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Speaker 1: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. Back to our
Speaker 1: regularly scheduled programming.
Speaker 3: What do we have today, Cristel Oh, We have.
Speaker 4: A lot to tackle this morning.
Speaker 2: We're going to preview that big Trump putin Alaska summit.
Speaker 2: We're also going to take an early look at how
Speaker 2: the midterms are shaping up. We've got some news out
Speaker 2: of Israel, including netnyahuo embracing the Greater Israel project, so
Speaker 2: just mask fully off at this point. I'm also going
Speaker 2: to take a look at Theo vonhad In, American doctor
Speaker 2: who was just back from Gaz's pretty extraordinary episode. I
Speaker 2: really recommend that you guys go and listen to the
Speaker 2: whole thing, but we have a clip from that. I
Speaker 2: wanted to talk a little bit about that as well.
Speaker 2: Marthorie Taylor Green and Laura Lumer in an Absolute flame
Speaker 2: war break the details down there, and Laura Lum are
Speaker 2: making a pretty dire prediction about the future of the
Speaker 2: Republican Party, So that is interesting to dig into as well,
Speaker 2: perhaps more substantive.
Speaker 4: I don't know to dig into as well.
Speaker 2: Congresswoman Luna is telling Joe Rogan about UFOs, so Sager
Speaker 2: has some thoughts.
Speaker 4: I guess I have some thoughts there. Well.
Speaker 1: She made some crazy claims, but she's also gone after
Speaker 1: some whistleblower, so we'll talk about it.
Speaker 3: It's actually there's a lot going on there, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, you'll break that down for us. And then Israel
Speaker 2: might be preparing to go back to war with Iran.
Speaker 2: So we are going to have Dave DeCamp of Anti
Speaker 2: War dot COM's first time on the show. I've been
Speaker 2: wanting to get him on for a little while to
Speaker 2: break down all of the details there.
Speaker 4: We're also going to be doing our AM Live today.
Speaker 2: If you guys want to be part of those, make
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Speaker 1: and or send your favorite episode to a friend. So
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and start with that Trump Putin summit.
Speaker 3: It is tomorrow. We'll have some reaction on Saturday.
Speaker 1: By the way, we'll get to that in terms of
Speaker 1: our future programming notes. But we actually wanted to start
Speaker 1: with some of the contours of the debate and kind
Speaker 1: of where things lie. So we thought we would kick
Speaker 1: it off with Dave Smith, who was recently on Piers
Speaker 1: Morgan's show, debating a very pro Ukraine, pro Western NATO
Speaker 1: sentiment and really revealing some of the core truths I
Speaker 1: think behind what continues to drive a lot of the
Speaker 1: NATO support for the war.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen, what.
Speaker 5: Are we doing. You're just trying to insult Vladimir Putin,
Speaker 5: insult Russia. It's like the most childish immature, just taunting.
Speaker 5: There's an actual war going on right now. Where hundreds
Speaker 5: of thousands of people have been dying, and there's a
Speaker 5: meeting coming up between the two leaders of the United
Speaker 5: States and Russia. As I said before, ninety percent of
Speaker 5: the world stockpile of nuclear weapons. Let's all take this
Speaker 5: down a notch. Vladimir Putin has at least signalled recently
Speaker 5: that he will maybe is open to the idea of
Speaker 5: keeping the Donbass region done, asking Lahansk, of getting a
Speaker 5: corridor to Crimea, and of leaving some of the other territory.
Speaker 5: Why are we not all pushing in that direction. It
Speaker 5: is undeniable that the West did a lot to provoke
Speaker 5: this conflict. It's just undeniable. Our CIA director through all
Speaker 5: of Joe Biden's term, Bill Burns, was the one who
Speaker 5: wrote the NT means NEET memo, who warned Condoliza Rice,
Speaker 5: do not keep pushing in this direction, and we continued
Speaker 5: pushing regardless it's resulted in this catastrophe. Like I said before, Pierce,
Speaker 5: I'm not absolving Vladimir Putin of any responsibility. He launched
Speaker 5: this warrant, He's responsible for the destruction. But when you
Speaker 5: start the program by asking a simple question like what
Speaker 5: is the exit strategy here? What is the plan. No
Speaker 5: one really has anything. No one has anything other than
Speaker 5: maybe we could keep sending weapons and money in and
Speaker 5: this slow grind of people dying will continue, and Vladimir
Speaker 5: Putin will then, at the end of that take the
Speaker 5: territory he wants. Let's try to negotiate an end to
Speaker 5: this nightmare that never needed to happen.
Speaker 1: I thought he did a good job, kind of a
Speaker 1: laying some of the stakes out. And yes, again I
Speaker 1: understand nobody's absolving Vladimir Putin a buffer invading Ukraine. Were
Speaker 1: simply acknowledging the contours of what.
Speaker 3: Led to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually find it almost similar maybe to the
Speaker 1: Israel Hamas conversation. Right, It's like, to talk about October
Speaker 1: seventh in a vacuum is kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 4: I'm like, do you condemn Hammad.
Speaker 1: Right exactly? Like, yes, of course on October seventh, and
Speaker 1: it's like, let's look at the contours of the conflict.
Speaker 1: That's part of the reason I think that Daryl Cooper's
Speaker 1: series on Fear and Loathing in Jerusalem went so viral
Speaker 1: because people are like I genuinely had no idea about
Speaker 1: the history of these two actors and what led up
Speaker 1: to this, and it starts to make a lot more
Speaker 1: sense actually from both sides in terms of their actions,
Speaker 1: both October seventh and the Israeli reaction, and you're able
Speaker 1: to actually be able to down both and then look
Speaker 1: at it, you know, without some single Israeli covered or
Speaker 1: Palestinian covered glasses.
Speaker 3: Right, And that makes it what it's called nuance.
Speaker 1: It's about understanding how these things don't happen necessarily in evacuate.
Speaker 4: It's not an adulting version.
Speaker 2: Where it's just like he's an evil bad guy, so
Speaker 2: he does bad stuff and they're evil people, so they
Speaker 2: do they hate us because I were free, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like the cartoon version of it. And I will
Speaker 2: say there was one person on that panel that was
Speaker 2: absolving Vladimir pos Ros, a dude in the car.
Speaker 4: It was like some I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, Russian State TV propaganda's and so that was
Speaker 2: supposed to be like Dave's ally in the debate. Obviously
Speaker 2: Dave doesn't agree with him, which he made clear, like
Speaker 2: went out of his way to make clear, like the
Speaker 2: things that this dude was saying, I do not co
Speaker 2: sign whatsoever.
Speaker 4: So Peers is more pro Ukraine.
Speaker 2: The woman that was there is herself Ukrainian, and then
Speaker 2: you've got two neocons there who are you know, very
Speaker 2: pro Ukraine. And so it was basically Dave versus the
Speaker 2: entire panel, and as you could see there handled himself
Speaker 2: quite ably just by out you know, reality of where
Speaker 2: we are, because this is you know, I have a
Speaker 2: lot of sympathy and continue to have a lot of
Speaker 2: sympathy for the Ukrainians. In fact, I'm disgusted with the
Speaker 2: fact that the US was so integral and glowing up
Speaker 2: a potential piece deal early on. I'm also disgusted with
Speaker 2: the actions that multiple US administrations, including the first Trump one,
Speaker 2: including Biden, including going back, you know, before this war
Speaker 2: that they took that led to the provocation that created
Speaker 2: the context for this illegal offensive action invasion by Russia.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, if you are interested in trying
Speaker 2: to bring this thing to a close, you have to
Speaker 2: live in reality. The other alternative being offered here is
Speaker 2: just what endless war or you know, if we're actually
Speaker 2: going to try to get Ukraine to quote unquote win
Speaker 2: and take back all their territory, I mean that would
Speaker 2: require our actual direct involvement. Does anyone want that and
Speaker 2: that's what's driven me crazy about this conflict from the
Speaker 2: beginning is there's been a total unwillingness to have an
Speaker 2: honest debate about what happened in the past, what it's
Speaker 2: going to mean, what the off ramp is, what the
Speaker 2: plan is, where this whole thing is going. And now
Speaker 2: it's just a mess and a quagmire. And you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not particularly hopeful about this summit this weekend. I'll
Speaker 2: just put my cards on the table, and I think
Speaker 2: we'll have some indications you're about to share of, you know,
Speaker 2: not great signs going into it.
Speaker 4: But you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm just at this point there really needs to be
Speaker 2: some sort of rational clothes to this thing, and I
Speaker 2: don't know that we're anywhere close to it.
Speaker 3: I don't see it either.
Speaker 1: Here's Trump talking about the summit, setting expectations.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listener.
Speaker 4: Let's your face.
Speaker 5: Any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop
Speaker 5: the war after your meeting on Friday.
Speaker 1: Yes, they will.
Speaker 3: What will they will be?
Speaker 1: Cons There will be I don't have to say there
Speaker 1: will be very severe consequences. Yes, very severe consequences. I'm
Speaker 1: going to return to that, because basically this thing, at
Speaker 1: least for now, looks like it's set up fail to
Speaker 1: be fair. Here's what the Trump people have been telling
Speaker 1: me behind the scenes. He starts off from the maximal
Speaker 1: political place so that he can negotiate down from there,
Speaker 1: which sounds reasonable in practice, like maybe in business, but
Speaker 1: in something as sensitive as this, I still remain remains
Speaker 1: to be seen, I think in terms of the success
Speaker 1: and part of the reason why is this.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: There's been multiple reports out now, none of it contradicted
Speaker 1: with the White House. Yesterday, Donald Trump held a meeting
Speaker 1: both with Ukraine and many of the European great powers
Speaker 1: ahead of the summit, where they agreed quote on Ukrainian
Speaker 1: red lines with Europe. Before the Putin summit, the US
Speaker 1: leader told European peers he will not negotiate territorial issues
Speaker 1: during Friday's meeting, but will seek in immediate ceasefire. Now
Speaker 1: included within that provision for a European ceasefire, and I
Speaker 1: want to reiterate this are some of the things which
Speaker 1: are already non starters for the Russians.
Speaker 3: I'm going to read it here.
Speaker 1: Quote ceasefire as a prerequisite for any further talks. Quote,
Speaker 1: any territorial discussion will start from the current front line,
Speaker 1: quote binding Western security agreements that Russia must accept, quote
Speaker 1: Ukrainian participation in the talks, and quote support from both
Speaker 1: the US and Europe, including Ukraine for any deal. Now
Speaker 1: Already on the Ukrainian side, it's going to be very
Speaker 1: difficult to get a deal. Why because Zelensky has a
Speaker 1: total ability to set the table and to bring anything
Speaker 1: to some sort of national referendum, which he's not even
Speaker 1: allowed to pursue any sort of peace on his own accord.
Speaker 1: He has to bring it to the people. Now, he
Speaker 1: may not even want to bring it to the people
Speaker 1: because apparently, according to their own polls, the Ukrainian people
Speaker 1: are actually much more pro peace than he is. Whereas
Speaker 1: his entire administration, remember, he's deeply unpopular already for some
Speaker 1: of the authoritarian anti corruption laws that he just signed
Speaker 1: into office. He's already been dragging down in the polls.
Speaker 1: There's been no election, The Ukrainian opposition has either been
Speaker 1: banned or jailed inside of the country. Why would you
Speaker 1: want to give that up if you're already a leader
Speaker 1: of that country. His vision for how this thing was
Speaker 1: going to go is already out of step with the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian secondary to that is, quote, some sort of security
Speaker 1: guarantee that Russia can that Russia must accept. The security
Speaker 1: guarantee would effectively be some sort of NATO style security
Speaker 1: guarantee outside of NATO. So Trump is trying to play
Speaker 1: two sides of this coin, where he's like, well, it
Speaker 1: won't be from NATO. It's like, dude, if the US
Speaker 1: has a treaty bound organized or treaty bound obligation to
Speaker 1: defend every inch of let's say, eighty percent of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: that might as well be NATO. I mean, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter right functionally whether it's America or whether it's outside
Speaker 1: of NATO or not. If all of the NATO powers
Speaker 1: have an obligation to come and to defend your territory,
Speaker 1: then that's basically NATO.
Speaker 3: Why would Russia live with that?
Speaker 1: And then the final one is that Russia must agree
Speaker 1: to the current front line and they must not demand
Speaker 1: any more of their territory.
Speaker 3: Well, again, for people who.
Speaker 1: Don't even follow the conflict, Russia just had its best
Speaker 1: breakthrough on the frontline in over a year. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason why a sea fire for them right now
Speaker 1: may not make a lot of sense is because they're rolling.
Speaker 1: Every single day that the war continues, they're doing better.
Speaker 1: And then finally there's this theory of severe consequences. Russia
Speaker 1: is the most sanctioned country on Earth by the United States.
Speaker 1: I actually don't think people know that, more than Iran,
Speaker 1: more than any other place. There's not another sanction that
Speaker 1: can be left. That's why they're threatening these quote secondary
Speaker 1: sanctions right Well, they've put fifty percent sanctions or tariffs
Speaker 1: on India.
Speaker 3: India has not budged a single inch, not one.
Speaker 1: In fact, they're going to Moscow, They're going to China,
Speaker 1: to Beijing. The two biggest buyers of Russian oil are
Speaker 1: China and India. China by far, by the way, and
Speaker 1: it faces no current consequences. The Senate has a bill
Speaker 1: which Trump is threatened to support, which would put five
Speaker 1: hundred percent tariffs on any buyer of Russian oil.
Speaker 3: But let's think about the consequences of that.
Speaker 1: That would mean a five hundred percent tariff on China,
Speaker 1: which would effectively bring the US commerce industry, retail industry,
Speaker 1: e commerce, et cetera to a complete.
Speaker 3: And shut off trade.
Speaker 1: Is everybody willing to shut down our economy and all
Speaker 1: of our global trade for Ukraine. I mean this is where,
Speaker 1: you know, it gets back to where we all had
Speaker 1: to pay higher gas prices because of the Ukrainian conflict.
Speaker 1: That wasn't popular. Actually, even though a lot of people
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, sure, I'll pay higher gas, it's.
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, I didn't work out the beginning in theory.
Speaker 3: Yeah you got you got a lot poor.
Speaker 1: Most people paid a big FD Ukraine tax at the
Speaker 1: pump for years and instead, by the way, they still
Speaker 1: continue to pay it, at least in some form.
Speaker 3: But my point remain.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, I'm not even talking about the European
Speaker 1: consequences all of those you know, the summers where their
Speaker 1: electricity prices were sky high. It deregularly destabilized their entire economies.
Speaker 3: The German economy it took a massive hit.
Speaker 1: I mean, it basically looked like their entire manufacturing sector
Speaker 1: was underwritten by cheap oil and gas. Like their whole
Speaker 1: future of their economies is up in the air right now.
Speaker 1: All that being said is just to say, you know,
Speaker 1: Trump would always say we have the cards and he's right.
Speaker 3: For Ukraine, on Russia. It's not right.
Speaker 1: I mean, absent full blown US military NATO intervention.
Speaker 3: What else can you do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is not a military capable of adopting NATO weaponry.
Speaker 3: They've proven that.
Speaker 1: They only and I'll get to this in a bit,
Speaker 1: they only know how to fight in a Soviet way.
Speaker 1: Would just throw as much manpower into the trench as possible.
Speaker 1: You think they're going to beat the Russians at their
Speaker 1: own game. They have millions more people than you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess the alternative view with regard to
Speaker 2: Russia's recent success on the front lines would be, you know,
Speaker 2: this has been going on for years now and they've
Speaker 2: basically been stuck in place. There have been minor advances
Speaker 2: on the Russian side, but it hasn't been like you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're not taking on Yeah, it hasn't been dramatic. And
Speaker 2: that these latest games may be a result of them
Speaker 2: really throwing a lot of force in one area to
Speaker 2: try to improve their bargaining position going into this summit,
Speaker 2: in these negotiations. It's kind of the alternative explanation as
Speaker 2: far as Trump goes, I guess we're just hoping since
Speaker 2: he goes back on his word all the time, that
Speaker 2: maybe he doesn't actually mean anything that he's saying here
Speaker 2: about just like I'm in lockstep with the Europeans and
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians and Russia's going to pay a price, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Very possible, very possible that Trump doesn't mean
Speaker 2: a word that he is saying about any of this
Speaker 2: and will completely flip once he's face to face with
Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin, because famously he's very influenced by whoever happens
Speaker 2: to be in front of him at that moment.
Speaker 4: So we'll see.
Speaker 2: I just want to zoom out though, also for a
Speaker 2: second and talk about how utterly hypocritical and preposterous it
Speaker 2: is at this point in time for the Americans to
Speaker 2: posture like they care so deeply about territorial integrity. We're
Speaker 2: going to cover later in the show how Israel is
Speaker 2: now greenlit this massive and very consequential expansion of settlements
Speaker 2: that basically makes a two state solution impossible. It's directly intended,
Speaker 2: according to Smotrich himself, who was in charge of such things,
Speaker 2: directly intended to make a two state Palestinian you know,
Speaker 2: solution completely impossible, completely.
Speaker 4: Off the table.
Speaker 2: And of course we are also green lighting the complete
Speaker 2: annexation of Gaza as well, so West Bank annexed, Gaza annexed,
Speaker 2: and that we are we are part of, we are
Speaker 2: green lighting, we are funding, we're providing diplomatic cover for.
Speaker 2: And then on the other hand, we're going to pretend like,
Speaker 2: you know, territorial integrity is all is you know, some
Speaker 2: rarefied sakersang thing. I mean, it's just the levels of
Speaker 2: hypocrisy are so brazen in your faces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean I've talked about before, but you know,
Speaker 1: all of the rhetoric that you hear on Ukraine, They're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Russia's killing civilians.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not minimizing any civilian death.
Speaker 1: I think it's bad, but Russia has killed, you know,
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. They'll be like, wow, twelve civilians
Speaker 1: were killed in Ukraine. I think that's horrible. How many
Speaker 1: civilians is Israel kill every single day with the US bomb?
Speaker 1: What do we who are we talking to? You know
Speaker 1: about this same booka of the massacre. It was a genocide,
Speaker 1: that's what the Ukrainians say. Yeah, I mean again, look
Speaker 1: at the death toll and compare it to the Palestinians.
Speaker 1: It's like we can't talk out of both sides of
Speaker 1: our mouth, and instead we just need to all be honest.
Speaker 1: As a great power conflict, the goal was to try
Speaker 1: and destroy the Russians bya Ukraine as a proxy state.
Speaker 1: It failed miserably. I never thought I, my great naivete,
Speaker 1: was having any confidence in the US global hagienemy on banking.
Speaker 1: I thought that there was no way the Russian economy
Speaker 1: would survive. I have been stu there's a lot of
Speaker 1: lessons actually in the way that the Russians have been
Speaker 1: able to It shows you that there's only two things
Speaker 1: that matter. If you can make guns and if you
Speaker 1: can pump oil, that's literally all that you need. You
Speaker 1: don't need America at all. And you know they're doing
Speaker 1: just fine.
Speaker 4: The world is way more prepared to move on from
Speaker 4: US than we.
Speaker 1: It's true, I truly truly underestimated not only them, but
Speaker 1: I vastly overestimated the power of US sanctions and have agemony.
Speaker 1: And I kind of wish that we hadn't done it
Speaker 1: for a conflict which has no bearing whatsoever on the
Speaker 1: United States. Let's get to President Zelenski, who recently had
Speaker 1: a press conference in London where he's been meeting with
Speaker 1: all of the European powers setting the table for the summit.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 6: I told a President Trump and all European allies Peutin
Speaker 6: is bluffing. Putin is bluffing, that sanctions is nothing and
Speaker 6: they don't work. In fact, sanctions are hitting Russian or
Speaker 6: economy hard. That Putin definitely does not want peace. He
Speaker 6: will occupy Ukraine. And we all understand that Putin can
Speaker 6: not fool anyone. We need future and further pressure and
Speaker 6: European and American sanctions against Russia.
Speaker 1: So you can see it's like Putin doesn't want peace,
Speaker 1: and I mean all of the table for that is
Speaker 1: that I don't want peace either, right, is that we
Speaker 1: want to continue fighting, throwing our people into the breach.
Speaker 1: Let's put the next one, please up on the screen,
Speaker 1: just to you know, continue what I was saying. Trump
Speaker 1: promises quote very severe consequences at a military level, absent
Speaker 1: sending troops actually on the ground. I was speaking with
Speaker 1: some military experts yesterday. There's not a whole lot left.
Speaker 1: Biden gave him everything that they possibly have asked for.
Speaker 1: The critique from that is that, oh, he gave it
Speaker 1: to them too late. But we are where we are.
Speaker 1: We're in reality, right, We're in The average age on
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian front line is probably between forty and sixty
Speaker 1: years old.
Speaker 3: Nobody even really knows what that is.
Speaker 1: Horror, it's horrifying what has already happened to the entire population.
Speaker 1: But you know, as you said, the hope is that
Speaker 1: maybe he's speaking out of both sides of his mouth
Speaker 1: and keeping everything up for negotiation. But I'm just not
Speaker 1: so sure. Considering I would have thought that. You know,
Speaker 1: in the first month of the Trump administration, we have
Speaker 1: the Gaza ceasefire.
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, I was like, this is amazing.
Speaker 1: Right, well, you know, now we are where we are
Speaker 1: where Wick cough is used talks with Iran as cover
Speaker 1: for a strike, where on the Israeli side we just
Speaker 1: keep saying things like, well, it's up to Netan. Yahoo.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like, well, here, it seems like we've
Speaker 1: done a total about face. From the initial days of
Speaker 1: the administration, Trump sending two hundred and fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: in additional military equipment, Trump continuing, you know, these via
Speaker 1: European arms sets, but still fueling the conflict, sending patriot batteries,
Speaker 1: threatening Russia with sanctions. This is straight out of the
Speaker 1: Biden playbook. The India thing is literally out of Lindsey
Speaker 1: Graham playbook. Has been wanting to do it since day
Speaker 1: one at a military level, just to underscore that. Let's
Speaker 1: put this one, next one please on the screen, just
Speaker 1: to show everybody what the military reality is here. Excellent
Speaker 1: piece written by some people were actually military experts, and
Speaker 1: they say, quote, Ukraine's once nimble army is mired in
Speaker 1: Soviet decision making. I remember reading this over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years about how NATO tactics and others were encouraged,
Speaker 1: NATO weaponry and a lot of these other things training
Speaker 1: to try and get the Ukrainians to fight that way.
Speaker 1: But their response is basically, look, we don't even know
Speaker 1: how to do that. But also this is just the
Speaker 1: way that we're trained, and we've found some level of
Speaker 1: battlefield success. But attritional warfare favors the great power, not
Speaker 1: the small power, especially the one that has no industrial base,
Speaker 1: that has no capacity to wage war on its own
Speaker 1: and would basically be giving up in a single day
Speaker 1: twenty four hour p period. If the United States and
Speaker 1: Europe pulled the plug from the conflict, big person who
Speaker 1: is able to sustain that on a long enough basis
Speaker 1: is the Russians. And there was also this theory that
Speaker 1: lots and I also got this wrong.
Speaker 3: I'll admit it if I look back.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that brought down the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, or at least stirred up a lot of
Speaker 1: internal descent was the death toll in Afghanistan during the
Speaker 1: Soviet War. And you know, the Russians have nobody knows
Speaker 1: exactly how many troops have been killed, but it's a lot,
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands probably, you know, the Russians will claim. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: there doesn't seem to be very much. There just doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be a whole lot of descent. They somehow
Speaker 1: seem to have solve that problem. I guess the population
Speaker 1: just supports it, unlike they did in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: I really have no other explanation.
Speaker 1: I also read that they're paying very generous salaries to
Speaker 1: a lot of the draftees or a lot of the
Speaker 1: people who will come in from the Caucuses or these
Speaker 1: other regions, much more than they could ever earn otherwise,
Speaker 1: and so even the widowers and the families are like, well,
Speaker 1: it sucks, you know, to lose your husband, but I'm
Speaker 1: getting a pension for the rest of my life. I
Speaker 1: don't know how they did it. I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: or anything, but what I thought that this could be
Speaker 1: an Afghanistan type situation for them.
Speaker 3: It doesn't appear to be.
Speaker 1: People. They seem willing as a polity to accept hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands, if not millions of casualties in Ukraine. There
Speaker 1: has been zero actual internal descent since twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a lot of the draft.
Speaker 1: In fact, it may have worked out for them because
Speaker 1: the Western style elites they all just left Russia and
Speaker 1: so everybody who's left is like, yeah, we're on board,
Speaker 1: We're you know, we're on the train.
Speaker 3: Let's go.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They have a large, you know, relatively poor, rural population
Speaker 2: that is committed, that believes in the war goals, like
Speaker 2: believes in the aims, and you know for whom those
Speaker 2: those salaries are quite appealing. And so I, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I don't know, but that's my guess as to
Speaker 2: why they've been able to sustain this high rate of
Speaker 2: casualty without having any notable significant societal backlash as far
Speaker 2: as we can tell, you know, as outsiders looking in. So,
Speaker 2: you know, with regard to the ongoing war tactics, there
Speaker 2: was actually a great quote in that piece. One of
Speaker 2: the said, you know, big Soviet army beats little Soviet army,
Speaker 2: basically saying like, yeah, they use these same terrible tactics
Speaker 2: of just throwing men into a meat grinder and never
Speaker 2: wanting to retreat even when it makes sense, letting their
Speaker 2: troops get encircled and slaughtered. But they have a lot
Speaker 2: more people than we do, so in the end, how
Speaker 2: do you think that that is ultimately going to work out?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: There was also some some quotes in here from a
Speaker 2: guy who's fifty years old wanted to go fight, signed up.
Speaker 2: He was like, you know, he'd never handled a weapon before,
Speaker 2: had zero training, never been in the military before, but
Speaker 2: wanted to serve and thought that he could go in
Speaker 2: and get some training and go do something that wasn't
Speaker 2: really on the front line. I mean, again, he's fifty
Speaker 2: years old, he's never been in warfare before, he's never
Speaker 2: fired a weapon before, and they didn't even give him
Speaker 2: a gun before they send him to the front lines,
Speaker 2: and he you know, he laughed, he was he was like,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing this.
Speaker 3: That's the Soviet thing.
Speaker 4: I've everything, I'm not doing this.
Speaker 2: And apparently they have a lot of deserters because of
Speaker 2: exactly this. They're like, you didn't give me any training.
Speaker 2: You're sending one in the front lines. The you know,
Speaker 2: guy who's in charge here is just willing to, you know,
Speaker 2: let us get encircled and slaughtered, like we're not doing it.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, you also have that dynamic unfolding
Speaker 2: on the ground here too. But you know, your point
Speaker 2: about us having all the cards with regard to Ukraine
Speaker 2: is a really important one, really important. You know, the
Speaker 2: party that we really have the most ability to pressure
Speaker 2: is the Ukrainians.
Speaker 4: They are very dependent on us. That's just the reality.
Speaker 2: And so you know, pressure needs to be put on them,
Speaker 2: and it needs to be done in order to secure
Speaker 2: a deal that yes, they're going to be unhappy with, right.
Speaker 2: It's it's not like in order to bring this war
Speaker 2: too close now it would require territorial concessions.
Speaker 4: There's just no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: Certainly, crimea you know, Eastern Ukraine and what needs to
Speaker 2: happen is there needs to be some ability to create
Speaker 2: face saving for Zelenski, Like, if you're interested in actually
Speaker 2: bringing this thing to a close, you put pressure behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, You try to resolve the underlying issues that
Speaker 2: led Russia to, you know, create to launch this illegal
Speaker 2: invasion to begin with, and you try to create some
Speaker 2: sort of face saving pretext for Zelenski so that he
Speaker 2: has because his ego is massive, clearly, and he's backed
Speaker 2: himself sort of into a rhetorical corner, so that he
Speaker 2: has some sort of an out And it just seems
Speaker 2: from the beginning the complete opposite policy has been pursued.
Speaker 2: You know, the pressure has been on the Russian side,
Speaker 2: so Lencia gets publicly humiliated. That actually doesn't help you
Speaker 2: in terms of trying to get him to back off
Speaker 2: of his egoistic position, which you should be doing is
Speaker 2: pumping him up in public and then putting the pressure
Speaker 2: on behind the scenes to force an outcome that again
Speaker 2: is like not ideal and is going to be deeply painful,
Speaker 2: but increasingly the Ukrainian population is actually open to Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that look all well said the prop the summit,
Speaker 1: you know, the initial by the way, as you know,
Speaker 1: I loved the initial office meeting.
Speaker 3: I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: I was like, he needs to be put into his place,
Speaker 1: and finally that we can break you know, in terms
Speaker 1: of our so called special relationship, we could force him
Speaker 1: to the table. But since then it's like I said,
Speaker 1: Trump totally about face and this is not an advisor's thing.
Speaker 1: I really believe that he seemed to think that he
Speaker 1: could just use his relationship with Putin to bring the
Speaker 1: conflict to an end, and I did not understand the
Speaker 1: fundamental spot in Putin. The thing is about Putin is
Speaker 1: he's crazy, but he has very rational objectives from within
Speaker 1: his worldview. If you look at it, he disregards which
Speaker 1: is insane, you know, the existence of all of these outs,
Speaker 1: like these breakaway republics. He thinks the Treaty of Breslatosk
Speaker 1: is like one of the greatest disasters to ever befall
Speaker 1: the history of Russia, and that the tragedy was the
Speaker 1: fall of the Soviet Union from the demise of a
Speaker 1: great power, and that they've been bullied by the West.
Speaker 1: Like I said, he is a czar through and through
Speaker 1: in his security, defense or depth vision. Well for him,
Speaker 1: if you look at him in that you know view.
Speaker 1: It's personality has nothing to do with it. Yes, he
Speaker 1: will use you as a personality to get relations or
Speaker 1: any of it, but he only cares about one thing.
Speaker 1: He invaded Ukraine for a reason and he will continue,
Speaker 1: you know, along the same reason path. They've committed their
Speaker 1: entire country towards this end. They will not simply give
Speaker 1: up because of a nice phone call. Sanctions don't matter anymore, none.
Speaker 3: Of this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's all about territory and if and with the current side,
Speaker 1: I mean even on the Ukrainian side and the Europeans,
Speaker 1: they're like, we will never recognize diplomatically any of this territory.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can live with it, but we will never
Speaker 1: diplomatically recognize it. I'm like, I just don't see a
Speaker 1: scenario where any of this stuff is going to fly
Speaker 1: right where there's no How can you normalize relations or
Speaker 1: any of that in the future. I guess the Korean model,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these you know technically Koreas, you know,
Speaker 1: state of war with a treaty and all of that.
Speaker 1: It is possible, but it's very difficult to see with
Speaker 1: the emotions and the way things are right now. And
Speaker 1: you know, I come if I tie it back to Israel,
Speaker 1: something I love that you said in one of our
Speaker 1: last shows. You're like, Israel exists. It's not about right
Speaker 1: to exist. We have to deal where we are today.
Speaker 1: That's it, you know, we just have to look and
Speaker 1: it's not just it's not nice, but that's geopolitics. It's
Speaker 1: you know, there's no rights to territory. There's simply the
Speaker 1: ability basically to take it or not. In Israel context,
Speaker 1: it's kind of flipped because we're the ones enabling the
Speaker 1: Russia of that region, and then out two sides of
Speaker 1: our mouth, we're speaking differently. Yeah, and I get that it's.
Speaker 2: Sometime more to blow up that international law consensus of
Speaker 2: like territorial integrity, integrity and human rights than any other
Speaker 2: country on the planet.
Speaker 1: So yeah, again, it's like the country that invaded Iraq
Speaker 1: based on the Coalition of the Willing, is going to
Speaker 1: go around telling people about territorial integrity. What are we
Speaker 1: doing here? You know, the country that toppled Libya and
Speaker 1: turned it into a failed state, Syria. Look at where
Speaker 1: it is right now, led by literally al Qaeda. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like one of these where this commitment to democratic
Speaker 1: norms or any of that stuff. It has never been
Speaker 1: US policy. And in fact, I think that you know,
Speaker 1: by by holding that up and continuing to act the
Speaker 1: way that we've done, it's exactly why we are where
Speaker 1: we are with Russia, with Ukraine, with so many of
Speaker 1: these other different conflicts, and yeah, it just really holds
Speaker 1: us back. So anyway, that's the table set. We'll see
Speaker 1: what the hell happens. Yeah, it could all go otherwise.
Speaker 1: I remember hell Sinki where it was totally different. Yeahright,
Speaker 1: so it could be very pro putin.
Speaker 2: I could absolutely possible that we're eating Crow by Monday,
Speaker 2: and we would be happy to do it. US programming note,
Speaker 2: we are going to forego the Friday show in order
Speaker 2: for Saga and Ryan actually going to cover the results
Speaker 2: of the summit on Saturday morning. So we're going to
Speaker 2: have a Saturday show and Friday show, so everybody look
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: That's right, because the powers that be decided that Alaska
Speaker 1: is five hours behind, and so by the time we
Speaker 1: even get all the news and all that, it probably
Speaker 1: won't be It could be midnight or something like that
Speaker 1: if it all runs late, which, by the way, having
Speaker 1: covered some of these diplomatic summits, they always go way
Speaker 1: longer than they're supposed to. The meetings are scheduled twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: The last an hour and fifty minutes the pressentforate.
Speaker 2: Ways to get the translation of what happened.
Speaker 3: Yes, the instant readouts.
Speaker 1: They're going to hold a just joint press conference, which
Speaker 1: that's gonna be kind of fun. Actually, that's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite traditions from the Washington Press Corps is it's
Speaker 1: called a two and two where the American Press Corps,
Speaker 1: when you get called on by your president, you actually
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to ask putin a question. And so
Speaker 1: whoever gets that, please do your homework. Don't ask some
Speaker 1: dumb ass question. Actually ask something which is useful for
Speaker 1: both for the Russians and for ourselves as well, So
Speaker 1: you know, don't try and make yourself a dou hero
Speaker 1: looking at you, Jim Acosta or any of these other people.
Speaker 4: So we haven't done a lot on polling and where
Speaker 4: we are.
Speaker 2: As we head into I mean, I know we still
Speaker 2: have a good bit of time before the midterms, but
Speaker 2: trust me, these things are already taking shape, already heating up.
Speaker 2: So we wanted to do spend a little bit of
Speaker 2: time on the horse race and taking a look at
Speaker 2: where things stand as best we can tell as of today.
Speaker 2: Harryington did a breakdown civically on the issue of inflation
Speaker 2: and how Trump has really fallen off a cliff on
Speaker 2: the issue that voters continue to say is their number
Speaker 2: one concern. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
Speaker 7: Look voters on Trump and inflation. He won the twenty
Speaker 7: twenty four election because he was more trusted on inflation
Speaker 7: than Kamala Harris was led by a margin of nine points.
Speaker 1: Look at where his net approval.
Speaker 7: Stands today though on inflation, my goodness, gracious, on the
Speaker 7: issue that got him elected. He led on by nine
Speaker 7: points on it last year, and now he's twenty five
Speaker 7: points underwater. As I said, this is a complete and
Speaker 7: total disaster for the president of the United States. Trust
Speaker 7: which party more inflation? You go back to the twenty
Speaker 7: twenty two mid terms. Look at this, Republicans led by
Speaker 7: thirteen points on which party was more trust in inflation.
Speaker 7: Look at where we are now, nearly a fifteen point
Speaker 7: shift in the Democrats direction. It's within the margin of error,
Speaker 7: but the Democrats up by a point, This just looks
Speaker 7: totally different from where we were back in twenty twenty two, when,
Speaker 7: of course Republicans took back the House. That's what Democrats
Speaker 7: are trying to do this time around. What is the
Speaker 7: top issue for you right now?
Speaker 1: It's a run of way.
Speaker 7: It's inflation. It's thirty four percent compared to the economy,
Speaker 7: which is basically very similar at sixteen percent, Medicare and
Speaker 7: Social Security at fourteen percent. But the bottom line is
Speaker 7: voters in Paul after Paul after Paul say that Donald
Speaker 7: Trump has taken his eye off the ball, off the
Speaker 7: big issue of the day, which is inflation. And that
Speaker 7: is why Donald Trump is way underwater on this issue,
Speaker 7: and it's why Democrats have caught up to Republicans on
Speaker 7: the all important issue of inflation and.
Speaker 2: Tager In some ways, I think that last piece about
Speaker 2: which issues are most important to people is maybe the
Speaker 2: most devastating for Republicans because, as Harrynton points out, Trump
Speaker 2: is now very unpopular on any economic issue, but inflation,
Speaker 2: you know, certainly so inflation is the number one issue.
Speaker 4: Economy in general is the number two issue.
Speaker 2: I don't think just like firing the BLS person and
Speaker 2: not putting out jobs report is really going to fix
Speaker 2: that for them. And then number three is Medicare and
Speaker 2: Social Security. Well, what do you think that's about. That's
Speaker 2: about the Big Beautiful Bill. That's why people are concerned
Speaker 2: about Medicare. And I do feel like the Big Beautiful
Speaker 2: Bill is that, Like I don't, we probably need to
Speaker 2: talk about it more because I think for average people
Speaker 2: it's factoring into their perception of this presidency much more
Speaker 2: than it's sort of given credit for.
Speaker 4: Because just think about the numbers.
Speaker 2: You have millions of people or now have to be
Speaker 2: concerned about whether or not they're going to have healthcare
Speaker 2: going forward. And you pair that with the fact that
Speaker 2: the way that's being financed is a giant tax cut,
Speaker 2: predominantly for the rich, and it is an utter political disaster.
Speaker 1: Especially on the Medicaid front. Right yere, You're going to
Speaker 1: see some impact. And I mean, by the way, part
Speaker 1: of the problem with the messaging or whatever around this
Speaker 1: is that you know, for a lot of people, they
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily read Medicaid.
Speaker 3: They thought maybe it's aid Medicare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there are changes to Medicare as well, but
Speaker 2: the bigger changes is certainly medic.
Speaker 1: Your Medicaid snap, any of those types of programs. By
Speaker 1: the way, just as you and I were talking, there
Speaker 1: is a new report out that shows that the core
Speaker 1: producer price the PPI inflation came in at three point
Speaker 1: seven percent versus two point nine percent, and the stock
Speaker 1: futures are diving literally.
Speaker 3: Oh really, and I are talking right now.
Speaker 1: The wholesale price rose by point nine percent in July,
Speaker 1: which is much much more than, much more than expected. Quote,
Speaker 1: the Producer Price Index, which features final demand goods and services,
Speaker 1: jump point nine compared to the Dow Jones estimate of
Speaker 1: zero point two percent. That's excluding food and energy prices.
Speaker 1: So that's particularly wholesale goods, which is going to show
Speaker 1: up at the grocery store. I know, point nine doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like a lot, but it's much more about the
Speaker 1: impact of the overall rise inflation. It's almost three times higher.
Speaker 1: It's as high as has been since April of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one in terms of the jump. So that is
Speaker 1: one where it could be a precursor to higher inflation.
Speaker 1: Just again, though, that's going to be something that if
Speaker 1: the economists, stock marketing, all these people are worried about,
Speaker 1: that could be something that's showing up for you. Combine
Speaker 1: it with the Social Security, that Medicare, any of this
Speaker 1: stuff where again look, I mean social Security didn't get touched,
Speaker 1: but the medicaid stuff, and in particular the tax cut,
Speaker 1: because again, the thing about the tax cut that everybody
Speaker 1: doesn't remember is that that's when the Trump presidency in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen went off the rails. The first six months
Speaker 1: of the first Trump administration was an outright battle inside
Speaker 1: between like Paul Ryan and Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon.
Speaker 1: Remember Steve Bannon had his white board for all the
Speaker 1: things that they wanted to do, and there was even
Speaker 1: the theater about the border wall. There was this floated
Speaker 1: tax called the Border Adjustment Tax, which by the way,
Speaker 1: would have been a great tax which went after remittances
Speaker 1: and trade. It was supposed to be an initial kind
Speaker 1: of trade imbalance way to correct with Mexico, and that
Speaker 1: would have financed immigration enforcement. And the entire GEOP was like, yeah.
Speaker 3: We're not doing that.
Speaker 1: They're like, we're cutting taxes for rich people and that's it, right.
Speaker 1: And so by the time that came out with the
Speaker 1: corporate tax, the reduced taxes not only for corporations, but
Speaker 1: for the highest income brackets that is really where Trump
Speaker 1: sank to his lowest ever level of support. It makes
Speaker 1: total sense to me. It's very similar to Obamacare. You know,
Speaker 1: if you think back to the coverage of the twenty
Speaker 1: ten election, the anger that was bubbling up in the
Speaker 1: town halls was over Obamacare. But the country, even national
Speaker 1: media can kind of moved on from there by that point.
Speaker 1: They were talking about various different things, but that is
Speaker 1: what slammed them at the ballot box. So it's very
Speaker 1: possible that inflation and in particularly the capriciousness around trade policy.
Speaker 1: What I have found is that Americans don't want to
Speaker 1: tune into the news on the economy. They want it
Speaker 1: to just run. And so when they have to check
Speaker 1: every day, not only are their portfolio or businesses have
Speaker 1: to pause deals and unpause, have to pause hiring and
Speaker 1: then maybe reduce salary or if you have to think
Speaker 1: about policy when it impacts their business.
Speaker 3: That's when people get upset.
Speaker 1: They don't want it to They only want to pay
Speaker 1: attention whenever it's good, but when it's bad, that's not
Speaker 1: what they want. And by and large, that's mostly where things.
Speaker 3: Are right now.
Speaker 2: Well, and you point it out to there are certain
Speaker 2: certain key items where you can really see that price
Speaker 2: hike directly as a result of tariffs. In fact, I
Speaker 2: sent us this morning, Rocan is doing something smart. He's
Speaker 2: introducing legislation to roll back, specifically the tariffs on coffee
Speaker 2: because because we hit Brazil so hard, you know, because
Speaker 2: we're mad at them over their court decisions with regard
Speaker 2: to bolscenario, that is causing coffee prices to spike dramatically.
Speaker 2: It also is causing beef prices to write to spike dramatically.
Speaker 2: Good probably for American cattle ranchers, but if you're trying
Speaker 2: to include steak in your diet here in the US,
Speaker 2: you know it's going to become much more costly. So
Speaker 2: in any case, I thought that was a clever tactical
Speaker 2: move from him and.
Speaker 1: The coffee the pressure off yet, look is something I
Speaker 1: think the vast majority of Americans drink coffee every single day.
Speaker 1: If not, it's probably like seventy eighty percent. I need
Speaker 1: to check the data. But the point is actually is
Speaker 1: that if you look at the way it will really
Speaker 1: impact you is if you buy it at a retail
Speaker 1: chain like Starbucks or anything. By the way Starbucks are anything,
Speaker 1: has anyone been recently? I never go to Starbucks or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's like five dollars, So what the hell is going
Speaker 1: on here?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Exactly. I was like, I was like, whoa. I mostly
Speaker 1: brew almost entirely all my own coffee. I'm pretty much,
Speaker 1: you know, immune from whatever the retail market. But every
Speaker 1: once in a while you'll just check and you're like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is going.
Speaker 2: I mean, even if you're not going to Starbucks, Like
Speaker 2: how many you know, blue collar guys are going out,
Speaker 2: you know, early morning, they're stopping at seven eleven getting
Speaker 2: their cup of as they're on the road how to
Speaker 2: do their job. I mean, this is very common, you
Speaker 2: know experience, cross class experience, and those would be the
Speaker 2: people who will be most sensitive to those price increases.
Speaker 2: And so even if it's not five bucks at Starbucks,
Speaker 2: you're still going to notice.
Speaker 4: That price increase.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Let's go and get to this next slide that shows
Speaker 2: you where the generic ballot is.
Speaker 4: So this is just if you ask people.
Speaker 2: Would you vote for the you know, whoever the Democrat
Speaker 2: is or whoever the Republican is in your congressional district
Speaker 2: without specific names attached who comes down on top and
Speaker 2: you can see. Listen, let's all take the polls of
Speaker 2: the grain of salt at this point in our lives,
Speaker 2: at this point in American history. However, you have a
Speaker 2: very consistent trend here in favor of Democrats. The overall
Speaker 2: RCP average has them up three point five percent on
Speaker 2: the generic ballot. You've had one poll from Yahoo News.
Speaker 2: Actually this Atlas Intel one is the highest one up
Speaker 2: on the board of plus eight for Democrats. More common
Speaker 2: is more in the two three four type of range.
Speaker 2: But you know, a significant edge, especially when you consider
Speaker 2: that Republicans have a very narrow edge in the House. Now,
Speaker 2: what is going to happen with all this redrawing of
Speaker 2: the maps in Texas and California, New York and whatever's
Speaker 2: going on there. I don't know, maybe Republicans, but I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the very fact that they're pulling the fire
Speaker 2: alarm to potentially do a new sense is to redraw
Speaker 2: these maps, et cetera, shows you they don't feel real
Speaker 2: great about their position going into the midterms either. Now,
Speaker 2: on the other side, on the flip side, let's put
Speaker 2: this next piece up on the screen. I think this
Speaker 2: is what Republicans are kind of comforting themselves with. The
Speaker 2: Democratic Party is wildly unpopular. Net favorability plunges to near
Speaker 2: three decade low according to polls, and to me, Sager,
Speaker 2: I think this reflects a lot of things. I mean
Speaker 2: think there's just like a lot of mistrust of the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party overall. But the reason it's reached this historic
Speaker 2: level of unpopularity, you know, and this is reflected in
Speaker 2: the data, is because there are a lot of Democrats
Speaker 2: that are disgusted with the Democratic Party. And I do
Speaker 2: think Israel is a big part of that because it's
Speaker 2: just such a you know, moral atrocity, it's such a
Speaker 2: there's such massive divergence in you know, the numbers are
Speaker 2: starker than maybe any other issue I've seen, the distance
Speaker 2: between Democratic leadership and where.
Speaker 4: The base is.
Speaker 2: Then you add to that that they feel that they
Speaker 2: aren't fighting the Trump administration. They aren't you going to
Speaker 2: the mat to try to fight for democracy, fight against
Speaker 2: their legislation in the ways.
Speaker 4: That they want to see.
Speaker 2: And then you see like Chuck Schumer and King Jeffrey's
Speaker 2: not even willing to endorse their on mom Donny. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're just an embarrassing, pathetic mess, especially like the higher
Speaker 2: up you go, the more embarrassing and cringeworthy it becomes.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a big part of why their
Speaker 2: favorability has sunk to such historic lows.
Speaker 1: I saw it actually in the DC context. Dave Weigel
Speaker 1: was like, you know, because the DC mayor and the
Speaker 1: politicians were all caught off guard, and Wigel was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you've only had seven months to prepare when he said
Speaker 1: he was going to do it on the campaign trail.
Speaker 1: It's like, so, if you're Chuck Schumer, fine, you know
Speaker 1: you're not focused on Washington, d C. If you're Mayor Bowser,
Speaker 1: it's like, what you.
Speaker 3: Never thought about? It was like, you guys literally never
Speaker 3: thought about it.
Speaker 1: He had no plan for how this was all going
Speaker 1: to go and police chief embarrassing yourself on national TV
Speaker 1: or anything. It's like, so, what's happening? Yeah? Right, It's
Speaker 1: like I think that's what's so frustrating Ryan for.
Speaker 2: A lot of a councilwoman who was who's more on
Speaker 2: the left, who was disgusted with her, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: you're not even going to like try a lawsuit to
Speaker 2: you know, may at least force them to say what
Speaker 2: the emergency is like, at least go through that process.
Speaker 4: But instead it was just like, eh, okay, what are
Speaker 4: we going to do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just thought it was crazy the way that well. Actually,
Speaker 1: DC another good example Eleanor Holmes Norton. If you live
Speaker 1: in the Washington is your not she has a non
Speaker 1: voting power in the House of Representatives. But it's symbolic.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you have your politician, you're popularly elected.
Speaker 1: What is she eighty eight years old? She has not
Speaker 1: made a single public statement on what's happened, and is
Speaker 1: running for really and is running for reelection and by
Speaker 1: all accounts is basic. Look, I mean, you know, to
Speaker 1: avoiding libel or whatever, hasn't showed up to a lot
Speaker 1: of events. Yeah, a lot of questions by her some
Speaker 1: of her constituents about her health, the DC political machine
Speaker 1: doing nothing about it. And it's like, you look at that.
Speaker 1: If you're watching a d C lib which statistically ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of you are, you should be really mad
Speaker 1: about that. I mean, you know, if everyone on license
Speaker 1: plate says no taxation without representation, but it's like even
Speaker 1: your representation is doing nothing. Again, I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: know that I'm that if you're a Republican you should
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, that's hilarious, But if you're a Democrat
Speaker 1: you should be mad. I mean, you should think about
Speaker 1: it in the Republican context from back in nine. That's
Speaker 1: exactly why they voted out so many of their leaders
Speaker 1: in nine, or in twenty ten and again in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: because they felt completely abandoned on the issues that were
Speaker 1: the most core to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what is different is that they do
Speaker 2: feel abandoned. Democrats do feel abandoned by their leaders in
Speaker 2: a way that is very different from any other time
Speaker 2: you know that I've seen in modern history. And if
Speaker 2: you play on that Tea Party twenty ten wave analogy,
Speaker 2: you also had Republicans unpopular with their own base.
Speaker 4: But that didn't mean that they didn't do well in
Speaker 4: the midterms.
Speaker 2: There was you know, a massive way of Obama called
Speaker 2: it a shellacking. You know, so many Democrats swept down
Speaker 2: of office. That ends up being incredibly consequential because then
Speaker 2: you had the twenty ten census, then you had redistricting
Speaker 2: that helps to lock in the political era that we're
Speaker 2: in at this point in time. But in any case,
Speaker 2: so I don't know that this number of Democratic unpopularity
Speaker 2: is going to be the saving grace that Republicans hope
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: What I will say is if they were doing a
Speaker 2: lot better, I think they would be poised. You know,
Speaker 2: if they were fighting in a way and had a
Speaker 2: clear and compelling message and had people who were younger
Speaker 2: than eighty years old making that clear and compelling message
Speaker 2: on a day to day basis, I think they would
Speaker 2: be in position to truly romp and have you know,
Speaker 2: an opportunity and maybe take back the Senate or things
Speaker 2: like that. I think the fact that they are not
Speaker 2: particularly trust will limit the gains, but I still think
Speaker 2: they're probably in well possession, and history would indicate that
Speaker 2: in this midterm you're likely to get a backlash against
Speaker 2: the incumbent party in any case. The other thing that
Speaker 2: to keep an eye on that's coming up more rapidly
Speaker 2: here is there are two states this year that have
Speaker 2: their governor's races, New Jersey and it's Virginia. New Jersey
Speaker 2: obviously more of a democratic state and Virginia, more of
Speaker 2: a swing state, can put be four up on the screen.
Speaker 4: So this race is.
Speaker 2: Going to pit former undercover CIA agent Abigail span Burger.
Speaker 1: Why are these spooks?
Speaker 2: The Democratic Charity loves any like national security police whatever.
Speaker 4: They love that this is a rama manual thing.
Speaker 2: Actually recruited all these like veterans and you know, cops
Speaker 2: and whatever. So anyway, that's who Abigail span Burger is.
Speaker 2: She's very centristy kind of a Democrat. And the Republican
Speaker 2: is win Some Sears, who is the current lieutenant governor,
Speaker 2: and she right now Spanberger has a pretty wide and
Speaker 2: as far as I can tell in the polls, quite
Speaker 2: consistent lead.
Speaker 4: Now, again the polls can be.
Speaker 2: Wrong, but I will say in Virginia she has Winsome
Speaker 2: Sears has a particular problem because of Doche So many
Speaker 2: federal government employees live in Virginia. And I'm not just
Speaker 2: talking about northern Virginia, although Northern Virginia is where a
Speaker 2: lot of the political power in the state is at
Speaker 2: this point in time, you also have a lot of
Speaker 2: federal government jobs throughout the state, surrounding many military bases, etc.
Speaker 2: I mean, the little town I live in is based
Speaker 2: around you know, civilian scientist naval research center called Dalgren
Speaker 2: And so this is a very key issue and Winsome
Speaker 2: Seers has not availed herself well when she's talking about dough.
Speaker 2: She's been unable to separate herself in the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: unable to separate herself from the DOGE federal government worker cuts,
Speaker 2: and so you know, I think that has significantly hobbled
Speaker 2: her chances, and I think it was going to be
Speaker 2: a difficult race to be with. I believe I saw
Speaker 2: something about the RGA basically like, Okay.
Speaker 4: She's not funding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all a question how much she's going to.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Spamberger might been what he thinks
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen points.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's too far. So what's nine and
Speaker 3: one by two the previous Well, what was the.
Speaker 4: Twenty seventeen Spanberger by seven?
Speaker 3: Spanburger by seven?
Speaker 1: Wow, that's still actually lower than I would think, because
Speaker 1: I mean, all indications right now are just a blowout.
Speaker 1: Put B five up there on the screen. I sent
Speaker 1: this because this is just shows you how crazy things are.
Speaker 1: The Virginia Police Benevolent Association, which four years ago supported
Speaker 1: every Republican in the state, is now backing Spanberger over
Speaker 1: win some series.
Speaker 3: They're like, yeah, she's done. We don't even have a choice.
Speaker 2: Well, I think yeah, and I think that's what it is.
Speaker 2: First of all, Spanberger did try to vote for like
Speaker 2: police funding. She was certainly never a defund the policer, right,
Speaker 2: But they they endorsed against her when.
Speaker 4: She ran for Congress.
Speaker 2: And so now I read it as they see the
Speaker 2: writing on the wall and they're like, we may as
Speaker 2: well endorse her and being good with her because it'll
Speaker 2: put us in a better position to advocate for whatever
Speaker 2: it is we want when she's governor. That's how I
Speaker 2: that's how I read the endorsement.
Speaker 3: I think that's the right way to see it.
Speaker 1: But the point is just that it's always been a
Speaker 1: precursor this one. I think, as you said, it's more
Speaker 1: of an outlier just because Doge.
Speaker 3: Is going to be so impactful.
Speaker 1: If you saw yesterday Emily and I covered the layoffs
Speaker 1: higher since twenty twenty one, a massive portion of it
Speaker 1: is government employees. Yeah, massive portion of those are going
Speaker 1: to live in Northern Virginia, and so those people are
Speaker 1: just I mean, I get these are my neighbors. They're irate,
Speaker 1: they hate They probably hate Trump more this time than
Speaker 1: last time because of Doge.
Speaker 3: You just can't stand it.
Speaker 2: Here's the other thing is it's not just the direct
Speaker 2: federal government employees.
Speaker 3: The contractors here right with They all so.
Speaker 2: Many of these contracts, like the funding was cut. And
Speaker 2: you know, even if you're not losing your job, okay
Speaker 2: you don't, you're not on with this particular client. I
Speaker 2: was actually just talking to a woman about exactly this.
Speaker 2: She's like, well, they cut our contract over at a camera,
Speaker 2: but I think she was at USDA. And so now
Speaker 2: there's not really a place for me to go internally,
Speaker 2: So I'm just going to be working at like booz
Speaker 2: Allen Hamilton, you know, doing the whatever in the office.
Speaker 2: And so it's it has a wide ranging impact. And
Speaker 2: if you drive around this area, you know, within a
Speaker 2: forty mile radius, it's contractor after contractor after contractor. And
Speaker 2: this has been a huge upending of their lives. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's the having to come into the office,
Speaker 2: it's the you know, the the change to lifestyle, the commuting,
Speaker 2: the pay cuts, the contract loss, the actual job loss,
Speaker 2: just the chaos and the uncertainty, which is very stressful.
Speaker 2: So that will definitely weigh on the Virginia race. I mean,
Speaker 2: in some ways, It'll be interesting to watch the New
Speaker 2: Jersey race. Even though all expectations are that the Democrat
Speaker 2: Mikey Cheryl, who's another like Centricty type of Democrat, all
Speaker 2: expectations are that she will end up prevailing, but the
Speaker 2: margin there will be interesting to see as well if
Speaker 2: there's some sort of Democratic over performance, especially since New
Speaker 2: Jersey was a state where Trump sort of overperformed.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's right. I mean, I still wonder how
Speaker 1: much of that is A twenty I think the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election will be the high water mark for
Speaker 1: Republicans and Republicanism for quite a long time. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons for that. The popular vote, you have
Speaker 1: the popular vote, you have the vibe, you have Kamala like.
Speaker 1: There are multifaceted reasons for why it was. I think
Speaker 1: it could either be a flash in the pan or
Speaker 1: they could have built on it. I think the built
Speaker 1: on it has passed mostly at this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: they could still.
Speaker 3: Possible. It's very possible they could do it again.
Speaker 1: It would have to be I think, a total change
Speaker 1: both in the way that the two parties come into
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty eight election. But yeah, just looking at
Speaker 1: where things are trending right now, and in terms of
Speaker 1: the way that they've handled themselves, it does not look
Speaker 1: like the midterms are going to go all that well,
Speaker 1: all jerry mandering or redistricting or whatever, withstanding, which is
Speaker 1: still such an same story the way that.
Speaker 2: They can also screw themselves with that if yeah, I
Speaker 2: tried it, if they try to be too cute and
Speaker 2: make the districts a little too tight, they could like
Speaker 2: it's not you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Rian made that point.
Speaker 1: If you go fifty two forty eight in every single district,
Speaker 1: you can find yourself in some serious upsets, which happens
Speaker 1: in Texas all the time.
Speaker 2: Especially because Trump as this particular unique pull pull. So
Speaker 2: the numbers that Trump pulled, let's say, with Latino voters
Speaker 2: in you know, the Rio Grand Valley in Texas, you
Speaker 2: can't rely on another random Republican to be able to
Speaker 2: pull the Ted Cruise or whoever to be able to put.
Speaker 1: Texts when in South Texas, you know, yeah, they probably
Speaker 1: hate him. Yeah, HiT's that absoually Sorry, I'm sure John
Speaker 1: Cornyn is going to clean up down in Laredo. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like that's not.
Speaker 2: Happening exactly, And so I think, you know, I think
Speaker 2: that's that makes it even diceier is that Trump is
Speaker 2: sort of like his own entity, so you don't have
Speaker 2: as much predictability about the way individual like voting groups
Speaker 2: are going to behave So anyway, will continue to track that.
Speaker 2: That's an interesting story in and of itself. Agreed, All right,
Speaker 2: let's go and throw this up on the screen. A
Speaker 2: little update about some of the full mask off that
Speaker 2: the Israelis are going on at this point. So Netanyahu
Speaker 2: says he is on a historic and spiritual mission and
Speaker 2: that he feels a connection to the vision of greater Israel.
Speaker 4: Let me go ahead and read this.
Speaker 2: Specifically, He was asked if he feels a connection to
Speaker 2: that vision of greater Israel. Not now who says quote
Speaker 2: very much that question about a greater Israel. After he
Speaker 2: asked a premiere if he feels he's on a mission
Speaker 2: on behalf of the Jewish people, Netanyaho answers, he's on
Speaker 2: a mission of generations. There are generations of Jews that
Speaker 2: dreamt of coming here and generations of Jews who will
Speaker 2: come after us. So if you're asking if IY have
Speaker 2: a sense of mission historically and spiritually, the answer is yes,
Speaker 2: And this has been a pretty consistent theme here. Sager that,
Speaker 2: like from the beginning, if you listen to either the
Speaker 2: most hyperbolic leftist or the most psychotic settler, you would
Speaker 2: have a much better understanding. Certainly, don't listen to the
Speaker 2: Western press. Certainly, don't listen to the US politicians who
Speaker 2: just pretend they have no idea what's going on, even
Speaker 2: as you have words directly out of the mouths of
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister or the Minister of Defense, like the
Speaker 2: you know, smoke Chrich Ben Givier, the members of his coalition,
Speaker 2: et cetera. They just pretend they don't hear or see
Speaker 2: any of that. But at this point in time, Netanyahu
Speaker 2: is feeling so emboldened thanks to a combination of Biden
Speaker 2: and now Trump, you know, enabling every atrocity and allowing
Speaker 2: him to do literally whatever he wants apparently that he
Speaker 2: is just out and out saying, yeah, greater Israel, I'm
Speaker 2: into that, just so people if they don't know. Now,
Speaker 2: in fairness, there are apparently different conceptions of what quote
Speaker 2: unquote greater Israel might mean. Some of them mean just
Speaker 2: from the river to the sea, you might say, including
Speaker 2: quote unquote Judae and Samaria in the Israeli which is
Speaker 2: the West Bank in with Israel and Sagaza strip. But
Speaker 2: there is a more expansion, expansionative vision as well. We
Speaker 2: can put this map up on the screen that looks
Speaker 2: like this, you know, includes Egypt, includes part of Egypt,
Speaker 2: part of Saudi Arabia, part of Iraq, part of Syria,
Speaker 2: all of Jordan, you know, the Sinai Peninsula of course,
Speaker 2: all of Israel plus the West Bank plus Gaza.
Speaker 4: So you know, just putting it out.
Speaker 2: There that this is a potential vision, and certainly the
Speaker 2: actions that Israel has taken, given that they have been
Speaker 2: bombing almost all of these countries over the past couple
Speaker 2: of years, again with our support and arming them, makes
Speaker 2: it much less preposterous than it felt at one point.
Speaker 4: We can put this up on the screen. C three.
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia very unhappy with these comments from Prime Minister
Speaker 2: net Nyahuu Foreign Ministry, expressing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's
Speaker 2: condemnation in the strongest terms possible of the statements made
Speaker 2: by the Prime Minister of the Israeli occupation government regarding
Speaker 2: the so called vision of Greater Israel, and expresses its
Speaker 2: outright rejection of the settlement and expansionist plans adopted by
Speaker 2: the Israeli occupation authority.
Speaker 4: So, Sager, what did you make of these comments?
Speaker 1: Well, uh, well, the Saudi Arabian ones are interesting because
Speaker 1: the entire theories, the Abraham.
Speaker 3: Accords and all of that.
Speaker 1: But the whole point around Greater Israel is just the
Speaker 1: ideological vision and divorcing it from the things that they
Speaker 1: say as in like, look, we're just about dismantling Hamas,
Speaker 1: we're just about occupying Gaza. We're not going to stay there,
Speaker 1: we promise, even though we said that there was going
Speaker 1: to be an indefinite presence. I mean, the reason why
Speaker 1: KSA is so upset about the map is because did
Speaker 1: you see the map that we put up like country?
Speaker 1: And the reason why you are forced to take it
Speaker 1: seriously is because of the actions of the Israeli government
Speaker 1: under Nata Yahu. If it was just Gaza, it would
Speaker 1: be part of the Greater Israel project. But you have
Speaker 1: to contextualize it with the current treatment of the West Bank,
Speaker 1: of the two tiered system of justice, of the indefinite
Speaker 1: presence in Lebanon, of the indefinite presence in Syria of
Speaker 1: the overthrowing of this series government and then if basically
Speaker 1: trying to establish a druze Israeli free zone inside of
Speaker 1: a country outside of the goal on heights of the
Speaker 1: sixty seven you know recognized bards, right. So, like all
Speaker 1: of these things point to an expansionist rogue power and
Speaker 1: we're going to get to a little bit later on
Speaker 1: in the show about the potential war with Iran. But
Speaker 1: it all fits together as part of something which is
Speaker 1: just destabilization, regime change everywhere else in order to serve
Speaker 1: this smaller nation which could never do any of this
Speaker 1: without the backstop of the United States for America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really the point.
Speaker 2: They recognize the historic moment that they're in where support
Speaker 2: for Israel is plummeting off. I mean, we're the only
Speaker 2: country that really matters to them, and support for them
Speaker 2: is plummeting off a cliff. They've already lost the Democratic Party.
Speaker 4: It's gone.
Speaker 2: I don't think you're going to get a twenty twenty
Speaker 2: eight Democratic nominee who holds the same positions that Joe
Speaker 2: Biden and Obama and every other you know, bipartisan politician
Speaker 2: has on Israel and modern history. I don't think you're
Speaker 2: going to get that in twenty twenty, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it's going to be possible. And certainly the Democratic
Speaker 2: base is disgusted and horrified by what our tax dollars
Speaker 2: have done. On the Republican side, as we've discussed, you
Speaker 2: have a younger generation that thinks very differently. I think
Speaker 2: they know that, and so that's why they are really
Speaker 2: going for it, trying to secure this greater Israel vision,
Speaker 2: abandoning the pretext that this I mean, just think of
Speaker 2: how preposterous it is at this point to pretend like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is all just in self defense, and we're doing
Speaker 2: these limited targeted strikes against Hamas and this is just
Speaker 2: all about going after the bad guys who got us
Speaker 2: on October seventh. Utterly and completely preposterous when you consider
Speaker 2: the number of countries that they're bombing, the territory that
Speaker 2: they've annexed, the actions in the West Bank. You know
Speaker 2: that we're going to talk a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2: Jasper Nathaniel has been highlighting. I mean, the West Bank
Speaker 2: annexation is all but complete, and this is all in
Speaker 2: quote unquote self defense. For October seventh, you'd have to
Speaker 2: be a fool to believe that at this point, or
Speaker 2: a liar, which you know there are many of those
Speaker 2: as well. Just to take it back to what the
Speaker 2: settlers have been saying, because they've long been pushing this
Speaker 2: biblical vision quote unquote of greater Israel. Let's go and
Speaker 2: take a listen to Daniella Weiss explaining why this is
Speaker 2: central to her conception and her ideological goals.
Speaker 3: How big is that lan, Because it's very big.
Speaker 8: No, this is the promise of God to the patriarchs
Speaker 8: of the Jewish Nation. It's three thousand kilometers. It's almost
Speaker 8: as big as this is it?
Speaker 2: So this is the biblical Israel.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so, and this is what's and so which countries artists.
Speaker 8: And which country don't mention? I think it's Iraq and Syria.
Speaker 8: So you thought of Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 1: This is a holy place.
Speaker 8: It's a place, one part of the universe that was
Speaker 8: chosen by God. It's a kind of a stage for
Speaker 8: the Jewish nation to express the ideals, the ideas and
Speaker 8: ideals of the Jewish nation.
Speaker 4: So there you go. It's very large, she lays out
Speaker 4: for you.
Speaker 1: It's a rock.
Speaker 2: It's Syria, it's part of Saudi Arabia. This is God's
Speaker 2: promise to us. This is also why like theocracies are
Speaker 2: really bad, because if you believe that your religion justifies
Speaker 2: a genocide, rogue wars against all your neighbors, this incredibly
Speaker 2: you know, expansionist, aggressive foreign policy.
Speaker 4: If you believe that.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously net Nyahu is sort of embracing that,
Speaker 2: even though himself he's like more of a secular figure,
Speaker 2: but he's allied with these hardcore religious figures and you know,
Speaker 2: who have absolutely psychotic ideas about what the state should
Speaker 2: be and what they should do to effectuate it. You
Speaker 2: end up with absolute horror, which is exactly what we
Speaker 2: do have.
Speaker 1: And it fits actually with this next piece to put
Speaker 1: it up there on the screen. This is very significant
Speaker 1: and inside of Israel is actually getting a lot of play.
Speaker 1: So after a twenty year freeze, the Finance Minister Besilosmotrich
Speaker 1: has approved the construction of new housing units in an
Speaker 1: area where the development has been blocked. The reason why
Speaker 1: even these psycho settler movements and others have not allowed
Speaker 1: settlers to go and be there is because doing so
Speaker 1: would quote effectively block the establishment of a Palestinian state
Speaker 1: due to its strategic position separating areas south of Jerusalem
Speaker 1: from those to its north. And actually they followed it
Speaker 1: up this morning Prosmotrich in a press conference in the country,
Speaker 1: where he said, by doing this, we quote bury the
Speaker 1: idea of a Palestinian state.
Speaker 3: Just again.
Speaker 1: To understand exactly while all this is happening, and even
Speaker 1: in the Israeli press, here's what they say. To understand
Speaker 1: the significance, we have to go back to nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: during the War of Independence, the Arab malicious place to
Speaker 1: siege on Jerusalem. After they broke the siege, the Holiest
Speaker 1: site has now been under Jordanian I occupation until the
Speaker 1: IDF liberated it in nineteen sixty seven. The siege left
Speaker 1: a stain on the consciousness of Israeli leadership, but they've
Speaker 1: kept it open for the potential establishment of a Palestinian state.
Speaker 1: So now by green lighting, yes, even this small settlement
Speaker 1: of thirty four hundred people, the strategic location of it
Speaker 1: is a is a signal to the Palestinians, to the
Speaker 1: Arab States, to the Jordanians and others it's not happening.
Speaker 1: It's also meant as a counter diplomatic signal to all
Speaker 1: of the Western countries which are talking about recognizing Palestinian statehood.
Speaker 1: You can't recognize statehood if it doesn't exist in any
Speaker 1: sort of conception.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what people say, is like, okay, point to
Speaker 2: me on the map where the Palestinian state is, because
Speaker 2: this is you know, this is an extraordinarily provocative and
Speaker 2: I think significant development in terms of blocking any future
Speaker 2: Palestinian state Smotriche again, he says it. You know, this
Speaker 2: isn't us just like theorizing or making it up. They
Speaker 2: put it out there and make it plain what is
Speaker 2: going on here. And this is what Jaspernathdaniel wrote about
Speaker 2: in that piece that we interviewed him about. He actually
Speaker 2: talked about this specific development and how consequential it was
Speaker 2: in terms of locking the possibility of a Palestinian state.
Speaker 2: So this is what's going on. This is why annexation
Speaker 2: of the West Bank is de facto complete, because the
Speaker 2: Israelis have in real life, like in what's actually happening
Speaker 2: on the ground right now, they have complete control over
Speaker 2: everybody's life who lives in the West Bank. They are
Speaker 2: living under Israeli government rule. And it is truly you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, any thought that this wasn't an apartheid system
Speaker 2: goes out the window when you realize that, yes, the
Speaker 2: Palestinians who live in the West Bank are fully under
Speaker 2: Israeli government control, and we know that they don't have
Speaker 2: any rights whatsoever. We know the settlers are encouraged to
Speaker 2: go and murder them, and then you know they get
Speaker 2: the settlers get off scott free and are just sent more,
Speaker 2: sometimes American made weapons. So that's the reality of what's
Speaker 2: happening in the West Bank. And just to again tie
Speaker 2: it in here, because it's not only the religious extremist
Speaker 2: terrorists running Israel that are a problem and part of
Speaker 2: what has created such an insane situation, you also have
Speaker 2: some plenty of religion being invoked to justify our continued,
Speaker 2: endless support of Israel here in the US as well.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a listen to Lindsey Graham.
Speaker 10: I am tired of the word genocide. Let me tell
Speaker 10: you about genocide. If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could,
Speaker 10: They have the capability to do that, they choose not to.
Speaker 10: To people in my party, I'm tired of this crap.
Speaker 10: Israel is our friend, They're the most reliable friend we
Speaker 10: have in the Mid East, there's democracy.
Speaker 1: It's not a hard choice if you're a Christian.
Speaker 10: A word of warning, if America pulls the plug on Israel,
Speaker 10: God will pull the plug on us.
Speaker 3: Israel is not the bad guy. They're the good guy.
Speaker 10: The bad guys or the rag wal Islamis who would
Speaker 10: kill everybody in this room.
Speaker 3: They could.
Speaker 10: So I haven't lost my vision of right and wrong
Speaker 10: when it comes to foreign policy. President Trumps stood up
Speaker 10: for all the right things, and he stood up against
Speaker 10: wrong things.
Speaker 2: Yes, the government that is starving babies to death, they're
Speaker 2: the good guys.
Speaker 4: Those are the good guys.
Speaker 2: But he says if Americans pull the plug on Israel,
Speaker 2: God will pull the plug on us. And Soger, perhaps
Speaker 2: you want to weigh in on his statement that Israel's
Speaker 2: the best friend.
Speaker 4: We could ever have. They're great.
Speaker 1: I can't weigh in whenever it's rooted in your biblical ideology,
Speaker 1: which you know many of your own believers say is Harris.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm not Christian.
Speaker 1: You know it's not my job to sit here and
Speaker 1: critique dispensationalism or whatever.
Speaker 3: I can only just say I think.
Speaker 1: It's crazy and not really the way that you should
Speaker 1: conduct foreign policy based upon the particular interpretation of the Bible,
Speaker 1: which is a much more recent development and divorced from
Speaker 1: any sort of national interest. But that's Lindsay Graham and
Speaker 1: the Republican Party for you.
Speaker 3: I don't even know.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the other thing here with him. Does
Speaker 1: he really believe this or does they just use it
Speaker 1: as a cudgel. I actually don't know which one it is.
Speaker 1: I kind of think the latter, because you know, look,
Speaker 1: Lindsay Graham, he has crazy beliefs.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's a dumb guy.
Speaker 1: I think what he does is see clearly to preserve
Speaker 1: his like neo conservative ideology that the one last bastion
Speaker 1: of pro Israel support is these Kufi John Hagy evangelical Republicans.
Speaker 3: South Carolina is full of them.
Speaker 1: And so that's the one way that he can message
Speaker 1: himself as like the upholder of their religion in terms
Speaker 1: of their foreign policy priorities. That's the only way I
Speaker 1: could possibly see it and to hold on to any
Speaker 1: sort of like grasp organically at a political level. But
Speaker 1: that is a window. And two is real support. Now,
Speaker 1: it's all biblical, biblical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think you're right that it's probably cynical.
Speaker 2: I mean, not that really makes the difference whether he
Speaker 2: does or not. He has really certainly used it cynically
Speaker 2: of course. You know, they see this long cultivated the
Speaker 2: you know, evangelical Christian right in order to you know,
Speaker 2: make sure that they have this solid base of support
Speaker 2: in the US. And we have to say it's been
Speaker 2: very successful for a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, all right, let's go and get to this next piece.
Speaker 2: I listened to this entire Theovon podcast. I really recommend
Speaker 2: that you guys do as well. You know, THEO made
Speaker 2: a lot of waves when he came out and said, listen, guys,
Speaker 2: I think this is a genocide. He asked jd Vance
Speaker 2: about it when he was on the show, and he
Speaker 2: went a step further now by hosting a doctor, an
Speaker 2: American doctor who is just back from GASA, you know,
Speaker 2: for a full episode to discuss what this doctor saw
Speaker 2: when he was there on the ground at NASA Hospital.
Speaker 2: Let's go and take a listen to a portion.
Speaker 11: Of this Saturday, they had the MCI it's called a
Speaker 11: mass casualty incident, and they basically pull a fire alarm.
Speaker 11: What the hell's that? Oh, every doctor come down to
Speaker 11: the er to try to help, and so I was like, okay,
Speaker 11: So went downstairs, got in there. There's just a brain
Speaker 11: matter coming out of people. There's guts coming out of
Speaker 11: people's abdomen, there's people's legs blown off, and someone's carrying
Speaker 11: it in next to the you know, one of the
Speaker 11: family members bringing it in for the doctors, and you know,
Speaker 11: they think you can just reattach it and.
Speaker 1: It's just like absolute chaos.
Speaker 11: There's family members, security in the hospitals trying to push
Speaker 11: out the family members so the doctors and nurses can
Speaker 11: take care of the patients. It's it's absolute chaos. And
Speaker 11: then US American physicians are just like looking at it here,
Speaker 11: They're like what is going on here? And you know
Speaker 11: that was that was that's when reality hit and I
Speaker 11: was like, okay, this must be like a one off,
Speaker 11: and it just kept happening every day and sometimes multiple
Speaker 11: times a day. Essentially, basically, we can we found the
Speaker 11: pattern related to when the GAHF sites were opening up.
Speaker 2: So he's there backing up the claims which we heard
Speaker 2: directly from a doctor who was just recently back. We
Speaker 2: of course heard from Anthony Aguilar GHF whistleblower that when
Speaker 2: the sites are active, you are going to have mass
Speaker 2: casualty incidents. You were going to have, he says, hundreds
Speaker 2: of people showing up in the hospital wounded, you know,
Speaker 2: in the conditions that he describes.
Speaker 4: There were a couple other.
Speaker 2: Moments Soccer that I also thought were really interesting, I
Speaker 2: mean horrifying. He said that he heard of people who
Speaker 2: were basically trying to commit suicide by GHF, where you know,
Speaker 2: in Islam, suicide is banned, and so people would talk about,
Speaker 2: like listen, if I lose my family, like I'm just
Speaker 2: going to go to one of these GHF sites and
Speaker 2: hope that they take me out. Like that's how grim
Speaker 2: and dire the situation was. And yet he was really inspired,
Speaker 2: you know, but of course by the people he saw there.
Speaker 2: He was really man doctors are cut out of a
Speaker 2: different cloth, because he felt so energized by just getting
Speaker 2: to go and help care for people and like be
Speaker 2: in this situation where he was able to do something
Speaker 2: and not just walk from watch from Afar, so, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just remarkable to see the way these people operate.
Speaker 2: And then there was also a moment that I thought
Speaker 2: was pretty interesting from THEO because he explained more why
Speaker 2: he felt the need to speak out on this and
Speaker 2: come forward, even he felt some pressure not to. And
Speaker 2: he's like, you know, from the time that you're a kid,
Speaker 2: you're taught endlessly about the Holocaust and this idea of
Speaker 2: like this genocide and can never happen again, and then
Speaker 2: you see it happening and you're supposed to stay quiet.
Speaker 2: So he, you know, he sort of really took in
Speaker 2: at face value this idea of like we can't be
Speaker 2: involved in that. We when we said never again, we
Speaker 2: really actually should mean it, And that's why he felt
Speaker 2: the need to say something and speak out, even though
Speaker 2: that's obviously, you know, sort of an uncomfortable place for
Speaker 2: him to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think for him, he is just
Speaker 1: naturally found out about the issue.
Speaker 3: He's horrified by the issue.
Speaker 1: He's not boxing into politics since he's like, this is
Speaker 1: how a normal person reacts.
Speaker 3: So it's actually a.
Speaker 4: Good barometer I think for a lot of you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because for most people, they're not coming in with all
Speaker 1: the baggage of Washington and the social consequences and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is really messed up.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: And then actually it's when you get the backlash that
Speaker 1: you're like, WHOA, am I crazy? And then that's the
Speaker 1: battle test for THEO and for Miss Rachel. It's kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating the track of Miss Rachel, if you go
Speaker 1: and you look at it is. She started out with
Speaker 1: a single thing where she's like, my heart weeps for
Speaker 1: the babies of Israel and Gaza boom, I mean mass attack.
Speaker 1: Then she did her hop Little Bunnies song with a
Speaker 1: three year old girl who got her leg blown off.
Speaker 1: Same thing. Now it's like anti semi anti, and she
Speaker 1: had to decide, I've actually been listening to some interesting
Speaker 1: episodes and stuff where she talks about this, and she
Speaker 1: was like, look, I mean, by the way, look let's
Speaker 1: not tony.
Speaker 3: Miss Rachel's filthy rich, right, So at this point, you
Speaker 3: don't need to do it for the money.
Speaker 1: You're one of the most watched YouTube videos Netflix and
Speaker 1: all that.
Speaker 3: You're a brand.
Speaker 1: And so she's like, okay, so if I'm the next
Speaker 1: mister Rogers, which she considers herself like in that vein,
Speaker 1: she looked back to a nineteen sixty nine episode that
Speaker 1: mister Rogers did where he hosted a black man and
Speaker 1: they both put their feet in the same pool as
Speaker 1: a statement against segregator. He didn't make he didn't make
Speaker 1: anything about it. It was just one of those things
Speaker 1: by doing it treated as normal statement against Jim Crow
Speaker 1: and against segregation. So she sees herself now in that
Speaker 1: vein where you've made enough money that you don't care anymore,
Speaker 1: and then you set yourself at the standard. And what
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of these Zionists and pro
Speaker 1: Israel supporters don't understand is that when you bring the
Speaker 1: full hammer down on people, especially if you're independent like
Speaker 1: THEO or Miss Rachel or places like this show, you
Speaker 1: don't have the tools of control, you actually make us
Speaker 1: be like no, actually screw you, Like we're going all in,
Speaker 1: going all in. Yeah, we're going all in. We're talking
Speaker 1: about intermarriage, We're talking about Jewish supremacy, like we're we're
Speaker 1: putting it all on the table now. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what they underestimated in terms of us popular culture,
Speaker 1: is that for the Internet and for people who don't
Speaker 1: have their ties to all these think tanks or whatever,
Speaker 1: you can speak very very freely and say whatever you want.
Speaker 3: And so you know and acknowledge reality.
Speaker 1: And that's part of the consequence of how this has
Speaker 1: all gone about, and it's actually really pushed people and
Speaker 1: made them feel as if they have a responsibility a
Speaker 1: certain point to be like, no, I need to counter
Speaker 1: you know, all this other bs that's out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's why the tactics become increasingly heavy handed,
Speaker 2: where it's like, Okay, we're going to deport you, we're
Speaker 2: going to arrest you, we're going to you know, block
Speaker 2: your block, We're going to install an IDF sensor at TikTok.
Speaker 2: You know, they've become increasingly desperate. And it also ties
Speaker 2: in back to what we're saying about you know, them
Speaker 2: really grow going for it with the Greater Israel Project
Speaker 2: and the co Fleet annexation both of the West Bank
Speaker 2: and the Gaza Strip, because they recognize that there's a
Speaker 2: limited runway here for them at this point. One other
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to highlight is Emma Biggeland interviewed over
Speaker 2: on the Majority Report, UH doctor who was talking about
Speaker 2: you know, what what he saw in the ways in
Speaker 2: which he believes uh. And this is backed up by
Speaker 2: you know, a Lancet study and other other studies of
Speaker 2: the death count. Why he believes the official death count
Speaker 2: is such a wild understatement.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little
Speaker 4: bit of that.
Speaker 9: The numbers are a wild undercount.
Speaker 3: That's perfect.
Speaker 9: I can tell you, for example, about malnutrition. So I
Speaker 9: work within the Ministry of Health System. Right we as
Speaker 9: what are called emergency medical teams, international doctors and nurses
Speaker 9: and allied health professionals. We go in in solidarity with
Speaker 9: medical teams, and so we sort of follow their lead
Speaker 9: in terms of how they do things. When I document
Speaker 9: what the cause of death is for somebody, everybody receives
Speaker 9: a piece of paper that says how they died. What
Speaker 9: our directive is is that if there's anything other than
Speaker 9: simple malnutrition that's causing this death, don't write it down
Speaker 9: as a malnutrition case. You can write it as secondary tertiary,
Speaker 9: but don't write that this person died for malnutrition. Similarly,
Speaker 9: Palestinians do not count the debt unless they have been
Speaker 9: to a hospital. So, for example, there have been many
Speaker 9: AID massacres, which by the way, is another kind of
Speaker 9: depravity we haven't even touched upon. When the AID massacres
Speaker 9: have been happening, there are many bodies that people tell me.
Speaker 9: Lots of my patients will tell me their bodies stranded
Speaker 9: there that we couldn't get to. We don't count those debts.
Speaker 9: We don't count them even really as more than missing,
Speaker 9: because we don't know for one hundred percent sure that
Speaker 9: that person is dead. Like look at the lists the
Speaker 9: Palestinians release. They release only the bodies they can identify
Speaker 9: with the ID numbers attached to them. Of course, it's
Speaker 9: a wild undercount. Think of how many people are under
Speaker 9: the rubble, how many people are still in red zone,
Speaker 9: how many people are thrown around laying dead in the sun,
Speaker 9: including at GHF sites.
Speaker 3: Of course, it's a wild undercount.
Speaker 9: Really, credible organizations that have done these counts for other
Speaker 9: places like Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo estimate
Speaker 9: the number at this point to be five to six
Speaker 9: times more easily. That's three hundred thousand people who were
Speaker 9: very likely dead. And of course there's another concept in
Speaker 9: medicine called excess deaths. So for example, I've seen numerous
Speaker 9: number of people DIACIS patients. So I saw diacis patient too.
Speaker 9: We worked on yesterday for a number of hours who
Speaker 9: ended up dying in our account that person died of
Speaker 9: a kidney related cause. But obviously that person who was malnourished,
Speaker 9: they couldn't receive dialysis care the way they were supposed to.
Speaker 9: They were killed by Israel, they were killed by the occupation,
Speaker 9: but we don't count those as direct conflict related deaths.
Speaker 2: So I thought that was a really effective explanation of
Speaker 2: the ways in which and the very you know, rational
Speaker 2: ways in which this is likely a very wild undercount.
Speaker 2: And you know, I also think about Amir who was
Speaker 2: killed at a J eight side and now just quote
Speaker 2: unquote missing. You know, how many other people were I
Speaker 2: mean likely what happened is Israelis came in with their
Speaker 2: bulldozer and he is buried somewhere under the sand thereby
Speaker 2: that GHF. It's very likely the case, you know, as
Speaker 2: they come through and they use the bulldozers to destroy
Speaker 2: all of Gaza city, Like how many bodies under the
Speaker 2: rubble will never be recovered? And then he talks about,
Speaker 2: you know, people who have other conditions, they're not able
Speaker 2: to get the medical treatment they need. Their bodies are
Speaker 2: incredibly stressed by hunger and a lack of clean drinking water,
Speaker 2: and the endless displacement, and now they're exposed to the
Speaker 2: elements with there's been extraordinary heat wave in the Gaza
Speaker 2: strip and those deaths don't get counted in the official
Speaker 2: war death toll. So you know, I don't know if
Speaker 2: we'll ever know exactly what the count is, but I
Speaker 2: think we can say with a lot of confidence now
Speaker 2: it is wildly higher. The number of people who have
Speaker 2: been killed by Israel during this genocide is wildly higher
Speaker 2: than the official number. And if anything, the news media
Speaker 2: downplays that number. Its oh the Gaza, you know, the
Speaker 2: Hamas run Gaza health ministry.
Speaker 3: We're not doing that anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, health ministry, trutherism or whatever. Look, eventually
Speaker 1: one day we'll know. I actually that is point about
Speaker 1: Rwanda and all of that was very apt because the
Speaker 1: death soll did take a while for it all to
Speaker 1: come in. It would make sense that you can't have
Speaker 1: accurate accounting of the dead. I mean what you think
Speaker 1: the Nazis had a very accurate account right of who
Speaker 1: they killed and when. It was more accurate than people thought.
Speaker 1: But you know, people had to go back and look
Speaker 1: to actually assemble all the records to come to the
Speaker 1: numbers that they eventually did. So it's just one of
Speaker 1: those where you know, you really have to just think
Speaker 1: about that, both the death toll and the way that
Speaker 1: it's being messaged. But I do broadly think that the
Speaker 1: theovon Miss Rachel phenomenon on all of that is very
Speaker 1: impactful on the culture in a way that a lot
Speaker 1: of people in Washington are underestimating. I really think America,
Speaker 1: American politics is way too captured by Twitter, where Israel
Speaker 1: is wildly overrepresented, and that if you look at any
Speaker 1: other social media platform, it's ninety ten. I remember thinking
Speaker 1: that with the Milk Boys episode, and that's a real
Speaker 1: lesson for people just in terms of media consumption and
Speaker 1: kind of where the country is going. And I think
Speaker 1: it should be internalized by people in power, but they
Speaker 1: don't want to listen.
Speaker 4: No, they certainly do not