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Speaker 1: dot com. All right, let's go now to the situation
Speaker 1: in Syria. Some absolutely stunning news just broken very nonchalantly
Speaker 1: by David Ignatius over at the Washington Post. Some might
Speaker 1: call him the CIA whisperer. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. So Syrian rebels had
Speaker 1: help from Ukraine in humiliating Russia. Interesting the Syrian rebels
Speaker 1: otherwise known as al Qaeda, by the way, who swept
Speaker 1: to power and Damascus last weekend quote received drones and
Speaker 1: other support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives who sought to undermine
Speaker 1: Russia and its Syrian allies. Quote. Ukrainian intelligence sent about
Speaker 1: twenty experienced drone operators and one hundred and fifty first
Speaker 1: person viewed drones to the rebel headquarters in Idlib four
Speaker 1: or five years ago to help Hayat takriir alsham hts
Speaker 1: Aka al Qaeda, the leading rebel group there. Knowledgeable sources
Speaker 1: said the aid from Kiev played a modest role in
Speaker 1: overthrowing Bashar al Asad, but it was notable as part
Speaker 1: of a broader Ukrainian effort to strike covertly at Russian
Speaker 1: operations in the Middle East, Africa and inside Russia itself.
Speaker 1: And then he continues to say Ukraine's covert as assistance
Speaker 1: program in Syria has been an open secret. Biden officials
Speaker 1: said and repeatedly in answer to my questions that they
Speaker 1: weren't aware of it. Though Biden Ukraine's motivation is obvious.
Speaker 1: Facing Russian slot, Ukrainian intelligence has looked for other fronts
Speaker 1: where it can bloody Russia's nose and undermine its clients.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainians have even advertised their intentions. Kiev Post in
Speaker 1: June third quoted a source from Ukrainian intelligence said that
Speaker 1: since the beginning of the year, the rebels supported by
Speaker 1: Ukrainian operatives, have inflicted numerous strikes on Russian military facilities
Speaker 1: represented in the region Ryot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the Africa point is key too, because you know,
Speaker 3: Russia is pretty as or at least as mercenaries and
Speaker 3: interests and that are active in Africa, and so Ukraine
Speaker 3: is messing with them there too.
Speaker 4: But I think that they caught the car here.
Speaker 3: I think what Ukraine was hoping to do here is
Speaker 3: to do what the US loves to do with Russia
Speaker 3: all over the place, which is to just cause it
Speaker 3: enough problems.
Speaker 4: To like drain it of some of its energy.
Speaker 1: And yes, and people just want to remember Nordstream, do
Speaker 1: you remember?
Speaker 4: Nor to be them?
Speaker 1: Even Davidgnatia says, it's them.
Speaker 3: Interesting, But I don't think they meant to actually overthrow
Speaker 3: the entire government because now all the effort that right
Speaker 3: was investing in propping up asad they can they like
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like okay, we're done.
Speaker 4: Yeah cool.
Speaker 3: Now we got a whole bunch of weapons and energy
Speaker 3: and time and resources that we can put.
Speaker 1: Further apparently into there with with a lot of Western
Speaker 1: Front so he can pay off.
Speaker 4: That's right, he's not gonna get the keys.
Speaker 1: Barely loaded down with gold. It's lucky that plane was
Speaker 1: able to take for his lamp in Moscow. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it'll be fine sitting you know here. Moscow is a
Speaker 1: beautiful city. Uh, you're gonna enjoy it, I guess for
Speaker 1: your years. But you're exactly right. So now the Russians
Speaker 1: are like, okay, whatever, you know, our guy's gone, So okay,
Speaker 1: we now can focus one of our military resources here.
Speaker 3: And uh so yeah, not not great for Ukraine necessarily, No,
Speaker 3: not not at all.
Speaker 1: You know, another thing that I just saw is that
Speaker 1: this actually could could increase the It could increase Russian
Speaker 1: resolve in Ukraine. They could. They're like, well, now facing
Speaker 1: the facing a quote unquote humiliation or a setback of
Speaker 1: our major strategic objectives, and you know, the outer sphere
Speaker 1: of our geopolitical interests than in our own backyard of
Speaker 1: this war that we're engaged in. That means we must
Speaker 1: commit all resources and go all out in this war.
Speaker 1: So it actually could end up backfiring on them. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess even the Ukrainians. Nobody in US
Speaker 1: intelligence anywhere had any idea that the entire war, a
Speaker 1: fourteen year civil war, result in thirteen days. Come out nobody,
Speaker 1: which is ironic though we pay how many billions of
Speaker 1: dollars a year for these intelligence assessments and others CIA, we.
Speaker 3: Know our boy in South Korea is about to do
Speaker 3: martial laws, Like.
Speaker 1: Come on, I think I sent a tweet to that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, we probably spend twenty forty fifty
Speaker 1: eighty billion just on covert intelligence. Did anybody tap the
Speaker 1: guy's phone and say, hey, there's going to be a
Speaker 1: attempted coup in South Korea, which is, by the way,
Speaker 1: our sixth the largest trading partner, more than France. You know,
Speaker 1: we do several trillion dollars a year or sort one
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars a year in bilateral trade. No, oh,
Speaker 1: we just had no idea. And by the way, a
Speaker 1: massive air force base there as well under the United States.
Speaker 1: Same in Syria. I mean, you know, let's all be honest.
Speaker 1: We've had our fingers on that situation all over the place.
Speaker 4: Thousands takeover.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have thousands of troops who are stationed illegally
Speaker 1: in the country who possibly could be at risk now from.
Speaker 4: Well done, nine hundred I think, plus all the Marcions.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's what I was gonna say, nine hundred officially.
Speaker 1: But then all these contractors, yes, yeah, all these guys
Speaker 1: are rolling around the country on the US time. If
Speaker 1: they get killed. How about this, if they get killed
Speaker 1: or wounded, who's coming to save them? I think we
Speaker 1: all know the answer.
Speaker 3: And more to your point on the geopolitics involved here,
Speaker 3: Turkey and Russia basically been.
Speaker 4: Adversaries for hundreds.
Speaker 3: Almost in this country in particular, of years, and so
Speaker 3: by taking l here it, like you said, it further
Speaker 3: incentivizes them to take on NATO in Ukraine, Turkey a
Speaker 3: member of NATO, and you know what a fulcrum of
Speaker 3: their competition is in Eastern Europe and in the Caucaus regions,
Speaker 3: and so all all of it bleeds together in a
Speaker 3: way that yeah, I don't think, you know, spells anything
Speaker 3: remotely good for the Ukrainian cause here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I totally agree. Just looking through all of this,
Speaker 1: I just see, you know, for the Ukrainians it's like
Speaker 1: they're just grasping its straws. By the way, there's been
Speaker 1: just interesting development just this morning Donald Trump was officially
Speaker 1: named Time Magazine's Man of the Year. Something that you,
Speaker 1: as a child of the eighties will know ryan that
Speaker 1: he takes very serious. Absolutely, he takes it very very serious.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you's gonna frame that sucker.
Speaker 1: For people my age. I think this is his third
Speaker 1: time personally hear for people my age, Time Person of
Speaker 1: the Year will always be the YouTube two thousands X
Speaker 1: the mirror you cover, you are the Time person one.
Speaker 1: For absolutely nas it might be one of the dumbest
Speaker 1: stunts of all time for me. Time see Time has
Speaker 1: no cachet. You know, you read about it. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like Life magazine. You know it was once important.
Speaker 1: It means nothing to you. Time for kids is about
Speaker 1: as big as it gets, which I remember sitting in
Speaker 1: the doctor's office or something like that. But Trump takes
Speaker 1: it very seriously. He did sit down with them for
Speaker 1: a long interview, so I can give an interesting quote here.
Speaker 1: He was asked about Ukraine and he says, quote, I
Speaker 1: think the most dangerous thing right now is what's happening
Speaker 1: where Zelensky has decided, with the approval of I assume
Speaker 1: the president, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think
Speaker 1: that's a major escalation. I think it's a foolish decision.
Speaker 1: But I would imagine people are waiting until I get
Speaker 1: in before anything happens. I would imagine. I think that
Speaker 1: there would be very smart to do that. So he's
Speaker 1: asked twice by this idiot interviewer, would you abandon Ukraine?
Speaker 1: And he says some more interesting stuff. It makes it
Speaker 1: so bad. I had a meeting recently with the people
Speaker 1: from the government where they come in and brief me,
Speaker 1: and I'm not talking out of turn. The numbers of
Speaker 1: dead soldiers that have been killed in the last month
Speaker 1: are the numbers that are staggering, both Russians and Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: And the amounts are fairly equal, you know. I know
Speaker 1: they like to say they weren't, but they're fairly equal.
Speaker 1: The numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all
Speaker 1: over the place are staggering. It's crazy what's taking place.
Speaker 1: I disagree vehemently with sending missiles, hundreds of missiles into Russia.
Speaker 1: Why are they doing that. We are escalating the war
Speaker 1: and making it worse. That should not have been allowed
Speaker 1: to be done. Now are they doing not only missiles,
Speaker 1: but they're doing other types of weapons. Interesting. I think
Speaker 1: it's a very big mistake, very big mistake. But the
Speaker 1: level the number of people dying is number one not sustainable.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking on both sides. It's really an advantage
Speaker 1: to both sides to get this thing done. So interesting rhetoric,
Speaker 1: at least there from the president elect.
Speaker 3: So we talk about we talk about Trump as one
Speaker 3: of the most clear examples of a narcissist ever in
Speaker 3: like a world history.
Speaker 1: But I mean, yeah, I wouldn't go that far. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's right, Well, yeah, I would say I would put
Speaker 1: him up there with all other presidents. A yeah, but
Speaker 1: he gets talked about in his own unique way.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yet he talks so frequently about the number of
Speaker 3: killed in this conflict that it just feels like it
Speaker 3: has to come from somewhere genuine like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I agree, I don't know where it comes from.
Speaker 4: But I mean, good for him because like you know, well, it.
Speaker 1: Goes to that famous Siana and Clapp remember where she's like,
Speaker 1: are you going to abandon Ukraine? And he said, I
Speaker 1: want to stop the dying. Yes, and she keeps saying like,
Speaker 1: do you want Ukraine to win? It's amazing to live
Speaker 1: again when you read these idiots, They're just like, will
Speaker 1: you abandon Ukraine? People around the world want to know,
Speaker 1: will you abandon Ukraine? So the question people want to
Speaker 1: know is will you abandon Ukraine? Will you commit to
Speaker 1: protecting Ukrainian sovereignty? I mean, again, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: What is it? I mean the current government doesn't protect
Speaker 1: Ukrainian sovereignty?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: The current United States government basically since Obama on is like, yeah, crimea,
Speaker 1: it's bad, but you know, what are you going to
Speaker 1: do about it?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: So is that what you're saying? Like these people have
Speaker 1: no idea what they're even talking about or the stakes.
Speaker 1: That's part of the way. Part Another reason I'm annoyed
Speaker 1: by it is that if you had asked it in
Speaker 1: a different way, how will you handle Ukraine in a
Speaker 1: more neutral way, we might have gotten some more interesting information.
Speaker 1: How about a real interview, you know what I would
Speaker 1: dig down on and be like, Okay, Plus Ukrainian presidents.
Speaker 1: Lenski says, seventy three thousand people have been killed in
Speaker 1: the war. That what does that mean to you? Mister
Speaker 1: president who's dope, mister President elect, who's just received a
Speaker 1: classified briefing, Maybe you get something out of that, right,
Speaker 1: That's how you actually get some information out of your subject.
Speaker 1: Just reading through this is maddening, but it is clear
Speaker 1: at least you know right now he's talking in a
Speaker 1: interesting way. Also, before we get to your Israel thing, Ryan,
Speaker 1: he did say something interesting. They said, do you trust
Speaker 1: bb net and Yahoo? He says, I don't trust anybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you should.
Speaker 1: And on the question of Israel being allowed to annex
Speaker 1: the West Bank, he says, what I'm doing, I want
Speaker 1: a long lasting piece. I'm not saying that's a very
Speaker 1: likely scenario, but I want a long lasting piece, a
Speaker 1: piece where you don't have October seventh. There are numerous
Speaker 1: ways you can do it. You can do a two
Speaker 1: state but there are numerous ways it can be done.
Speaker 1: And I'd like to see who can be happy. But
Speaker 1: I'd like to see everybody be happy, everybody go about
Speaker 1: their lives, and people stop dying. That includes on many
Speaker 1: different fronts. I mean, we have some tremendous world problems
Speaker 1: that we didn't have when I was president. You know,
Speaker 1: when I had left, Iran was not very threatening. They
Speaker 1: had no money and they weren't giving it to Hamas
Speaker 1: or Hasbola. So not a no, not a yes. He
Speaker 1: says two state, but you can do it in many
Speaker 1: different ways. So maybe he's like a Peter Beinart and
Speaker 1: he wants to do a one state solution.
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, that's the just solution. It's the only
Speaker 3: one on the table.
Speaker 1: The one state Arab, the one Arab state that would happen.
Speaker 4: It's in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Well, we all know that's not going to happen right
Speaker 1: under Donald Trump. It is interesting though, just reading through this,
Speaker 1: there's some skepticism there of Israel. He says that he
Speaker 1: wants he he told BB he does want the war
Speaker 1: to come to an end by the time that he
Speaker 1: does take the office. And apparently there were some meetings
Speaker 1: with between the Israeli government and Hamas in that just
Speaker 1: happened yesterday.
Speaker 3: So that's a segue for you, right, yeah, No, to
Speaker 3: that point there, there is there is I think genuine
Speaker 3: hope that there will be some type of a deal.
Speaker 3: Hamas is backing off on some of its red lines
Speaker 3: now that now Hamas is saying that they would allow
Speaker 3: IDF troops to temporarily remain in Gaza as they as
Speaker 3: they worked through the prisoner exchange previously Hamas had said
Speaker 3: the exchange could only happen if the IDEF agreed to
Speaker 3: completely withdraw from Gaza. What gives people the hope is
Speaker 3: that Trump is making it extremely clear to Israel that
Speaker 3: he wants this deal done. The reason a deal hasn't
Speaker 3: gotten done over the last year is is quite clear
Speaker 3: Israel had and through net Yahoo, made a bet sometime
Speaker 3: around December January last year that Trump might win and
Speaker 3: that he had enough of a chance to win that
Speaker 3: it was worth completely bucking Biden, ignoring him, taking a
Speaker 3: few lumps here and there, a few few complaints from
Speaker 3: Matt Miller, you know, every couple of months after the
Speaker 3: latest atrocity or spread of famine, and then just bank
Speaker 3: on Trump winning and then reset from there.
Speaker 4: So that's over.
Speaker 3: Trump has been very clear he wants a deal that
Speaker 3: is really public, desperately once the hostage is home.
Speaker 4: And what else, What else is there.
Speaker 3: To accomplish at this point in Gaza, the northern northern
Speaker 3: part where Israel's relentlessly assaulting Indonesian Hospital and Kamaladue Hospital,
Speaker 3: killing doctors, killing nurses, killing patients, killing their families, to.
Speaker 4: Completely depopulate northern Gaza. It's flat flat, like what.
Speaker 3: There was a survey that came out said half of
Speaker 3: the children in Gaza wish they were dead. And that's
Speaker 3: on top of the ten thousand plus.
Speaker 4: That are dead from this. What more do you need
Speaker 4: to do? What more?
Speaker 3: And if Trump wants is done, then that puts pressure
Speaker 3: on then. Yeah, the US has always been the one
Speaker 3: that can make this happen, period, So we'll see.
Speaker 4: That's why I think people are hopeful.
Speaker 3: That these these moves in Doha might actually amount to something.
Speaker 3: To your point, we also have this pretty fascinating story
Speaker 3: at drop site we can put up on the screen
Speaker 3: here by Sammy Vanderlip where he exposed this US nonprofit
Speaker 3: called Friends of Paratrooper Sniper.
Speaker 4: Unit two to two. Okay, so this is a C three,
Speaker 4: so you can.
Speaker 3: Make a nonprofit here exactly reductible contributions to the US
Speaker 3: and it purchases quote helmets, rain gear, barrels, vests, sniper stands, silencers, camouflage,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 1: Is egal it is raised.
Speaker 4: Well, we're going to.
Speaker 3: See because certainly complaints are going to be filed against this.
Speaker 3: So they raised, they raised in twenty twenty three, three
Speaker 3: hundred and four thousand dollars and bought equipment, sent it
Speaker 3: over there, and our correspondence over there obtained footage of
Speaker 3: this unit killing unarmed Palestinians and acknowledging it with so
Speaker 3: US taxpayer subsidization. So not only are we buying their weapons,
Speaker 3: like buying the basic weapons, but if the sniper unit
Speaker 3: feels like it needs even higher tech to shoot and
Speaker 3: kill unarmed civilians, then they can get a taxi done.
Speaker 1: Well, you have some photos of that. Can we put
Speaker 1: E three there on the screen? Please? We're not going
Speaker 1: to show some of them. They're extremely graphic, but we
Speaker 1: do have a slide show that we can put up
Speaker 1: there E three if you can, so Ryan can just
Speaker 1: tell us what works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's and it's from such a distance that
Speaker 3: at least it's not it's not graphic in a Hollywood sense.
Speaker 3: But the images and the videos that our reporters obtained,
Speaker 3: you know, show the sniper unit ending people's lives, and
Speaker 3: that's what's graphic, because you're watching a life be snuffed out,
Speaker 3: and unarmed civilian who one moment is alive, and through
Speaker 3: the squeeze of a trigger.
Speaker 4: Of a gun paid for by the.
Speaker 3: United States and with a scope paid for by US
Speaker 3: nonprofit that their life is over.
Speaker 4: The next moment, and.
Speaker 3: It's just too it's just horrifying. It's so horrifying you
Speaker 3: even contemplate.
Speaker 4: Just going out to get a bag of flower.
Speaker 1: I have to think it's illegal, though, because I remember
Speaker 1: that there was this congressional staffer here in Washington who
Speaker 1: in his spare time was like buying military equipment and
Speaker 1: flying it to Ukraine, which is classic, of course, and
Speaker 1: I think he got stopped. The only reason we know
Speaker 1: about this guy, he got stopped at the airport trying
Speaker 1: to transport military equipment and they were like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you know this is illegal, Like, you know, you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to be carrying weapons to a foreign military. I
Speaker 1: think you need an export license or something like that.
Speaker 3: If they can get around it, it would be because it's
Speaker 3: accessories to weapons, like a it's a scope, it's night
Speaker 3: vision goggles.
Speaker 4: It's yeah.
Speaker 1: Even then, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I know the list.
Speaker 1: I think the list even includes bulletproof vests, like in
Speaker 1: terms of also.
Speaker 3: But you also need a public interest purpose to be
Speaker 3: a nonprofit, so I guess they can argue that that, Well, the.
Speaker 1: Law is crazy, as you know, in terms of what's
Speaker 1: allowed and what's not in terms of five oh one
Speaker 1: C three. But nobody will touch it because of the
Speaker 1: IRS scandal from back in the day under Obama, which
Speaker 1: I mean it was that was a crazy scandal. But
Speaker 1: you know, because of that, the leeway on five oh
Speaker 1: one C three, right has become so broad that people
Speaker 1: just don't want to touch it. I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: crazy story, I know, yeah, wild absolutely. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: to the next part. We had to put this in
Speaker 1: the show. Extraordinary video now coming out of Syria. CNN's
Speaker 1: Clarissa Ward purports to be in a former Aside prison.
Speaker 1: Whist she's in the prison, they discover a cell acella
Speaker 1: has not been open. The rebel quote unquote al Qaeda
Speaker 1: person who is her guard, shoots the door open, opens it,
Speaker 1: and they discover allegedly a prisoner who's been in there
Speaker 1: for four or five days without water, without food, who
Speaker 1: clings to her, sees the light and its supposed to
Speaker 1: be a very dramatic scene. It's a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about this. We're gonna show it to you first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very impactful if it's true, very impactful. But we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the questions. We're gonna show it to you first.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about afterwards.
Speaker 6: I can't tell though.
Speaker 7: It might just be a blanket, but it's the only
Speaker 7: cell that's locked.
Speaker 6: Is he gonna shoot it?
Speaker 8: The guard makes us turn the camera off while he
Speaker 8: shoots the lock off the cell door. We go in
Speaker 8: to get a closer look. It's still not clear if
Speaker 8: there is something under the blanket.
Speaker 6: Is this someone?
Speaker 7: There is someone there?
Speaker 9: Hello, Okay, okay, it's water.
Speaker 7: It's water, okay, okay.
Speaker 8: After three months in a windowless cell, you can finally
Speaker 8: see the sky.
Speaker 1: All right, I mean, so again, if it's real, very impactful.
Speaker 1: But there's a number of questions. So mediaites Charlie nash
Speaker 1: Uh has a lot of them, and he raises a
Speaker 1: few number one. In this new video, Ward are led
Speaker 1: by quote armed guard, a member of the New Islamist regime.
Speaker 1: They take CNN on tour through the complex. They quote
Speaker 1: soon stumble upon a locked cell in a prison which
Speaker 1: has been completely emptied and the prisoners are all free.
Speaker 1: The guard makes us turn off the camera while he
Speaker 1: shoots the lock off the door. Viewers do not get
Speaker 1: to see the guard opening the door. After a fade
Speaker 1: to black. We see Ward and the camera crew enter
Speaker 1: the cell. From what we can see, the cell is clean.
Speaker 1: There is no waste, only a blanket, which Ward repeatedly
Speaker 1: calls out to see if anyone's underneath, receiving no response.
Speaker 1: The guard lifts the blanket, revealing a man who gets
Speaker 1: up and raises his hands in the air. He looks healthy,
Speaker 1: his clothes are clean, his hair and nails are trimmed.
Speaker 1: He says he's been in a cell for three or
Speaker 1: four months, without food or water for four days. Presumably
Speaker 1: the man did he not hear the guard shooting the
Speaker 1: lock off of his door or the camera crew crawling
Speaker 1: out to him. A few feared away, But he appears
Speaker 1: to be and find enough condition. Again, Look, we're speculating
Speaker 1: on this. I don't know, but I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of this rings true. So I'll come to in a second.
Speaker 4: Ryan.
Speaker 1: They escort Forth the man outside, instead of taking him
Speaker 1: straight to the hospital. The doctor the logical thing to
Speaker 1: do with somebody who's been a windless sell for three months,
Speaker 1: without food or water for four days. They sit him
Speaker 1: in a chair and they interview him. Asked by Anderson Cooper,
Speaker 1: what is known about this man Ward admits, well, we
Speaker 1: don't know, because, as you can see from the report,
Speaker 1: he's in a deep state of shock. She says she
Speaker 1: knows nothing about the man or if any of the
Speaker 1: statements are even true. Everything in the report is taking
Speaker 1: at face value, from the guard opening the door that
Speaker 1: quote they were not allowed to film, to the prisoner's claim.
Speaker 1: So that's what I would be a little bit skeptical of.
Speaker 1: It just seems too good to be true. Call you know,
Speaker 1: call me cynical or whatever. I look at that immediately
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know about this went on.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just weird. It's weird. The videos of
Speaker 1: people being spontaneously freed, where you have dozens of people
Speaker 1: pouring that's okay. I believe that, you know, and you
Speaker 1: can see some of that. It seems real. Again, Look,
Speaker 1: you know, who knows about what we're allowed to We're not.
Speaker 3: We do we I mean, we definitely know that thousands
Speaker 3: of people were held in a side stone.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: And yeah, now those dungeons are it's been for a
Speaker 3: long time. Yeah right, that's that's absolutely real. This is
Speaker 3: like four days without water, that's a long Four days
Speaker 3: without food is one thing.
Speaker 1: Isn't there a three rule? It's like three days without water,
Speaker 1: three weeks out food? Was it three seconds without oxygen
Speaker 1: or something? I forget what the number is, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I can hold my breath more.
Speaker 4: Three second stuff.
Speaker 1: There wasn't three minutes three maybe three minutes three minutes.
Speaker 4: But so four days without water three or four days
Speaker 4: without water? Would your face would look different?
Speaker 1: Your face would be parked, Yeah, yeah, you'd be sunk in.
Speaker 4: You just your tongue would be completely.
Speaker 1: Like they said, there's no wall, no bathroom. You know
Speaker 1: how where the butt was happening exactly?
Speaker 4: Why do you not hear the gun?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well he didn't hear the gun.
Speaker 3: Did he not notice that the entree was emptied out?
Speaker 4: Because there's the previous there's cells everywhere around him.
Speaker 1: The previous videos of people mean, so the moment that
Speaker 1: lock pops off, boom, they're all rushing out right and
Speaker 1: people are screaming, cheering, and they're so you know, happy
Speaker 1: to be freed, et cetera. Yeah, I don't this This
Speaker 1: one just doesn't seem right to me. I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: you know totally. Maybe somebody should find this guy and
Speaker 1: ask him and get his whole backstory that say, he's
Speaker 1: been three months to staves from the city of Homes.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Homeles because somebody go find this guy.
Speaker 1: It's been who are you? You know, did you actually
Speaker 1: get a prisoner or was this all an act or
Speaker 1: maybe you were a legitimate prisoner and they told you
Speaker 1: to act this way. You know, Listen, they want the
Speaker 1: best media in the world right now. There's a fierce
Speaker 1: to eight here in Washington. Remember, their leader, al Jelani
Speaker 1: is a wanted ten million dollars bounty terrorists by the
Speaker 1: United States State Department. The Brits are currently wondering whether
Speaker 1: they should take him off of their list, whether they
Speaker 1: can diplomatically recognize his government, and you know, against should mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you know, I don't have a problem. Like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm a person who said, you know, I'm not pro Taliban,
Speaker 1: but they won the Civil Award. It's like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: I think what troubles me in this case is that
Speaker 1: this is a group which explicitly at one point was
Speaker 1: understood to be an al Qaeda backed regime, but then
Speaker 1: we decided that we hate assad more than we hate them,
Speaker 1: and so we're all just okay with them taking power,
Speaker 1: and we're not really asking a lot of questions about
Speaker 1: what the future of this country's going to look like
Speaker 1: and the potential fall out their own religious minorities. There's
Speaker 1: just so much triumphalism. People hate USAD so much that
Speaker 1: they're not willing to wonder like, maybe it's way worse
Speaker 1: what comes next. And all of the reports are about
Speaker 1: Jolani and about HTS is that they're branding champions, they
Speaker 1: changed their name, they distanced themselves allegedly from al Qaeda.
Speaker 1: They've been reading books and studying the West and how
Speaker 1: to have good relations with them. So it seemed to
Speaker 1: me to fit with something like this, just me personally,
Speaker 1: That's what I thought.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I don't think that she was in on it.
Speaker 1: No, I agree, I don't think she was in Oh
Speaker 1: can you tell the context though about Clarisa Ward.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, so the thing that was getting circulated. I
Speaker 3: think Glenn Greenwald had flagged it at some point earlier
Speaker 3: in the war. During so it would have been twenty sixteen, yes,
Speaker 3: or twenty fifteen. She did an interview with Mike Morell
Speaker 3: and said that she, well, I don't know what the
Speaker 3: interview was. But she said in that interview that she
Speaker 3: had sent a very harsh note to Ben Rhodes, who
Speaker 3: was Obama's National security advisor. And the note said something like,
Speaker 3: you know, I hope that you are sleeping well tonight, Yes,
Speaker 3: while the free something like the freedom fighters of Siri
Speaker 3: are you know, being crushed.
Speaker 4: By a side.
Speaker 3: And she said, I cop to crossing the line on this,
Speaker 3: on this story on Cyria, where I have gone from
Speaker 3: a journalist to an activist. This is what she said
Speaker 3: to Michael morrelse hey guy, and interviewed him.
Speaker 4: Uh So, if somebody.
Speaker 3: Was going to be kind of blinkered into this, it
Speaker 3: would have to be somebody who feels a deep ideological
Speaker 3: commitment to supporting the this outcome.
Speaker 1: You could understand it from our perspective. I'm not justifying it.
Speaker 1: I'm saying you can understand you cover him this probably
Speaker 1: for a decade. You've seen a lot of people get
Speaker 1: killed at Murderous Poodle. Yeah, You've seen a medical dictator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've seen people beheaded whatever.
Speaker 4: Her driver was, her driver was killed.
Speaker 1: That's right, her driver was killed. So a lot of
Speaker 1: these guys, you know, Richard Engel and a few or
Speaker 1: of those. They all have personal experience in this. Although
Speaker 1: the Angle thing, you know what I'm talking about, he
Speaker 1: was allegedly kidnapped. There's still a lot that's a weird
Speaker 1: story too. I gotta be.
Speaker 4: Honest if you want to go.
Speaker 3: And there was one with closerists in Sudan also, Oh really,
Speaker 3: is there questions about.
Speaker 4: A weird pick, weird attention or something?
Speaker 1: Anyways, And she's also very physically courageous. No, yeah, but
Speaker 1: no one is putting down. She puts herself all the time.
Speaker 1: She did a good job in Afghanistan. I thought, you
Speaker 1: know that good the Fall of.
Speaker 4: Cobble stood the ground. She did really good interviews.
Speaker 1: But you know, nobody's infallible. And uh, there's some potential
Speaker 1: questions here at CNN. To be honest, you know, if
Speaker 1: this turned out to be staged, this would be like
Speaker 1: a Brian Williams stole scandal. That's why I would like
Speaker 1: someone to go interview this guy. Glarissa should break it, Huh,
Speaker 1: should break break that new Yeah. The only way to
Speaker 1: redeem yourself is to then figure out who, figure out
Speaker 1: who he is, and to answer the questions just to
Speaker 1: you know, maintain your own story.
Speaker 3: Because some people were specting. Oh, maybe it was a
Speaker 3: guard who just wanted to stay there. How they how
Speaker 3: they lock himself in?
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's anyway.
Speaker 1: Weird stuff, weird stuff. All right, We've got independent Senate
Speaker 1: candidate Dan Osborne.
Speaker 4: Let's get to.
Speaker 3: Coming out of the November election, the Associated Press did
Speaker 3: an analysis we can put up on the screen here
Speaker 3: comparing senate Democratic candidates to Kamala Harris, and they found
Speaker 3: that one particular candidate, who was not in fact a
Speaker 3: Senate Democratic candidate, out performed all other Democrats across the country.
Speaker 4: By more than any other.
Speaker 3: And his name was Dan Osborne, who was running as
Speaker 3: an independent in Nebraska. It turned out not to be
Speaker 3: enough to overcome the partisan lean of Nebraska, but he
Speaker 3: came extremely close to being the next Senator from that state.
Speaker 3: And we're joined now by Dan Osborne, the independent Senate candidate.
Speaker 4: Dan Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Good to see you, sir, Thanks, thank thanks for having
Speaker 1: me on.
Speaker 4: You're welcome. All right.
Speaker 3: So down the stretch, it seemed like the partisan nature
Speaker 3: of our politics really started to lock itself into their race.
Speaker 3: And I actually wanted to ask you about something that
Speaker 3: I saw towards the very end, you had never said
Speaker 3: who you were going to caucus with or whether you
Speaker 3: were going to caucus with either party. You were going
Speaker 3: to be an independent and you were going to see
Speaker 3: what was best for Nebraska. Down the stretch, Senator Chuck Schumer,
Speaker 3: the majority leader, started saying publicly, go out and vote
Speaker 3: for Dan Osborne to help Democrats here in Washington. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: as far as I could tell, Senate Democrats actually did
Speaker 3: nothing in the state of in the state of Nebraska
Speaker 3: to help you win. When he started saying that, did
Speaker 3: that get spread around Nebraska? And what was your reaction
Speaker 3: when you started seeing that from from kind of coastal Democrats?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I.
Speaker 5: Don't believe that part of it got spread around. You know,
Speaker 5: that was that was deb Fisher's negative campaign right out
Speaker 5: of the gate. We turned in twelve thousand signatures from
Speaker 5: around the state to get on the ballot. We needed
Speaker 5: four and then the first independent poll came out that
Speaker 5: had Fisher at thirty nine and me at thirty eight,
Speaker 5: and so she went negative right out of the gate.
Speaker 5: You know, you know that's what she had. She was
Speaker 5: calling me a radical leftist and saying spreading all these
Speaker 5: lies about immigration about me, and I suppose at the
Speaker 5: end of the day, unfortunately the lies won, but you know,
Speaker 5: we remained positive and just trying to tell the people
Speaker 5: in Nebraska what I wanted to do for them because
Speaker 5: I heard, you know, I did two hundred public events
Speaker 5: around the state and I listened to Nebraska's every single day,
Speaker 5: and what it is they want, and what it is
Speaker 5: they want was, you know, first of all, they want
Speaker 5: to know that if you work hard in this country,
Speaker 5: that you can get ahead, that your paycheck matters, that
Speaker 5: you're going to be able to have, you know, houses,
Speaker 5: some property, cars, put money aside for Christmas and college,
Speaker 5: and then mostly they want to be left alone.
Speaker 6: People don't want handouts for the most part.
Speaker 5: They understand some folks need the handouts, of course, but
Speaker 5: that was it. So I kind of coined the term
Speaker 5: recently paycheck populism, because I was doing an interview similar
Speaker 5: to this and they said, well, you ran off an
Speaker 5: economic populism message, and I was like, oh, I don't
Speaker 5: really know what that means, because the economy is so
Speaker 5: broad and and you know deep by the point, you know,
Speaker 5: what people want to know is that their paycheck matters
Speaker 5: if you work hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dan, I'm curious for your reaction. You started a
Speaker 1: hybrid pack to talk about this, but there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of discourse here in Washington about what should the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party do to win back Trump voter. So you
Speaker 1: at least have some credibility. You won forty six point
Speaker 1: five percent of the vote in the deep red state
Speaker 1: of Nebraska. So what's your advice to the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: or anybody who else who wants to challenge the current
Speaker 1: establishment GOP for how they can win a similar amount
Speaker 1: of votes to you?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you know, you just got to be real.
Speaker 5: I think candidate recruitment is so important, and that's what
Speaker 5: I'm doing right now with this Working Class Heroes pack.
Speaker 5: It's designed to emulate what we did here in Nebraska.
Speaker 6: We're going to go out.
Speaker 5: We've targeted multiple races, top of the ticket races all
Speaker 5: the way down ballot on the overperformance that we had
Speaker 5: if we were to you know, the targets designed it,
Speaker 5: if Osborne were to run in those areas, we would
Speaker 5: have won. So we're certainly going to target more races.
Speaker 5: And it's all about candidate recruitment. We're hiring people we're
Speaker 5: starting the process on Monday, and we're going to go
Speaker 5: into different districts around the country and find working class
Speaker 5: people that you know, and pluck them out, because for me,
Speaker 5: that's the most important part. Less than two percent of
Speaker 5: our elected officials in both the House and Senate come
Speaker 5: from the working class, so it's a complete misrepresentation.
Speaker 6: You know, some millionaires that work for billionaires, and we
Speaker 6: need a seat at the table. So that's what this
Speaker 6: is designed to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an interesting view here in Washington. I think
Speaker 3: about that type of candidate recruitment where people say, well, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: Dan Osborne did really well, but you got to think
Speaker 3: about it. You know, he he's a union organizer. He
Speaker 3: was a union leader in the state that led this
Speaker 3: successful strikes a. He's a veteran, he's he's well, he's
Speaker 3: well spoken, he comes across well, and you know, we
Speaker 3: just can't find many people like that. But that's because
Speaker 3: from my perspective, they're sitting here in Washington, DC or
Speaker 3: the suburbs of Washington, d C. And they're looking around
Speaker 3: at their neighbors and yes, if that's your pool of candidates,
Speaker 3: then yeah, you're you're not going to find a lot
Speaker 3: of Dan Osborne's, but if you go outside of Washington,
Speaker 3: then you just might. But I'm curious what the challenge
Speaker 3: has been for you as you've started to kind of
Speaker 3: look for other people around the country who can can
Speaker 3: fit the mold, so to speak, break break the mold,
Speaker 3: and fit and fit a new mold. Are there are
Speaker 3: Are there the people out there to run the kind
Speaker 3: of campaigns that you're talking about?
Speaker 6: Yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 5: The inherent challenge is it's it's probably easier to find
Speaker 5: a sell funder right that can step from their role
Speaker 5: at their fancy law firm or wherever they're coming from.
Speaker 5: No offense against lawyers, but you know, we need those
Speaker 5: folks as well.
Speaker 6: But it's it's the challenge is.
Speaker 5: Going to be having somebody be able to do what
Speaker 5: I did, is is step aside from your role, hopefully
Speaker 5: get a leave of absence from your job, and take
Speaker 5: the plunge and take that take that dive. So what
Speaker 5: it's going to what we're going to produce is we're
Speaker 5: going to produce people that are passionate about what they're
Speaker 5: doing and for all the right reasons, because they love
Speaker 5: this country just like I do.
Speaker 6: They love their state and they want to make a difference. Uh,
Speaker 6: you know, the.
Speaker 5: So but what what the pack again is designed to
Speaker 5: do hopefully take some of the ease off of that decision.
Speaker 5: For me, it was it was extremely difficult. We had
Speaker 5: no we had no framework to start. It was just
Speaker 5: an idea and we built. We were building the plane
Speaker 5: as we were learning how to fly it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 5: So, you know, and we had very difficult time fundraising
Speaker 5: in the beginning, and right now we've raised.
Speaker 6: Over six figures.
Speaker 5: We're confident that we're going to be able to raise
Speaker 5: enough money to support candidates, uh, financially as they as
Speaker 5: they move forward, to give them a kind of a
Speaker 5: boost when when right out of the gate that we
Speaker 5: didn't have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and for people who don't know what you're talking
Speaker 3: about with it's good, it's easier to go kind of
Speaker 3: recruit a lawyer.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: The D Triple C, which recruits House candidates for instance,
Speaker 3: has a thing and this is not picking on the
Speaker 3: D tripleC. This is the Republicans and Democrats. They have
Speaker 3: a thing that they kind of called the phone test,
Speaker 3: which is when a candidate is thinking about running and
Speaker 3: meeting with party operatives here in Washington.
Speaker 4: D C.
Speaker 3: They'll say, take out your phone and scroll through this
Speaker 3: and tell tell us how you can find one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in the next you know, ten minutes. And
Speaker 3: she was supposed to go through your contact list and
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, Steve, he's good for five grand. You know, Kevin,
Speaker 3: he can do five, Diane he can do ten. Oh Jim,
Speaker 3: I bet he'd do half a billion to a super pack.
Speaker 3: And then d Triple C is like, okay, like you're
Speaker 3: our man because you can do our job for us.
Speaker 3: You can go out and raise the money. Somebody who
Speaker 3: can't do that, which is ninety nine percent of people,
Speaker 3: has the challenge that you had at the beginning.
Speaker 4: So how how did you overcome that? Like?
Speaker 3: How do you go from all right, I'm going to
Speaker 3: run for senate statewide. I don't have a lot of
Speaker 3: rich friends, but I'm going to be taken seriously because
Speaker 3: that happened, Like how did you?
Speaker 4: How do you? How do you break through that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's funny. I did the exact same thing.
Speaker 5: I went through my phone in my contacts and it's
Speaker 5: it's full of other.
Speaker 6: Mechanics and we can gass people.
Speaker 5: So I was able to get twenty five fifty bucks here,
Speaker 5: and you know, we had a lot of early angel
Speaker 5: investors that just believed that that you know, similar to myself,
Speaker 5: that just believed that this could turn into something. So
Speaker 5: it was a lot of local people that threw in
Speaker 5: one thousand dollars here and one thousand dollars there, and
Speaker 5: it really wasn't until we found a great digital firm,
Speaker 5: you know, that small dollars started to pour in and
Speaker 5: that remained the basis of our campaign. You know, we
Speaker 5: raised close to fourteen million dollars and our average donation
Speaker 5: was I think like forty dollars at the end of everything.
Speaker 5: So the small dollars are extremely important and just being
Speaker 5: able to get that message out and that's that's how
Speaker 5: we were able to do it.
Speaker 1: Well, Dan, what are your plans for what's next? Are
Speaker 1: you going to run for office again?
Speaker 5: I would say there's a ninety nine percent chance that
Speaker 5: I'm going to find something to run for again.
Speaker 6: We were keeping all the options open.
Speaker 5: You know, Pete Ricketts seats up here in Nebraska, there's
Speaker 5: a couple other ones we're eyeballing, but yeah, I think,
Speaker 5: you know, we got a lot of momentum. We spent
Speaker 5: a tremendous amount of work getting name recognition and just
Speaker 5: getting our message out there, our core message that you know,
Speaker 5: we didn't take any corporate dollars.
Speaker 6: We don't want to be a part of the problem.
Speaker 5: We want to be a part of the solution and
Speaker 5: really just represent people the you know, the way the
Speaker 5: framers of the Constitution intended it to be a government
Speaker 5: buying for the people, so that that was our intention.
Speaker 5: We fell a little bit short, but I think I
Speaker 5: think in twenty twenty six we're going to turn that around.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we look forward to seeing it. We hope,
Speaker 1: we hope to see you again on the show, should
Speaker 1: that time come again. All right, so thank you so
Speaker 1: very much, sir. We appreciate you.
Speaker 6: Thanks, guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Absolutely all right. That was Dan Osborne.
Speaker 3: His new fund is Working Class Hero's Fund and you
Speaker 3: can find it at Workingclassheroes dot fund. Even if you
Speaker 3: just go on there and put your email in there,
Speaker 3: then you'll get updates when he's got somebody cool. So
Speaker 3: you don't want to give them money now because you
Speaker 3: don't know who's going to recruit. Fine, put your email
Speaker 3: in there and then he'll tell you when he's got
Speaker 3: somebody cool.
Speaker 1: He's a very fascinating figure to me. Imagine if a
Speaker 1: guy like him one governor or Senate from the stave
Speaker 1: of re Church, it would scramble in instantly a presidential candidate.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, he would actually have a better shot
Speaker 1: going a good governor. Because this is interesting that the
Speaker 1: voters seem to actually distinguish. Yes, so like, for example,
Speaker 1: in Maryland is a key point. Yeah, this just happened
Speaker 1: in Maryland. Larry Hogan, he was the governor of Maryland's
Speaker 1: a Republican. He was pretty popular, but he just got
Speaker 1: his ass kicked in Senate.
Speaker 3: And the reason you notice on that chart that we
Speaker 3: just showed the Maryland Senate candidate was the greatest underperformer.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. No, so I'm not saying he didn't
Speaker 1: do well, but he lost. And the reason why is
Speaker 1: even people who liked him in Maryland were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like you, Hogan, but you would be a vote
Speaker 1: for Mitch McConnell. And don't I don't like.
Speaker 4: That Democrats ran against him.
Speaker 3: Where all people saying I like him, there you go,
Speaker 3: but he's going to vote for missus.
Speaker 1: So you have a better chance of not running nationally.
Speaker 1: That's why you have these guys. Who's that guy who's
Speaker 1: the Republican in Vermont? What's his name? Welch who was
Speaker 1: the governor? He was the governor of people. People loved
Speaker 1: him and is Vermont. This is blue haired liberals in Burlington.
Speaker 1: They still elected him because he's like a unique guy.
Speaker 4: Or he was working class dude.
Speaker 1: Who is the masters? He was like a motorcycle mechanical
Speaker 1: whom I thinking of the Republican government master Charlie Baker
Speaker 1: said his name O Brown. Yeah, they liked Scott Brown.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a crazy circumstances. But my point
Speaker 1: is that I can give a better shot being governor
Speaker 1: and then Democrat. Yeah, Louis John Bell Edwards. I think
Speaker 1: that Democrats Kansas selects governor, so statewide you have a
Speaker 1: better chance of running for a non national seat and
Speaker 1: voters are much more willing to give you a little
Speaker 1: bit of leewal. So I were him, that's what.
Speaker 4: I would do.
Speaker 3: Democrats in Maryland are like, we want to be democratic nationally,
Speaker 3: but this guy says we're gonna have low taxes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well you know, and now they have Wes
Speaker 1: Moore who's gonna bring alcohol to everybody in the state.
Speaker 1: It's just that's exactly what Maryland needed. Anyone who's ever
Speaker 1: encountered a Maryland driver says, you know what they need,
Speaker 1: more access alcohol. That's what they need in this state. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, good luck, good luck to all of you. Uh,
Speaker 1: we had a great show for everybody today. Thank you all.
Speaker 1: Ryan's always great to see you and well, if anything
Speaker 1: breaks over the weekend, will be with you. Otherwise, see
Speaker 1: you on Monday.