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Speaker 2: So we've got some updates for you guys with regard
Speaker 2: to Machmu Khalil. He is that Green card holder and
Speaker 2: a student activist who has been detained and they are
Speaker 2: attempting to the Trump administration is attempting to deport. So
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and start with this comments from Tom Homan,
Speaker 2: who was in Albany and New York to speak on
Speaker 2: exactly this issue and sounding a bit of a different
Speaker 2: note on free speech than the Trump campaign certainly did
Speaker 2: when he was campaigning, and notably JD. Vans did when
Speaker 2: he was over in Europe. Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 4: Free speech has limitations, but when you go to college
Speaker 4: campus you incite protesting and locking down and taking over
Speaker 4: buildings and damaging property and handing out leaflets for hamas
Speaker 4: who is a terrorist organization coming to this country, either
Speaker 4: on a visa or becoming the rest in ailing is
Speaker 4: a great privilege, whether there are rules associated with that.
Speaker 2: So again, I think it's really important to remind people
Speaker 2: that mak Mu Khalil has not been accused of a crime.
Speaker 2: The justification they're using for the stripping of his green
Speaker 2: card status and potential deportation is that Marco Rubio determined
Speaker 2: that he was a threat to our national security priority
Speaker 2: of combating anti Semitism. We also have some more details
Speaker 2: about Khalil himself that we'll get to in a moment.
Speaker 2: In particular, you notice the charges against him are always
Speaker 2: very vague. He's like affiliated with this literature that, by
Speaker 2: the way, we haven't been able to allowed to see.
Speaker 2: He said things that we're supposed to assume are anti Semitic.
Speaker 2: There's been very little specifics of what he's done or
Speaker 2: what he said. That is so egregious that she no
Speaker 2: longer exists in this country. So keep that in mind
Speaker 2: as well. Let me go ahead and play Secretary of State.
Speaker 2: Mark or Rubio, also giving his justification, sounding some similar
Speaker 2: notes to Tom Homan. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: When you come to the United States as a visitor,
Speaker 5: which is what a visa is, which is how this
Speaker 5: individual entered this country as on a visitor's visa. Okay,
Speaker 5: you are here as a visitor. We can deny you
Speaker 5: that visa. We can deny you that if you tell
Speaker 5: us when you apply. Hi, I'm trying to get into
Speaker 5: the United States on a student visa. I am a
Speaker 5: big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children,
Speaker 5: that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them
Speaker 5: to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages.
Speaker 5: If you tell us that you are in favor of
Speaker 5: a group like this, and if you tell us when
Speaker 5: you apply for your visa, and by the way, I
Speaker 5: intend to come to your country as a student and
Speaker 5: rile up all kinds of anti Jewish student anti Semitic activities.
Speaker 5: I intend to shut down your universities.
Speaker 6: If you told us all.
Speaker 5: These things when you applied for a visa, we would
Speaker 5: deny your visa. I hope we would. If you actually
Speaker 5: end up doing that once you're in this country on
Speaker 5: such a visa, we will revoke it. And if you
Speaker 5: end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a
Speaker 5: green card as a result of that visa while you're
Speaker 5: here in those activities, we're going to kick you out.
Speaker 5: It's as simple as that. This is not about free speech.
Speaker 5: This is about people that don't have a right to
Speaker 5: be in the United States. To begin with, no one
Speaker 5: has a right to a student visa. No one has
Speaker 5: a right to a green card, by the way, so
Speaker 5: when you apply for a student visa or any visa
Speaker 5: enter the United States, we have a right to deny
Speaker 5: you for virtually any reason. But I think being a
Speaker 5: supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning
Speaker 5: them upside down and being complicit and what are clearly
Speaker 5: crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down learning institutions. There
Speaker 5: are kids at these schools that can't go to class.
Speaker 5: You pay all this money to these high priced schools
Speaker 5: that are supposed to be of a great esteem and
Speaker 5: you can't even go to class. You're afraid to go
Speaker 5: to class because these lunatics are running around with covers
Speaker 5: on their face, screaming terrifying things. If you told us
Speaker 5: that's what you intended to do when you came to America,
Speaker 5: we would have never let you in. And if you
Speaker 5: and if you do it once you get in, we're
Speaker 5: going to revoke it and kick you out.
Speaker 2: So a few things to note there so far. He
Speaker 2: says he's a quote unquote big supporter of Hamas. You know,
Speaker 2: it seems like they just assume anyone who is like
Speaker 2: pro Palestine and has a critique of either the Israeli
Speaker 2: government or our government support of the Israeli government, they
Speaker 2: just label as pro Hamas. But if we could put
Speaker 2: D six up on the screen, Ryan drops like they've
Speaker 2: been doing some digging into okay, like what did this
Speaker 2: guy actually say and what was he all about. One
Speaker 2: of the things that you hear repeatedly on like right
Speaker 2: wing influencer accounts and people like Scott Jennings, et cetera,
Speaker 2: is that he called for the quote unquote total eradication
Speaker 2: of Western civilization. Now, even if he did, I would say, hey,
Speaker 2: protected speech that is vastly different from saying I'm a
Speaker 2: Hamas supporter or even further, which again I think would
Speaker 2: be protected speech. But there's no allegation he like provided
Speaker 2: material support for Hamas or any other terrorist quote unquote organization.
Speaker 2: But let's just parse the claim that he even is
Speaker 2: the person who said this total eradication of Western civilization thing.
Speaker 2: Apparently they're getting that from an Instagram post from a
Speaker 2: group that he was loosely affiliated with, that he had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with this Instagram post and may not
Speaker 2: have even have seen. So I want you to think
Speaker 2: about that the government is using, in part, a post
Speaker 2: that he was tangentially linked to that he potentially had
Speaker 2: no even knowledge of to justify stripping detaining him. He's
Speaker 2: now been, you know, flown down to Louisiana and held
Speaker 2: indefinitely there, and stripping him of his permanent residence status
Speaker 2: and potentially supporting him like that is incredibly wild. And
Speaker 2: you know, you may think this will never apply to you,
Speaker 2: and it's all finding good, et cetera. But we have
Speaker 2: seen two. I mean, the whole trajectory of post nine
Speaker 2: to eleven and the war on terror, et cetera, has
Speaker 2: been going step by step by step, taking away more
Speaker 2: and more more civil liberties and expanding, expanding the police
Speaker 2: and surveillance state. And this is a dramatic jump on
Speaker 2: that entry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing about Rubio is keep saying. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: no one's saying that you can't do it, it's whether
Speaker 3: should you do it?
Speaker 1: And for what purpose?
Speaker 3: That's the question that I really have around this is
Speaker 3: why are the guy didn't commit a crime? Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: a leader of a group which some people didn't like. Okay,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a a lot of groups, a lot
Speaker 3: of leaders that I don't like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure here on student visas too.
Speaker 3: Are they all going to get kicked out if you're
Speaker 3: the leader of the IDF soldier, you know whatever, a
Speaker 3: former IDx soldiers on UCLA campus, that's good to go.
Speaker 1: What are we doing here?
Speaker 3: That's that's the big issue that I really have with
Speaker 3: not only the precedent of deportation and really the invocation
Speaker 3: of the I in s act against this person. And
Speaker 3: because we have to remember he's saying is a serious
Speaker 3: detriment to our foreign policy? What does that mean that
Speaker 3: his presence here is a serious detriment to our foreign
Speaker 3: policy with Israel. What Israel's going to cut off relations
Speaker 3: with US over a campus protester in the United States.
Speaker 2: So they're specifically saying we have a foreign policy priority
Speaker 2: of combating anti Semitary.
Speaker 3: Okay, So first of all, I don't even know if
Speaker 3: that's true. But second, let's assume that it is true.
Speaker 3: What definition, oh the definition which conflates like any criticism
Speaker 3: of Israel with Semitism. The whole thing is preposterous. And
Speaker 3: that's where the big problem that it all comes back
Speaker 3: to is that we are having a debate here about
Speaker 3: somebody who was here protesting the actions of a foreign government.
Speaker 3: That I mean, even if you look back to the
Speaker 3: Patriot Act era, at least then we were demonizing each
Speaker 3: other over the actions of our government. This is something
Speaker 3: so contrary to any of those ideals of even many
Speaker 3: of the criticisms or whatever that they've made about free
Speaker 3: speech overreach in the past, and just basic to the
Speaker 3: notion of anything that's supposed to be America. First, but
Speaker 3: I do have bad news. I mean, to be honest,
Speaker 3: the government has good standing. I mean, there is the
Speaker 3: basic truth here is you can revoke the visa of
Speaker 3: whoever you want, but that's not The point is not
Speaker 3: can you, it's should you? And for what purpose? And
Speaker 3: I mean why? I can't get around either who picked
Speaker 3: this guy as the first one? Wouldn't you pick somebody
Speaker 3: who was in Hamilton.
Speaker 1: Hall or whatever?
Speaker 3: You know, like breaking windows? There's no argument on that one.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, you committed a crime here, bro, you
Speaker 3: gotta go. But for the rest of them, like deporting
Speaker 3: a quote student leader who has committed no actual crime,
Speaker 3: been charged with nothing basically for statements. It's like, where
Speaker 3: did this name get plucked? And who decided that this
Speaker 3: was the ground if I actually cannot think of a
Speaker 3: worse one that would because first you would pick a
Speaker 3: student visa, wouldn't you, And then you would.
Speaker 1: Not a green card?
Speaker 2: Hold ye, because they thought.
Speaker 3: Didn't So first they pick somebody who's on a green card,
Speaker 3: not a student visa. Then they picked somebody who didn't
Speaker 3: commit a crime. It's like you would, ideally, if you
Speaker 3: wanted to set a precedent or you know, make a
Speaker 3: big stand, you'd pick a guy on a student visa
Speaker 3: who did commit a crime.
Speaker 1: It's an open and shut case. But it's easy as hell.
Speaker 3: To deport somebody for and a lot harder to argue against,
Speaker 3: in my opinion.
Speaker 2: The other way to look at it, and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure on the legal piece, you might be right, but
Speaker 2: you know, there is a legal battle that will unfold
Speaker 2: here and it's not entirely clear cut which way it
Speaker 2: will go. It does look like the administration is like
Speaker 2: immigration judge shopping. That's why Khalil was flown all the
Speaker 2: way down to Louisiana was because I think they like
Speaker 2: their chances there better than they did in New York
Speaker 2: or New Jersey. But in any case, you know, one
Speaker 2: way to look at it is like, oh, this is
Speaker 2: such a screw up. They should have picked someone who
Speaker 2: committed a crime. It was on a student visa. It
Speaker 2: was open and shut, and no one could even even
Speaker 2: I couldn't like say that it was that they didn't
Speaker 2: have the right to do it, and it would right
Speaker 2: present a much more, a much less profound a bridging
Speaker 2: of civil rights than what this a permanent resident. And
Speaker 2: also he's just a sympathetic gu I'm about to show
Speaker 2: you a video of him as well, and you'll see
Speaker 2: his wife is eight months pregnant. She's an American citizen.
Speaker 2: You listen to him talk on CNN et cetera, and
Speaker 2: he's saying, like, I actually think the libert you know,
Speaker 2: the liberation of the Jewish people and the Palestinian people
Speaker 2: go hand in glove, and that's why I support equal
Speaker 2: rights for all. Like people have been digging through everything
Speaker 2: this man has said at this point and have not
Speaker 2: come up with anything that is like even out of
Speaker 2: I don't think should be out of bounds at all.
Speaker 2: So you know, there was no like I love Hamas
Speaker 2: and way to go on October seventh. If there was,
Speaker 2: trust me, you would have heard about it for by now.
Speaker 2: And when he's given interviews and he gave a lot
Speaker 2: of interviews in his role as like a student leader here,
Speaker 2: he was, you know, quite clear about his commitment to
Speaker 2: equality and dignity for both the Palistinian people and the
Speaker 2: Jewish people. But in any case, I think the other
Speaker 2: way you can look at it is that by taking
Speaker 2: a maximalist stand with this relatively sympathetic person who didn't
Speaker 2: commit a crime, who is a permanent resident and not
Speaker 2: a visa holder, you know, they are first of all
Speaker 2: inviting a huge for account which they seem to relish,
Speaker 2: and second of all, once you've gotten away with that,
Speaker 2: then everything else is easy. Right, then you've laid all
Speaker 2: this track and created this massive space within which you
Speaker 2: can operate. So I'm not sure that it's the sort
Speaker 2: of like tactical mistake. I don't even think they see
Speaker 2: They seem to relish this fight. They seem to feel
Speaker 2: that they are on very firm political ground and are
Speaker 2: quite happy to use makmu Khalil and make an example of.
Speaker 1: Him in the immediate term. I mean, I think we're
Speaker 1: being honest, they probably are on good political ground.
Speaker 3: I mean, people don't really care much about Palestine protesters
Speaker 3: outside of like the left. If you still look at
Speaker 3: the overall if you overall approval rating for Israel still
Speaker 3: quite high, especially amongst Republicans, amongst boomers. It's definitely true
Speaker 3: things have changed amongst the Democrats. But I mean, nobody's
Speaker 3: shedding tears really for student protesters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think You're probably probably right. I will say, listen,
Speaker 2: being a free the Free Speech Party was a core
Speaker 2: part of their pitch this time around.
Speaker 1: That ideological consistency from the likes of them, Right, But.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, you know, I were able to take what
Speaker 2: if you looked at like the specifics of you know,
Speaker 2: this or that white nationalists saying terrible things, you would say, okay, well,
Speaker 2: this isn't like really good political ground. But when they
Speaker 2: framed it in the context of like, no, this is
Speaker 2: a fight over free speech, and they are the cancel
Speaker 2: culture ones, and there're snowflakes and the woke mob and whatever,
Speaker 2: it ended up being very politically powerful for them. So
Speaker 2: there's nothing that says that similar abuses directed at machmu Khalil,
Speaker 2: and they say that, you know, he's the first of
Speaker 2: many to come can't similarly turn people off, and you know,
Speaker 2: and also the overreaches of post nine to eleven. Eventually
Speaker 2: there was a backlash against that as well. So you
Speaker 2: you may well be correct, but I don't think it's
Speaker 2: quite as clear cut as that. But I do want
Speaker 2: to share with you guys, and then we'll get to
Speaker 2: his lawyer, et cetera. But I do want to share
Speaker 2: with you because we've talked so much about him. Mak
Speaker 2: Mukhalil in his own words, He actually was filmed as
Speaker 2: part of a documentary put together. Breakthrough News shared this.
Speaker 2: It's being released this year by Watermelon Pictures and executive
Speaker 2: produced by Maclamore, and they have an interview in here
Speaker 2: with Mounkhalio talking about his family's journey and how they
Speaker 2: ended up in this refugee camp in Syria. This is
Speaker 2: D seven. Guys, D seven, go ahead and play this.
Speaker 7: I was born and raised in a Palestine refugee camp
Speaker 7: in southern Damascus in Syria. My family's history in Palestine
Speaker 7: actually goes back to as long as my grand parent
Speaker 7: could trace it. They lived in a very small village
Speaker 7: right next to Tiberia's. Mostly they were farmers. My grandmother
Speaker 7: she used to tell us that she had Jewish neighbors.
Speaker 7: They would share a piece of land where they would farm.
Speaker 7: Tiberius was one of the first cities that the Zionists
Speaker 7: targeted in nineteen forty eight, with Nick Lansing. In April
Speaker 7: nineteen forty eight, a month before the Nakuba, the Zionus
Speaker 7: militias they burned one of their villages. When they heard
Speaker 7: the news about it, they had to leave immediately. Some
Speaker 7: of the men went to fight. Big families. They had
Speaker 7: to go to Syria. My grandmother, she was pregnant at
Speaker 7: that time. She had to walk forty miles. She gave
Speaker 7: birth on their way. When they arrived in the refugee camp,
Speaker 7: they thought it's just a matter of days until they
Speaker 7: would go back. They did not want to be killed
Speaker 7: because they heard about the herror stories across Tiberia's. My
Speaker 7: dad was born in a tent. His family lived in
Speaker 7: that tent until like mid seventies, when they upgraded to
Speaker 7: small structures. In the nineties, they finally kind of like
Speaker 7: had concrete buildings. To us, it was always a temporary
Speaker 7: home until we go back to Palestine.
Speaker 2: So that's a little bit of his backstory there and
Speaker 2: how his family ended up in this refugee camp in Syria.
Speaker 2: We do have some legal updates for you guys with
Speaker 2: regard to his case. You could put D three up
Speaker 2: on the screen here. So there was a hearing in
Speaker 2: Federal District Court in Manhattan yesterday about the nature of
Speaker 2: his detention, and so the judge ordered, and again this
Speaker 2: is a federal district court, so this is not an
Speaker 2: immigration judge. He will also see an immigration judge about
Speaker 2: the merits of his case and whether or not the
Speaker 2: government has offered sufficient grounds to revoke his green card
Speaker 2: and sport him. But they said he he has to
Speaker 2: remain in Louisiana for now. He set a schedule for
Speaker 2: Wednesday for the lawyers to present written arguments later this week.
Speaker 2: He set his order to keep Khalil in an immigration
Speaker 2: detention facility in Louisiana was not due to the merits
Speaker 2: of any arguments, but to provide time to address the
Speaker 2: important issues that this case raises. The judge directed Khalil's
Speaker 2: lawyers be allowed phone calls with their client, which apparently
Speaker 2: is something that has been blocked up to this point.
Speaker 2: The lawyer was having very a huge amount of difficulty
Speaker 2: getting in touch with Mackmud Khalil and his lawyers set
Speaker 2: our access to our clients severely limited by the fact
Speaker 2: that he is in Louisiana. Let's go ahead and take
Speaker 2: a listen to a little bit of Mackmoud Khalil's lawyer
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, their belief that they'll be vindicated
Speaker 2: with the case. And also he talked a little bit
Speaker 2: too about here the role of Colombia. And there's been
Speaker 2: some reporting come out emails for release that Mackmood was
Speaker 2: messaging the administrators Columbian saying, look, I really fear for
Speaker 2: my safety. I'm getting all of these threats. I feel
Speaker 2: fear ICE is going to come in and snatch me up,
Speaker 2: and they you know, they did nothing, and of course
Speaker 2: this is exactly what happened. Let's go ahead and take
Speaker 2: a listen to his lawyer.
Speaker 6: Every day the mood spends in detention in Louisiana, as
Speaker 6: a day two law we ad be fully intent to
Speaker 6: vindicate not just his first a memory of rights, but
Speaker 6: those of all Americans, frankly, and all lawful private residence
Speaker 6: and anybody who wants to speak out. It simply cannot
Speaker 6: be the case that you can be disappeared to basically
Speaker 6: put the university on notice that he was feeling, you know,
Speaker 6: unprotected by the university, and that he was worried about
Speaker 6: detention by ICE and dosing and actions by private actors.
Speaker 6: He was in fear for his life and well being.
Speaker 6: That that is accurate. He did send that email to
Speaker 6: the head of Columbia University, and I think his email
Speaker 6: raises an important question. This is university that has spent
Speaker 6: the better part of the last year talking about its
Speaker 6: duty to protect students and to keep them safe. But
Speaker 6: in a scenario where numerous students are being approached by
Speaker 6: ICE on Columbia's campus, and one Columbia student, Mahmoud Gharid,
Speaker 6: has been effectively disappeared by US government agents again on
Speaker 6: Columbia's property. The university has been remarkably absent and silent, and.
Speaker 2: The university is coming under increasing scrutiny. There was a
Speaker 2: New York Times article that went inside a pretty stunning
Speaker 2: meeting that happened on campus to could put this up
Speaker 2: on the screen. So the headline here is at Columbia,
Speaker 2: attention over Gaza protests hits a breaking point under Trump.
Speaker 2: Let me read you a little bit of this, they say.
Speaker 2: Days after immigration officers arrested a prominent pro palest ining
Speaker 2: campus activist, administrators at Columbia University gathered students and faculty
Speaker 2: from the journalism school and issued a warning students who
Speaker 2: were not US citizens should avoid publishing work on Gaza,
Speaker 2: Ukraine and protests related to their former classmates. Arrest ur
Speaker 2: Stuart carl, a First Amendment lawyer and adjunct professor with
Speaker 2: about two months ago before graduating. Their academic accomplishments or
Speaker 2: even their freedom could be at risk if they attracted
Speaker 2: the ire of the Trump administration. Quote, if you have
Speaker 2: a social media page. Make sure it is not filled
Speaker 2: with commentary on the Middle East, he told the gathering
Speaker 2: in Fulitzer Hall. When a Palestinian student objected the journalism
Speaker 2: school's dean, Jilani, Cobb was more direct about the school's
Speaker 2: inability to defend international students from federal prosecution. Quote, nobody
Speaker 2: can protect you, mister Cobb said, these are dangerous times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why everyone's mad at him.
Speaker 3: He's right, he worked like, what you're going to go
Speaker 3: up against the United States government?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
Speaker 3: And look, I mean I talked about this before, but
Speaker 3: I know a lot of leftists don't want to hear this.
Speaker 3: You don't have a right to be here. You are
Speaker 3: a guest in our country. And if you're going to
Speaker 3: shit stir against the current US government, good luck to you.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: I wish he the best. I don't cardholder.
Speaker 2: But even if you're the same First Amendment right, you.
Speaker 1: Have a First Amendment right to say what you want.
Speaker 3: The government is right to be able to revoke your systems,
Speaker 3: and they're going to revoke the residency, which they're going
Speaker 3: to true. No, even if they provide him due process,
Speaker 3: and they can make this case based on the I
Speaker 3: in s he's going to go. He get maybe it'll
Speaker 3: take three months, maybe it'll take six, Like you don't
Speaker 3: have a right to be here. This is where I
Speaker 3: do get a little bit annoyed. Where at this idea
Speaker 3: that you know, oh, what are they supposed to protect you?
Speaker 3: Like by what standing in the door against the government?
Speaker 3: Like okay, you know again, like on a sympathy perspective,
Speaker 3: you're not winning. You're not a citizen, you don't You
Speaker 3: can't just come here and expect to be able to
Speaker 3: do whatever you want without consequence.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the expectation that you would be able
Speaker 2: to protest foreign government and critique policies I think is
Speaker 2: very reasonable.
Speaker 1: One. I think that you are a permanent live in reality.
Speaker 2: You do have First Amendment rights and free speech rights.
Speaker 2: So you know, if it was a student visa holder,
Speaker 2: then the legal case is much more clear with this. No,
Speaker 2: I mean these are this is true like McCarthyite red
Speaker 2: scare insanity, And I understand what you're saying about, like
Speaker 2: he is right, nobody can protect you. The other piece,
Speaker 2: but this comes in the context of Columbia University make
Speaker 2: a big show about how their number one priorities student
Speaker 2: safety in the context of you know, Jewish students who
Speaker 2: were upset by the protests, but now that you have
Speaker 2: one of your own students being snatched from your campus
Speaker 2: without a warrant even being offered after he came to
Speaker 2: you and was like please, I like, I need help,
Speaker 2: and you did nothing. That's where comments like this end up,
Speaker 2: you know, end up landing very poorly. But you know,
Speaker 2: the other thing I would say about this is this
Speaker 2: is exactly the reaction that the Trump administration is you know,
Speaker 2: expects and is manufacturing, and you know that it will
Speaker 2: chill all protests and speech, and people will be afraid
Speaker 2: to speak out. They'll be afraid to post on social media,
Speaker 2: they'll be afraid to go to the protest, they'll be
Speaker 2: afraid to write articles. There was somebody who wrote an
Speaker 2: op ed at Columbia who got like, you know, disciplined
Speaker 2: by the Columbia University administration, et cetera. And so you
Speaker 2: know this is this is the goal of this policy
Speaker 2: is to make an example of him and to scare
Speaker 2: people from speaking out on this issue. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you saw this. This is crazy, just like side note,
Speaker 2: but I think is sort of facilitating encouraged by this
Speaker 2: crackdown from the Trump administration, which is the mayor of
Speaker 2: Miami is trying to pull the lease of an independent
Speaker 2: movie theater that dared to show the Oscar Award winning
Speaker 2: documentary about the occupied West Bank no other land they
Speaker 2: you know, they had a screening of it, and now
Speaker 2: he's trying to pull the lease so that this theater
Speaker 2: is destroyed. Like this climate is insane. It really is
Speaker 2: not safe for anyone to offer, you know, their criticism
Speaker 2: of a foreign government and to have this this crackdown
Speaker 2: in this spectacle and use Machmud Khalil, who again committed
Speaker 2: no crimes. We've been offered no evidence even that he was,
Speaker 2: you know, a supporter of Hamas or anything. They just
Speaker 2: assume he is because he was pro Palestinian. Like, it's
Speaker 2: it's ountrageous. People should be discussed by it.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I have no disagreement that this is not what should happen.
Speaker 3: But I also think if you're an international student and
Speaker 3: if you value your presence here in the United States,
Speaker 3: Joanni Cobb is correct and that you like it's like,
Speaker 3: what point do you want maybe if you want to
Speaker 3: create a spectacle of yourself getting deported. Okay, fine, but
Speaker 3: you know you should be honest to about that. I
Speaker 3: just see Cobb getting attacked over this. He is correct.
Speaker 3: The government has immense power.
Speaker 1: I really just.
Speaker 3: Don't know what reality people are living in. One for hipocrisy, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're right, are these the Jewish student safety? Is that
Speaker 3: all bullshit? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: One? Elections have consequences.
Speaker 3: I mean, who do you think one the election is
Speaker 3: now setting this standards.
Speaker 2: We as a marri was told this was the free
Speaker 2: speech party. I mean, Chris censorship, government censorship was going
Speaker 2: to be the past.
Speaker 3: You can all point hipocrisy in all directions and nobody
Speaker 3: is truly ideological consistent.
Speaker 1: I think this is bad, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean I think that a lot of conservative free
Speaker 3: speech people are either humiliated by this silent and or
Speaker 3: showing themselves despite getting filthy rich off of talking about
Speaker 3: identity politics and cancel culture, are now cheering this on.
Speaker 3: Yeah you should, you know, absolutely speak out against them
Speaker 3: and vote with your dollars or your eyeballs or how
Speaker 3: say you to speak. But I also think these students
Speaker 3: are going to get shit advice if they're being told
Speaker 3: like we're going to protect you nobody can protect you
Speaker 3: against the government and against visa like you're not in government, No,
Speaker 3: but you are not. This is this is where I
Speaker 3: get annoyed. You're not an American citizen. At the end
Speaker 3: of the day, we can you can kick you out
Speaker 3: no matter what. You should take that intoidation true.
Speaker 2: Those Soccer permanent residents, Oh, you have to do almost
Speaker 2: all the same rights.
Speaker 3: As he can be offered due process to do progress,
Speaker 3: and he will get it and he will still.
Speaker 2: The other thing Soccer is that they invented like it's
Speaker 2: not like this provision has been routinely used and everyone
Speaker 2: should know that, like Marco Rubio can just decide that
Speaker 2: you're a threat to our national security, which is utterly preposterous.
Speaker 2: The idea that Mackmud Khalil is undermining our global fight
Speaker 2: against anti Semitism, which, by the way, nothing is sparking
Speaker 2: more anti Semitism than Israel's genocide and Gaza and are
Speaker 2: enabling of it. So you know, maybe there's some people
Speaker 2: who need to be deported for the way that they're
Speaker 2: sparking anti Semitism with their approach to all of this.
Speaker 2: But putting all of that aside, this has almost never
Speaker 2: been used in this way, like, I don't know that
Speaker 2: it has ever been used in this way. So again,
Speaker 2: the legal theory is not at all settled. You do
Speaker 2: have rights as a permanent resident Green card holder. Makmu
Speaker 2: did not do anything wrong here whatsoever. And if it was,
Speaker 2: the shoe was on the other foot. And you had
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris saying that anti racism is
Speaker 2: one of our foreign policy goals, Well they did so,
Speaker 2: and we're going to deport anyone who is either on
Speaker 2: a student visa or a Green card holder who is
Speaker 2: a Trump supporter, because we believe Trump is racist in
Speaker 2: his movement is racist, and this undermines our foreign policy.
Speaker 2: That would also be insane, and the right would be
Speaker 2: correctly up at arms, and it would be authoritarian, and
Speaker 2: it would be an abridgment of free speech and First
Speaker 2: Amendment rights. So yeah, this is an outrageous assault on
Speaker 2: civil rights of everyone. Because if they can find some
Speaker 2: little provision that they can hang their hat on to
Speaker 2: try to revoke this guy's permanent resident status and deport him,
Speaker 2: you don't think that they can find some little provision
Speaker 2: that can criminalize your speech for saying something very similar
Speaker 2: even if you are a US citizen, Like, they just
Speaker 2: are pushing the bounds as much as they possibly can,
Speaker 2: and there is not just nothing to protect people who
Speaker 2: are from a foreign country, there is nothing to protect
Speaker 2: anybody at this point.
Speaker 3: Well, I see, that's where I just think that's not true.
Speaker 3: I mean, at the end of the day, you're right
Speaker 3: that mood is due due process, but they can just
Speaker 3: give him due process and still deport him. I mean, listen,
Speaker 3: I hope that the legal theory doesn't end up correctly
Speaker 3: because I don't want this definition of anti semitism to
Speaker 3: stand period. I always hope that the Supreme Court would
Speaker 3: be able to strike it down as an obvious overreach.
Speaker 3: But that's just not really how they've interpreted the law
Speaker 3: in the past whenever it does come to the ability
Speaker 3: to have deportation proceedings against somebody else. And I understand
Speaker 3: why people are getting upset. As I said, I think
Speaker 3: the principle is really really bad. I guess I'm just
Speaker 3: coming back to these international students seem to think that
Speaker 3: they have a quote right to be here, to be
Speaker 3: able to say what they want and also stay here.
Speaker 3: And it's like, guys, nobody should be giving you that opinion, Like, really,
Speaker 3: Jolani Cobb, I think was correct. You're not wrong that
Speaker 3: they're hypocritical in terms of how they are phrasing all
Speaker 3: this stuff about student safety. But I mean, if you
Speaker 3: really believed all that, I didn't know what to tell you.
Speaker 3: If it's pretty obvious from the beginning they got their
Speaker 3: four hundred million dollars cut in. Of course this is
Speaker 3: a reaction Robert Kraft Center for one hundred million dollars,
Speaker 3: you think gives it to them for free? Like, what
Speaker 3: do you think this whole thing is about?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: This is a private money making scheme that's basically I guess,
Speaker 3: built on idealism and shelling out eighty thousand dollars a year. So,
Speaker 3: if anything, it's more like removing the veneer of where
Speaker 3: all this is about. But I also don't think that
Speaker 3: this is necessarily I'm not saying this isn't an assault
Speaker 3: on free speech, on free speech principles, but it is
Speaker 3: still fundamentally different than a United States citizen. You know,
Speaker 3: if a United States citizen is having their actual rights
Speaker 3: abridged by the government as a result of what they
Speaker 3: say about a foreign about a foreign conflict, that's genuinely
Speaker 3: another matter whenever it comes to this, and I don't
Speaker 3: think that Trump administration will go there because everybody knows
Speaker 3: that that would be that would be categorically one hundred
Speaker 3: times more insane than what's happening here.
Speaker 2: Last point, there is a distinction because he's a Green
Speaker 2: card holder and not an American citizen. However, he does
Speaker 2: have this and that's why this is dangerous abridgment of
Speaker 2: everyone's First Amendment rights, because he does have the same
Speaker 2: First Amendment rights that an American citizen has. That why,
Speaker 2: I mean, what we've seen since the passage of the
Speaker 2: Patriot Act is step by step, by step by step,
Speaker 2: more and more civil liberties taken away. And so if
Speaker 2: this abridgment of his First Amendment rights, which again are
Speaker 2: the same as yours and mine, if that is allowed
Speaker 2: to stand, yes, that has potential reverberating impacts on American
Speaker 2: citizens as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's a fair point.
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll continue to cover the proceedings because the point
Speaker 3: there is still very important for what the court case
Speaker 3: actually decides, as I hope that they strike it down specifically,
Speaker 3: this anti semitism definition. There is nothing stupider than that.
Speaker 3: And don't forget there have been previous legal challenges. Abby
Speaker 3: Martin successfully challenged that BDS law in Georgia. I hope
Speaker 3: it becomes a national standard and I would love to
Speaker 3: see it. There's nobody who would like it more than me.
Speaker 3: But I do think it's you know, you're playing with
Speaker 3: fire too. Whenever you're going up against the US government,
Speaker 3: why don't we get to the Democrats?
Speaker 2: Okay, so we had Melissus Lukin, who I don't know
Speaker 2: what these people are thinking, but former spook who is
Speaker 2: now being offered as like the new faith of the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party. She gave the response to Trump's State of
Speaker 2: the Union and longed for the days of Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you just can't make this up now. She
Speaker 2: had a guest appearance on The View where she talked
Speaker 2: about her view of the country and what's going on
Speaker 2: right now politically. Let's go ahead and take a listen
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 8: I think there's a feeling in the country. But I
Speaker 8: always often say this. You know, we're about to turn
Speaker 8: two hundred and fifty years old, right, We're still pretty.
Speaker 2: Young for a country.
Speaker 8: These are our like our angry teenage years, right, we
Speaker 8: are going through this push and pull where we're happy,
Speaker 8: we're sad, we want this, we want that. And what
Speaker 8: do you do when you have a teenager who's threatening
Speaker 8: themselves and others. You just try to get them through
Speaker 8: this period alive so that their brain can fully form
Speaker 8: and you can come back to kind of what the
Speaker 8: country I'm talking about, our country, we're a pendulum swinging,
Speaker 8: we're mondulum swinging. And so for me, I think that
Speaker 8: this I don't think there's a single American who feels
Speaker 8: like this is normal.
Speaker 2: H And you know she workshopped that shit. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: she really thought she was gonna nail it with that one.
Speaker 1: And it's like that's pretty insulting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's your reaction. I'll tell you what brought to
Speaker 2: mind for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, it's just like deeply insulting and elitist
Speaker 3: trying to talk down to people in general. What you
Speaker 3: want to do as a politician, and I would struggle
Speaker 3: with this is meet people where they are. As evidence
Speaker 3: by my old age comments during the Social Security I
Speaker 3: can say that I'm a commentator, but you're not supposed
Speaker 3: to talk about this stuff as if you are some
Speaker 3: child who is easily swayed and not actually taking your
Speaker 3: concern seriously. I think that was the real problem, not
Speaker 3: only with her comments, but also in the diagnosis of
Speaker 3: what the problem to address there is, Because if it
Speaker 3: is purely an emotional problem, then you have to meet
Speaker 3: it only with emotion and with rhetoric. If it was
Speaker 3: a problem and a reaction against policy decisions or the
Speaker 3: conditions of our lives, then the appropriate diagnosis is very,
Speaker 3: very different in the way that you would meet those twos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of how I saw it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there's so I read a lot
Speaker 2: into it, actually, because I mean, just knowing her ideology,
Speaker 2: like she's just like you know, a standard establishment downlib
Speaker 2: whatever number one. If it's if it's just the angry
Speaker 2: teenage years, it's just like something that naturally occurs that
Speaker 2: you just have to let it run its course and
Speaker 2: get to the other side. And it's like, well, then
Speaker 2: you are completely avoiding the root causes of what led
Speaker 2: the country to be in such tunnel. You know, you're
Speaker 2: completely avoiding the way the Iraq War radicalized people, the
Speaker 2: way that the financial crisis screwed people, over the way
Speaker 2: that neoliberal failures to improve the material conditions of people
Speaker 2: for them to be able to afford like a basic, stable,
Speaker 2: middle class life. The way that it's stripped apart communities. Like,
Speaker 2: if this is just a natural thing that you have
Speaker 2: to go through, then there's no blame to a sign
Speaker 2: of how we ended up here. That's number one. And
Speaker 2: number two, there's nothing you really have to do to
Speaker 2: deal with it either. It's like, oh, well, they'll just
Speaker 2: you know, after a period of time, they'll get it
Speaker 2: onto their system and their hormones will calm down and
Speaker 2: they'll go back to being you know, normal human beings.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, actually, there needs to be a reckoning.
Speaker 2: There needs to be a reckoning specifically within the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party and their betrayals and their you know, coziness with
Speaker 2: a billionaire class that has led them astray from your
Speaker 2: core mission that used to be delivering for working class people.
Speaker 2: You know, it leads you to that conclusion of like
Speaker 2: a James carvill of like just let them punch themselves
Speaker 2: out and don't really do anything and listen. Politically, maybe
Speaker 2: because they're betting on things are going to be a
Speaker 2: disaster for Trump. Maybe it's possible, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: looking that great for him right at this moment. It's
Speaker 2: not looking great for Republicans right at this moment, especially
Speaker 2: since Trump probably can't run for another term again and
Speaker 2: there's no one else who has really a little like
Speaker 2: charisman star power to pull off the things that he's
Speaker 2: able to pull off. But in terms of actually, you know,
Speaker 2: building a durable majority, delivering for people, there has to
Speaker 2: be a true reckoning within the party. And so in
Speaker 2: addition to I think you're right about the sort of
Speaker 2: like connescession sension elitism that comes from this, which is
Speaker 2: ironic because she's being pitched as like, oh, she's from Michigan,
Speaker 2: so she really understands people. Whatever. But I also, to me,
Speaker 2: the bigger problem is it lets everybody off the hook,
Speaker 2: both from the root causes and for what needs to
Speaker 2: happen now to write the ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I completely agree with that diagnosis. And it is interesting
Speaker 3: too because that's how these more establishment folks seem to
Speaker 3: be meeting the moment. You flagged a bunch of moments
Speaker 3: here from Gavin Newsome and Steve Bannon on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I just want to set this up a
Speaker 2: little bit before we get to greasy Gavin and sloppy
Speaker 2: Steve here. So this is I think the order is.
Speaker 2: I think this is Gavin Newsom's third podcast of his
Speaker 2: new series, which by the way, he is apparently using
Speaker 2: campaign funds to promote it, which seems wrong to me,
Speaker 2: but whatever, that's what's happening. And all three of them
Speaker 2: have been right wing like commentators or influencers. You had
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk was number one, Michael Savage, who's like a
Speaker 2: right wing radio host I guess, was number two, and
Speaker 2: then you have Steve Bannon. I think that's the right order.
Speaker 2: So when I saw originally that that was the direction
Speaker 2: he was going in, because the first two were announced
Speaker 2: right away, so you knew he was leading off with
Speaker 2: these conservative commentators, I was like, Oh, this is actually
Speaker 2: really smart. He's going to get in there and he's
Speaker 2: going to fight with them the way he did with
Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis that was so popular with Democrats, And as
Speaker 2: we discussed earlier in the show, I don't think that
Speaker 2: the liberal base of the Democratic Party has like an
Speaker 2: ideological priority right now. They just want to see someone
Speaker 2: who can fight. And I am deeply worried because I
Speaker 2: am not a Gavin Newsom fan that someone like him,
Speaker 2: who has the rhetorical debate skills to pull off the
Speaker 2: appearance of a fighter, could snow people into thinking like
Speaker 2: this is the guy for the moment, He's got to
Speaker 2: be our next nomine or whatever. But that is not
Speaker 2: what happened. Instead, in each of these, and I've watched
Speaker 2: a good chunk of all of them, it is so friendly.
Speaker 2: It's so buddy buddy. Whoever it is the sitting or
Speaker 2: whether it's Charlie Kirk or Michael Savage, Steve Bannon are
Speaker 2: allowed to endlessly insult him number one, which is like
Speaker 2: super cuck behavior with him just sort of like laughing
Speaker 2: it off. And number two just like try to pitch
Speaker 2: people on their ideological view with next to no pushback.
Speaker 2: So as an example of that, I present to you
Speaker 2: some snippets from Gavin Newsom and Steve Bannon here from
Speaker 2: his most recent podcast, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: Everything happening with the markets, everything happening with the with tariffs,
Speaker 9: everything happening with cr and a potential government.
Speaker 10: Don't don't be given tariff stinka. I don't want to
Speaker 10: start off with stink. I already we'll streuss a terif
Speaker 10: I'm a tariff guy.
Speaker 9: I appreciate that, and we'll see, we'll see, we'll stress.
Speaker 10: The purpose I want to do this is I want
Speaker 10: to convert you to be a tariff guy. Also, this
Speaker 10: is this is part of the process to unwind you
Speaker 10: from being a globalist to make you a populis nationalist.
Speaker 3: It's a long journey.
Speaker 10: It's a long journey. It's a long journey, but I
Speaker 10: think you'll get there.
Speaker 9: This is part of the deprogramming, is it. I appreciate
Speaker 9: And by the way, for the record, I'm going down
Speaker 9: your rabbit hole right here. I'm not an absolutist as
Speaker 9: it relates to being against terroriffts by any stretched the imagination.
Speaker 9: And I thought it interesting where we what I think
Speaker 9: Biden tripled tariffs on illumined and steel, which is getting
Speaker 9: a lot of attention in this country today as relates
Speaker 9: to Canada, and Democrats weren't screaming and yelling about that.
Speaker 2: So that was kind of how things kicked off. At
Speaker 2: another point, Yeah, super friendly and these oh and why
Speaker 2: these democrats So like a vertical It's like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean you see, you see what I'm talking about here.
Speaker 2: There was another moment where where Bannon insists repeatedly that
Speaker 2: the election was stolen from them in twenty twenty, and
Speaker 2: even on that, which is like a core liberal priority.
Speaker 2: Rebutting that, lie Gavin just kind of let's his slide.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 10: We learned after President Trump, and look, you know, we
Speaker 10: disagree on this, but President Trump won the twenty twenty
Speaker 10: election and we were kind of shattered as a movement
Speaker 10: when he left Washington, d C. And we had to
Speaker 10: go back to basics to say, you know, it can't
Speaker 10: be somebody else do something. You know, we had to
Speaker 10: do something, and that's where we went back to really
Speaker 10: a pure populist movement, to go at the grassroots, the
Speaker 10: precinct strategy and kind of rebuild ourselves from there.
Speaker 9: Well, and I appreciate the notion of agency, that we're
Speaker 9: not bystandards in the world. It's decisions, not conditions that
Speaker 9: determine our fade in future, and that that that fundamental
Speaker 9: notion of agency, I think is important more broadly, and
Speaker 9: I think that goes to some of the issues around
Speaker 9: you know, victimization, and I see a lot of that,
Speaker 9: respectively on the right increasingly even with Trump off and
Speaker 9: approaching things from that sort of mindset.
Speaker 10: You what do you mean, what do you mean? What
Speaker 10: do you mean?
Speaker 1: For Trump?
Speaker 9: I think there's sort of the grievance narrative that comes
Speaker 9: from Trump, this this notion there is there's sort of
Speaker 9: a victim.
Speaker 10: But they did try to they did try They did
Speaker 10: try to put him in prison for three hundred years, right,
Speaker 10: they did.
Speaker 1: Try to bang rupt.
Speaker 10: That's a guy it never had ever had a set
Speaker 10: of grievances. They did steal, according to us, and we're
Speaker 10: firm believes it's the twenty twenty election, which I think
Speaker 10: worked out better that providentially that he was able to
Speaker 10: come back with that gap, because I think you're seeing
Speaker 10: a much more uh not just do and improved, but
Speaker 10: somebody that's much more in commanding these decisions and really
Speaker 10: stepping up in a way that we could have never
Speaker 10: done before.
Speaker 2: So that's what's kind of the energy. I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: I like, obviously we do this show. We believe in
Speaker 2: people talking to people who have different opinions than them.
Speaker 2: But it's just profoundly interesting to me how much Gavin
Speaker 2: Newsom is misreading the moment for the Democratic base, because
Speaker 2: clearly he wants to run for president clearly this podcast
Speaker 2: is about setting him up for that, and he is
Speaker 2: really disqualifying himself in the eyes of many Democratic base
Speaker 2: voters because of the Patty Cake's way that he approached
Speaker 2: these conversations. And the other thing that jumps out at
Speaker 2: me too saga is like, first of all, Steve Bannon
Speaker 2: is very smart. Steve Vannon has a knows what his
Speaker 2: ideology is, knows the world that he wants to see made,
Speaker 2: knows how he wants to convert people over to that
Speaker 2: worldview and ideology, and a just sort of like empty
Speaker 2: ambition driven neoliberal like Gavin Newsom, who I think really
Speaker 2: doesn't have much of an ideology to speak of as well,
Speaker 2: Like you're no match for that because you don't number one,
Speaker 2: you don't really care and number two, like you some
Speaker 2: kind of ideology is going to be no ideology every day,
Speaker 2: and so instead of using your platform to offer a
Speaker 2: different vision, you know, and you can do that in
Speaker 2: a way that's not like ugly and like it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be personal. But if you're not offering any
Speaker 2: sort of competing vision, you're just giving up space for
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon to make to make more converts.
Speaker 3: Effectively, I don't know what Gavin's strategy is here. I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe it's that he's got a nice smile and he's
Speaker 3: the governor of the biggest state, and maybe he thinks he,
Speaker 3: you know, these liberals I mean, for being honest, are
Speaker 3: going to vote for him anyways if he does win
Speaker 3: the nomination, So maybe he doesn't need them necessarily and
Speaker 3: he can.
Speaker 2: He's got to win a Democratic primaries, right, and there's
Speaker 2: going to be a crowded field.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, he look, I'm saying from his perspective, his
Speaker 3: perspective is what is that. Okay, we just had an
Speaker 3: election where we didn't win the popular vote. I've got
Speaker 3: to try and have some inroads here with the dudes
Speaker 3: and with the other people who are more maga possible friendly,
Speaker 3: show them that I'm not some horrible monster and that
Speaker 3: I'm nice and greasy, you know, and I can give
Speaker 3: it to them what they need, while also maybe in
Speaker 3: the future giving the Democratic base what it needs.
Speaker 1: Are there really going to.
Speaker 3: Be boomers in Iowa who aren't going to vote for
Speaker 3: Gavin because he had Steve Bannon on his podcast a
Speaker 3: little bit skeptical right eighteen months from now, wrong about that.
Speaker 1: Which we've got two more years to go. It's been
Speaker 1: fifty days. I mean, my just an eternity.
Speaker 2: My theory is that the way politicians conducted themselves right now,
Speaker 2: when it was uncertain and when it was difficult because
Speaker 2: they did just suffer a defeat is going to be
Speaker 2: a critical litmus test in twenty twenty eight because that
Speaker 2: is the way that the Democratic base has really aligned
Speaker 2: itself up to this point, where again I wish it
Speaker 2: was more ideological. It's not most of the people, not all,
Speaker 2: but most of the people who are filling in the
Speaker 2: gap of being those fighters happened to be on the left.
Speaker 2: Happened to be people like Bernie Sanders, you know, AOC
Speaker 2: has been very vocal. Olt Green is another person who's
Speaker 2: really you know, I mean, he's not going to be
Speaker 2: running for president or whatever, but I'm just saying, like
Speaker 2: Maxwell Frost is another one who's been outspoken, and people
Speaker 2: feel like, Okay, this is someone who's at least trying
Speaker 2: to put up a fight, et cetera. Rashida Zlieb. Certainly,
Speaker 2: in any case, most of the people who have emerged
Speaker 2: to fill that gap happened to be on the left.
Speaker 2: But I was fearful that a Gavin Newsom, who is
Speaker 2: very rhetorically skilled, who was very effective in that debate
Speaker 2: against Rhonda Santasie and Conservatives, had to admit, like I
Speaker 2: handled himself pretty well there. If he had these people
Speaker 2: on and he fought with them, I think he would
Speaker 2: be unstoppable in twenty twenty eight. And so I'm actually
Speaker 2: glad in a sense that he's approaching it this way.
Speaker 2: And what I attributed to you, Sager is I think
Speaker 2: he's in these Silicon Valley donor circles where they're jealous
Speaker 2: of the right. You know, it's the same people like
Speaker 2: Hakeem Jeffries was talking to, and they want the more
Speaker 2: like conciliatory capitulate like make nice. That's the approach that
Speaker 2: they want. There is a big divide between that, like
Speaker 2: donor base of the Democratic Party, especially the Silicon Valley
Speaker 2: donor base of the Democratic Party, and where the Democratic
Speaker 2: base is and what they want to see. And I
Speaker 2: can promise you he is misreading the moment for the
Speaker 2: Democratic base in order to win a Democratic primary, like
Speaker 2: in an unbelievable way. So if you think about like
Speaker 2: the viewers of Brian Tyler Cohen. If you think about
Speaker 2: the Midas Touch brothers, like they in particular have been
Speaker 2: disgusted with him, their viewers are disgusted with him, and
Speaker 2: that's where the energy in the party is right now.
Speaker 2: I just think that's why I read it.
Speaker 3: I don't you're right, because who's got better political judgment,
Speaker 3: the left or you know.
Speaker 2: My point is this isn't the left. And that's what
Speaker 2: I think Gavin Newsom is reading it as as well,
Speaker 2: because he thinks, oh, these are just like the BIRDI
Speaker 2: people are always mad about everything whatever, Shut up, right,
Speaker 2: you people vote for him by the last time around.
Speaker 2: But it's the difference is and this is what I
Speaker 2: think the Democratic Party is not is not understanding and
Speaker 2: it's really failing on, is that it's not just the
Speaker 2: left telling you it's the indivisible groups. It's the core,
Speaker 2: like the people who went to the Women's march. It
Speaker 2: is the core Democrat. You go to your average Democratic
Speaker 2: county party meeting and it's flooded with regular normy Democrat voters.
Speaker 2: Like the median voter in the party is disgusted with
Speaker 2: party leadership for not putting up enough of a fight.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where They are profoundly misreading their
Speaker 2: own voters because they think that it's still just like, oh,
Speaker 2: the Bernie people know this is like, this is your
Speaker 2: MSNBC watcher. These are the people who have flooded to
Speaker 2: Midas touched, the people that have flooded to Brian Tyler Cohen,
Speaker 2: your normy resistance Democrat that thinks that Chuck Schumer and
Speaker 2: Hakeem Jeffries need to resign yesterday, that are thoroughly disgusted
Speaker 2: with the Patty Cakes, with Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon
Speaker 2: and Michael Savage and whatever, and are really looking for
Speaker 2: something different than what the Democratic leadership are.
Speaker 1: Providing right now. Maybe that's certainly possible.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm ready to not ready to count Gavin
Speaker 3: out yet. I mean, you don't count him out, you
Speaker 3: don't become governan statement.
Speaker 2: He is hurting himself. He is hurting himself right now.
Speaker 1: I'm just not ready. I don't know. I mean, part
Speaker 1: of me, part of the reason.
Speaker 3: I'll just explain this because this is difficult, and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of data necessarily to back you up. But
Speaker 3: every online Democratic freak out and or vibe trend that
Speaker 3: I've seen from the liberals has never really worked out,
Speaker 3: and in general you'd be probably better off over the
Speaker 3: last five years betting against anything that AOC and Burnie
Speaker 3: and all of them are fighting on than being on
Speaker 3: the side of them. So if you look at the
Speaker 3: social trends, if you look at from you know, wokeism
Speaker 3: to BLM to what I mean, I go on forever
Speaker 3: defending Biden, which a lot of them did, pro Kamala, Vibe,
Speaker 3: shift Brat Summer, Tim Walls. None of these bets have
Speaker 3: worked out. So I just am skeptical that this time
Speaker 3: their grand political judgment is there as opposed to the
Speaker 3: great survivors like Schumer and Gavin Newsom in the interim.
Speaker 3: You might be correct, but their political judgment and track
Speaker 3: record is bad, especially in the back you know, from
Speaker 3: the last five to seven years of overall.
Speaker 1: Political political judgement. I mean survived. Recall he survived.
Speaker 3: Recall he's got a got a high enough approval rating
Speaker 3: for listen. I don't know how they put up with
Speaker 3: him over there, but that they're you know, the people
Speaker 3: who don't they just left.
Speaker 1: I guess they moved to Florida, but they like him.
Speaker 3: I don't really get it, but it's not I'm not
Speaker 3: making a judgment about myself. I'm looking purely at the
Speaker 3: guy's metrics. He seems to be doing fine. He's got
Speaker 3: a decent approval rating with a lot of Democrats. So
Speaker 3: my only point is just like, I'm skeptical that we're
Speaker 3: once again trying to see some wish cast of you
Speaker 3: know what, progressives and liberals have a very good way
Speaker 3: of shaping a narrative through media and through you know,
Speaker 3: Twitter and et cetera, into believing things are way more
Speaker 3: popular than they actually don't, and there's no electoral evidence
Speaker 3: to back any of that up.
Speaker 2: Who do you think is going to be voting in
Speaker 2: a Democrat?
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Listen, I don't know Imary.
Speaker 2: I mean that you have to appeal to Okay, by.
Speaker 1: That standard, then Bernie would have won because.
Speaker 2: Liberals were not behind him soccer liberal. I'm that's that's
Speaker 2: what you're missing, and that's what he's missing. Is I'm
Speaker 2: not talking about the you know, Bernie Sanders voter. Yes,
Speaker 2: they're pissed off. Whatever they're going to be, you know, both,
Speaker 2: they're going to be looking at it from an ideological valiance.
Speaker 2: So I'm talking about your standard normy Democrat, like the
Speaker 2: base of the party, and that is what is so different.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why these channels are blowing up massively.
Speaker 3: How do we know that that disaffected people are barely
Speaker 3: not going to vote anyway? Like I'm just again, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that that doesn't exist, But I have no
Speaker 3: idea what the sixty five year old boomer out there
Speaker 3: and how they're exactly is taking me to you taking
Speaker 3: the pole.
Speaker 2: Put no stock in the fact that listen, I know
Speaker 2: polls can be off blah blah blah, but the Democratic
Speaker 2: leadership being underwater with the Democratic base forty nine percent
Speaker 2: disapproval of forty percent approval, that's so different, wildly different.
Speaker 2: I put some stocks and that is that is, you know,
Speaker 2: your normy Democrat voter, like they are flooding these offices
Speaker 2: with calls. They are enraged by the capitulation from Joe
Speaker 2: Amika and MSNBC and the Washington Post and Chuck Schumer
Speaker 2: and Hakeem Jeffries like that is a very different dynamic
Speaker 2: than we have seen before. And so my prom my
Speaker 2: contention here is simply that Gavin Newsom has an opportunity
Speaker 2: to make himself invincible in twenty twenty eight, because I
Speaker 2: do think he has a lot of the things going
Speaker 2: for him that you're you know, he's got plenty of
Speaker 2: money behind him, he's a smooth operator, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But rather than making himself invincible, because if he came
Speaker 2: out as this like fighter in this moment, I think
Speaker 2: he would be very difficult to beat in twenty twenty eight. Instead,
Speaker 2: I think that these he is positioning himself in a
Speaker 2: way that hobbles him with the Democratic base. And I
Speaker 2: feel really confident about that now. Is that a guarantee, No,
Speaker 2: of course not. But is he doing damage to himself
Speaker 2: when he had an opportunity to sort of make it,
Speaker 2: make himself an unstoppable force. Yeah, I do think so.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm not ready to make the judgment call yet. I
Speaker 3: just I just don't trust the political judgment of a
Speaker 3: lot of the folks who I see at the Helm
Speaker 3: right now. They've just had a terrible track record. And
Speaker 3: you know, by the way, forty percent approval is still
Speaker 3: higher than a lot of Republicans feel about their leadership,
Speaker 3: and those people survive all the time, and they continue
Speaker 3: to win elections. So I'm not saying they aren't necessarily different,
Speaker 3: but you could go much lower. And I still think
Speaker 3: that things could be I just don't think things will
Speaker 3: necessarily manifest in the same way will he be invincible.
Speaker 3: He's making different bets in terms of how he sees
Speaker 3: the coalition. Like maybe there's also something to be said
Speaker 3: about somebody who wants to run for president as opposed
Speaker 3: to somebody who just needs a bunch of Libs to
Speaker 3: show up in a low turnout midterm situation that actually
Speaker 3: is qualitatively different for the overall base. I don't know,
Speaker 3: you know who exactly or what is correct. I'm just
Speaker 3: I always just think it's important to put that caution
Speaker 3: out there, Like, look at the political track record of
Speaker 3: these people, and it's terrible. It's not one that has
Speaker 3: worked out at the ballot box. And so with that
Speaker 3: you should think about that in the future. They could
Speaker 3: be correct this time, but they just don't have enough
Speaker 3: of they don't have enough going for them in the
Speaker 3: past for me to make any like real.
Speaker 1: Trust in their overall political judgment.
Speaker 3: I think it's definitely working to raise money online to
Speaker 3: get a bunch of liberals who already hate Trump, you know, excited, Sure,
Speaker 3: that's not hard actually though, what's actually hard is to
Speaker 3: win an election, which they've been completely unable to do well.
Speaker 2: Put a pin in it. Yeah, but again, I think
Speaker 2: you're focusing on like AOC and Bernie and that's not
Speaker 2: actually what I'm talking about, talking about the mainstream of
Speaker 2: the party, which you definitionally need in order to win
Speaker 2: a democratic part.
Speaker 3: Sure, but then there's no mainstream or elected official who
Speaker 3: has access to probably more privileged data than you or
Speaker 3: I that is acting in the way that you're describing,
Speaker 3: which is what makes me a little bit skeptical that
Speaker 3: any of this is real. I mean, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of political entry. These are the most opportunist pieces
Speaker 3: of egotistical people in the world.
Speaker 2: I have a whole other can of worms. But Tim
Speaker 2: Walls is moving in more of the direction way. He's
Speaker 2: going out and doing town halls following and sort of
Speaker 2: like the Burnie model in Republican red districts. So, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the other thing. It's like the Newsome approach
Speaker 2: is also a very elitist approach versus the let me
Speaker 2: go out and not talk to like Charlie Kirk and
Speaker 2: Steve Bannon, let me go out and talk to voters
Speaker 2: in these places that you know we've lost and that
Speaker 2: we need to win back, and in swing districts and
Speaker 2: in red parts of the country. And you know, I
Speaker 2: also think that that is a much better approach, going
Speaker 2: to the grossroots and talking to regular people about what's
Speaker 2: going on for them, versus talking to you know, making
Speaker 2: nice with the right.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: That's kind of my point is that what we're trusting
Speaker 3: the political judgment and one of the only two Democrats
Speaker 3: in the world to lose a popular vote election in
Speaker 3: twenty years, Like, I don't trust that person, you know,
Speaker 3: to look at their overall political judgment. I'm just saying,
Speaker 3: you know, whenever you look at somebody like him, it's
Speaker 3: like what you're going to put up?
Speaker 1: Like we do. We really want to point to who's
Speaker 1: the guy lost in ninety two.
Speaker 2: Dan Quayle, you're gonna trust trust got recalled in California.
Speaker 2: Democrat who called in California.
Speaker 1: I listen, I wish he almost got recalled. It was
Speaker 1: blew it out here.
Speaker 2: I think they even made it to that point though.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, like you trust that, you think that guy
Speaker 2: is the political genius?
Speaker 3: No, But I mean between the two, I would pick
Speaker 3: av There's no way I would be on Tim Walls
Speaker 3: after his track record. But I guess that's a separate
Speaker 3: conversation for another day. Let's get to Southwest, shall we.
Speaker 3: I wanted to put this in the story. As people know,
Speaker 3: I love to fly. I've always hated Southwest Airlines, but
Speaker 3: I have understood its place in the market, which is,
Speaker 3: if you have a family, particularly a big family, it's
Speaker 3: a great airline to fly. Why because of open seating
Speaker 3: and because of the no checked it back, no paid
Speaker 3: bags policy. Well, they're doing a way with all of that.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there on the screen. I just
Speaker 3: think this is a very sad development for the overall
Speaker 3: airline marketplace. Southwest Airlines will begin charging customers fee to
Speaker 3: check bags, abandoning the decades long practice that executives had
Speaker 3: described last fall as differentiating the budget carrier from its rivals.
Speaker 3: For years, it has built all of its advertising campaign
Speaker 3: around the fact that you get up to two check
Speaker 3: bags for free and open seating, making it very accessible
Speaker 3: to families. What's especially ironic is that just last fall,
Speaker 3: as we said, let's put this on the screen, the
Speaker 3: quote Chief Transformation Officer of Southwest airlines had said, we
Speaker 3: are more likely to lose money if we start charging
Speaker 3: for bags. So what did they do. They fired this
Speaker 3: guy and decided to do it anyways. And this comes
Speaker 3: after ditching the open seating policy, which will go into
Speaker 3: effects soon, which means that they're trying to milk customers
Speaker 3: just like every other airline in the entire country. The
Speaker 3: reason why I'm sad about this is it just shows
Speaker 3: you that if you're like a family of four, you
Speaker 3: have no choice anymore.
Speaker 1: Because with Southwest they had family boarding. They had the
Speaker 1: up to.
Speaker 3: Two check bag policy, which was great for people who
Speaker 3: flying to Disney World or whatever, and they needed to
Speaker 3: check you two strollers and whatever other things the kid
Speaker 3: needs whenever you're flying, and they were able to board
Speaker 3: a little bit early, was less stressful, and it would
Speaker 3: be a moderate price. Now you basically have the worst
Speaker 3: of all worlds, where you're getting an up charge for
Speaker 3: a seat, you're getting up charge for boarding, you're getting
Speaker 3: up charge for your bags, and the base airline fare
Speaker 3: is still comparably high enough to American airlines Delta and United.
Speaker 1: And as one of the.
Speaker 3: People who flies on the Big Three, the reason you
Speaker 3: do it is to get miles that are transferable with
Speaker 3: international carriers. So not only you do not get access
Speaker 3: to a large alliance in the way that you would
Speaker 3: on any of the Big Three, your subject now to
Speaker 3: the exact same fees. I guess the only reason at
Speaker 3: this point to fly it would be if it has
Speaker 3: a preferential route that you're doing and you just want
Speaker 3: to subject yourself. But it is no longer the differentiated
Speaker 3: carrier that it once was, which genuinely made it beloved
Speaker 3: by a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I just think it's a very sad development.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When when my oldest was a baby and I
Speaker 2: was flying a lot, I always flew Southwest because of
Speaker 2: the lake. Yeah yeah, and it was nice to be able.
Speaker 2: Well they have the you know, you get to get
Speaker 2: on first and you pick your siege, and it was
Speaker 2: very family friendly. So rip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the check bag policy is gone, and it just
Speaker 3: so not only that is you really have to consider
Speaker 3: that with a base price of like four hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: that means now that you're paying sixty if again family
Speaker 3: for you means sixteen hundred bucks plus how much fifty
Speaker 3: bucks or so for bags, And then if you want
Speaker 3: board first, good luck, you know, as far as I know,
Speaker 3: with this whole family boarding thing, and then you're looking
Speaker 3: at skyrocketing hotel prices and then Disney tickets. We're racking
Speaker 3: up three four thousand dollars now at this point, and
Speaker 3: the price of it has now gotten so out of
Speaker 3: control that you're watching in real time make it less accessible.
Speaker 3: And I keep coming back to the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 3: thing that we were talking about the reason why this
Speaker 3: is all happening is that the converse of all of
Speaker 3: this is that the air lines are actually.
Speaker 1: Making a ton of money.
Speaker 3: Put F five please up on the screen, because you
Speaker 3: can see here how much people are paying for how
Speaker 3: much airlines make from their baggage fees. They're making billions
Speaker 3: of dollars a year. And the reason why is that
Speaker 3: these airlines right now have found that as long if
Speaker 3: you make them the customer experience miserable for the mean
Speaker 3: fiftieth percentile, that the top ten percentile.
Speaker 1: Will spend any amount.
Speaker 3: Necessary to not suffer. So premium cabins exploding.
Speaker 2: I heard a lot of times they're on business accounts too, business.
Speaker 3: Not just the rich people. People have thing two three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars a year. People were flying to Europe
Speaker 3: all the time. Air France said they were shocked at
Speaker 3: the number of American customers that are willing to spring
Speaker 3: for full fare premium cabins. They're like, we've never seen
Speaker 3: anything like this, and they're making money hand over fists.
Speaker 3: If you fly international recently, you'll notice this. Those premium
Speaker 3: cabins are getting way bigger and the economy section is
Speaker 3: getting way shittier. And the reason why is that they can.
Speaker 3: They have found that they will make all of this
Speaker 3: money for just catering to the top ten percent of
Speaker 3: the US popular Nobody cares about.
Speaker 2: The middeier economy.
Speaker 3: This is the story. This is the America's story. So nowadays,
Speaker 3: like Spirit Airlines or you know, Southwest is just coming
Speaker 3: like the rest of them, which is like middling service,
Speaker 3: middling on time. But you know yet we'll up charge
Speaker 3: you for the bag or whatever and we're roughly the
Speaker 3: same price. So at this point you should just choose
Speaker 3: to fly based on if it's the most convenient place
Speaker 3: for your direction, or don't even be loyal to anyone carrier.
Speaker 3: Just go ahead and find like whatever the cheapest route
Speaker 3: is for yourself, because it's bad out there. It's not good.
Speaker 3: I wanted to make sure we got that in the show,
Speaker 3: anything else before we go. Yep, right, it's a great
Speaker 3: show for everybody today. We'll see you all later