you negotiate, like Israel's doing that, US is
Speaker 10: doing that, Hamas is doing that.
Speaker 9: That's how you negotiate. That's just that's just how it's done.
Speaker 9: But as far as as.
Speaker 10: The actual process and not the statements, there's meat in
Speaker 10: Doha under Bill Burns, Israeli delegation is going to be
Speaker 10: their Tattari delegation is going to be their Egyptian delegation
Speaker 10: is going to be there, and that's where they're going
Speaker 10: to have the talks.
Speaker 9: What's going to happen there is two things.
Speaker 10: Hamas is going to try to squeeze out some more
Speaker 10: concessions that they never accept an offer as is, They're
Speaker 10: just not wired that way, even though this offer is good,
Speaker 10: is very good for them, So they'll be doing that.
Speaker 10: But the most important thing that both sides will be
Speaker 10: doing there is they'll be trying to do what James
Speaker 10: Baker called leave the dead cat on the other side's doorstep.
Speaker 10: You want to they both sides have an interest in
Speaker 10: making this fail, but neither side has an interest in
Speaker 10: making this fail and appear to be their fault because
Speaker 10: they'll be facing Hamas will be facing a lot of
Speaker 10: problems with Katar and Israel will be facing a lot
Speaker 10: of problems with the United States. So what they're going
Speaker 10: to do is they're going to try to maneuver to
Speaker 10: blame the other side for the failure. The only way
Speaker 10: that really that this is even accepted is if both
Speaker 10: sides are somehow put it on the spot where they
Speaker 10: could be blamed for the failure, something that James Baker,
Speaker 10: who I mentioned, was very good at because he's aware
Speaker 10: of the dynamic. I'm not sure that Bill Burns really
Speaker 10: knows how to do that properly.
Speaker 9: He's the CIA is actually not they're not.
Speaker 10: They don't specialize in negotiating, So that that's what we
Speaker 10: should be looking at, because I think both sides want
Speaker 10: us to fail. Not most Israelis, by the way, and
Speaker 10: not even most of the government but Nataniahu wants.
Speaker 9: It to fail for his political reasons, and.
Speaker 10: Sinwar wants it to fail for his mostly strategic reasons.
Speaker 10: And by the way, most of Tamas abroad wants it
Speaker 10: to succeed.
Speaker 9: So they're both under.
Speaker 10: Tons of pressure to accept it, but they don't want to.
Speaker 9: So what we're going to be seeing is people trying
Speaker 9: to avoid that.
Speaker 6: And also we know from the reaction of the last
Speaker 6: what look to be ceasfire from Gosen's just celebrations in
Speaker 6: the street. Palistinian people want this ten too, so hopefully
Speaker 6: Israeli people in the Palace, any people will get what
Speaker 6: they want.
Speaker 3: These leaders won't.
Speaker 6: We'll see, but like you said, slim chance since they
Speaker 6: all wanted to fail.
Speaker 5: No, it's early shlle So thank you so much for
Speaker 5: waking up and briefing us with insights here.
Speaker 4: Appreciate it so much.
Speaker 9: Thank you again, Thank you so much, hev loove leaving.
Speaker 6: Attorney General Merrit Garland testified before the House of Representatives.
Speaker 6: One of the first people to confront him was Republican
Speaker 6: Matt Gates.
Speaker 3: Let's watch a little bit of that exchange.
Speaker 13: You lodge this attack that it's a conspiracy theory that
Speaker 13: there is coordinated lawfair against Trump. And then when we say, fine,
Speaker 13: just give us the documents, give us the correspondence, and
Speaker 13: then if it's a conspiracy theory, that will be evident.
Speaker 13: But when you say, well, we'll take your request and
Speaker 13: then we'll sort of work it through the DOJ's accommodation process,
Speaker 13: then you're actually advancing the very dangerous conspiracy theory that
Speaker 13: you're concerned about. Now you're you were a judge once
Speaker 13: nominated the highest court in our country. When you were
Speaker 13: a judge, I'm just curious, did you ever make political
Speaker 13: donations to partisan candidates?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 13: No, and you didn't because that would create the potential
Speaker 13: appearance of impropriety.
Speaker 14: I didn't because there's a federal rule oh awing federal
Speaker 14: judges for making contributions.
Speaker 13: Right, But under that same theory of attacks on the
Speaker 13: judicial process, like shouldn't someone be owed like a jury
Speaker 13: of their peers and a judge that's non biased, rather
Speaker 13: than getting a judge from your political opponent's donor.
Speaker 14: File, I'm well aware that you're not asking hypothetical. You're
Speaker 14: asking me to comment on a verdict jury verdict in
Speaker 14: another jurisdiction, which has to be respected, so.
Speaker 5: I was going to say ran more of that. That
Speaker 5: was basically the tone of the entire hearing. Back and forth.
Speaker 5: Merrick Garland started the hearing, we can put this up
Speaker 5: on the screen. I really enjoyed the ABC News headline,
Speaker 5: which is why I included this.
Speaker 4: Particular tear sheet.
Speaker 5: Their headline was Attorney General Merrit Garland blasts conspiracy theories
Speaker 5: about Trump criminal case and the FBI. So they write
Speaker 5: Garland is pushing back forcefully unquote false and quote extremely
Speaker 5: dangerous narratives he says are being spread about the Department
Speaker 5: of Justice. And that was in a hearing for the
Speaker 5: House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, so just yesterday.
Speaker 4: This one on for a long time.
Speaker 5: Garland continued to say, certain members of this committee and
Speaker 5: the Oversight Committee are seeking contempt as a means of obtaining,
Speaker 5: for no legitimate purpose, sensitive law enforcement information that could
Speaker 5: harm it the integrity of future investigations. That was his
Speaker 5: line sort of throughout these questions, and Jim Jordan came
Speaker 5: out swinging. Matt Gates really went in on Merrik Garland.
Speaker 5: None of this is particularly surprising. Jerry Nadler said basically
Speaker 5: that the House Judiciary Committee had become an acting arm
Speaker 5: of the Trump campaign, is I think how he phrased it.
Speaker 5: People like Thomas Massey asked questions actually about ray Epps
Speaker 5: in January. It was a pretty wide ranging conversation that
Speaker 5: they ended up having here, but Garland did not want
Speaker 5: to get into specifics about to the extent to which
Speaker 5: this was the exchange she just had with Matt Case.
Speaker 5: You saw the DOJ may have coordinated at all on
Speaker 5: any of the law fair cases against Donald Trump, and
Speaker 5: it was happening on a split screen as the DOJ
Speaker 5: was also prosecuting the Hunter Biden case in Delaware. That
Speaker 5: was Weiss is the prosecutor in that case. But also
Speaker 5: people may remember got sort of dressed down by the
Speaker 5: judge in the case last year for basically soft pedaling
Speaker 5: letting the statute of limitations expire on the Hunter Biden charges,
Speaker 5: to the point where even the judge was surprised that, like, oh.
Speaker 4: You're the prosecutor here, what are you doing? This is
Speaker 4: not the way to prosecute your case.
Speaker 5: So there are a lot of actual questions that aren't
Speaker 5: quote conspiracy theories. Of course, there are some conspiracy theories
Speaker 5: on the right, as there are in the left, But
Speaker 5: there are a lot of serious questions that aren't conspiracy theories.
Speaker 5: I thought the media coverage of this was sort of
Speaker 5: sneering and contemptuous of some relatively serious questions that Merrick
Speaker 5: Garland absolutely deserves to be peppered with. You'd think other
Speaker 5: journalists would be curious about some of them too.
Speaker 6: But isn't it the case that Garland himself, I mean,
Speaker 6: most Democrats are furious at Merrick Garland for not prosecuting
Speaker 6: Trump with any aggressiveness, right Like he set up he
Speaker 6: dithered for years and then set up a special counsel
Speaker 6: and let and let the Special Council, which I guess
Speaker 6: we're not going to find out whether or not. Eileen
Speaker 6: Cannon thinks that the Special Council even was appointed properly
Speaker 6: or not. So it feels like the wrong target to me,
Speaker 6: Like Merrick Garland is, like if everything was left to
Speaker 6: Merrick Garland like a Alvin Bragg is, it's a New
Speaker 6: York prosecutor, right, But the rest of the case were
Speaker 6: brought by the special councils that he brought.
Speaker 3: He didn't bring himself.
Speaker 6: Just kind of feel like do they think that, look,
Speaker 6: what would be the conspiracy that like MARYK. Garland actually
Speaker 6: wanted to prosecute, but didn't feel like he could prosecute
Speaker 6: from directly from his office, So then he dethered for
Speaker 6: two years and then set up a special counsel that's
Speaker 6: not going to get it done in time before the election. Like,
Speaker 6: what a pitiful conspiracy if that's what if that's what
Speaker 6: the plan was.
Speaker 5: And see I find the pitiful conspiracy to be entirely believable.
Speaker 5: It seems like a plausible theory actually, because Merrick Garland
Speaker 5: is someone and this is he's sort of the perfect
Speaker 5: pick for the Biden administration's DJ because it's this like symbolic.
Speaker 6: Outrage by symbolism over actual effectiveness.
Speaker 5: Right half measures, And in a way, that's really been
Speaker 5: the theme of today's show.
Speaker 4: We start with this.
Speaker 5: And I know you and I disagree on the executive
Speaker 5: action on the board of the executive order on the border,
Speaker 5: but whatever you think of it, it's not an honest,
Speaker 5: full throated embrace of any serious principled position. Same thing
Speaker 5: with his Israel policy. Not an honest, full throated defense
Speaker 5: of his position. And I think that's basically the line
Speaker 5: that Garland has brought, Like this weird prosecution of Hunter Biden,
Speaker 5: where you let the statute of limitations expire and then
Speaker 5: do this strange like kind of half asked prosecution attempt
Speaker 5: by a special or by Wise who's not seems to
Speaker 5: be like utterly disinterested in actually prosecuting Hunter Biden.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean it's because Merrik Garland really is this
Speaker 6: kind of institutionalist who's like out of the cast of
Speaker 6: the West Wing like that, that really is who he is.
Speaker 6: Biden initially was going to appoint Doug Jones to be
Speaker 6: Attorney general. Jones was the Alabama senator who beat Roy
Speaker 6: Moore famously kind of prosecuted the Klan, and it is
Speaker 6: a much more aggressive prosecutor and probably would have been
Speaker 6: much more aggressive than Merrick Garland going after Trumps cronies.
Speaker 6: But instead, for whatever reason, and we'll get more memoirs
Speaker 6: eventually and we'll learn learn exactly.
Speaker 3: Why, you know, he changed his mind at the last minute.
Speaker 6: They went with Garland, I think mostly to like kind
Speaker 6: of own the Republicans, like haha, like you blocked him
Speaker 6: from being the Supreme Court justice, but now you know
Speaker 6: he gets to be an attorney general. Isn't it like
Speaker 6: a real like chef's kiss for like resistance liberals. That's
Speaker 6: why I say symbolism over the substance. And Garland is
Speaker 6: obviously extremely competent and qualified and all those things, but
Speaker 6: he is a nineties era institutionalist in a kind of
Speaker 6: more partisan, bare knuckled environment, and you're kind of watching
Speaker 6: him tangle with Matt Gates shows the kind of an
Speaker 6: acron that his anachronistic institutionalism is no kind of defense
Speaker 6: against Gates. Gates doesn't care, and he's got the wrong
Speaker 6: guy here.
Speaker 3: He's going to beat him up.
Speaker 4: Ayway, We're interesting.
Speaker 5: The establishment Democrats Jerry Nadler, for example, as a reaction
Speaker 5: to Matt Gates, are embracing the nineties era institutionalism. That's
Speaker 5: not exactly a popular with the Democratic base right now either,
Speaker 5: but that's how they react. I mean, it might be
Speaker 5: popular in Jerry Nadler's district. But one of the big
Speaker 5: points of contention in Garland's testimony yesterday is that he's refusing.
Speaker 5: So Biden lied about the audio of his interview with
Speaker 5: Robert hurt Special Consul Robert Hurr in the document's case,
Speaker 5: he said things that are not true, because we then
Speaker 5: had the transcript the DOJ is right now refusing to
Speaker 5: also release the audio of the conversation because they're saying,
Speaker 5: you already had the transcript. It might and this was
Speaker 5: Merrick Garland's line yesterday, what might dissuade future cooperation from
Speaker 5: people that the DOJ needs to cooperate in, people like
Speaker 5: Joe Biden. And even though Biden lied about it, the
Speaker 5: DJ is not releasing the actual audio itself, and so
Speaker 5: Garland faced some really stiff questions over that yesterday, especially
Speaker 5: with that kind of side by side. What a lot
Speaker 5: of people see is this political law fair probably coordinated
Speaker 5: by the DJ at some point, which is why they
Speaker 5: don't want to release That line of questioning is interesting.
Speaker 5: Don't want to release any communications that they've had with
Speaker 5: any of the other prosecutors. Now, theoretically there could be
Speaker 5: a good reason for that, and this is usually the
Speaker 5: problem with the government when they're refusing to release things.
Speaker 5: We have no way of knowing whether or not their
Speaker 5: theoretical line of argumentation is accurate because it could be
Speaker 5: or is reasonable because we can't see the information. In
Speaker 5: order to know whether it's reasonable, you kind of just
Speaker 5: have to have trust. And it's not like this doj
Speaker 5: or this administration is just rolling.
Speaker 6: In public trust, right, But for Gates to expect that
Speaker 6: Garland's gonna be like, oh, yeah, you wanted all those emails, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I've got them right here.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh well, I mean, of course, I don't think he
Speaker 4: expected that.
Speaker 6: It seems like he's saying, well, you say you have
Speaker 6: to go back and put it through the process.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, what else.
Speaker 4: You're saying?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like pull it up and hand it over.
Speaker 5: I mean, I thought Gates knew he was like he
Speaker 5: was almost like reading off a script of like how
Speaker 5: he expected.
Speaker 6: Golf course to and that whole that whole line of
Speaker 6: questioning is very easy to say. You know, it's it's
Speaker 6: your fault that I believe the things that I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 6: which the greatest kind of advent of the of the
Speaker 6: Twitter era was whenever somebody posts something that turns out
Speaker 6: to be completely wrong, what they will then respond with,
Speaker 6: if they actually take it down, will be But isn't
Speaker 6: the really interesting point the fact that I believed it? Yeah,
Speaker 6: That's that's what's really interesting here, Like, Okay, this wasn't true,
Speaker 6: but the fact that I thought it was true really
Speaker 6: tells you something about society today, and that's just intellectually
Speaker 6: completely dishonest.
Speaker 5: So the Wall Street Journal described Merritt Garland yesterday as
Speaker 5: a quote by the book play no favorites approach to investigations.
Speaker 3: Or his Murdock agrees.
Speaker 5: Murdoch agrees, right, But that's I mean, that's really going
Speaker 5: to start getting under the skin obviously not just of
Speaker 5: congressional Republicans but of also Democrats.
Speaker 6: They don't they want him to play favorites, Like, yeah,
Speaker 6: favoritism the decation.
Speaker 4: Want to be embraced the playing of favorite.
Speaker 6: And yes, like say like, look, this is democracy verus fascism.
Speaker 6: What do you mean you don't have a favorite between
Speaker 6: democracy of fascism.
Speaker 5: He kind of does that, but to your point, it's
Speaker 5: not in the same way where he's just like, we're
Speaker 5: not prosecuting Hunter Biden. You know, we're not gonna get
Speaker 5: into it because basically the statute of experts is a
Speaker 5: statue of limitations expiring meant that you couldn't prosecute him
Speaker 5: on the FARA charges.
Speaker 4: Of course, PAULM.
Speaker 5: Manafort was prosecuted stiffly unfair charges, you know, and then
Speaker 5: Tony Podesta didn't go to prison like and palmannifort was
Speaker 5: accused of more law breaking obviously than just the Faro.
Speaker 4: Charges, But I think there's really serious questions.
Speaker 5: It's though to your point, Ryan, the DOJ is not
Speaker 5: what it used to be, and neither no political parties
Speaker 5: president at this point expects the DOJ to be this
Speaker 5: like institution of true non partisan capital J justice that
Speaker 5: it used to be.
Speaker 3: And let this be a tease for our Friday show.
Speaker 3: We're going to have.
Speaker 9: Two.
Speaker 6: We're gonna have a true blue liberal progressive defending the
Speaker 6: Locke Trump up perspective, and then true red Maga saying
Speaker 6: do not do it, Yeah, Brian Boiler.
Speaker 3: And who's the mega guy, Will Chamberlain. Will Chamberlain. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that'll that'll be Friday.
Speaker 6: Let's move on for now over to a bunch of
Speaker 6: the elections around the world.
Speaker 5: Let's start with India, because Brian, you've been following this
Speaker 5: one really closely where you're and Dramodi was reelected his
Speaker 5: party though surprising surprisingly poor performance basically across.
Speaker 3: And interestingly, yeah, we can put this up on the screen.
Speaker 6: We can't even necessarily say that he's going to get
Speaker 6: a third term, even though the press is saying set
Speaker 6: to win historic third term. That's that's how Reuters puts
Speaker 6: it here. He has to now cobble. He got his
Speaker 6: party got less than a majority. His coalition pushed over
Speaker 6: a majority. But his coalition is extremely fickle because it's
Speaker 6: got these kind of two political parties that joined him
Speaker 6: like two months ago, and you know could be you know, could.
Speaker 3: You know, bounce at any second. So now he has to.
Speaker 6: Go to them and gravel in order to get them
Speaker 6: to join his coalitions that he can become prime minister
Speaker 6: for the third time. The compared to you know, we've
Speaker 6: covered that incredible February eighth Pakistan election where they change
Speaker 6: the numbers like in plane view, like the most flagrant
Speaker 6: kind of major country rigging that we've maybe ever seen
Speaker 6: in like world history. So compared to that, the Indian
Speaker 6: election was free and fair. But the Indian election was
Speaker 6: extraordinarily rigged towards Modi. Opposition leaders you know, were jailed.
Speaker 6: There was you know, violent suppression of the opposition. The
Speaker 6: Modi outspent his opposition ten or one hundred to one.
Speaker 3: You know, it wasn't even close.
Speaker 6: He deployed all of the kind of instruments of the
Speaker 6: government toward his electoral favor and the entire Indian media
Speaker 6: apparatus was lockstep behind Modi. So under those circumstances, to
Speaker 6: fall short of a majority really makes you ask, you know,
Speaker 6: what the heck happens? And so what the heck happens
Speaker 6: seems to be the massive joblessness across India that Modi
Speaker 6: has been has been good at creating kind of cash
Speaker 6: transfers and you know, keep and helping people kind of
Speaker 6: you know, stay out of like desperation, but he has
Speaker 6: not been good at getting them jobs. And he has
Speaker 6: instead focused a lot of his energy on this Hindu
Speaker 6: nationalism and trying to kind of turn India into you know,
Speaker 6: an ethno Hindu state.
Speaker 4: Which was fairly popular apparently on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, among yes, he I mean he had.
Speaker 4: Massive electoral successes.
Speaker 5: He was first elected went twenty fourteen, right, Yeah, so,
Speaker 5: I mean it was going well until it wasn't.
Speaker 6: Yes, he had two resounding victories, and the opposition ran
Speaker 6: on basically economic justice, saying that you know, we're falling behind,
Speaker 6: the elites are taking over, and you know, we want
Speaker 6: better jobs, we want more power in the workplace, and
Speaker 6: that that message, that message resonated and Modi as all
Speaker 6: kind of authoritarians who are running on this kind of
Speaker 6: on this kind of platform trying to do is they
Speaker 6: want to divide people along cultural lines rather than kind
Speaker 6: of give in to their material needs, which then, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of suppresses what.
Speaker 3: You know, suppresses the.
Speaker 6: Amount of wealth that can be absorbed by the one percent.
Speaker 6: And so we see that here in the United States,
Speaker 6: we see that around the world. And this was people
Speaker 6: pushing back and saying, no, I don't your your racism
Speaker 6: is not enough, like I want I want a job.
Speaker 5: Actually, so tell us a little bit more about and
Speaker 5: actually another interesting element of this is Modi's control of
Speaker 5: the press and information.
Speaker 4: So it's you know, people would put two into together.
Speaker 5: Unusual for someone who has a lot of control over
Speaker 5: the press and the flow of information to then be
Speaker 5: punished at the polls.
Speaker 4: It sort of undermines the point of it.
Speaker 5: But it also undermines the argument this would you know,
Speaker 5: just pure, unadult rated kind of fascism. Can you break
Speaker 5: that down a little bit like, actually, what Modi's control
Speaker 5: versus how voters responded and what that says about the control?
Speaker 4: How does that play out here?
Speaker 6: Yeah, and we can put up the second element here
Speaker 6: which is if you go google this headline when you're
Speaker 6: done with this. This is kind of a fun article
Speaker 6: to read because if you don't follow Indian politics close,
Speaker 6: so much of it is different, you know, parties and
Speaker 6: figures that are that will be completely obscure to you.
Speaker 3: But the conclusion is pretty straightforward.
Speaker 6: The coalition the opposite and coalition was cleverly called India.
Speaker 3: That's their acronym, India.
Speaker 6: The India parties have understood the significance of not only
Speaker 6: fair representation but also crucially issues of economic justice. Such
Speaker 6: an awareness has not only helped them correct their political
Speaker 6: course and learn from each other, but also question their
Speaker 6: inherent social prejudices and predispositions. India is this conglomeration of
Speaker 6: so many different cultures into one nation, and it had
Speaker 6: it had been easy for people to kind of play
Speaker 6: people's prejudices off of each other, and Modi was good
Speaker 6: at that, and the and the coalition had been unable
Speaker 6: to come together because there were so many different factions
Speaker 6: within it that were, you know, jocking their own power
Speaker 6: and had their as this article saying, had their own
Speaker 6: had their own prejudices and then and would then overly
Speaker 6: rely on just representation and need something from this province,
Speaker 6: from this national et cetera. But what what they really
Speaker 6: finally came together on was not we're all in this together.
Speaker 6: Stop letting them, stop letting Modi divide us. We all
Speaker 6: want the same things. And and so that's the thing
Speaker 6: that Modi wasn't.
Speaker 3: Able to overcome.
Speaker 6: And it also shows the weakness of authoritarianism in one sense,
Speaker 6: and in this sense that all the all the media
Speaker 6: reported that this was going to be a landslide victory,
Speaker 6: even the exit polls reported that this was going to
Speaker 6: be a landslide.
Speaker 5: Didn't upholster sort of cry on TV as a sort
Speaker 5: of yeah, like I said, it was really shocking to
Speaker 5: the industry, yea.
Speaker 6: And but a lot of it, a lot of that
Speaker 6: was the media, even the Western media is so intimidated
Speaker 6: by Modi that they're like, it's it's one thing if
Speaker 6: you're like an intimidating boss and the people around you,
Speaker 6: you know, don't want to give you bad news, like
Speaker 6: we're all familiar exactly, it's just sorry, boss ratings down,
Speaker 6: nobody wants to give you know, He's the kind of
Speaker 6: boss that nobody wants to give bad news to. Yes, right,
Speaker 6: but that that extends to for Mody, that extends even
Speaker 6: to like the Western press that uh, certainly the ones
Speaker 6: that operate within India that uh, they don't want to
Speaker 6: become kind of victims of his state repression and so
Speaker 6: they're like, oh yeah, boss, Like polls are great for you,
Speaker 6: exit polls are incredible. Nobody was willing to kind of
Speaker 6: take There was a few commentators that were willing to
Speaker 6: take a risk, and they deserve a lot of credit,
Speaker 6: but nobody was willing to say, you know what, actually,
Speaker 6: I don't think people like what you're doing here, and
Speaker 6: I don't think you're going to do very well.
Speaker 3: And to India's.
Speaker 6: Electoral you know, structural credit. When people voted against Modi,
Speaker 6: those votes were counted and those votes were reported. So
Speaker 6: that's which is not what happened in Pakistan and it's
Speaker 6: not what happens in some other countries.
Speaker 3: So good for India for that.
Speaker 5: And just one last point I'm reading from the Reuter's
Speaker 5: report on all of this. Investors had cheered the prospects
Speaker 5: of another Modi term, expecting it to deliver further years
Speaker 5: of strong economic growth and pro business reforms, but the
Speaker 5: margin of victory emerged as a worry during the counting.
Speaker 4: This quote is so interesting.
Speaker 5: The key question is whether BJP can retain single party majority.
Speaker 5: If not, then would its coalition be able to deliver
Speaker 5: economic development, particularly infrastructure ran The person who asked that
Speaker 5: question in Routers is Ken Peng, head of Investment Strategy
Speaker 5: Asia at City Global Wealth in Singapore. So markets were
Speaker 5: really looking forward to another just sort of decisive Modi
Speaker 5: victory seemed to be following the polling.
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess what else they could do? What
Speaker 4: else could they do? And are now wondering where the
Speaker 4: economy goes in India.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And a good way to gauge whether or not
Speaker 6: you should be happy about the results of an election
Speaker 6: is if the market is upset about it, like whatever,
Speaker 6: whatever the opposite reaction of the market is. And we're
Speaker 6: going to talk about Mexico in a second. Markets very
Speaker 6: much did not like the results of the Mexican election.
Speaker 6: Needed to David from so it probably means it's probably
Speaker 6: a good thing for Mexico.
Speaker 4: Where we get to that though.
Speaker 6: Yeah, South Africa, for this is fascinating, curious for your
Speaker 6: take on this. So the the African National Congress A
Speaker 6: and C which led Africa out of apartheid, is you know,
Speaker 6: falling short of a majority for the first time in
Speaker 6: three decades. They'll probably be able to cobble together a coalition, uh,
Speaker 6: in order to stay in power.
Speaker 3: We'll see how We'll see how that goes.
Speaker 6: But what's what's interesting here is that I think you
Speaker 6: see a similar thing. The economy and in South Africa
Speaker 6: is a complete mess, just absolutely massive unemployment and.
Speaker 3: You know, our outages are just.
Speaker 6: Are are omni present and really rock the economy. And
Speaker 6: my take on you know, how this all happened basically
Speaker 6: is so after the after the ANC takes power, you
Speaker 6: have basically all of the wealth in white hands and
Speaker 6: which are also that's also the one percent. But it's
Speaker 6: kind of hard to extricate those two things in an
Speaker 6: immediately post apartheid society.
Speaker 3: The ANC had was a.
Speaker 6: Broad coalition of a lot of different kind of political interests,
Speaker 6: but was generally pretty left wing and had a lot
Speaker 6: of and you know, it's it's muscle was really communists
Speaker 6: and socialists, and so the the one percent was very
Speaker 6: concerned that the broader agenda of socialism was going to
Speaker 6: be accomplished in South Africa, which or even the modest
Speaker 6: agenda of you know, nationalizing you know, major major industries
Speaker 6: and then distributing the resources down down to the people.
Speaker 6: And so what they did is they came up with
Speaker 6: this system of basically diversifying the existing system. So they said,
Speaker 6: we don't need a new system, like let's stick with
Speaker 6: what we've got in apartheid, but let's make a color
Speaker 6: blind apartheid. And what they were able to do in
Speaker 6: color blind economic apartheid. And what they were able to
Speaker 6: do is, you know, past these past these laws that
Speaker 6: said you had to you know, that you were going
Speaker 6: to give a you know, it was affirmative action, like
Speaker 6: affirmative preference to black and other marginalized Indian and what
Speaker 6: they call colored populations in South Africa would have better
Speaker 6: access to government contracts.
Speaker 3: And also these private companies, you.
Speaker 6: Know, had to diversify their boards and diversify their ownership.
Speaker 6: And so what the companies very cleverly did is they
Speaker 6: went to these ANC power players and gave them shares
Speaker 6: effectively in these companies, and so they kind of bought
Speaker 6: the ANC leadership gradually into maintaining this this unequal economic
Speaker 6: system by bringing in just enough black South Africans so
Speaker 6: that it would be diversified. It's still only I think
Speaker 6: black ownership of the top company is still well below
Speaker 6: forty percent in a country where the black population is
Speaker 6: you know, close to over ninety percent. But what it
Speaker 6: did is it drained all the political will from the
Speaker 6: A and C leadership to radically restructure the economy. And
Speaker 6: it also introduced enormous amounts of corruption. And so South
Speaker 6: Africa now has like, you know, raging levels of corruption
Speaker 6: where you know, all of these different government assets are
Speaker 6: for sale. One reason you see, you know, you can't
Speaker 6: you can't unlink the all the all the power outages
Speaker 6: from this, like the depth of the corruption here. And
Speaker 6: so the opposition really ran on you know, social justice,
Speaker 6: economic justice and anti anti corruption, and you know, the
Speaker 6: the you know, hope hopefully the A and C hears that,
Speaker 6: because this is this is the population saying, you know,
Speaker 6: enough of this corruption, and if if they don't do
Speaker 6: a more kind of democratic socialist approach to this problem,
Speaker 6: what you're instead going to get is a purely kind
Speaker 6: of racist, reverse racist approach, Like you're going to have
Speaker 6: the kind of white population demonized and attacked and you're
Speaker 6: you see that a lot, and so like a reverse
Speaker 6: Trumpian kind of approach to it, and so like the art,
Speaker 6: you would want to make an argument of self preservation
Speaker 6: to these like white capitalists who thought that through corruption
Speaker 6: they could kind of just buy off their place in
Speaker 6: society rather than actually, you know, radically reforming this structure
Speaker 6: of society so that it can be more inclusive than
Speaker 6: everybody can participate.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting.
Speaker 6: You're really going to get it through the ballot box
Speaker 6: and through democratic socialism, or you're going to get it
Speaker 6: through pitchforks.
Speaker 5: The New York Times are in a really interesting op
Speaker 5: ed on this, and they quoted a girl kind of
Speaker 5: talking about her own parents who grew up, as The
Speaker 5: Times reports, on the Eastern Cape, who voted for ANC.
Speaker 5: This girl said, I think they fear racism and apartheid
Speaker 5: more than they fear poverty. This woman continued, if the
Speaker 5: ANC had sorted out infrastructure, policing, education, the fundamentals, I
Speaker 5: probably would have voted for them. So that's the generational
Speaker 5: difference between her and her parents. The Times notes in
Speaker 5: this opbed that a lot of people who are now
Speaker 5: voting don't they don't remember the formal apartheid system. We're
Speaker 5: actually born after it went away, which is a really
Speaker 5: interesting kind of generational divide and one that I just
Speaker 5: think so many countries where actually this is what we're
Speaker 5: going to talk about in the Mexico Bloc, are dealing
Speaker 5: with right now, that divide between old parties that used
Speaker 5: to not just be about the sort of meat and potatoes,
Speaker 5: but also used to have these kind of principled philosophical
Speaker 5: groundings now being riven over cultural questions and questions that
Speaker 5: just strike not that there were obviously an seats like
Speaker 5: founded on cultural questions, but when you rule for a
Speaker 5: really long time, you can easily be sort of taken
Speaker 5: down these lines about what the sort of pocketbook issues
Speaker 5: are versus you know, whatever you're using to maintain your coalition,
Speaker 5: which is often not the meat and potato stuff.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and so you know, in both India and South
Speaker 6: Africa you see people kind of standing up for their
Speaker 6: for their economic rights, and in Mexico you see people
Speaker 6: rewarding the party that delivered them economic uplift.
Speaker 3: What's fascinating about them.
Speaker 6: What happened in Mexico is that the economy there hasn't
Speaker 6: really been growing significantly. It has been growing and it
Speaker 6: hasn't been collapsing, yeah yet by taxing the rich and
Speaker 6: with an inclusive kind of social economic policy and what
Speaker 6: was able to lift a huge number of Mexicans out
Speaker 6: of poverty and raise wages and then his party is
Speaker 6: rewarded for it as a result.
Speaker 5: Absolutely fascinating situation unfolding in Mexico. And we're going to
Speaker 5: talk to Juanda vid Rojas, who wrote about this for
Speaker 5: Compact magazine, just sort of breaking down Claudia Shanebaum's victory.
Speaker 5: And I'm excited to talk to talk to him Ryan
Speaker 5: because he was there in Mexico covering this as it happened.
Speaker 4: No surprise, huge landslide.
Speaker 5: She's the first female president of Mexico, although she herself
Speaker 5: isn't obsessed with that. But one of the big differences
Speaker 5: between her and Omlo is she is postured at least
Speaker 5: more towards that cultural per us of theme or the
Speaker 5: themes than Omlo ever did. In fact, Amla was extremely
Speaker 5: critical of feminism. He had some really interesting, you know
Speaker 5: rants in different directions. People say he's basically still going
Speaker 5: to be the president because he's always been close with Shanebaum.
Speaker 5: That you know, Amlo who's had this difficult relationship with Biden.
Speaker 5: Actually had a better relationship with the border hawk Trump
Speaker 5: than he ever did with Joe Biden. They seem to
Speaker 5: have strict some deal since January, although we still don't
Speaker 5: know exactly what it is where Mexico is cracking down
Speaker 5: on like Labastia, the train that was carrying migrants, you know,
Speaker 5: south and north towards the border. So Shane Baum, though,
Speaker 5: probably the biggest difference between those two is there's that
Speaker 5: economic populism nationalism, coupling economic populism with nationalism in a
Speaker 5: really interesting way.
Speaker 4: Like Omlo did doubling minimum wage.
Speaker 5: Huge increases are huge decreases in the poverty rate in Mexico.
Speaker 5: They're rewarded with a massive margin in the presidential election. Here,
Speaker 5: we'll see if you is able to maintain that she
Speaker 5: seems to be wanting to.
Speaker 4: You know, it wasn't.
Speaker 5: Her speech wasn't full of sort of like you win
Speaker 5: world economic platitudes, foreign platitudes in any.
Speaker 3: Way, whatso responding to her the way they are.
Speaker 5: If it was, no, So let's bring in Juan da
Speaker 5: Vid and talk about Claudia Shanebaum for more on the
Speaker 5: Mexican elections. We are joined now by Juan Da Vid Rojas.
Speaker 5: He is a columnist at Compact. He was also in
Speaker 5: Mexico covering this on the ground. Juanda Vid, thanks for
Speaker 5: joining us.
Speaker 11: Thanks for having me on, guys, big fan of the show.
Speaker 5: Well absolutely, I read your work all the time. Jan
Speaker 5: Da Vid, and I want to ask you. You wrote
Speaker 5: a great piece on this for Compact. Let's put E
Speaker 5: one up on the screen. Mexico's political revolution. You sort
Speaker 5: of broke down the economic nationalism that Claudia Shanebaum will
Speaker 5: likely continue from OMLO. Obviously they have been very close,
Speaker 5: fascinating a dynamic between nationalism and populism in Mexico right now,
Speaker 5: whether it's OMLO or Shane Bam. Tell us first a
Speaker 5: little bit about what you saw when you were covering
Speaker 5: the election down in Mexico the last week.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean it was just a stunning victory.
Speaker 15: I haven't seen anything like it for an incumbent leftist
Speaker 15: populist government. I mean, it's by far the most successful
Speaker 15: left government I've seen in ten years.
Speaker 5: I'd probably and tell us a little bit more about why,
Speaker 5: because Ryan and I were just talking earlier. I think
Speaker 5: a lot of folks probably misunderstand exactly what it is
Speaker 5: that attracts so many voters to OMLO and to Shane
Speaker 5: Baum and their party.
Speaker 4: What have they done?
Speaker 5: Especially you know, people look at the top line economic
Speaker 5: numbers out of Mexico, I maybe don't realize what that
Speaker 5: means for an average Mexican who went to the polls
Speaker 5: on Sunday.
Speaker 15: So for decades, GDP growth in Mexico has been really stagnant.
Speaker 15: It around one to two percent, and that hasn't really
Speaker 15: changed in recent years because near shoring it's gotten better.
Speaker 15: But what changed under OMLO is that wages really started
Speaker 15: to improve. The government every year gave these huge increases
Speaker 15: around twenty percent to the minimum wage. They also ban subcontracting,
Speaker 15: which is a way to avoid paying workers' benefits, which
Speaker 15: is actually insane in Mexico when you consider the fact
Speaker 15: that only around half of the population has formal work.
Speaker 15: Informality is extremely high. And the results that we can
Speaker 15: see is that during the course of the six year term,
Speaker 15: wages have gone up thirty five percent, so much so
Speaker 15: that even informal workers wages have risen. At the same time,
Speaker 15: the president is a really idiosyncratic figure. He's seen as
Speaker 15: also sharing the values of ordinary Mexicans. He's a leftist,
Speaker 15: but in a lot of ways he's very traditionalist and
Speaker 15: socially conservative. People not only see that their lives have improved,
Speaker 15: this is someone looking out for them, but also shares their.
Speaker 3: Values, and so Juan de vide four decades.
Speaker 6: You know, Mexico was a one party state, and elites
Speaker 6: here in the United States seem to have absolutely no
Speaker 6: problem with the pri you know, just running Mexico top
Speaker 6: top to bottom. Wages famously were extremely low. Now you
Speaker 6: have wages growing, and you have a lot of the
Speaker 6: kind of the Atlantic and other kind of elite institutions
Speaker 6: here in the United States panicking and saying, oh no, now,
Speaker 6: we're not going to have democracy anymore. It's a one
Speaker 6: party state. Like she won by too much, she's too popular.
Speaker 6: So but the only difference as actually much more competitive
Speaker 6: today than it was under one party pr rule seems
Speaker 6: to be wage growth. Like is it is it wage
Speaker 6: growth in Mexico that actually has people sel upset here
Speaker 6: in the United States?
Speaker 11: Very possibly.
Speaker 15: There's this great graph that I've referred to that you
Speaker 15: look at the wage over time in Mexico. In the seventies,
Speaker 15: Mexico was a pretty prosperous country off of the oil
Speaker 15: boom and following the debt crisis in the eighties and
Speaker 15: the nineties, there's deliberate decisions to press wages and stop
Speaker 15: letting the stop raising them in their own wage Well,
Speaker 15: you have to figure this is.
Speaker 11: Also around the nineties they enacted and AFT to. It
Speaker 11: makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 15: You want those low wages because you're stealing all of
Speaker 15: the industry from the US, all that manufacturing industry. Shane
Speaker 15: Boh won with around six fifty nine sixty percent of
Speaker 15: the vote.
Speaker 11: It's an incredible victory. They won.
Speaker 15: The Mona Party won seven out of nine governorships, all
Speaker 15: but every and shameeb One went in all but all
Speaker 15: but one state. You're gonna hear the words democratic and
Speaker 15: backsliding and a lot of the next few months. Why
Speaker 15: it's really interesting the Congress actually the next Congress actually
Speaker 15: starts one month before Obradoor leaves office, and so the
Speaker 15: markets are going insane. The PESO dropped around six percent
Speaker 15: because they're really scared that they're going to be able
Speaker 15: to pass all these constitutional reforms that they promised that
Speaker 15: were previously seen as just these unrealistic campaign proposals.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, what kind of stuff, Like what are we
Speaker 6: likely to see in this month of September where you know,
Speaker 6: he's still in office.
Speaker 3: But they'll have close to a super majority.
Speaker 6: I guess they'll have a super majority in the lower Chamber,
Speaker 6: and then in the Upper Chamber they'll have to like
Speaker 6: pick off a few pri people to get a.
Speaker 15: Super Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They really are just clientealists.
Speaker 15: They have no ideology. All they care about is money.
Speaker 15: They're four seats short in the Senate, but in the
Speaker 15: Chamber of Deputies they have a supermajority, so it's actually
Speaker 15: pretty realistic they could pass some of these reforms.
Speaker 11: Some of them are pretty benign.
Speaker 15: One that I love to refer to is that they
Speaker 15: want to constitutionally ban babing, which is something that libertarians
Speaker 15: really would hate. On the other hand, the most controversial
Speaker 15: one I would say is they want to directly elect judges,
Speaker 15: including Supreme Court judges, and all. Be honest, I have
Speaker 15: different feelings about it. It doesn't terrify me, but sure,
Speaker 15: I guess it could lead to more politicization and long run,
Speaker 15: I mean, for a lot of American professors, I'm sure
Speaker 15: they see that and think.
Speaker 11: Oh wow, that would be incredible. But what else they.
Speaker 15: Want to make it a constitutional amendment to the minimal
Speaker 15: wage has to always be raised more than inflation.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and they want to put some of the cash
Speaker 6: transfers right into the constitution or something right.
Speaker 15: Yeah, a lot of that basically codifying a lot of
Speaker 15: the laws that were seeing during the past six years.
Speaker 5: So let's talk a little bit about we can put
Speaker 5: this next element up on the screen, the violence that
Speaker 5: surrounded this cycle in Mexico.
Speaker 4: And again wand Devide was just there.
Speaker 5: So women may are shot dead in Mexico day after
Speaker 5: Claudia Shanebaum's historic presidential win.
Speaker 4: That's from CBS News.
Speaker 5: They were over thirty, by some counts assassinations over the
Speaker 5: course just of the cycle. But Wandavid, one of the
Speaker 5: things you're reporting makes very clear is that violence in
Speaker 5: Mexico well serious, also concentrated and isolated basically in different
Speaker 5: parts of the country.
Speaker 4: So if you're in Yucaton it's one thing.
Speaker 5: If you're you know, in Tamalipas, it's another thing. Can
Speaker 5: you talk to us just a little bit about that.
Speaker 5: And also in the context of Eve and I talked
Speaker 5: actually on a podcast last week about allegations of.
Speaker 4: Tomlow's should check it out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Amla's relationship with Sinaloa, the allegations surrounding Omlala's relationship
Speaker 5: with Sinaloa. Obviously, Shanebaum doesn't come in with any of
Speaker 5: those any of that bagage necessarily other than her affiliation
Speaker 5: with OMLO. So maybe you could break down just a
Speaker 5: little bit about what's going on with organized crime in
Speaker 5: this cycle and beyond.
Speaker 15: So, Mexico is a gigantic country, so as a population
Speaker 15: of one hundred and ten one hundred and twenty million,
Speaker 15: the thirty odd states, so there's a lot of variety.
Speaker 15: I was only in Mexico City, and I was actually surprised.
Speaker 15: I've been to a lot of American countries and Latin
Speaker 15: American cities. Mexico City I found to be extraordinarily safe.
Speaker 15: You see a lot of people with their cell phones
Speaker 15: out of there's a ton of tourists.
Speaker 11: And a lot of the countries like that.
Speaker 15: Obviously, there are loads and loads of tours from all
Speaker 15: over the world, especially from the US.
Speaker 11: That is different states.
Speaker 15: Obviously it's not all Afghanistan, but there are states that
Speaker 15: are extraordinarily violent. You see incredible rates of kidnappings, yeah,
Speaker 15: cartel attacks and stuff like that. The data is mixed
Speaker 15: and there's a lot of scrutiny over it. The government
Speaker 15: says one thing, critics say another. You could do this,
Speaker 15: but just about any country, honestly, but at minimum, yeah,
Speaker 15: we can definitely say that a lot of places within
Speaker 15: Mexico are very dangerous, but others less.
Speaker 11: So there's a lot of variety.
Speaker 15: As for the allegations against the locals overdoor, they're really
Speaker 15: I've referred to them as overdoors Russia Gate.
Speaker 11: Why they're plausible, But.
Speaker 15: You could say the same thing about Russia Gate. Is
Speaker 15: it possible that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Sure,
Speaker 15: it's believable, but there was just no concrete proof.
Speaker 11: Same thing in the case of OMLO.
Speaker 15: But yeah, a lot of Mexican presidents and Latin American
Speaker 15: presidents have had dirty dealings with cartels, but there's just
Speaker 15: no concrete proof. The allegations that came from Pro Publica
Speaker 15: and The New York Times had no solid evidence behind them,
Speaker 15: so much so that an XDA agent came out and
Speaker 15: said it was probably just a hit piece because the
Speaker 15: agency hates Omlo's.
Speaker 11: Guts and something.
Speaker 15: This is a good reason because his security policy is
Speaker 15: very controversial.
Speaker 5: Sure, and does Shane Bam then come to the table
Speaker 5: with any of that baggage when you have United States
Speaker 5: media reporting in that way, what does that mean for her?
Speaker 11: Basically, Yeah, she'll definitely have that baggage.
Speaker 15: I mean, I haven't seen anything that ties her to
Speaker 15: the allegations. And because she was mayor of Mexico City,
Speaker 15: the big cartels have as much of a presence there,
Speaker 15: she should be fine.
Speaker 11: Who knows. It'll really depend I'd.
Speaker 15: Say on whether she continues a similar more lax approach
Speaker 15: that has been criticized of the current administration, and we'd
Speaker 15: probably see more.
Speaker 6: Scrutiny then and wanted to be She's also famously a
Speaker 6: climate scientist.
Speaker 3: Mexico City is said to run out of water.
Speaker 6: I believe June twenty sixth is supposed to be the
Speaker 6: day that if it doesn't rain between now and then,
Speaker 6: that the horrific drought that we've been seeing, combined with
Speaker 6: the heat dome that Mexico has been suffering under the
Speaker 6: last couple of weeks. Literally we're talking about running out
Speaker 6: of water in major parts of Mexico City, not the
Speaker 6: richest parts, apparently but what does that mean Mexico City's
Speaker 6: going to.
Speaker 3: Run out of water?
Speaker 6: And what it seems like Mexico is had, you know,
Speaker 6: has the best person they could possibly have for the job,
Speaker 6: the former mayor of Mexico City, you know, who is
Speaker 6: a climate scientist, now elevate to the highest office. But
Speaker 6: that's still not going to make it rain. Like, what
Speaker 6: is Mexico City going to do?
Speaker 11: Well? Not really sure.
Speaker 15: Yeah, while I was there, there was this huge heat
Speaker 15: wave all around the country, and in Mexico City is
Speaker 15: actually way above sea level, about two thousand odd meters
Speaker 15: above sea level, and it was very, very hot. They
Speaker 15: said that was very unusual. I'd read just glossed over
Speaker 15: that there had been some measures taken around the country.
Speaker 15: But I'll be completely honest, I was distracted by other
Speaker 15: things as far as Shinbaum's concerned. Of Yeah, she served
Speaker 15: on a UN climate panel. She studied physics and energy engineering.
Speaker 15: She's made a climate change of banner of her campaign,
Speaker 15: which is actually very different from the current administration, which
Speaker 15: has been criticized for not taking it as much action.
Speaker 15: There's been some expansion the solar panels and stuff like that,
Speaker 15: but almost a real pro oil guy.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, go ahead, right, no, yeah, I mean currently,
Speaker 6: I think most of Mexico's water is used to make produce.
Speaker 3: That is then shipped up to us, and we think Mexico.
Speaker 15: There's always this big back and forth between Texas and
Speaker 15: I think it's the state of a Chihuahua. They're always
Speaker 15: hackling over the water in the area, which is we're
Speaker 15: seeing like over one hundred degree temperatures in the Northern States.
Speaker 5: And it raises this like super fascinating question about the
Speaker 5: divides between Omlo and Shane Bomb, because Omlo, for example,
Speaker 5: has had, you know, things to say about the feminist
Speaker 5: movement that aren't eagerly, that aren't easily categorized in one
Speaker 5: way or the other. Shane Bomb, on the other hand,
Speaker 5: as you mentioned, served being like a un climate panel,
Speaker 5: has been heralded, you know, not because she's pushed it,
Speaker 5: but as a sort of feminist champion, a champion women's values.
Speaker 5: I think she changed the uniform policy I think for
Speaker 5: schools in Mexico City right so that they would boys
Speaker 5: could wear one thing, girls could wear another thing, and
Speaker 5: has made kind of overtures towards cultural progressivism in a
Speaker 5: way that omeloan never did.
Speaker 4: So what are some of those.
Speaker 5: Differences in how do you expect Shane Baum, who hasn't
Speaker 5: made an effort to like really highlight them over the
Speaker 5: course of the campaign, at least from my interpretation of
Speaker 5: how it went, how do you expect those to continue
Speaker 5: going forward?
Speaker 11: That's a spot on analysis.
Speaker 15: I mean, during the campaign she basically just stood as
Speaker 15: close to Omlo as you possibly could refuse to criticize him.
Speaker 15: She yeah, she noted some differences that she wanted to
Speaker 15: invest a lot more in renewable energy, She wants some
Speaker 15: more state let approach, wants pemics to transition towards extracting lithium.
Speaker 15: Om laws will also created a state owned lithium company,
Speaker 15: but she wants she wants her to be a role
Speaker 15: for the private sector, but definitely wants a greater focus
Speaker 15: on renewables. And she's obviously much more conventionally progressive. I've
Speaker 15: had a I have a bullish case and a more
Speaker 15: pessimistic case as to the course she could take. We
Speaker 15: really won't know what happens until she takes office in October.
Speaker 15: If she sticks, if she, I think, no matter what,
Speaker 15: she will govern more like a conventional and progressive, and
Speaker 15: I think that will kind of cause a dormant or
Speaker 15: hibernating hard right in Mexico, which really remarkably doesn't exist.
Speaker 15: And I think you could chalk it up just to
Speaker 15: the current president. Their hard right will probably be a
Speaker 15: lot stronger in the mid terms or in twenty thirty.
Speaker 15: But so long as she keeps to the economic nationalism,
Speaker 15: the bread and butter issues, the stuff that really have
Speaker 15: changed people's lives. You just it's great because you talk
Speaker 15: to middle class people here in the US or in
Speaker 15: Mexico City, and they just hate this guy's guts. They
Speaker 15: think he's this demagogue, a charlatan who was full the people.
Speaker 15: They can't possibly Mexican media is incredible. There was this
Speaker 15: one famous commentary as saying that they didn't recognize all
Speaker 15: the things we did for them.
Speaker 11: We took away their change.
Speaker 15: And we gave them back democracy, and now they're not
Speaker 15: they're ungrateful.
Speaker 6: Well, we let them vote and now they're voting for
Speaker 6: the wrong people there exactly.
Speaker 11: It's really hilarious.
Speaker 15: But so long as they stick to those things, I
Speaker 15: think that Shameebaum should be successful. On the other hand,
Speaker 15: if she abandons the nationalism, the Mexican left is a
Speaker 15: really hardcore protectionalist to patriotic tradition, and if they stick
Speaker 15: to those things, I think that normal people will still
Speaker 15: see the government as really speaking for them.
Speaker 5: And Shaneban's parents actually were Jewish migrants to Mexico. They're
Speaker 5: from Lithuanian and Bulgaria, I believe, just like a really
Speaker 5: fascinating story. I have one more question for you one, Davide,
Speaker 5: is how do we Shane Baum's relationship with the Biden administration.
Speaker 4: To proceed similar to OMLO.
Speaker 5: I mean, we don't really know exactly what the Biden
Speaker 5: administration has worked out with OMLO when it comes to
Speaker 5: border crossings. We know that there's been a crackdown after
Speaker 5: there were meetings. I think this was back in January.
Speaker 5: So what can we expect from Shanebaum.
Speaker 11: Hopefully content?
Speaker 15: Well, I guess depending on your point of view, it
Speaker 15: could be good or bad.
Speaker 11: It's been you.
Speaker 15: Know, famously, Trump and Lopuz Obrador had this bizarrely good relationship.
Speaker 15: I wrote a whole piece about this called the OMLO
Speaker 15: Trump Romance in March. And on a personal level, but
Speaker 15: even on policy, uh, Trump and OMLO have a lot
Speaker 15: of similarities. They both hate the media. They're both protectionists,
Speaker 15: they're more traditionalists. I mean, you can question Trump's sincerity.
Speaker 15: I guess maybe Lopez Obradors too, but they supposedly got
Speaker 15: along from the moment they met, and they were really
Speaker 15: transactional figures. They had what a lot of analysts have
Speaker 15: described as this informal deal that the US wouldn't medal
Speaker 15: in Mexican affairs, would respect it its security and energy
Speaker 15: priorities as well, and in exchange, Mexico would agree to
Speaker 15: clamp down to migration. And to a lot of observers
Speaker 15: from both governments, that was extremely successful under Biden. It's
Speaker 15: actually been more checkered and so on immigration, well, the
Speaker 15: Biden administration has had its policy and that that's also
Speaker 15: altered things in Mexico City last year. As Emily mentioned,
Speaker 15: there's been this huge crackdown that's really driven down border crossings.
Speaker 15: I think that the current government wants to be seen
Speaker 15: as not favoring one side or the other as far
Speaker 15: as shame Bomb's concerned. One really good sign of pragmatism
Speaker 15: is just one thing. As I said when it was well,
Speaker 15: I have to wait so she gets sworn in one
Speaker 15: of her closest advisors. Ramonde Lafuente, who was a leave
Speaker 15: Mexico's ambassador to the UN, openly criticized US asylum policy,
Speaker 15: said it was an impediment to be able to bring
Speaker 15: down border crossings. I think that's a good sign of
Speaker 15: pragmatism on part of the administration. Interestingly, I'm not going
Speaker 15: to name names, but a friend of mine informed that another,
Speaker 15: actually an advisor I mentioned in the piece, Jana or
Speaker 15: damn advisor in the piece, attended a event that the
Speaker 15: Heritage Foundation did in Mexico. So I think that any
Speaker 15: signs of pragmatism, goodwill to work with people that you
Speaker 15: might disagree with, is a good sign from the incoming administration.
Speaker 6: And but before I let you go, I wanted to
Speaker 6: get you to comment on one of the funniest things
Speaker 6: I've seen in a very long time.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 6: The night that she was elected, Todd Richmond, who is
Speaker 6: the chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, which is an
Speaker 6: APEX spinoff, said that, you know, because she's been so
Speaker 6: critical of Israel, that it's not really fair to really
Speaker 6: even highlight the fact that she's the first Jewish president
Speaker 6: of Mexico. And he pointed out that she even thanked
Speaker 6: Jesus in her victory speech. Turns out her husband is Jzeus.
Speaker 6: She was thanking her husband. So it's apparently news to
Speaker 6: Americans that there are people named Jzeus that live in Mexico. So, A,
Speaker 6: can you confirm that there are people in Mexico named Zeus?
Speaker 3: And B what does it say.
Speaker 6: About this kind of the kind of apac pro Israel
Speaker 6: reaction to her historic election.
Speaker 15: I mean, it makes sense she has taken the same
Speaker 15: line as her mentor on Israel Palestine, which actually they've
Speaker 15: embraced the kind of neutrality. I think they want to
Speaker 15: play a mediator role, but they've been very strongly in.
Speaker 11: Favor of peace.
Speaker 15: As far as the Jewish component is, the reality is
Speaker 15: that Shamebaum is more just ethnically Jewish. She hasn't played
Speaker 15: up her identity and does not really practice. I think
Speaker 15: she may be an atheist and has played up a
Speaker 15: lot of her you know, just Mexican nests, wearing traditional address,
Speaker 15: et cetera. Her husband is in fact named it's a common.
Speaker 11: Name in Latin America.
Speaker 15: But she's had a lot of videos about it, and
Speaker 15: maybe it could have fooled a lot of people but
Speaker 15: the opposition candidate soci advis towards the end actually started
Speaker 15: playing up her religiosity.
Speaker 11: Who knows how.
Speaker 15: Authentic that was to try to draw a contrast with
Speaker 15: Shane Baum and, for instance, formal President Vicente Fox, the
Speaker 15: Coca Cola executive, has made some borderline or openly anti
Speaker 15: Semitic slurs against Shane Bam, noting that she wasn't a
Speaker 15: real Mexican and the only authentic Mexican in the race
Speaker 15: was the opposition's candidate.
Speaker 5: Well Onanda vid Rojas, columnist at Compact, thanks for your
Speaker 5: reporting and for sharing with us some of what you
Speaker 5: saw down in Mexico City last week. That does it
Speaker 5: for us. On today's edition of Counterpoints, Ryan, We'll be
Speaker 5: back here on Friday with a debate. I'm really excited
Speaker 5: about just getting fully immersed in the Trump law. Fair
Speaker 5: conversation with two people on the absolute opposite ends of it.
Speaker 3: Trump lock him up, yay or nay?
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. That is a resolution.
Speaker 3: Yay, lock him up for whatever.
Speaker 4: I mean that's going to be used against you.
Speaker 3: If he becomes president. I didn't mean it. If if
Speaker 3: he becomes president, I take it back.
Speaker 4: That's fair, all right?
Speaker 5: So We will be back next Wednesday with more counterpoints,
Speaker 5: but stay tuned Friday. Make sure to subscribe to the
Speaker 5: premium version breakingpoints dot com to actually get the Friday
Speaker 5: show on Thursday and to get the Wednesday show early
Speaker 5: with no breaks whatsoever. Full thing just hits your inbox
Speaker 5: right away. Breakingpoints dot Com, thanks so much for tuning.
Speaker 6: In and obviously locked by en Up, like that's not
Speaker 6: even a debate.
Speaker 5: Well I was going to say, that's really we just
Speaker 5: opened a can of worms kind of at the end
Speaker 5: end here, but
Speaker 3: Yeah, alright, see you guys soon